Why shaming yourself never actually works

I ate way too much chocolate last night. Here's what it taught me.

Last night my wife and I sat down to play a board game.

Somewhere near the end of the game I noticed I’d gone through most of a bag of dark chocolate chips, a handful of pretzels, and a small mountain of almonds.

Not exactly a crime. But I’ve been on this journey of wanting more energy in my body, and I’ve learned that eating sweets and such after dinner doesn’t support a good sleep.

So sure enough, I tossed and turned all night and woke up around 4:10am .

And there, in the dark, I had a couple choices. I could judge myself for it. Or I could give myself grace.

I’ve learned this slowly, and mostly by getting it wrong first, but if I keep shaming myself for something, I don’t change. I just get better at hiding it, or better at hating myself for it. And that’s not very helpful.

So instead I try to catch the “I should stop eating sweets” voice and trade it for something truer. “I genuinely want to feel healthier. That’s the real desire of my heart.” Not an ‘I should’, but an ‘I want to’.

That one shift, from ‘should’ to ‘want to’, turns a shame push into a heart pull.

I was also talking with a friend this week who was carrying something similar, just heavier. She kept telling me that if she couldn’t fix a certain pattern in herself, that made her a bad person. Unworthy, even.

I found myself telling her what I’d tell my own daughter, who once asked me why people smoke. I explained that some things feel good to our bodies even when they’re not good for us. She said, “Well, I’m not going to do that, because I don’t want to be bad.” And I had to catch her in that statement.

Just because someone smokes doesn’t mean they’re bad. Just because I eat too many sweets at night doesn’t mean I’m bad. And just because you’re finding something hard to overcome doesn’t mean you are a problem to be fixed (a person who is fundamentally flawed).

Consequences are real, yes… but consequences were never God’s way of telling you that you’re flawed. God doesn’t make flawed things so that’s not even a concept He thinks about. So the whole idea of “bad choice = bad person”, was never His. Someone else taught you that.

And here’s the thing... you don’t change by believing it harder. You change the same way I’m slowly learning to change: by letting yourself be loved in the middle of it, not after you’ve earned your way out of it.

Scripture for today:

“Don’t you realize how kind, tolerant, and patient God is with you? Does this mean nothing to you? Can’t you see that his kindness is intended to turn you from your sin?”

— Romans 2:4, NLT

Not his anger. Not his disappointment. His kindness. That’s the thing that actually moves us.

Try this Receiving Prayer:

Find a quiet minute. Take a few slow breaths, in through your nose, out through your mouth.

Picture yourself in God’s presence. Not the version of him that keeps score, the real one, the one whose eyes are full of compassion when he looks at you.

Now bring him something you’ve been shaming yourself over. Something you keep telling yourself you should stop doing, or should have already fixed.

Ask him gently: “Lord, what do you want to say to me about this?”

Just wait. Notice what comes. A word, a feeling, a sense of his presence, a memory. Don’t rush past it.

If what you hear sounds like kindness rather than a scorecard, that’s probably him. Let it land and breathe it in. You don’t have to fix yourself before you’re allowed to receive it.

Amen,
Tyson