You’re soaring along, enjoying the view, feeling grateful, and boom! Life throws you a curveball and breaks your wings. Like a wounded bird, you plummet, desperately seeking a place of refuge.
Most of us have journeyed through life carrying the burden of broken wings. We’ve wobbled around wounded—bearing scars from our past. Despite our ability to persevere on the ground, we’d often found ourselves unable to soar to our full potential.
At a low point in my life, faith became my solace. Just as a mother bird spreads her wings over her babies to protect them, as I wept and wrestled with the broken pieces of my life, I felt safe and secure and shielded under the protection of my Father’s wings. There’s no better place to hide, in my opinion.
Yet, despite my hesitance to leave the nest (my comfort zone), God’s plan wasn’t to keep me safely tucked away but to grace me with a new set of wings. And as I began to soar, I persevered through many uncomfortable headwinds.
One obstacle I will share is the headwind of shame.
Carl Jung called shame “the swampland of the soul.”
Berne Brown says, “Shame needs three things to survive: silence, secrecy, and judgment.”
I write about the creative deception shame can have on our psyche, not as an expert, but from a vulnerable place based on my experiences because I know how shame breaks human wings (spirits) and limits one’s ability to soar (thrive).
Firstly, shame is different from guilt. When we’re guilty, we feel remorse or regret for our actions.
Shame, on the other hand, goes much deeper. Whether based on society’s perception of who we are or rooted in formative years, shame is toxic and crippling and leads us to believe that something is inherently wrong with us, that we are inadequate and unworthy of love and belonging, and that we can never measure up.
Often, we aren’t aware of toxic shame, or if we are, we intentionally conceal it because talking about it is too awkward, too painful, and too complicated. As a result, silenced, secretive, and beaten down by judgment, our shame survives; our shame wins, and our wings remain broken.
At a very young age (while I struggled to understand this until a couple of decades ago), shame began to weave its way into every fiber of my being.
Growing up poor, being bullied, and struggling to fit in led me to believe I was inherently flawed and defective. These experiences made me feel ashamed of who I was. They broke my wings and bound me in the nest of deceit, holding me back from soaring with the rest of the flock.
Sure, I preserved on the ground. But shame had caused me to shrink and feel insignificant. Shame had taken away my power, and because of shame, I flailed about—voiceless.
Unless we bring our shame into the light and peel away the layers, it will continue to lurk in the shadows and chip away at our self-worth, whispering lies and robbing us of the beauty of our bird’s eye view. More importantly, it'll have far-reaching ramifications on our mental health.
I’m no doubt soaring differently today. My wings are more resilient. I have a renewed strength, a knowing that even when life’s circumstances threaten to plummet me, Grace will be there to carry me forward. Thank you, Jesus!
“But those who trust in the Lord will renew their strength; they will soar on wings like eagles; they will run and not become weary, they will walk and not faint.” - Isaiah 40:31
