Back when I grew up in the seventies, we often played football in the street. Anytime we played, one of the first things done was ‘defining the boundaries’.
We established what the sidelines were along with the goal lines. These were important boundaries.
If you didn’t have boundaries, the game turned into a chaotic mess. Although the boundaries didn’t prevent arguments from erupting, it made them solvable.
The limitation of boundaries gave us the foundation for sportsmanship. That sportsmanship was a system of honor. Sure you could win by violating the boundaries, yet in doing so, you were ‘cheating’.
Cheating was viewed as a breach of trust. It was simple, if you cheated, you couldn’t be trusted in future games. You could win by cheating, but end up losing respect and trust.
Now, as I deal with infidelity, the whole issue of limits is important again. Even when you haven’t specified what the boundaries of your marriage are, you count on shame in defining them. In many ways manners and decency are about setting limits on relationships.
I like the way that the late John Bradshaw expressed it, “Shame lets us know our limits.” This is one of the healthy benefits of shame.
One of the problems with modern society is that many don’t understand or regard shame. You may not even fully understand how it works or who should be experiencing shame.
This force that’s supposed to establish limits is talked about, yet not understood. There’s also the problem of some people having a near or total lack of shame.
Since shame happens when there’s a breach in your relationship, it benefits you to understand it and learn ways of dealing with it, whether you’re the cheater or the betrayed. Shame impacts both of you.
When you don’t understand what you’re wrestling with, it’s going to be hard to move past it.
If you’re one of those who struggles with shame, you’ll want to understand more about it along with ways of dealing with it. A good place to start is with the video “Forgiveness: Stop the Pain, Tear down the walls and remove the roadblocks”.
You’ll understand more about shame and its link to forgiveness in viewing the video, along with how you can deal with it. Just click and download it, and within minutes you can be starting the healing journey taking past the shame, along with learning what the shame is teaching you.
Keeping It Real,
Jeff
