Shame Transformed: A Journey through emotion, relationship, and grace
Part III — The compassion of Christ: How divine love transforms shame into freedom
As we reach the final part of our series on healing Shame, let's take a moment to reflect on what we've learned so far. We've unearthed the nature of Shame, discovered its evolutionary significance, and explored how Restorative Practices can help us navigate and transform this complex emotion.
The Woman Caught in Adultery: A Scene of Societal Shame
When we look for practical examples of this healing process, no figure embodies it better than Jesus. To understand this, imagine the narrative of the woman caught in adultery, an archetypal instance of societal shame and judgment. Consider what is happening in this scene interpersonally, and interiorly within each of the individuals named and those bystanders watching. There is undoubtedly a swirling cycle of the Compass of Shame unfolding in the whole group, and no doubt also interiorly within each individual.
This woman wasn't merely "caught," she was orchestrated into a compromising position and then thrust into the public eye. Imagine the intensity of this scene - a cacophony of righteous shouts, a mob mentality driven by spiritual superiority, and at the centre, a woman branded as sinful, cornered, and helpless.
Take a moment to feel the sharp contrast between the fevered intensity of the Pharisees - who, in their self-righteous anger, were far removed from the essence of their role as spiritual leaders - and the calming presence of Christ.
Christ’s energy was radically different both towards the incensed Pharisees and towards the woman caught in the transgression.
Christ’s Model for Inner and Outer Restoration
And in this way, Jesus shows us how we should be towards our own interior experiences of our defenses of withdrawal, self-attack, avoidance, and attacking others.
Christ had every reason, in accordance with societal norms, to condemn both parties. But instead, He chose a path of introspection and compassion, and provided an invitation to those present to move towards their own dominating Compass of Shame parts of themselves, and to consider instead their true identity. Importantly Jesus does this through a process of vulnerability, encounter and dialogue.
Through Christ's questions and penetrating engagement with each individual, they were able to process more deeply their internal experience, and most importantly experience themselves as so much more than their defenses to Shame.
They were able to recognise their true selves, that their identity was so much more than their internalized Shame.
Stepping Out into the Deep
Jesus invites them to “step out into the deep” (Duc in altum Lk 5:4), and consider how in fact the experience of Shame they are having is a “boundary experience”, one that is an echo of a deeper truth and reality about who they really are as created in the Image and Likeness of God.
It's an encounter with their own bodily emotional system, which reveals to them a deeper truth of their identity (John Paul II, 1980) , and it's an encounter with the Son of God made man, the perfect revelation of God the Father and through whom “man discovers the truth about himself, his vocation, and his destiny." (John Paul II. Redemptor Hominis, 10).
A Restorative Invitation to the Pharisees and the Woman
To the Pharisees, he posed a challenge, suggesting a restorative U-turn, turning the energy projected outward back inward, and invited them to reflect on how much they were missing the mark (ἁμαρτία) in relation to who they were created to be as human persons.
He then turned to the woman, who, in her experience of internalized Shame may have been using this affair as a way of avoidance or attacking herself. With what I envision as a tender gesture, He told her that He didn't condemn her.
Some would argue that his words "go and sin no more" were a reprimand, but I believe it was an acknowledgment of the transformative encounter she just had with divine love.
I don't think Christ was admonishing her; rather, He was stating that, having experienced His love, she was unburdened, liberated, and free to live as her true self now set free from burdened internalized Shame.
The Essence of Christ’s Healing Presence
This is the essence of Christ's healing presence - to bring love, compassion, and peace to our inner conflicts, to our Compass of Shame defenses that are doing everything they can to protect us from the internalized Shame.
It's a healing presence that Pope Francis has described as something that holds in tension the experience of a “dignified shame and a shamed dignity”, where one “seeks a humble and lowly place” but is also able to “allow the Lord to raise him up for the good of the mission, without complacency.” (Chrism Mass, Holy Thursday, March 24, 2016)
Freedom Through Divine Love
Christ’s way of moving towards people is a model for how we can cease our own internal wars, to drop our metaphorical stones of self-condemnation, to release our fears, and to be unburdened by the divine love within us.
This enables us to live authentically, free from the shackles of withdrawal, self-attack, avoidance, and attacking others and the internalized Shame that drives so many of these strategies into action in our lives.
It's a radical shift from typical approaches to healing which is often to fight against, move away from and “cut out” the unpleasant from our lives. But this relational approach that Jesus shows us is the essence of the Good News.
Living from the Image and Likeness of God
That we are made in the image and likeness of God, and that this is our core identity and true self, and from this place we can engage with those inner conflicts we experience with compassion and love, asking restorative questions to those different parts of us, to gain understanding about what happened, what were these parts thinking at the time, what have they thought about since, what has been the hardest thing and what can we do now to make things better.