Poor Self-Esteem And Shame Have No Place In God.

How can we view ourselves in the light of how God feels about us? Pixabay

I Am a Child of God –I Need to Believe This!

Sometimes in the wee hours of the morning when my brain acts like it’s noon, I lie there and, for some reason, catalogue my past failures. As a child, I was not taught that failure https://www.success.com/why-failure-is-good-for-success/is an important part of lifetime learning, and that it’s okay! It is a stepping stone to improvement. Today I try to keep in mind, “Either we win, or we learn.” I wish I could keep this healthy mantra in my heart always. But as we all know, a lifelong habit of self-flagellation is hard to break.

I hold on to the shame of my failed, expensive business. Like a form of mild PTSD, it creeps into my consciousness every so often. I have not fully let it go, and that is my work – to find out how.

Dr. Brene Brown and Her Shame Research

Brene Brown and her quest became a blessing to me a few years ago when I read her book, Wholehearted Living. This PhD did extensive research on shame and its manifestations in our lives. The scourge of shame is very unhealthy for us! From her, I learned that we only tell our stories to those who have earned the right to hear them. In other words, we must be extremely careful with whom we dare to share our innermost thoughts and failures. God has provided those rare and special souls in our lives who will validate how we feel and never, ever judge us. Our task is to find those people. https://www.rd.com/article/brene-brown-quotes/

My Vision and it’s Failure

In 2014, as a dance teacher of 30 years, my feet were feeling the decades of pounding. No shoe currently on the market was soft enough nor supple enough to help me teach multiple classes back to back without pain. https://www.google.com/search?client=safari&rls=en&q=images+of+pointe+shoes&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8#vhid=w5SlJt3d_UZHKM&vssid=l I vowed to create a superior shoe for both students and teachers. So I partnered up with some folks I’d met at church, one of whom had worked for Skechers. We teamed up with a shoe designer in L.A., and a Consultant in NYC, who would create my dream and find a factory to produce it.

This new adventure excited me to no end, and I called it Gliding Grace LLC. My new shoe would be called, “Heaven”. I could not wait to get the prototype and the first order of 500 to sell. My dear friend, Catherine Covington, promised to require her Competition Team to perform in my shoe. Those dancers would be my first customers!

So many hours went into this labor-intensive endeavor. Multiple conference calls, video meetings, online marketing to dance wear and shoe distributors, payment to the people assisting me for months (thousands), quarterly taxes for the year, and maxed out credit cards for all the other miscellaneous expenses –business lawyer fees, etc. I began working toward a patent. https://www.legalzoom.com/marketing/intellectual-property/patents-b?utm_source=google&utm_medium=cpc&utm_term=how%20to%20file%20a%20design%20patent&utm_content=499596747267&utm_campaign=IP_%7C_PT_%7C_Exact&utm_campaignID=12233666789&utm_adgroupID=117397939196&utm_partner=googlesearch&gclid=EAIaIQobChMImN-_ysOWgAMVFZ9aBR3I0gZaEAAYAiAAEgJySvD_BwE

Some People Are Not Who They Seem

My ecstatic joy juxtaposed with their uncaring greed. The Designer breached her contract, demanding more money after I paid her, and the Consultant breached his contract when our factory shut down, and he never bothered finding us a new one. In fact, he completely ghosted me. Pocketed his thousands, though. I can imagine him on a beach, sipping his umbrella drink and staying in a 5-star hotel! This perfect storm put a rotten taste in my mouth and made me cynical for the first time in my life.

I Got a Glimpse of Poor Job

During the two years of my unique-footwear pursuit, I managed to tear both my ACLs and break both ankles. I was not only crushed from my colossal business failure, I was limping around, unable to sleep without acute pain. Yep, I was definitely on my Pity Pot in those days.

My husband the Champion, did whatever he could to help me. He dipped into his hard-earned retirement account to help me pay off as much of my business debt as possible, and we even sold our house and moved into a cheap mobile home, to knock out the rest. Thank God.

Every so often, hubby and I would be sitting at the dinner table, and I’d joke around by making my thumb and forefinger in the shape of an L on my forehead, and tell him, “Your spouse is a L-O-S-E-R.” God bless him; he was having none of it. “You did everything you could. You don’t control what other people do, or their lack of integrity. It wasn’t your fault.”

What Does God Have to Say About Our Failure and Shame?

I may have failed at business, but I AM NOT A FAILURE. When will I get that through my thick head? I must stop ruminating about this disappointment and sadness, and the nighttime whirling and twirling about it. (Ballet pun not intended, LOL).

God asks us to trust Him no matter what. I, frankly, suck at this. “We walk by faith and not by sight.” 2 Corinthians 5:7 https://www.google.com/search?client=safari&rls=en&q=What+is+the+meaning+of+2+Corinthians+5+7%3F&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjivITCxpaAAxWBRDABHXA-AjIQzmd6BAgTEAY&biw=1324&bih=817&dpr=2

Who knows? I sure don’t, but God is the Alpha and the Omega, who sees the end from the beginning. What if He was protecting me from future major problems with this business? Debilitating stress and a much more crippling loss of money? Maybe storing and attempting to sell my product would’ve proven a nightmare.

Every new day we are given by God is a new opportunity to put the past on a shelf and let it go. “Because of the Lord’s great love we are not consumed, for His compassions never fail. They are new every morning; great is Your faithfulness.” Lamentations 3:22-23 (NIV) https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Lamentations+3%3A22-23&version=NIV

If God is all good, and He created us in His image, WE are good! Any shame we allow to crawl into our hearts is never from God; it is the negativity of the enemy. After all, Satan is the “father of lies”. https://www.gotquestions.org/father-of-lies.html

We must somehow love all the parts of ourselves, because God made us! We must be able to share all of who we are with those who are safe, in order to achieve Wholehearted Living, as encouraged by Brene Brown. We never need to hide or be ashamed.

This recipe for life I will put on a post-it note and hang on my mirror.

I love Rachael Lampa’s song, “Somebody to You”. Her lyrics state that it’s not true that we are only as good as our last success. http://rachael lampa somebody to you lyrics

God provided that song to me as soon as I got into my car, on a recent low self-esteem day. Thank you, Lord, and thank you, Brene Brown and Rachael Lampa!