Finding your Way Out of Shame | S.J. Parrott

In this deeply honest and theologically rich episode of The Upwards Podcast, host Jean Geran sits down with philosopher and biblical scholar S.J. (Shannon) Parrott for a wide‑ranging conversation on shame—what it is, how it forms, and how the transforming presence of Christ meets us in our most vulnerable places.

Drawing from her own story, her research on metaphors of clothing and nakedness, and her current work on shame in the Psalms, Shannon helps us see why shame can feel like a “roadblock” to becoming who we truly are in Christ.

Together, Jean and Shannon explore:

1. What shame is (and what it’s not)
2. The “singularity” of shame and how it distorts identity
3. Why community is essential when shame pushes us toward isolation
4. How Jesus meets and reorients identity in stories like the Samaritan woman and Zacchaeus
5. The role of prayer, Scripture, and the Psalms in forming a new shame‑resistant identity
6. Shannon’s own pivotal experience of discovering who she is in Christ
7. The difference between shame, guilt, humiliation, and shamelessness
8. How cultivating openness to God and others allows transformation

This is a conversation full of hope, clarity, and practical wisdom for anyone navigating questions of identity, healing, and spiritual formation.

Resources Mentioned:

1. S.J. Parrott’s Friday Night Lectures at Upper House
2. Lecture 1 Apple Podcasts
3. Lecture 1 Spotify
4. Lecture 1 YouTube
5. Lecture 2 Apple Podcasts
6. Lecture 2 Spotify
7. Lecture 2 YouTube

CONNECT WITH US
Subscribe to The UpWords Podcast wherever you listen to podcasts and visit slbf.org/studio to learn more about our work at the intersection of faith, the academy, and the marketplace.

This episode was created by the SLBF STUDIO at Upper House.

Produced by Daniel Johnson and Dave Conour

Edited by Dave Conour

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:09

And so shame moves us towards isolation, and it's really hard, but we have to fight that, and we need to remain in community because, as we talked about earlier, it's really hard to get out of the shame hole once you're in it because you're defined by you, and so it's helpful to have an outside perspective to move you out of that circle of shame, that hole of shame you find yourself in. So community is going to be the best way to do that.

SPEAKER_00 0:37

Welcome to the Upwards Podcast, where we explore the intersection of Christian faith in the Academy, the Church, and the marketplace. In today's episode, host Jean Guerin sits down with philosopher and biblical scholar S. J. Parrott for a rich and deeply personal conversation on shame, what it is, how it forms, how it distorts our sense of identity, and how Christ meets us in the places where we feel most small, exposed, or stuck. Drawing from her own journey, her research into metaphors of clothing and nakedness, and her current work on shame in the Psalms, Shannon helps us understand why shame can be such a roadblock in the inner journey of becoming who we truly are in Christ. Together, they explore biblical stories like the Samaritan Woman and Zacchaeus, the importance of community, and the transformative encounters that reorient us towards God's defining perspective of who we are. This is a conversation full of hope, depth, and a vision of identity shaped by the one who knows us best. Now, onto the conversation.

SPEAKER_02 1:40

Well, welcome, Shannon Parrott. Thank you. Lovely to have you with us. And thank you so much for the wonderful event you you brought to us last night here at Upper House. It was, I just I was talking to everybody around, and it was like, oh, that was so good. So I'm really glad. Thank you very much. One of our Friday night lectures. So we appreciate that. Um so your bio and everything will, you know, kind of be in the notes. So we'll just jump in. Great. To um, so how did you, how did you come to study the topic of shame?

SPEAKER_01 2:15

Yeah, um, well, it originated, I suppose, in my own experience of shame when I was about 14 to 20. Uh, that's when those sorts of feelings um and experiences were really prominent in my life and went through a very, very difficult time in my life. And um, when I was about 20, I sought help for myself at that time. And and then it was from there, probably around 22, 23 years old, that I started to just do some more reading, more in like a self-help, but in the context of my faith way. And I acquired this language for shame. It was originally through Brene Brown. And it felt like, wow, now I have a language to talk about what I've been feeling my whole life, which was such a great beginning point. And so I continued to heal and did that in various ways and experienced a lot of healing and transformation in my life. And then as I was finishing my first master's, I had written this paper on Genesis 225. And then man and woman were naked, but they were not in a state of shame. And that was kind of a pivot point in my life in many respects, including in my career. And so it was from there that I went on to do my doctoral work, which is in metaphors of clothing and nakedness, um, which touched on shame, but wasn't purely about shame. It was more about these metaphors, how they functioned and how they participated in identity formation and deformation. And then from there, I finally uh moved on to the project I'm doing now, which is looking at the moral value of shame in the Psalms. And it feels kind of like uh, I don't know if homecoming is the right word, but you know, this is the research I've been waiting to do for over a decade now. And finally I get to do it. So it's origins, the origin of my research of shame comes from my experience, but I had no idea at the time that that's what I would end up doing. It was just what I went through and the healing I had received. And now I can do this research because I think it's valuable, and then hopefully it can help some people along the way.

SPEAKER_02 4:08

Well, you could tell you were really passionate about it last night.

SPEAKER_01 4:11

I am, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 4:12

And yeah, God really brings us on these journeys that we often don't expect, but he knows better, right? He knows us. Yeah. And he knows what will motivate us to so just briefly, can you give us a little bit of the definite like what is shame and maybe what it's not too?

SPEAKER_01 4:30

Sure, yeah. So the my approach, just to give people a little bit of context, not to get too technical, but my approach to shame, um, because you can choose different avenues or methodologies to understand it in in my research, that is. So I have gone the route of philosophy just because it encompasses the most experiences of shame because it's very varied, how it can come up in one's life. Anything from something very moral like stealing to acts of shaming to just comments about physical appearance that doesn't have anything to do with us. So I you go the philosophy route and then how it actually we actually experience it in our everyday lives. So, with that understanding, I would follow Krista Thomason, who's a philosopher, and she says, shame is when we feel a tension between our self-conception and some aspect of our identity. Um, we could also say we feel that some part of our identity eclipses, overshadows, or defines our self-conception. And by self-conception, she means my own sense of who I am. So that's the identity that I would build, construct, conceive of for myself. And so it's when that feels overshadowed by some other aspect of who we are that's not either part of or central to that kind of self-conception.

SPEAKER_02 5:44

You used the word uh singularity with shame last night. And I thought that was really helpful. When, you know, when one aspect of yourself just overshadows everything else.

SPEAKER_01 5:55

So you want to talk a little bit more about that. So it's when um just yeah, one aspect of who you are becomes who you are. Shame usually feels like you are just one thing. You feel small because just this one aspect of who you are over overshadows everything else. So a self-comp self-conception, how we think of ourselves, usually is quite complex. It's multifaceted. There's just different aspects of who we are. We have one wherever we go, um, and it can change depending where we are or the people we're with. That's normal. Um, but when you experience shame, you just you become one thing usually. So one of the it sounds maybe a little bit silly, but it's I think it's very helpful. The one example I gave last night, which was just made up, was if you had a big nose and somebody made a comment about big noses, you feel that you are your big nose and nothing else. And then you feel that everyone's going to just look at you and see your big nose and feel pity for you. And that's why you feel small, because your self-conception, your own sense of who you are, it gets overshadowed. So it's literally like it shrinks because something is being placed over it, just the nose in this case, or whatever it might be. And that's also why you feel exposed, because just one thing is how you is what you are. And so that one thing, if you are one thing and that's all you are, then that's uh precipitates this feeling of exposure. Because there's nothing else that's hidden if you are just one thing, just one thing on display, and therefore you're fully exposed. So that's why you feel small, that's why you feel exposed, and that's why you want to hide, because you don't want this one thing that you are to be seen by everybody. Because that's very vulnerable to have your whole self on display is very vulnerable. But if you are only one thing, then that's why you feel exposed. You want to hide and you feel small because your own sense of who you are is kind of out of the picture. Right.

SPEAKER_02 7:37

And I think you um in in an article that you shared with me beforehand, you touched on this last night, but I enjoyed the imagery of you talking about an inner journey that we take, right? To maybe become fully who we are. But that shame ends up being a roadblock to that journey. So you want to flesh that out a little bit?

SPEAKER_01 8:01

Um, yeah. So part of what I talked about in that article is this, I mean, that's a metaphor we use all the time. Life is a journey. Yeah. Yeah. So it's a conceptual metaphor that everybody lives by, at least in the Western world. And we can find ourselves on these journeys in life, and there can be hindrances and roadblocks. And then shame is a roadblock in that it often makes us forget that we're on a journey because of the things I just said, that it's shame is singular, it focuses on one thing to the exclusion of all else. And you feel defined by it, and it occupies your attention cognitively, it occupies your body often. It can sometimes come with anxiety. And so that stops the sort of journey that we're on and it raises these questions of who we are, if we are these things that we feel that we are. And I should also say that that's a key part of that definition is the word feel. It doesn't have to be true what you feel shame about. And often it's not true, especially if it's about more physical appearance type things. So shame is this like this hindrance that comes up in the journeys of who we are. And it's something that we have to navigate if we want to move forward with our life. We can compartmentalize and, you know, manage as we need to as humans in order to just continue in our daily lives. But we're gonna have to work through those issues of shame, if they are repeating at least, or can turn into chronic shame, in order to move forward and figure out who we are and in the context of faith, who we are in Christ.

SPEAKER_02 9:27

Right. And you use the words an inner way out of shame. I liked that in that article. And also there, and you did touch on this last night as well, you talked about the need, and this is where we can get start getting into faith and God and Christ, the need for an out something outside yourself to help you break through that paralysis of a roadblock of shame in your on your own journey.

SPEAKER_01 9:53

So yeah, uh, I think the nature of shame is the things I said, you want to hide, you feel small and you feel defined by some aspect of who you are, usually. Again, the if it's an act of shaming, if it's somebody who's being mean and cruel, then probably what they're making you feel ashamed about isn't accurate. It's not right, but we feel shame anyways. At the end of the day, it's still us. We feel defined by us. That's the nature of shame. I am my nose, or I am a thief if it you're feeling shame about stealing something, or somebody makes a comment about you. The example I used last night was a friend who said I was opinionated and I felt I didn't experience shame in that moment, but I really contended with that. So, but it's still you. It's still something from the periphery of you that's not maybe part of your own sense of who you are in that moment. And you feel defined by you. And that's hard to get out of because it's still you. You feel defined by you, you feel this sense of bewilderment, but also recognition. Oh, I'm surprised by this aspect of myself. And yet it is me. And that's why shame's so hard to get out of because it's you. You're still dealing with you, even again, if it's not accurate. You still have to contend with that. And I truly believe that the way out of that, at least as I've come to understand it in the context of my faith in Christ, is an outside perspective that's not one that I try to create for myself or one that a friend gives me, but it's one that can come from God Himself, which we would believe, I hope, is accurate of the ultimate value, is seeking our refinement or transformation in love. Um, so this perspective from the outside. And I think that's why self-help only goes so far. And, you know, you know, self-talk that's positive only goes so far because it depending on where you are in your life and how you feel about yourself, it's hard to believe, you know, to it's like pumping yourself up. Right. And sometimes it just doesn't work, where it's um, yeah, I'm loved, or yeah, I'm good, or yeah, whatever it might be. And trying to tell yourself these positive things when you're not really dealing with the fundamental issue of who you are and trying to understand that, that makes it really hard to get to get out of the shame, I think.

SPEAKER_02 12:06

Well, and I think it's also related since identity and shame are very related, as you were saying. But I think often of young, young people these days, young these days, though, but um, but even my kids and other other younger people that I know, you know, they're I think society or culture now tells them that they have to, you know, the ultimate thing is to figure out who you really are. I know. Yeah who am I really? I if I'm only if I can figure that out, or if I can be true to myself, it will take care of things like shame or it will give me more. But that's a lot of pressure because we can't. Yeah. I mean, we can't. Yeah. It's just impossible to figure out ourselves who we are. Yeah. Because only our creator who created us really knows us well enough to help us with that. So you mentioned uh you used a couple examples from the Bible, the New Testament. So I thought this fits a little bit with this kind of shifting into how do we transform shame. So use this examples of the Samaritan woman and Zacchaeus, both great stories. Um, and in both, and you can elaborate on whatever you want, but basically the the identities and the shame points for both each of them. Samaritan woman was her Samaritaness and her husband's, yeah, that Jesus knew all about, and she knew that. And Zacchaeus was tax collector, rich, possibly corrupt, and short, right? So it touches on a lot of aspects of shame. And in both those encounters, right? It was through the encounter with Jesus, he was able to reorient that all of those aspects and them to who he is.

SPEAKER_03 13:50

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 13:50

So just talk us through that process or what what's illustrated there about how we also can move forward.

SPEAKER_01 13:56

Yeah, I love both those stories. I the story of Zacchaeus is one of my favorite stories. I just, it's just so delightful, actually. But I'll start with the Samaritan woman, which is well known to all of us, right? I mean, the number of sermons I've heard on this, on this text are beyond the number of fingers on my hands. But there's this encounter with Jesus and this woman at the well. And the first thing that comes up is he asked her for a drink of water. And she says she's uncertain or confused by this request because she is a Samaritan. And John helps us out with this parenthetical statement saying, Jews and Samaritans do not share things in common. And so her, as I said last night, and I say again now, her Samaritan-ness is a barrier. It's a problem in this context, in with Christ's request of her to give him a drink of water, quite physically a barrier. And I don't just mean that it's a mental barrier for her. It's a physical barrier. They can't touch the same things. And so she says, How can you ask me for a drink of water? And then John helps us out with this comment. And then Christ reorients everything around himself. She's thinking about herself and her Samaritan-ness, which may or may not be part of how she thinks of herself every day. We don't need to kind of psychologize this too much. But he reorients everything around him and he says, If you knew who you were talking to, you would be asking him to give you something to drink. And what I have to give you to drink are living waters that will quench your thirst forever. And so this aspect of who she is, she perceives as a barrier, rightly so. Yeah. But he reorients the whole conversation around who he is rather than focusing on this aspect of her. And then later in the conversation, she says, okay, give me this drink. And he says, then he brings up the husbands, go get your husband. Well, you know, I don't have a husband. He said, Yeah, well, you've had many, and the one you're living with now is not even your husband. And then he again reorients the entire conversation around himself, saying that even these many husbands is not a problem. What I have to offer you is the thing that is going to transform you and give you life forever. So both with respect to the fact that she's a Samaritan and also the fact that she's had many husbands, neither of these are problems or barriers with respect to what he's trying to offer her, which is that which is going to transform her. And then she reveals at the end of the text, at the end of the story, that this has affected her understanding of herself because she goes to the people of the town and she says, come see a man or come come talk to a man. I can't remember which verb. Come see a man who knows everything I've ever done. And when I read that, I'm thinking, I wouldn't share that for fear that somebody's going to go find that man and ask him, What did Shannon what has Shannon done in her life? You know, maybe that's an insecure thought. I don't know, but that's a very vulnerable statement. And it reveals that she does not view everything that she has ever done as this sort of barrier anymore. It's not consequential in that her understanding of herself has already, I think, been reoriented around her encounter and in the person of Christ. And at the very following that statement, come see this man who knows everything I've ever done, she says, could he be the Messiah? And so she's wondering not about herself and her many husbands and her Samaritan-ness or the fact that he knows everything. She's occupied with who he is. And something about that has reoriented her understanding of herself. That's my reading of the text, at least. And I find it really striking that these points of who she is are acknowledged, openly talked about, all of her particularity, but reoriented around he is, and they're not these barriers for her to come in close contact with him and experience, in a sense, this transformation already.

SPEAKER_02 17:47

Well, and I think the um the fact that you you raised it last night too, when she went to the people she probably knew, and these are people who knew her, most likely, right? And she did say all these things. And you you used, I think, at one point a line, like the stronger sense of self that you have, the less liable you are to shame. So I'm guessing a lot of at least some of those people were people who had been shaming her for all those husbands or judging her for all those things. And so not only did she reveal that, but it didn't, it clearly didn't matter. And it no longer was a source of shame at all for her, even in the context, not just with Christ, but with with her fellow her neighbors, right, who probably know her. So very powerful. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 18:36

Yeah. Yeah. And then the other story of Zacchaeus in Luke 19 is really delightful. You have Jesus on the way to Jericho. Zacchaeus is already there. And as you said, he's described as a chief tax collector, as rich and as short, which all prove to be liabilities in a sense. Uh, as a chief tax collector, he's working for the Romans, not for his Jewish community. His richness betrays the fact that he's corrupt, which he confirms later because he says, I'm going to pay back all the people who I cheated. And then he's short, which just limits his ability to see, including Christ. And because he's short and can't see Christ and he wants to see Christ, we don't know why, but something about his curiosity of this man, who's kind of making waves, um, he wants to see him, so he goes and climbs the sycamore tree, it says. And that's why the story is really famous. And then Christ sees him in kind of a similar way that he sees the Samaritan woman, he sees him, and then he asks something of him, as he did the Samaritan woman, can I have a drink? And then he sees Zacchaeus in the tree and he says, I want to stay at your house tonight, Zacchaeus. And the reactor, there's there's uncertainty and confusion in both stories about these interactions. And both, the idea that seems to come forth is that Christ shouldn't be interacting with these people. He shouldn't be interacting with the Samaritan woman, and he shouldn't be interacting with this corrupt sinner. That's the people's description later in verse seven. Zacchaeus is really excited. He doesn't react with uncertainty. He he has Jesus over for this meal, or at least to his house. And it's the crowd around who see this happening and they say, Who is this man? Like, why is Jesus going to the house of a sinner? And the comments kind of against Jesus. It's it's commenting on Christ, but it's also commenting on Zacchaeus, that they think that he's a sinner and he's corrupt and that, you know, he's betrayed his community as well. And Zacchaeus responds to this, and I don't think that the crowd's perspective is news to him. I'm assuming that in the text, I realize, but I don't think that that would be a surprise to him, how they thought about him. But he responds to that following whatever's happened in his home with Christ. And he he doesn't say to the crowd in response to their comment, he turns to Jesus and he says, I'm gonna make right. I'm gonna pay back everybody who I cheated. And then comes the final line, Jesus saying that salvation has come to Zacchaeus because of his great faith. And there's something, so far as I can read the text and understand, something happened in Zacchaeus's home in his interaction with Christ that led him to respond to the crowd's perspective, which wouldn't be news to him, I don't think, that day. That they think he's a sinner is probably not new, but whatever happened has changed how he understood himself. And then he hears this other perspective of who he is, and that prompts him to say, I need to bring into alignment these other areas of my life based on this person who I've met. And so again, I think it's this reorientation of his understanding of who he is around the person of Christ, around this interaction that they've had, this encounter that they've had. And then what follows is he brings these other areas of his life into alignment with that. And I find that really remarkable and striking. We don't know what happened in Zacchaeus's home. I wish we did.

SPEAKER_02 21:49

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 21:49

But something did happen. I think that's that's self evident from the text.

SPEAKER_02 21:53

Yeah. And I think you use the word transfiguration, right? Um that so transformation, but actually, you know, because Becoming more fully who we are as we reorient ourselves in Christ. Yeah. Right. As we, as we understand what that means. Maybe do you have some illustrations from your own experience? Because, you know, you think about, okay, both of these, I love the word encounter, right? And so both of these examples, they encountered a Christ in human form. Right. And so, I mean, but we all have access through the Holy Spirit to Jesus in a very personal way. But it's a little different. Yeah. Right. So talk about, you know, and this is maybe a little bit, you know, kind of practicalities of how do we seek out and get that kind of encounter and learn more about what it means to be in Christ without physically.

SPEAKER_01 22:46

Yeah. I guess the best thing is to just share of my experience. I wish I had, you know, like five points to tell you to figure this out. That's okay. But I get to some of the other things. I think uh I think really it comes down to being in God's word, because that is the primary means by which we meet and encounter and see and experience the risen and ascended Lord and prayer. And my experience would use both of those, or at least the most profound encounter and experience I had in terms of re-the reorientation of who I am around the person of Christ. And that would have been about 10 years ago, I guess. And I went on, I had come forward a lot from shame and I no longer hated who I was, but I didn't know who I was. So I had done all this really hard work through therapy and uh, you know, all the things for about six years. And then, yeah, about 10 years ago, I thought, well, I don't hate who I am anymore. I, you know, I'm kind of neutral, suppose, or, you know, even a little bit positive, but I had no idea who I was. And there was some things at the time I was struggling with in terms of wishing I was certain things or wishing I was more like this or like that. And then, and then that having that affecting some of my friendships or social interactions, feeling insecure in those. And anyways, it was through three different means that God said to me, go on a retreat for eight days, a silent retreat for eight days, and ask me who you are and why you're on earth. And and so I did. And I've done it every year since then. I thought it was just a one-time thing. But I went away and I did that. And it was amazing. It was what um I guess some Christians would call such a mountaintop experience. But it was also really hard because I had to bring before the Lord the ways that I did feel about myself. And so, for example, in prayer, this time on this retreat, I said, I don't actually don't like, I guess there were still some things in myself that I didn't like, but I'd always struggled, maybe we could say, with the fact that I'm strong. I'm just a very strong person. And I did not like that about myself. And there was earlier times where I hated that about myself. And I'm very bold, strong and bold. And it's gotten me a lot of opportunities in my life. So I'm grateful at that point of time in my life. I was very grateful for that, but I didn't like it. I wished I wished I was gentle for whatever reasons that was. I just wish I was different than that. I wish I wasn't strong. I wish I was more gentle, less bold, all these things. And then I was also really afraid because I was insecure and uncertain about who I was. I was afraid in social circumstances, even though I had wonderful friends and just afraid. I'd just gotten so afraid of many things in my life. And I went away on this retreat, and just through prayer and reading God's word and hearing from the Holy Spirit, giving that space and time, eight-day silent retreat, you got a lot of time and space to hear the Lord speak to me, saying, I like one of the ways that I've made you specifically to be Shannon is that you're strong and you're bold and you are to be fearless. And these are some of the most delightful, um, important ways that I've made you. And so it was learning the things I didn't like most about myself, God was saying was central to who I was. And so it was like re-orienting my thinking around that through God's perspective. And I was so afraid. And he's saying, I made you to be fearless, and not really for yourself, um, for others as well, so that you might be outward looking and not so inward. And so there was six things that God said to me that I was. I was strong, bold, fearless, all very strong things, wise, loyal, and delightful. And I had these things. So it was one of the most freeing experiences of my life for God to reveal this to me. But it was at the end of that retreat, I, or in the latter half of that retreat, that I thought this also is not gonna take me very far if I don't have this in Christ, like in him and all these things as located in him. And then I ended up at the end of that retreat writing this prayer that I prayed every day for many, many years. And now I I don't know, I probably pray like four times a week or something like that. And even just the first, I won't say all of it, but I was going through all these characteristics to locate them in Christ. And it's always uh, you have something memorized, and then when you're in a moment, you have to say you're like, wait, do I know it? Um You could praise Father God, you are the one for whom I was made for in my life to honor. I praise and worship you, my creator God. Thank you for making me this way and not that, for placing me here and not there. I pray, Lord God, that today I would be a fearless woman for myself and off on on behalf of others. Help me truly only fear God and not man, and set me free to love the man who fears. Let me not fear what may not be, but yeah, truly only fear God. Set me to that effect and help me to be bold, to be joyful in pain, grateful in want, satisfied with the present, to ask for what I dream with loyalty. Help me to only be loyal to God and then have that affect my other relationships. Um, give me wisdom from above to navigate today, to distinguish truth from lie and life from death, fear from joy and love from hell. So using that prayer to locate all these things that God said I am in Him and in Christ, so that because my strength will get me into trouble every day. Yes, I've answered. I've certainly I can identify with that statement. And I can, I I have learned how to rein that, rein in my strength in my life and and use it in a way that's much more productive, we could say. But it's really understanding that the submission of my strength to God is actually what's going to bring the real fruit in my life, if that makes sense. So that retreat changed my life. I've never been the same since it was the the most freeing thing. And like the peace I receive from that sense then about who I am. I don't struggle with questions of identity really. It's not that I don't ever struggle with who I am or, you know, things happen, nothing like that. But there is this inflection point. Yeah. But then when I got back from that retreat, it's not just like, oh wow, I have this new understanding and everything's great or whatever. It it was hard work to like, okay, I feel really afraid today, but I know that I'm to be fearless. And so what does that look like in the day today? And so it was this process of months after I got back of trying to figure out what does it look like to live out this person that God has revealed to me that I am, his divine perspective on who I am. And that's where the prayer was so helpful, writing that prayer out to say every day, to declare over myself who God has said that I am, and also locating all those things in him. And then the most amazing thing happened. That was the summer of 2016. And then in this spring, uh, winter spring, it was my birthday's in March. On my 27th birthday in uh 2017, um, I had a big birthday party and friends over, and everybody wrote me a card that year, and everybody wrote longer messages in the card. Usually people just say, Happy birthday, Jeff, or whatever. And but that year, almost all my friends wrote longer cards. And I just remember weeping, reading these birthday cards about eight or nine months, whatever it was, after this retreat. Because people were just in a birthday card, you say how wonderful somebody is, usually, hopefully, God willing. And uh as I was reading what they wrote about me, I realized I've become the woman that God said that I am. They're reflecting back to me who God said I am. And I had learned to embody it somehow along the way. And I, it's so long ago now, I couldn't tell you all the tips and tricks of how I did that. It was hard work and it was difficult. But there was this kind of moment where I realized this change has happened so slowly and in a way that you can't see. Then it's all of a sudden you wake up one day and you finally see the change. If those moments you have where it just happens so slowly, and then there's like a threshold where it's suddenly you can perceive it. That's what happened on that birthday.

SPEAKER_03 31:00

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 31:01

And um, that was a very important year and a half in my life where yeah.

SPEAKER_02 31:06

And I would imagine that they were seeing the change, but they also might have always thought that about you. Sure. I mean, that you may not their perception of you, yeah. And you talked about this last night, you know, we're not right about our own selves completely. Yeah. And other people are not completely right about us, but sometimes they are having really good insight. Yeah, you know, who we are.

SPEAKER_03 31:29

So that's great.

SPEAKER_02 31:30

Thank you. Thank you for sharing that. I think that's really helpful. Especially the writing, I think should publish that prayer. Just what you listed off was beautiful. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 31:39

It's been a real anchor for me. Again, reminding who I am, but or it like having that under Christ, in Christ. As I said, my strength can get me in trouble. It also can do me, serve me really well, but it won't get me very far if it's not submitted to God and his strength and the strength that is ours in Christ, which is unto perfection, which I will never be.

SPEAKER_02 32:02

Right.

SPEAKER_01 32:02

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 32:03

Right. And his his perspective, you use the word definitional. Yeah. I don't know if I said that already, but I I appreciated that. You know, God's perspective is both definitional of who we are and the most valuable perspective.

SPEAKER_00 32:19

We'll return to our conversation with Shannon Parrot in just a moment. If you're finding this conversation meaningful, consider sharing this episode with a friend or someone walking through questions of identity and healing. There are links to Shannon's Friday night lecture at Upper House in the show notes, where you can find audio and video versions. Now, back to the conversation.

SPEAKER_02 32:45

So you also um suggested to us of praying through and using the Psalms as a way through, because shame shows up a lot, as does trust in relationship to God. And I'll share a little personal thing that that reminded me of. So my um, and then you can elaborate on how we do that, but my big shame has always been it's like the physical appearance and my weight, right? And so I just never felt I just felt shame with that. I had a lot of other aspects of myself and areas of my life that I was very confident in, and and but that that became way larger of an issue or characteristic than it really should have been. And it really did consume me because of course it affects romantic partnerships, but even professional contexts, you know, that plays a role. And I remember I was living and working in in Washington, DC, and then uh um in these stressful environments where everyone looks really good, right?

SPEAKER_03 33:47

Yeah, you see.

SPEAKER_02 33:49

Um, so that was part of it too, just comparison. And a friend at church um prayed Psalm 45 over me. And the king is enthralled with your beauty.

SPEAKER_03 34:01

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 34:02

And a lot of dress in there too, by the way. The Queen of Ophir and her gold threads. Yeah. And um, my tongue is the pen of a skilled writer. So I I'm a good talker. I'm I'm a decent writer, but I don't enjoy writing. Just there were things about that psalm that resonated with me, but I would never have seen myself as her or as that. But all of a sudden, I did. You know, it was like this revelation. And of course, previously or before he says that line, I think that's NIV translation. There's other ways that it's said, but the king is enthralled with your beauty, is what stuck out at me. And um, it's all about basically the image of Christ, you know, the the warrior coming out for fighting for truth and humility. So it was who he was preceded that.

SPEAKER_03 34:53

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 34:53

That was one of the trans little bit transformative moments. And then of course I've grown into that and and all sorts of things in in different ways that I won't go into. But help share us a little bit with some of the other psalms that deal with shame and um and how we can how we can use those as prayers too.

SPEAKER_01 35:13

Yeah. No, and I just want to acknowledge that, yeah, our physical appearance is something that we often can feel shame about because it's the way that it's the front means of people's pers um perceiving us. It's the that first point of contact, and it's a means of communication who we are. My my earlier work in research for context for listeners is that I worked on clothing metaphors in the prophets, clothing and nakedness, and how this participates in identity formation and deformation. And so I know very well that clothing and dress constitutes identity and it's a means of perception management. So that and that includes our body. So that's a very real and super important thing. And just to full full disclosure, the the difficulties I went through when I was 14 to 20 was a very severe eating disorder. So I really get this um disassociation that one can have with one's body, even though it is you. Again, shame is kind of this bewilderment that you feel defined by something that's not your own sense of who you are and yet is you. And that can be super dissociating when that's your own body. So I really, I truly do get that and understand that in the Psalms. Um, well, there's so many different kinds of psalms. There's ones where the psalmist is experiencing shame and doesn't want to anymore. And it's often at the unjust treatment by his enemies. They're often called enemies. There's different Hebrew words used for the enemies, which represent different things as well. And then ones where the psalmist fears experiencing shame, but doesn't want to, and then other ones where he's guilty and experiencing shame, he's done something wrong, and then wants mercy and relief. So there's a huge variety of psalms. Uh, the one we looked at last night was Psalm 71. And um, the opening line is um something to the effect of praising God, and then the request, may I never be ashamed. And then we learn very quickly that he is experiencing shame at the hands of his enemies and he's been treated unjustly. There's false testimony being said about this psalmist. And um the all of the what how the psalmist kind of talks about himself is in relation to God. So he's always praising God, praising God's works, saying how much he trusts God, uh, that he has been faithful to God since his youth, and now he's an older man in the psalm. And it's meant to give kind of this breadth to his, you know, self-proclaimed faithfulness to God and to his ways and worship at the temple, all these things. And then the content of the enemy's accusation is that God has forsaken him. Let's go and run and seize and kind of, you know, take advantage of the situation because nobody's gonna save him. So what's so central to the psalmist's understanding of himself is brought into question by the enemy's perspective of who he is. And the psalmist is bringing that to God and wrestling with that before the Lord. That's it's through my study of the Psalms that I've come to see that um shame and honor are often presented as opposites. But in many fields of study that's shown to be not quite so accurate, at least in the context of the Hebrew of the Old Testament, or I say First Testament, it's more trusting God and shame that would be more opposites and this kind of recognition of God that comes with trusting him and shame, they tend to be these opposites. So, and that's what you see throughout the psalm. So you, yeah, this very real wrestling with the these varying perspectives that the psalmist has of himself and the enemies of him of have of him. And in the end, kind of this submission that God is gonna have the final say. The psalmist isn't the final authority on who he is, and the enemies aren't the final authority on who he is. And I think probably we should say, well, thank goodness. Right. Because everybody can get it wrong. Yes. And God is going to be the arbitrator and defender for the one who's perceived him correctly, probably, you know, because it's it's this again coming to God and and seeking to see him as clearly as we can and having that informed our understanding of who we are. And so when you understand God correctly, you're gonna under or or more correctly, more, more fully, then you're gonna understand yourself more fully. So it's what John Calvin called of self-knowledge and knowledge of God inform each other. It's this continual cycle. So I think that's really what's expressed in these psalms, where this uncertainty about who one is and then continually looking to God and who he is to help are to have him arbitrate and then defend the psalms in these contexts. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 39:34

Yeah. And then even in more on different issues in my own personality or recently, it's almost like you use the the word of in Christ, we we are more fully ourselves. And, you know, there would be whole, I think there are whole aspects of myself that I've sort of revealed or I've understood more or realized or recognized or lived out or whatever as I get older. And I think back of because the problem before was I felt like I shouldn't be that, like that wouldn't be okay with the Lord or anybody else, you know, behavioral things or, you know, how I acted, oh, well, that's not, you know, that might be viewed as sinful in one way, but you know, I was always confused and that sort of thing. And so instead of focusing on what I shouldn't be or what I shouldn't do, obviously we shouldn't do real stuff. Sure, yeah, yeah, yeah. These are things that weren't that, if that makes sense. And you know, but instead of focusing on that, over time, it's just been this beautiful experience of having these parts of myself revealed in Christ and how Christs are those things, yeah, those things too. I'm thinking actually of the Celtic Christianity, which is like, you know, but that's that's new to me. And it just all of a sudden, as it was revealed, it's a huge part of me. Yeah. And it resonated. But I fought those parts because I didn't think I should be that way.

SPEAKER_03 41:00

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 41:01

You know. So I wonder in in this conversation, if and some folks I talked to last night were wondering, do you think shame is felt differently by men and women? I mean, we talked a little bit about the body image piece.

SPEAKER_03 41:15

Sure, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 41:15

And the psalmist would be more, you know, my enemies. So there's some, sure, some differences there. What are your thoughts on that?

SPEAKER_01 41:22

Yeah, I think in terms of how I would define shame and how it happens to use the philosophical world word phenomenologically, so how we actually experience shame, I think that is pretty standard across the board. Now, what precipitates shame I think is where the differences would lie. And that's not only to do with gender, but also culture, also time and space, because the traditions of thought in the first testament and second testament are very different than the ways in which we think today. So today we have a mind-body dichotomy. We're very disassociated with our bodies. Our self is in our head and floating off on space. That often doesn't have much to do with our bodies, which also makes us at odds with our bodies a lot. So there's um what precipitates shame is dependent not only upon gender, but all these other factors. But with gender and what causes shame, uh, and if we're talking about the body, I think women feel shame about their body more often. Men do too. I'm not saying that they don't. There's very particular standards that men are to move towards, usually strength. And that's actually where you see a difference in advertising, I think. I've seen far more diverse bodies in women's advertising. So, like for clothing or whatever it might be. And I still tend to only see one type of man that's just very, very, you know, buff and strong. And so I don't see a lot of diversity in male advertising. Just to be clear, I'm not saying men don't feel shame about their bodies, but women do more, just because there's more happening with our bodies. We're capable of reproducing. We have menstrual cycles every month. Our bodies change when you go through menopause. There's a huge, there's just way, there's other factors that affect our daily lives in our bodies. And then, of course, add in, you know, beauty standards or this idea that we need to not only do something well but look good while doing it. These are still very alive and well issues in our culture. And even in, you know, in my field in the academy, men can kind of get away with wearing whatever they want and like having like the, you know, what's the word? Um, the absent-minded professor. You know, it's just there is like these kind of unspoken things that women can't get away with that as much. You know, you have to be smart and look good doing it, kind of a thing. So there's there, there are these really different issues or yeah, topics that can precipitate shame. But I think the actual experience of having a tension between your own sense of who you are and some aspect of your identity, I think that stays constant so far as I've been able to understand it. But yeah, these precipitating factors are are different. And also depend on the person, too. I mean, that's why shame is so hard to pin down. Yeah. Is because what causes shame for you may or may not cause shame for me. Because it's what's your own sense of who you are, and what are the broader aspects of your identity complex that are coming into tension with. That, you know? And that's going to be different for me, which is why all this whole conversation can get really messy sometimes when you're trying to like think about it and like figure it out, which is what I'm trying to do in my research. So yeah, there are there are differences.

SPEAKER_02 44:13

Well, and I think one of those differences I like the point of what precipitates shame. But for women, you know, you mentioned being strong. I actually shared that. Like I didn't want to be a lot of what are really core pieces of my personality. Like anyway, we won't go into all those, but the strength piece really resonated with me. And in part because I also thought it would disqualify me from relationships that I wanted, right? Because it was not, it's not your and I I really don't. I had a Paul and I have had a love-hate relationship over the years. So the the gentle and quiet spirit where I was like, oh man. Yeah, I don't not gonna be that ever.

SPEAKER_01 44:57

Yeah. But even on that point, I remembered, sorry, not to cut you off, but um, again, it was some years into this kind of healing I had experienced. And I just remember being at a small group at a church I was at once, and I think her name was Liz. I've lost contact with her, but she was a friend and a person, a fellow member of this group. I just remember her, we were praying for each other at the end of a small group, and she was thanking God for my gentleness. And the spirit really met me in that. And I thought, you know, I assume that because I'm strong, I'm not gentle. Yeah. And that was one thing I pointed out last night is that I've known some police officers and SWAT team members. And yes, they they are physically strong and also they have to kind of embody a sort of strength in their work. They have to, but they're they are some of the gentlest people I've ever known in my life in in terms of how they interact and kind of care for others. So they're not mutually exclusive. And I I tend to forget that about myself where it's okay, I am strong, but it doesn't mean that I also can't be gentle. Yeah. But I I tend to not think that way and I forget, but I remember that moment reminding me, yeah, okay. You know, you are gentle. You can embody that gentleness as well. So yeah, and I've made peace with that. Sure. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. No, sorry, I'm with Paul more broadly. I'm the same with Paul. I'm like, I'm gonna say it took a while.

SPEAKER_02 46:16

But in Christ, yeah, you know, Christ, Christ has helped me with that. Yeah. So yeah. So, Shan, what do you think? What is the difference back to some of the definitional work on shame? But what is the difference between shame and humiliation and shame and guilt? So for me, you asked us last night, you know, have you know, has who who has felt shame? And of course everybody raised their hand, right? But what came to mind um for me then uh was a different issue, which which was a time when I was really, in a professional setting, really badly humiliated, right? And and had to, and that that felt sh I felt shame then. But I don't know, was I just feeling humiliation or was that shame, you know? Um and then and then the guilt piece too. Could you make some distinctions for us between those concepts?

SPEAKER_01 47:08

I'll start with the guilt piece just because it's a it's easier to kind of divide out. Well, there is some research uh in a couple different fields that would suggest that guilt is more of actually a positional standing, it's not an emotion. But that aside, I would suggest that guilt's probably expert is experienced when one does something wrong. There's some sort of violation of a social code or a law code, and there's something that one could point to and say that that wasn't right, that's something that needs to be amended or fixed in some sort of way. So it's usually to do more with our actions and our behaviors that guilt would happen. So the way that people usually describe it is I've done something wrong. Shame can happen at the same time. It depends. Yeah, it ri it really depends. Yelling too loudly at the dog for doing something that the dog shouldn't do is probably not gonna cause you shame, but it depends on how loud you've yelled and then you're really surprised at that um manifestation of yourself. But you're probably just gonna feel guilty that, okay, I shouldn't have done that, or maybe not a dog, whatever it might be. Right. But yeah, so guilt doing something wrong that we ought not to do. Shame is more calling into question the self. And so you can experience shame, but has nothing to do with anything guilt, guilty. You haven't done anything wrong. It's just simply something that happens to you. So that would be the distinction between those two. Um, humiliation is harder, and it it's hard to say what exactly the distinction is because it depends on how somebody's understanding humiliation. So, humiliation, I would tend to understand is more people are trying to provoke that in you. You feel humiliated and they're that there's something that has been said against you or about you or happened to you that is before people, and either they have precipitated that or they're kind of enjoying that um experience. They're laughing perhaps or something like that. Yeah. Um, I've done less work on humiliation, but and so humiliation and shame can certainly happen at the at the same time. But I think it would have to do the nate more of the difference would have to do with the nature of the experience. Of course, people can laugh and enjoy however you're feeling shame as well, which is really unfortunate that that happens. But those would be more acts of shaming, shame at the hands of your enemies, I like to say, just to follow the language of the Psalms. But yeah, humiliation, I think it's this idea of kind of being watched and people not necessarily enjoying that, but there's something to do with the an extra element to do with the nature of the perception there in terms of humiliation. That's probably how it would loosely distinguish those two right now.

SPEAKER_02 49:45

Well, and it it at least in the case I'm thinking of, it was an act of I mean, I felt shame, but I suppose there if I had been more in Christ and aware of who I was and how wrong that really was in, you know, statements and the way I was treated, I wouldn't have felt the shame. I still might have been, it still might have been a humiliation. Yeah. That's what the intent was. So that that makes it a little bit more like the intention of people trying. So maybe this links to another interesting point that you did touch on last night. Actually, you talked quite a bit about, but maybe we can touch on briefly. You said the unjust feel no shame. So maybe talk a little bit about shamelessness and the importance of maintaining a capacity for shame, because that can be a good thing in some aspects.

SPEAKER_01 50:36

Yeah. Again, following kind of the same philosopher who I was before with my understanding of shame. And then just some of the other things that we talked about last night that we don't always get it right about ourselves. Um I think probably everybody would would agree with that, I hope. Um, and that doesn't have to necessarily be a bad thing, it's just a human limitation. Uh, shamelessness would be a failure to entertain other points of view about who one is. Um, and so it's this idea, and that's that's because there's a failure to really consider that we might not always have it right about ourselves. So you don't entertain other perspectives about who you are. That would be shamelessness. And you don't do that because you don't seriously consider that you might have it wrong about yourself at times, or you might be limited in your view of yourself at times. So it's not even so much you're wrong about who you are, it's just that you're limited. You don't see, see something about yourself that others have seen about you. Uh, so it doesn't necessarily have to be a bad thing, it's just a limited thing. So, again, the example of the gentleness. I was, you know, in that moment, I realized, oh, okay, here's another perspective that's not that I'm limited in, and I can perhaps be gentle. And, you know, that was really affirming for me. So, so that's how I would describe shamelessness, following Thomas and maintaining what what it was meant by maintaining a capacity to shame, which is not the same as the actual experience of shame, just so that's really clear, is that that really means you're just open to others' perspectives on who you are, because you're choosing to respect them as moral agents, that they have opinions, views on the world, including of you, that are not your own. And you think that they could sometimes have some real way to bring a different perspective on who you are or whatever it might be, but again, we're talking about the self, but who you are to the table. Unfortunately, they can also get it wrong too. But maintaining this capacity to shame is really what I mean is this openness to other perspectives on who you are. And we do that because we don't think that we always see ourselves fully or correctly. And so if you're not going to entertain other perspectives on who you are, then we're slowly going down, if not already down, the route of shamelessness. And I think all of us would think shamelessness is probably not a good thing. Right. It's usually considered a moral deficiency in in culture.

SPEAKER_02 52:55

Yeah. Well, thank you. It was really helpful to hear your suggestions. I don't think I missed any of the, you gave some practical hints, but we hit scripture, we hit prayer and the psalms using that as a good one. Also community. Um maybe, yeah, maybe talk a little bit about that, the importance of community for your own journey, but also just generally to find that inner way out of shame. How do other people play? What role do they play?

SPEAKER_01 53:21

Yeah, I think one of the physiological characteristics of shame is that you want to hide. You feel small because your self-conception is kind of disappearing. So you feel small, you feel shrunk, and then you feel exposed also at the same time. And then you want to hide and you because you want that feeling to end. And because shame usually comes about through the perspective of others on who you are, uh, whether intentional or just off comments or whatever, then you want to isolate because you don't, you don't want to feel that way anymore. And so shame moves us towards isolation. And it's really hard, but we have to fight that and we need to remain in community because as we talked about earlier, it's really hard to get out of the shame hole once you're in it because you're defined by you. And so it's helpful to have an outside perspective to move you out of that circle of shame, that hole of shame you find yourself in. So community is going to be the best way to do that. And that's where our Christian communities are so important because as you said, we all have Christ in us, and therefore we can be Christ unto the other. And bringing God's perspective, God willing, to one another to say there, you aren't defined singularly by this one thing. And in fact, especially with physical appearance, there when people feel shame about their physical appearance, they're trying to f figure out their identity apart from their physical appearance. That's one of the things that they're trying to get out of. And it's so hard because we're embodied creatures. And so we can say, you are more than your physical appearance. There's more to you as revealed by God and His Word than how you look physically. And trying to help each other navigate that or whatever it is you're feeling shame about is gonna be so crucial because it's, as we know, it's so easy to see it in others. It's really hard to see it in yourself. So if we're coming alongside one another in community, not isolating, not hiding, but being open and truthful about what we're going through, which again, I know is hard, then we're gonna, you know, navigate this journey much easier, much more, I don't want to say productively, like fruitfully than if we're trying to do it on our own. And again, that was my experience when I got back from that retreat, asking friends, like sharing with friends what happened, saying, Hey, can you keep me accountable in these very practical particular areas of my life where I want to see who I am kind of break through? Like there's very specific things in my life at that time that I wanted to people's help in. And so had very trusted friends come alongside of me and check in with me and navigate that that path with me. Um, so community is is essential because again, shame wants you to be by yourself. Right. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 55:57

And it's all a process of you know, sanctification, becoming more in Christ, as Christ. And so I think what was what was a gift to me was seeing these moments of of feeling shame or shame as not necessarily all bad, but actually an opportunity to grow more fully into Christ.

SPEAKER_01 56:19

Yeah, exactly.

SPEAKER_02 56:20

And um, so as an opportunity, I thought maybe we'd end on a lovely quote from John O'Donohue that you or you can set it up. Why did you quote him in that article that you shared?

SPEAKER_01 56:32

Yeah, uh, in the article I was talking about outward journeys, like, you know, life is a journey, just the paths we find ourselves on, literally and figuratively. And then this inward journey that we have to go on in terms of who we are and figuring out who we are and having that refined and transformed. And so there's this wonderful Celtic philosopher, theologian, Celtic spirituality thinker named John O'Donohue. And he has this wonderful book of blessings and he has one for the traveler. And I just felt it's so apt to help describe this inner journey that we can find ourselves on. And um, whether in our moments of shame or just whether our it's in our moments of recognizing kind of limited ways we see ourselves or see others or whatever it might be, there's always these invitations to come to the Lord, to have him be our arbitrator and defender and to enter more fully into his vision of the world and of ourselves and of others. And so there's, I wrote it down here because I don't want to misquote him because it's so beautiful. So I just found this part of this blessing. I'll quote part of this blessing that he's he's written for the traveler. And um it's one of the last stanzas, I believe. And he says, May you travel in an awakened way, gathered wisely into your inner ground, that you may not waste the invitations which wait along the way to transform you. And I believe that this openness to the perspectives of others, which can happen in shame, is also this invitation to be transformed by this divine perspective that longs to see us become the fullest expression of ourselves as we were made to be in Christ. And that that will be the way that we enter into that fullness is in Him, I think.

SPEAKER_02 58:18

Amen.

SPEAKER_01 58:18

Thank you so much for being with us. Thanks for having me today.

SPEAKER_00 58:25

Thank you for joining us for this thoughtful and moving episode of the Upwards Podcast. Our thanks to Shannon Parrott for her honesty, insight, and theological depth as she helped us reflect on shame, identity, and the transforming presence of Christ, who meets us not in condemnation, but in truth, love, and reorientation toward who we are in Him. If this episode stirred something in you, we encourage you to spend time in Scripture, especially the Psalms, and to seek the support of trusted community as you walk your own journey of formation. To hear more conversations like this, subscribe to the Upwards Podcast wherever you listen and visit slbf.org slash studio. Until next time, keep looking upward and living with purpose. Go in peace.