Clean Hotels and making entertainment choices

This may be off the track, but can I make a few quick remarks on shame?

Psychologists seem to make a distinction between guilt and shame.  Guilt is when I have done something wrong; shame is when I am something wrong.

Shame plays a big role for many addicts in how we think and live.  There is something deeply wrong with me (shame), and so I have to hide from other people, and seek out secret rewards to medicate my shame and my isolation.  Those secret rewards cause me to be even more isolated, and to feel even more shame, and the cycle continues.  That's a quick summary, and a professional would say it better than I, but that's the model many people use.

Part of what I need to do to recover from addiction is to come to see myself accurately.  I have done wrong things.  I have sinned.  I have made mistakes.  I have hurt people.  Under all those things and despite all those things, though, I am capable of being loved.  There is still within me a spark made in the image and likeness of God.  Every day, we are doing the best we can, even though that best may not be very good.

We can fight shame when we tell others what we have done and who we are, and when we find that we are still accepted and loved.  Sharing my story here or in 12-step meetings - just finding that I can say, "I'm Tim, and I'm a sex addict" without dying - helps me step away from shame.

For me, one image of fighting shame comes from a therapy session.  I was saying critical things about myself, I no longer remember what, and my therapist stopped me.  "So, what mistakes do you think God made," he asked me, "When God made you?"

When I can accept who I am, accept that God and others love me even when I can't love myself, and become willing therefore to expose myself honestly to God and to others so that they can help me become the person I am called to be, then I am starting to move out of shame and addiction and into community and recovery.

My apologies if all that is phrased both poorly and in terms of secular psychology.  Perhaps another person with more time and skill than I could better theologize the message for those for whom that's helpful.

Tim M.

Thanks Tim,[indent] [user=1588]dennis1soil[/user] wrote:

[/indent]Actually, our posts "crossed" (i.e. I wrote the one comparing the phrase from the song Amazing Grace with maybe God teaches us shame and then relieving it.)

Based on the distinction between Guilt and Shame you mention, I'll re-phrase my question:[indent]Does God's Spirit first teach us about guilt, then relieve it ?
[/indent] -Dennis

One thing about Dr. Lutzer's sermon, given the way his words struck me anyway, which I agree with, is the way he seemed to pretty much lump together, as coming from the same spirit - most of mainline entertainment (right along with porn) as being principally designed to appeal to sinful tendencies - such as lust of the flesh, lust of the eyes, and the pride of life.

I don't think Dr. Lutzer was at all minimizing  the greater risks of addiction associated with porn, however, I do think he was trying to communicate that as Christians, we need to be more understanding about how the same basic message so overtly being spread through porn, is also inextricably woven into popular mainstream entertainment (where the lack of the porn-type stigma facilitate a subtle concealed entrance, sort of trojan-horse attack strategy).

Here's a recent real-life for instance that I allowed to blitz me just a few nights ago.  I "came across" such a non-porn, TV show, (done sort of in the Entertainment Tonight kind of format) on a channel mostly aimed at women ("we" I think it is channels name).  This show was "counting down" something like the top 10 or 20 "best swimsuit moments" from Movies and TV shows.  The portion of the show that I watched (which was much too much), was very damaging to me and I think played a major role in setting me up for a far.

By the way she spoke, the cheery female moderators, communicated both directly and indirectly, "lust" is a very acceptable and normal thing which they personally have very much enjoyed.   Watching that show, (maybe only in part subliminally) I got the feeling I must be really "out of it" whenever I give even a second's thought to any possibility of there being a legitimate healthy reason for me to resist enjoying lust (after all, isn't that what swimsuits in the media are for, and isn't the media one of the unquestionable things that makes America so great)? 

Now, that content was not identified in any way as containing Adult, or Teen themes, rather it was wide open so none of the blocking stuff we have programmed into the satellite "service" placed any barriers whatsoever in the path I chose, which ending up in me being more poisoned by it. 

I didn't make the decision not to "channel surf", but I did allow myself to be "entertained" by questionable material.   Before the kids moved away, I refused to pay for satellite service as a way to avoid having to encouter the tough inner battle about the "lust" of which Jesus spoke.  Now, sometimes I continue to drink more poison and I again sense death in my so called life.

I agree with the impression I got from Dr. Lutzer's message concerning how many (most?) of us Christian families continue to allow our enemy to achieve success through our own entertainment choices.  We allow some of the most precious "things?" to be taken from both ourselves and our loved ones (who we should be protecting).  I know in my life, TV and Movies play a very big role in the process of stealing my once pure heart, not to mention stealing vast amounts of time I could enjoy in the process of developing more intimacy with God.

 I've been robbed!  (even while aiding and abetting the perpetrators).

-Dennis