COUNTERING GUILT AND SHAME WITH POSITIVE AFFIRMATIONS

I have asked some thoughtful skeptics about how they are able to counteract our deeply ingrained feelings of guilt and shame. They would often answer that they have learned how to counteract them with positive self-talk, positive affirmations that they are truly good people who are trying to do the best that they can do. I responded that:

“I am certainly in agreement with the principle - as you think, so will you feel. At age 14, I began to learn how to give myself positive affirmations. I had long felt bad about myself and dreaded going to school where I felt rejected. However, I learned to flex my muscles in front of the mirror and to tell myself that the girls really loved me. And I believed it and felt that I was now able to face school.

However, once I got there, it again became apparent that the girls preferred the class athlete, the comic, of even the bad boys. I left devastated and returned to my mirror where I had to tell myself even more grandiose things in order to regain my initial high and self-confidence.

However, reality would again come crashing down upon me. The higher I built myself up, the harder I fell.

In retrospect, I began to see that my positive affirmations were unsustainable. They always required more as with any addiction. Besides, they were not only alienating me from reality but also from myself and others, who increasingly were both unable and unwilling to enter into my distorted world, which I had created for myself.

I have now been a believer in Jesus for 43 years. However, these beliefs are not like a drug addiction, for which I need increasing higher dosages. Instead, these beliefs are in accord with reality. They are like a good roadmap which has enabled me to navigate work and relationships more successfully.

Rather than clashing with reality, my beliefs were nurtured by reality. I now really and truly know that God loves me and is taking care of me. What a delight and a source of strength!

And He validates this in many ways. This has given me the courage to cross into “enemy lines,” face condemnation, and the many charges that people make against me. The Bible warns me that:

• The Lord is near to the brokenhearted and saves the crushed in spirit. Many are the afflictions of the righteous, but the Lord delivers him out of them all. (Psalms 34:18-19)

The Lord has always delivered me, and I trust that He will continue to do so.”