Who is Really to Blame for Whitney Houston's Death?

I had the pleasure of attending the traveling play "End of the Rainbow". It's the story of the last days of Judy Garland's life (star of The Wizard of Oz).  She was on and off drugs. Her voice was failing. People took advantage of her.  Her shows were often wrecks but she was still a delightful person.

I left sad that this incredible talent lived trapped in a culture of people who didn't know how to manage her nor did she know how to manage herself. She died at the age of 47.

Two days later I learned of Whitney Houston's death. It was like déjà vu.  Having just learned of Garland's end Houston's death made sense. There were so many similarities.

There is a lot of finger-pointing now. Who is to blame? Is it Whitney? Is it her friends? Her doctors? Even God?

The finger-pointing itself is a sign of our broken culture. We don't get it. We are so desperate for a hero... a savior... that when a talent comes along we enshrine them and give them whatever they want as long as they keep us happy. We push them away from us to preserve them for our own benefit leaving them bereft of a healthy context to live.

We want more and more from them and so they comply to get the affirmations they so desperately crave.  If it takes a pill here or there, so be it. It's all for the "greater good". It turns into a very sick symbiotic relationship; each party dependent on the other to survive.

But when our heroes crash and burn what do  we do? We either denounce them or we worship them one last time.. .sadly, with a funeral. Ultimately the end result is the same... we move on and look for the next savior to enthrone.

Who is to blame? To the extent that we embrace this craziness, we all are.  When we remove God from the equation we naturally go looking for a savior, in a person or a bottle or on a stage. Put God back into the equation and we regain perspective and balance.

We should be thankful for a talent like Whitney Houston's. She was a gift to us all.  We should nurture people with these gifts not milk them dry and then discard them.

The culture is broken. But we can breathe life and dignity back into it by reversing the disease in small ways. I'm all for that.

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Connecting the Dots to Past Pain

People don't give themselves much credit.

Does that describe you? They see dysfunction in their life and assume that they are just messed up. They are deficient by nature and will never get any better. There are haves and have nots in the world and they conclude that they  are one of the have nots.

This is shame.  We all have it to some degree.  But if you look deeper...if you connect the dots in your past...you'll see that you aren't "just messed up".  There is a theme. There is cause and effect.  And once you see that then you don't feel like such a misfit.  It breeds hope.

The lie we believe is that if something is wrong inside...we are ALL wrong.  Not true.  Another lie is that if something is wrong that it can't be fixed. Not true either. Don't give up on yourself so easily.

You can break the pattern of your past. You can reverse the trend. It's cause and effect. First you have to believe it's possible. Then you need a plan. And finally,  you need to take action.

My point is...give yourself some credit. You have issues. Sure. We all do. But there is something you can do about them. You don't have to stay stuck. God is present right now to help you move to a better place.

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Are You Worthless or Just Flawed?

Shame is rooted in the lies we believe about ourselves. Where there are no lies there is no shame.  A big lie that many believe, in one form or another, is that we are worthless.  We see a flaw, an imperfection or defect in ourselves and we take the flying leap of logic that if we are flawed we might as well give up. 

That’s a huge mistake. 

Here’s a secret that you might not know: we are all flawed. No one is perfect. We all wrestle with something. There. Does that help?  It doesn’t fix your flaw but another lie of shame is that YOU are the only one with a problem. YOU don’t fit in. Everyone else has their act together. YOU are a misfit. 

Don’t go there.   

It helps to know that we are all in the same boat.  We are all flawed. We all need help and that’s why rather than pointing the finger at each other we should come together to help and encourage each other. Most people work very hard at covering up their flaws. But don't be fooled. They are there. You are not alone.

The Bible tells us that something happened to us as a race.  We lost something.  Something’s missing. It’s been that way from the beginning.  That’s not a lie. That’s the truth and we all know it.   There' no need to beat each other up about it or judge people for it.  

But it's helpful  to know what kind of material we are starting with when we seek to find healing for our hurts. Denying our flaws only prolongs the healing. Embrace the flaw and move on. I can’t get healing for my disease until I admit I have it.  Don’t let the shame of your issues cause you to go into hiding. Face the truth. Admit your flaws and seek help. And most importantly...invite God into the process. He knows what’s missing. He will lead you to a place of help and healing if you listen and follow.

To learn more check out Healing the Hurts of Your Past.

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Helping Hurting People TV Interview (5min)

I was recently interviewed on our NBC affiliate about my book. Part one here gives a little background on me plus the problem of shame, why I wrote the book, and who the book was written for.  


Part two gives a brief summary of the solution to healing emotional hurts like depression, etc.  To see part two click this link to WEAU

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Defining the Pain of Shame

Everybody experiences shame...at some level.  We may not be in touch with it. But it's there. 

The Bible is right. Somewhere... somehow... something went seriously wrong. We lost our way and fell short of what we were created to be.

None of us are perfect, yet... we long for perfection. When we miss the mark, it feels bad. For some it's a fleeting twinge of pain that comes on occasion. For other's it's a stabbing pain that stalks them daily.

That's shame.

Shame is a sense of worthlessness, a sense of being defective. Someone described it to me once as being "damaged goods"... like you are a dropped product in a store and so you get removed from the shelf and tossed in the back, waiting to be thrown out. You've lost your value. And because of that you have this overriding sense of not belonging, not fitting in.

Shame also involves the fear of exposure. YOU know that you are defective but the game of life is to keep other people from knowing it. It's bad enough to BE flawed, but it's doubly bad to have the world gawking at your flaws, either shaking their head in derision or laughing at your futility.

Shame causes you to live in a fear of rejection. If you are flawed and don't fit in, then it's only natural that when you are exposed that you will be rejected. Who wants to associate with a loser?

It's no wonder that shames causes so much pain.

Inherent to shame are the lies we believe. Where there are no lies there is no shame. It's the lies of shame that cause us to leap from the idea of "damaged" to "worthless" or from "flawed" to "forgettable". That's where it's so important to find a source outside of ourselves that defines our worth. If we return to the God that created us we'll find that he's not there to condemn us but give us the value that he always intended for us to have. That's where healing begins.

Read a sample of the book here.  

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Parenting without Shame

Someone stopped me the other day and said, "I bought your book and I'm getting a lot out of it in regard to parenting".  I had to smile because I get that a lot. The book wasn't written with parents in mind but so many of my examples refer to parenting that it's a natural connection.

I suppose I could rework the book using the same information and just target parents. But in the mean time you should know that the book can help you in this department. In fact, it definitely helped me with my parenting. Fifteen years ago when I was researching the topic of shame it dawned on me that I had shame issues and I was passing them on to my children. You've probably heard it said that "hurt people hurt". Well, "shamed people shame" as well.


I sat my teenage kids down and explained what I had learned about myself. I defined shame.  I  told them what it looked like in our lives and apologized for my shaming ways. I warned them that I'd probably still do it some more...I was a work in progress...but I wanted them to know what it looked like so they would know when to discount what I might say or do. I've come a long way over the years. I have a pretty good "shame detector" in my brain now that keeps me from shaming people or at least alerts me to when I do it so I can apologize appropriately.


Healing the Hurts of Your Past will help you see what it looks like to shame your children and how to reframe your parenting to be more positive in your approach.

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What is Theophostic Prayer Ministry (TPM)?

In my book I make a brief reference to Theophostic Prayer Ministry (TPM). Put simply, it is one of many forms of prayer for inner healing of emotional wounds.

A little background as it relates to me. About twelve years ago I was doing a lot of counseling at church and getting pretty frustrated. It didn't matter what I told people...it didn't matter how powerful the truth was...people weren't finding freedom on a consistent basis. That just seemed wrong to me.

Then a fellow pastor shared with me a video series on prayer for inner healing. It was about a new approach called Theophostic Prayer.  The word theophostic simply means "God's light". It refers to God revealing the source of our emotional pain and then healing us. I watched the videos and I was struck by the simplicity of it. I'm over simplifying it here but it basically involves a prayer facilitator helping a person find the source of their emotional pain through prayer.  

I was trained in this technique and worked with many clients. I then trained a few people in my church who built a ministry around this technique. We have seen hundreds of people set free from deep issues of depression, shame, anger, etc. as a result. The frustration that I  had in my previous counseling experience evaporated as person after person found true freedom.

Sadly, TPM has taken some criticism from people that don't understand the nature of it.  However when you compare the few who have criticism to the tens of thousands of people using this prayer ministry in over 150 countries worldwide the criticism becomes minuscule. Also, TPM has been maligned, not so much for the process but the facilitator. As with any counseling profession, there are good counselors and bad ones. But we don't negate the counseling profession just because of a bad counselor. So don't let the criticism of TPM scare you away.

My book, Healing the Hurts of Your Past,  is an excellent primer for TPM, that is, it doesn't teach you how to do it but it helps you understand the role that lies play in our dysfunction and how we can find true freedom. 

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The Lion King and Shame

I teach through the content of my book at least six times a year at the local treatment center. I'm always amazed at the clarity that showing clips from The Lion King movie bring to the teaching. It's a real eye opener to people. It's a movie that most people have seen but they've never seen the teachable moments. Let me lay out the basics;

• The roots of Simba's shame: trauma, abuse, ridicule (he saw his father killed)
• The lies of shame: "It's my fault" and since he felt disqualified... "I'm not the king"
• The fruit of believing these lies: Isolation. He ran away from his community.
• The solution: His father told him..."Remember who you are", that is, the king.

We live what we believe even if what we believe is wrong. How many of us have put a limit on our success and happiness because we don't believe we deserve it?  What if success and happiness wasn't related to deserving it? What if success and happiness was a gift given by a loving God? If you were to believe THAT do you think things might change?


In the movie, Simba chose to believe he was the king and in remembering who he was he returned to take the throne. The emotional high point of the story is when  he climbs Pride Rock to claim his rightful role as king. I wonder...what will it take to reclaim your rightful place in life?

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Shame and Sabbath

I'm doing some study on the Sabbath right now. The Sabbath was instituted by God to make us stop and reflect...to enjoy all that God has given us rather than continually striving for more.


It occurred to me that there is a connection between shame and not taking a Sabbath rest. Hurt/shamed people are often driven people. They are driven to prove their worth, driven to make up for past regrets, driven to show that they aren't as hopeless as they feel.


But God calls us to stop, find his rest and hear his voice. Rather than chase the approval of the world, listen to God's voice of unconditional acceptance and approval...not for what you've done through your striving but for who you are...his child.


Maybe you are afraid to stop, rest and listen for fear of what you will hear. Maybe the voices you hear are not of God but of yourself or your parents or other people telling you to do more, work harder, make something of yourself. That's not the voice of God. Listen harder. Listen closer. Beneath all the busyness is a voice calling you to Himself, calling you to wholeness simply by finding your identity in Him. But in order to hear that voice you need to stop and listen. That's what Sabbath is about.

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Coping Mechanisms and Shame

A big section of my book focuses on the "fruit" of shame. These are really coping mechanisms that we use to help take the edge off the pain of shame.

I compare these coping mechanisms to a person carrying a tool belt full of tools.  We all want to be prepared. We all know that every job requires it's own set of tools.  And so it is with shame. We have a variety of tools to deal with it. We might be a perfectionist one day, a people-pleaser the next and an intimidator the next. Whatever it takes.

People often see this range of behavior and it concerns them. They don't know what's wrong with them. It makes no sense. It's like they have multiple personalities.  But once you understand shame it all makes sense. They don't have multiple personalities or even multiple problems. They have one problem; shame. They just have a variety of ways of dealing with it.

But tool belts get heavy. The more tools the more weight and the more weight the harder life is day to day. Trying to prevent the pain of shame is a full time job. It requires a lot of tools and a lot of skill. Shame alone is bad enough. But trying to prevent it or cover it up makes life that much harder. It wears you out.

So why not just deal with it? Just because you have shame doesn't mean that you are obligated to keep it. We are about to turn the page on a new year. What if 2012 was the year you quit coping with shame and you eliminated it instead?

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Connecting the Dot's of Past Pain

One thing I've found is that people often don't give themselves much credit. They see dysfunction in their life and they assume that they are just messed up. They are deficient by nature and will never get any better. There are haves and have nots in the world and they are one of the have nots.


But what I do in my book is to help you connect the dots of your past. There are roots of shame that everyone has. Each root typically produces a number of lies that speak to us on a daily basis. It's no wonder we have the problems we do. If what we believe about ourselves is wrong then our behavior will naturally be wrong (self-defeating). Garbage in. Garbage out.


My book helps diagnose the garbage that has gone into your life. You'll learn about the lies you believe and what caused them in the first place. I then show you why those lies cause the dysfunctional behavior you have. But more than diagnose the problem I help you to see how you can break the patterns of behavior that the lies have produced in your life.


My point is...give yourself some credit. You have issues. Sure. We all do. But there is something you can do about them. You don't have to be stuck. God is present right now to help you move to a better place.

Note: I'm switching my blogsite to a new host. Please visit readingremy.com and subscribe!

Help for Past Hurts

New Book

My guess is you landed here because you are looking for some help. You are hurting. Or maybe someone you love is hurting.  Maybe I can help.

There are many voices out there. I don't pretend to have THE answer. But I have helped many people get on the right track spiritually and emotionally over the years. Maybe I can help you too.

My new book, Healing the Hurts of Your Past, is the material that I've been teaching in seminars, at church, and in a treatment center for the past twelve years. I'm both a pastor and a spirituality director at an addiction treatment center. Between the two places I've dealt with many hurting people.

The book is dense...meaning it's not full of light stories to make you feel good for a passing moment.. It's half diagnostic and half solutions based. In other words I get right down  to the nitty gritty of what makes you hurt and then help you learn how you can fix what's broken.

No apologies...I'll always point you to God through Jesus Christ. But my approach is low key so even if you don't believe right now...give me a chance. Hear me out. Many nonbelievers have walked away giving faith and God another look. Others have found help but left out the faith part.

I'll be posting thoughts now and then. Feel free to write me with your questions. I hope you'll give my book a read and let me know what you think.

The book is available on Kindle as well as paperback.