The Anxious Need for Emotional Regulation: How shame & guilt play a role in how we interact with others

So far, throughout the articles, I have introduced the theological implications for the enoughness of addicts and the negative effects of purity culture both as a detriment to the Christian Church and the support of the porn industry. If you haven’t yet read about those things. Go back to the Hineni Counseling page and check them out. They are worth the read! Before I begin writing about the way out of the problem, I want to introduce the topic of how emotions and trauma play a role in keeping someone in the grip of sex addiction.

Our emotional lives play a significant role in binding us to sex addiction and keeping us there. The neuroaffective etiology of sex addiction will eventually receive more attention in future articles, but the emotional component of God’s design for sex cannot be overstated. The diagram above is a starting point for recognizing the significant influence of emotion in both the initiation and perpetuation of addiction. It is a starting point for the theoretical and theological understanding of addiction therapy because the consideration of client behaviors and reactivity during treatment is essential to the task of transformational change and not behavioral change only.

Thanks for reading! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work.

When a person dysfunctionally self-regulates their emotions (or keeps themselves feeling safe), they do so by acting out. Acting out may mean any number of things (in the case of many who attend my recovery groups, this means looking at p*rn while masturbating). Bursts of anger that push loved ones away, excessive numbing activities, or withdrawal and isolation are just a few tools people use to regulate their emotional load. If one is caught up in addictive patterns, then achieving a numb and flat affect is their goal. If they can maintain this affect, they will not have to deal with the consequences of incessant shame and guilt for their behaviors. The diagram then, is a look at the emotional cycle of addiction. In the numb space, the addict feels safe from the perceived dangers of emotions and connections at any level. In a short time, the addict becomes so flat that any emotion expressed by their loved ones is perceived as a threat, and (with great irony) they use angry outbursts or cutting words to push their family away to keep their feeling of safety in flatness. Therefore, the arrows within the diagram represent the push and pull of emotions and bids for connection between the addict and those who love him or her.

A self-regulating person manages their emotions by acting out when confronted with emotions that shame or fear tell them are not acceptable. This works because the brain chemically responds to acting out as a mood enhancer (at least for the moment they are engaged in it, then shame takes over again).

Shame is the primary emotion that perpetuates the lies that real sorrow and joy are unacceptable; therefore, the person uses addiction to keep them in the flat (emotionally safe) zone. Self-regulation (or pursuit of power, pleasure, and security as it manifests with anger, withdrawal, or other dysfunctional behaviors) becomes a means of staying safe. This is why it is so difficult to let it go. It requires an extraordinary amount of vulnerability and transparency - all of which shame shouts at them not to do. Dysfunctional behaviors become an attachment in and of themselves and require a grieving process to let go. A person can recognize the need for change, but if not given time or permission to grieve their dysfunctional attachment, they will find themselves back in it again because that is what is safe, regardless of the social, financial, or other costs.

The flat zone is the safe zone for a self-regulating person. There, no one can attach to them and challenge their false deflated self. This behavioral pattern is most often learned through attachment traumas from the family of origin. Chaotic attachment patterns (i.e., ultra-rigid, fused, or both) create an environment suitable for poor coping behaviors to take root because of the inherent need for emotional compartmentalization. The diagram illustrates how they become fixed. This may be natural, but natural is not always right. They are survival mechanisms absent from the love of our Father God. We need more than survival; we need to thrive!

These self-protective measures (triggers) are made known to us through our defensiveness. Our thirst for power, security, and pleasure is driven by shame and fear. Shame and fear are rooted in our hearts when we purchase the lies of the world that tell us that congruity with God is too costly. This cycle of fear, shame, and defensiveness perpetuates itself until God occupies our consciousness and tenderizes our hearts through the hardships of this world.

Desires for self-protection limit our scope of understanding, but if we are vulnerable, there is room for God to enter. When we are awakened to the fullness of the creation of God and the intensity of His desire for us, we can laugh with those who laugh and weep with those who weep because these things are no longer a threat to our own power, pleasure, or security. The desire for these things left us when we emotionally integrated with the Spirit of God because we know that he supplies these things for us. We no longer have to try to make them happen for ourselves.

Ultimately, shame is the repercussion of our disconnection from God.

This process is a double-edged sword and particularly difficult for men because male culture rewards compartmentalization and strives to train emotional vulnerability out of the available repertoire of emotional tools. While this may sound wise from a strictly tactical sense, it severely hampers emotional growth and damages relationships. This also makes them far more vulnerable to angry outbursts, addiction, and emotional withdrawal as a means of coping with the stress of re-integrating the compartments – something that any healthy spouse will demand. Compartmentalizing life creates avenues for lies and the potential for living double or triple lives. I have met more than a few people who are one person at work, another at home, and yet another online. When these different aspects of life are not in congruence with one another, shame is given a place to grow as secrets are compounded with acts of betrayal against family and one’s own conscience. For these people, the demand for numbness is profoundly strong.

The good news is that the addict has hope for recovery! The fear and shame that keep them in the bonds of addiction can be recognized and rooted out! Brene Brown, in her incredible book, Daring Greatly, outlined the differences between shame, guilt, embarrassment and humiliation. They are often confused with each other but are very different. Consider the following quote highlighting some of these differences according to her research:

When we apologize for something we’ve done, make amends, or change a behavior that doesn’t align with our values, guilt—not shame—is most often the driving force. We feel guilty when we hold up something we’ve done or failed to do against our values and find they don’t match up. Guilt is just as powerful as shame, but its influence is positive, while shame is destructive. In fact, in my research, I found that shame corrodes the very part of us that believes we can change and do better… We live in a world where most people still subscribe to the belief that shame is a good tool for keeping people in line. Not only is this wrong, but it is dangerous… Shame is highly correlated with addiction, violence, aggression, depression, eating disorders, and bullying. Researchers don’t find shame correlated with positive outcomes at all—there are no data to support that shame is a helpful compass for good behavior. In fact, shame is much more likely to be the cause of destructive and hurtful behaviors than it is to be the solution.[1]

These powerful conclusions from her research should inspire us to find and root out shame as much as possible. Embarrassment and humiliation are sometimes confused with guilt, but they are very different. To help us understand the differences between the four feelings, consider the following fictional scenario.

Let’s assume that I ate a monster burrito for lunch. It was great, but it also began to push on my gut as all the delicious ingredients expanded. Uh oh, I’m in the middle of a grocery store! I look left and right and am relieved to discover that I am alone in the aisle, so I release the pressure.

In that moment, a mother with a baby in tow turns the corner and begins her long walk down the aisle filled with my truly noteworthy stink.

She sniffs the air and realizes that something has happened. At this point, I am embarrassed. I am red in the face, and my heart beats a bit faster. However, she does not stop there. She scowls and yells at me. “You!” She says, pointing at me. “You did this! Don’t you know that food is served here!” Now I feel humiliation. Humiliation was imposed on me. It is not something that I chose. A crowd begins to gather. It is clear that a response is required. I can respond with one of two options. Either shame or guilt. If I respond with shame, I have allowed this circumstance to be a defining moment for me. Shame says, “I am.”

In this scenario, shame says that I AM the grocery store farter. If that is who I truly am, I cannot change it. It has an existential grip on me. Because it is an awful thing, it becomes something I must hide and protect so that no one can ever see it again.

In this scenario, if I react with shame, I will get angry and deny, deny, deny. I will demand that she show proof it was me and cry out, “How dare you!” trying desperately to put the attention upon her, making me the “true” victim of her cruel attack. No one must know that I AM the grocery store soiler! Who I AM is deficient.

If I react with guilt, then I recognize that what I DID is not who I AM and I have extraordinary freedom to simply lay it out in the open. No existential threat exists. I can confess. I tell her, “I did that. I’m sorry.” We do our best to prevent this from happening again. Notice that with this response, I do not have a need to correct her obnoxious behavior. I do not need to call her out for willingly humiliating me. I simply take responsibility for what I did, put it out into the light, and then move on with my life. I have nothing to protect or hide. I AM a child of the Most-High God, and I happened to do something stupid. It does not define me.

Ultimately, shame is the repercussion of our disconnection from God and who he says we are. I find it best to relate to shame as a personified evil bent on consuming our fear to meet its own needs. It is a parasite that feeds on our destructive emotions. When it begins to run out of food, it strives to create more fear so that it can grow bigger in the dark places of our souls. Our job is to shed light on it. We do this with our own vulnerability and the courage to talk about our fears, disappointments, and grief. When we do this, shame begins to starve. It cannot survive in the light of disclosure and begins to wither away.

Theologically, we may see shame as Satan’s attempt to create a guilt lookalike. He is not God, no matter how desperately he wants to be. He cannot create as God can, although he will try. Through his attempts, he will deceive us if we allow him to. If he can mire us in shame, then his cohort becomes stronger in our lives and we become weaker. The more permission we give the demonic realm to be active in our lives, the more fear, shame, and torment we will encounter as a result. Therefore, true freedom means breaking agreements with the enemy and disavowing his false and distorted “creation” of shame and honoring guilt for the light-bringing helpful process that it really is. When God’s light shines in dark places, guilt is the inevitable result. The better we are able to embrace guilt, the better we will feel and the more freedom we will encounter.

Remorse and regret occur when I hold my behaviors up against my values and fall short. This logically means that the values I carry are a truer reflection of who I am than the poor behaviors that I exhibited and am now remorseful over, especially if I am anchored in the truth of God’s word.

However, when shame is fully recognized as the enemy and the addict is able to root it out, vulnerability is the result. Authentic connections can occur because empathy has broken loose, and the addict is able to feel the consequences of the damage he or she has done. This signifies the beginning of the end of addiction. The addict is now better able to rejoice with those who rejoice and to weep with those who weep.[2]

A theological narrative may sound like this: shame creates disconnection by twisting the essence of the God-given connection. Believing that we will be connected by indulging in what the Law was designed to protect us from, we feed shame’s power and create even more disconnection. The absolute opposite of what we ultimately desire, were created for, and were falsely promised by shame. Shame is all the while laughing at the consequences of disconnection.

That shame promises connection and looks like holiness (in so far as we can generate our own, which is nothing) is no accident, for shame is the shadow of holiness, wrapped in the darkness of deceit, the whispers of the prince of lies who desires more than anything to supplant his own Creator and make himself a god.

Christ’s work connects humans with the unlimited grace of God, eliminating our bind to the Law and giving shame the final death blow! Satan’s scheme was flanked and overcome! By paving the way for connection, he broke the cycle of shame. We are not enough! We must know God to remind us that we are enough (with him).

These principles are not just for the addict but also for the therapist. A fully integrated and transparent therapist can fully attune to their clients without the threat of emotional takeover. The attunement the therapist shares with the client is not his or her own alone but is shared with the emotion of God himself. With the freedom illustrated above, I am more highly differentiated from my clients’ emotions. The threat of countertransference is less, and as the therapist works with the client, the threat of transference is also minimized.

For the client, the greatest antidote to shame’s deception, on the joy side of the spectrum, is declaring and experiencing gratitude when feeling a joyful moment. They must simply allow themselves to BE in the moment and thank God for it.

The greatest antidote to the deception of shame on the side of sorrow (especially when we are the cause of it) is to empathize with the person in sorrow and stick with it. Addicts must allow themselves to experience sorrow and speak to the wounds of others without dismissing them. Calling out shame and rooting it out enables empathy, and empathy enables validation of another’s suffering at the hands of the addict. Recognizing suffering at their own hands enables genuine grief, which enables genuine surrender to God and to their circle of trusted friends and family.

[1] Brene Brown, Daring Greatly. Pp.72-73

[2] Romans 12:15-18