In the moments when we are at our weakest and our failures seem to overwhelm us, everyone needs a friend. Why, you ask?…
There is a process to recovering from failure. Many people begin living in a “New Normal” and feel comfortable just maintaining their sanity, but they do not walk empowered and are unable to thrive in their gifts. In these moments, people may put you on a shelf, possibly saying it’s for “your good” and the “safety” of those closest to you.
At the beginning of recovery, there are two voices that we hear in our mind: the voice of GUILT and the voice of SHAME. It’s the voice of God and genuinely loving people in your life that are necessary to differentiate between these two voices.
The first voice is GUILT, which can help bring you to a healthy and balanced place of self-love and understanding within your soul, only if cultivated and worked on….
The second voice is SHAME, and it will start digging your grave, laying you in the coffin, nailing it shut, shoveling the dirt, patting it down, laying grass over it, and putting up a tombstone that says, “Here lies an unfulfilled promise, an unaccomplished dream, an unfinished person.”
The right friend, leader, mentor, or pastor can and will help you walk through this valley to see you win and help you understand the difference between each voice. These key people in your life help you distinguish when guilt is speaking and when shame is showing its ugly face.
Guilt is being sorry for what you did.
Shame is being sorry for who you are.
Feeling guilty for doing wrong is not wrong. It is the right start to healing and becoming a better version of you.
The problem is that these two voices almost sound the same in moments of anguish and mental torment. One whispers, “You should not have done that,” while the other whispers, “Your mistake is who you will always be.”
Guilt is a very natural emotion that is meant to be felt, but guilt that has been stored and aged inside you by not facing or talking through your pain turns into shame. Depression begins to set in and find a home in your mind.
The people you surround yourself with can lift you when you are at your weakest. The right people will not hold you to what or who you are at the moments of your deepest failures but will help you see what’s ahead and that there is still a future.
Find those people, let them speak to you, and don’t let them go.
Proverbs 13:20 Whoever walks with the wise becomes wise, but the companion of fools will suffer harm.
“Leaders who don’t listen will eventually be surrounded by people who have nothing to say”
– Andy Stanley
