Another area was the area of putting down, of comments or remarks that were hurtful to others. It was actually shame-based. It came out of an originated shame on my own life. Another area is no sense of belonging, that's another one I really struggle with. I can be in the middle of a crowd and feel like I didn't belong. That's because shame has isolated you, and you have no connectedness. When a person has a strong sense of identity, they're known for who they really are. They have good intimacy; it's a sense of belonging and being connected, but when you have shame around your life you don't feel you belong, and you don't feel you're connected. Now that's why a lot of people in church don't feel they belong. It's nothing to do with what's outside you, it's internal. It's a shame message talking to you. You need help to get out of it, need to actually face the thing, and do what's needed to break out of the thing.
Another area that shame does, it causes people to be withdrawn. They'll be a shadow, and they're present but they're not present. They project nothing of their spirit into the immediate surrounding. They're there, but it's like they're not there, and you can actually learn how to do that; shut down so you're almost like you're not there, and funnily enough you can be in the group, and no one even noticed you were there, because your presence was not manifest. You never opened your heart and spirit to connect with people. One of the keys of releasing the power and presence of God into an environment, you have to be free of shame, so your spirit can open up and release your inner life, and what God has put in there, into the area around you. We'll share that with you when it comes to ministering - when it comes to ministering to people for example, when you minister to people, God expects you to give what you have, in other words not stand back remotely, and say: oh God bless that person, they need help, but rather what I have I release to you. Something you have, you give. Shame will stop you giving what you have, cause you to withhold it and be shy, withdrawn, and then come to agree that's what I'm like, and I'm different - and that's bad.
See, we've got to break these things off us. Hopelessness, self-pity - man, I used to wallow in self-pity, pity parties, no one else was invited to and it would go on for days. Terrible thing self-pity, but self-pity is an evidence of shame, embarrassed and shamed about what we're like; suicidal thoughts, hypersensitive to criticism. If someone says a little thing and next thing oh, what did they mean by that? What did they mean by that? Blah blah blah blah - and you obsess with what people are thinking about you. That's shame talking. That is shame talking to you and paralysing you with fear. Distrust, people who have got shame can never trust anyone, can't build healthy relationships. They become self-focussed, in other words, I think they're talking about me, I KNOW they're talking about me! I know this is ALL about me! That's the message of shame, it's all about me. Well get out of that place.
See, fear of relational intimacy. Some people are emotionless. They're ashamed of their emotions, so they shut down their emotions, and now they have no emotions, and somehow they're more male because they have no emotions - not so. They've now become very difficult to relate to as a woman, because they're ashamed of the emotions and they've shut them down, they can't talk about them. Addiction is another one; alcoholism, sex addictions, work addictions, all of these kinds of things. All of them are a desire to somehow make me feel better, because I just think I'm damaged, and I don't like what's going on inside me. Now if you don't understand that shame is driving it, you can't get out of it. Shame - we need to look at it in another session, how shame comes into our life, and how we actually receive it without even realising it's there, and then it's manifesting, and what we can do to start to break out of that cycle. We need to be able to break out of this thing, we don't want it around me.