A recorded discussion (Jan 2024) led by Nick Stumbo with Rodney about how shame damages relationships — causing secrecy, isolation, distorted identity, people-pleasing, and projecting family-of-origin beliefs onto God. Nick shares personal testimony of recovery, how sharing his story and participating in Pure Desire groups began healing shame, and how authenticity models healthy behavior for children and community.
Maybe one of the reasons we don't deal with shame as serious as we should is we might be listening to another lie that says, well, this is just about me. It's only impacting me. And I don't want to, you know, bring it up, burden others. But, Rodney, what are ways that you have seen that shame impacts our relationships, our spouses, our kids? When we're carrying shame, how is that inevitably impacting others?
Well, Traci would just always say to me, what you model is more important than what you say. So sometimes if you don't even really see it. But I think for me, I've shared my story many times on the podcast, but I found sobriety from behavior, but still had a lot of shame connected to my sexual addiction or to pornography and acting out. And so, boy, that shame, I think, was a piece of my journey for a while. And I think it did affect my kids in the sense of just, I couldn't go there to talk about it as freely as I could, or it maybe impeded me from living in fear. I hope they don' or walking on eggshells around that subject matter. And that's why I'm just going to go back to do a shameless plug. Shameless. Here's that word. But that's where. When I started Pure Desire in our local church in Coeur d', Alene, Idaho, and I shared my story with our congregation about my journey of healing 16 years ago. And then I led groups, and then the Christ in Nick began to speak. Whoa. The Christ in Nick began to speak to the brokenness in me and the Christ in Trevor, the groups of Joe and John and these guys. It really began to heal the shame of, like, wow, I can be loved. And it lifted for me. And so that's what I'm saying. And then guys would say, nothing has discipled me better in my faith in these seven pillar groups, because they've really found that, wow, I can be seen and known and loved. And so it was community for me that really healed that shame. And I think it does affect. I mean, you know, to hear one of my kids say, dad, I wouldn't be this long on my recovery if it weren't for you. Thank you for leading the way in your authenticity. I now can look at some of the things in my life and, you know, that's probably. That was probably one of my proudest days as a dad when my son could look me in the eyes and say that to me, you know, I'm farther along because of your authenticity. And you're being real. I mean, what more do you want? You know, that you can help your kids really know how to love themselves well, and grow in that.
Yeah. You know, too. It's one of those things that our own view of ourself or even our. Our own family of origin can often get projected onto the Lord. And so it's easy for us to see. Well, if I can't even love myself, surely God can't love me. Or oftentimes shame would, you know, say to us too. And I think it's the same thing in Genesis 3. They're running away because they're afraid of God, that God won't be loving to them even though they did this bad thing. And so I think that it absolutely becomes a hurdle to experience relationship with the Lord. It also creates secrecy and creates isolation and pulling away from community and relationship, which, if you've ever been in a relationship where you see that play out, you know, you may not know what's going on, but you feel that you feel someone pulling away in relationship. And I really do think another way that it negatively impacts our community is that we're not able to be ourselves. And as we're able to be ourselves and use our gifting and the unique perspective, you know, maybe God has given us that other people are losing out on that. Like, you know, God has gifted us and designed us in ways that we're supposed to, like iron sharpening iron. This.
We need you to be you 100%. We need Nick to be 100% me.
It keeps me from being me, which keeps someone else from potentially growing and vice versa.
Yeah.
I think one other aspect of how shame impacts relationships is it really can twist relationships because of what we're trying to get from them. So if you think about this being an identity issue and we're meant to find our core identity and who God made us to be and being made new in Christ. But I'm carrying around a false identity of I'm not good enough, I don't have what it takes. Yeah, I know for me, as like a people pleaser and being something I really struggled with, what I was doing in those relationships was trying to get you to. To help me feel like I was good enough. More like I did have what it takes. And if I wasn't getting that from you, particularly if we were friends or you were my wife or. Or people I was leading as a pastor, like, I would find myself making decisions to try to pull that out of. Like, am I enough? Do I have what it takes? Do you love me? Do you value me? Not realizing that ultimately that was a shame message that I was trying to fix through others.
Right.
That really needed to be addressed first with Christ. And others can be a part of our healing, but not if what we're trying to get from them is am I good enough or do I have what it takes? Like that has to get answered in a deeper way so that then when I'm in relationship with others, I know I'm good enough in Christ. And whether you think that or not, I mean, yeah, it's still going to bother me. I still have some people pleasing tendencies, but I don't need you to identify who I am anymore. And that really makes a difference.
You had the courage to take a deep dive and go there and ask those questions about why do I do what I do? Where's that coming from? And so your recovery, your groups, the things you're giving yourself to have really helped you in that process. And I think yay. That you've invested in yourself enough to. To discover and learn and grow. And I think that's what we'd like all of our listeners to do is say, yeah, you're worthy of help. Go get it.
