Shame is one of the enemy’s most crippling lies; it tells us we are our mistakes, that we’re unworthy of love, and beyond redemption. But as daughters of the King, our identity is not defined by our past. In this episode of Born to Be a Butterfly, Nina Pajonas shares how to break free from the chains of shame and step fully into the freedom Christ offers. You’ll learn the powerful difference between guilt and shame, discover why shame distorts your identity, and explore biblical truth that crushes the enemy’s lies.

Through Scripture, real talk, and healing exercises, Nina shows you how to replace shame with God’s promises and reclaim your worth in Christ. If you’ve ever battled self-condemnation, regret, or painful memories, this episode will encourage you to shed the past, embrace forgiveness, and walk confidently in God’s unconditional love.

🦋 If this episode blessed you, please leave a review to help more people find hope and healing.

🎧 Listen now and step into the freedom God has for you!

Hello, friend. Welcome to Born to be a Butterfly, a podcast where we dive deep into healing, faith, and transformation.

Today, we're going to talk about something that holds so many of us back. Shame.

Shame is what keeps us stuck in our past because it whispers lies that we're not good enough, that we're unlovable, and that we're beyond redemption. In this episode, we're breaking free from the lies of the enemy.

So if shame has ever kept you trapped, this episode is for you. First, we should discuss what the difference between shame and guilt is. And there's a big difference. I think a lot of people don't realize how significant a difference there is between the two, so I'm going to start there.

The difference between guilt and shame is that guilt says I did something bad, whereas shame says I am something. Something bad. Do you hear the difference?

I think of guilt as a guide. Guilt advises me that something I said or something I did wasn't quite nice, right? Or just wasn't my best behavior, wasn't my best reaction.

Whatever the case may be. Guilt alerts me to the. The fact that I might need to look at something and kind of rectify it, whether that be through an apology or as we say in recovery and amends.

It's where I'm taking ownership and responsibility for my actions, recognizing that they weren't great or weren't good, and then fully doing the right thing and apologizing for that and. And then moving forward, trying to do better, right?

Because we don't want to keep repeating the same behaviors, the same patterns, the journey be that we're moving away from that and learning a better way to respond or react to something.

Shame is a whole nother story. Shame tells me I am something bad, which means that now it's distorting my identity.

So in Christian terms, I would think guilt is kind of advising me or showing me where I've sinned, where I've erred in my ways. And shame is telling me that I am sin,

like I am the thing that I did. So, okay, a perfect example. Let's say a child stole a piece of gum from the store. And then the child goes home, and maybe they tell their parent and the parent says, you stole that gum.

That's terrible. You need to return it or we need to pay for it. You didn't earn that. That's. You know, that wasn't yours, and we're going to have to go back and either pay for it or you're going to have to give it back.

Whatever the case may be, again, righting the wrong that was done in behavior or action.

That would be the parent reprimanding the child on their behavior,

which would evoke guilt. Not that we want them drowning in it, but just that they get a moral compass, if you will. Now, same scenario. Child steals the gum, comes home, parent finds out, and now the parent is saying to the child, you're a thief.

I can't believe I live with a thief. I can't believe I raised a thief. Well, now you've told the child that they are what they did, right? You didn't tell them that it was bad to steal.

And let's go back and let's rectify it. Now you've told the child that they are to identify themselves with the one bad thing that they did. So shame distorts our identity in that way because it's basically saying that we are the things that we have done.

And that's just not true. True, and especially not in Christ, because we are redeemed and we are restored and we are transformed. We are forgiven of our sins, and so, no, we are not the things we did.

He has paid for our sins. He paid for our sins on the cross. And so shame is a liar.

Shame is. Is like a prison in our own mind,

I would eva venture to say, in our hearts and in our souls. In recovery,

we often say that we're as sick as our secrets. And the reason we say that is because most of our secrets are things that we are ashamed about. Those parts of our stories where we experienced shame, where we're still carrying it, those are the parts of our stories that we usually don't seek help about.

Those are the parts of us that we usually don't let anyone see. And when we don't, and we put those things, those horrible things that we think define us into the dark corner of our, you know, our minds or kind of hide it, tuck it away somewhere, hope nobody sees it,

because if they see it, they'll know who I really am. And if they. They know who I really am, they really won't like me. That is such nonsense. And that's exactly what the enemy wants you to think.

The enemy wants you to think that whatever it is that you feel ashamed of is so horrible that nobody would ever love you or nobody would ever like you, or that Christ really couldn't have have forgiven that, like, no, no, no, no.

Out of all the sins in the world, you know, he might have died for everybody else's stuff, but your stuff and that stuff no, no, no, no. He didn't die for that.

That's what the enemy wants you to believe. And it is a lie. It's the narrative of the enemy.

Because it's a really, really good weapon. It's a really good weapon to use when you already feel bad about something that you've done. When you tell somebody they are what they've done, you're telling them there's no hope for them.

But that's a lie. Because Christ is our living hope. And I always,

I always want to point out to people there's a reason why they say he is our living hope. That means that hope is alive and active. That's what that means.

It means it is here for us now, just as it was back then and just the way it will be in the future. It is alive and active. And we have to recognize that.

We have to know that of our Savior. That's one of the beautiful gifts that he offers us. And it is here for us at all times with everything and about everything and for everyone.

So it's really important to understand how it can distort our identity and it can fuel self hate, which in turn will fuel cycles of self harm and self sabotage. So it's like I call them cycles of shame.

I'm sure I'm not the only person who does. I'm just saying there's cycles because it's like the thing that we're ashamed of. Then because I don't really like myself because of that, I'm gonna go and I'm gonna do something that's harmful to myself.

In my story, it was drinking. I was drinking myself to death over multiple things that I was ashamed about in my story, to be quite honest. So there's a cycle.

It starts off with the thing we're ashamed of, then the thing we'll do to harm ourselves because we don't feel good about ourselves and we don't think that we're good, right?

It's not just, oh, I don't really feel good about myself. It's I'm not good, I'm not a good person. I never do good things. Like it becomes that. That's what it becomes.

So the cycle is that. And then the self harm comes in. And in my story, the self harm was me drinking myself to death. That was every single day. Drinking, drinking, drinking.

Because I wanted to escape who I was and what I was. Like, that's what I thought of myself. Like, I wasn't even a who at the end. Honestly, really, I didn't Even think of myself as a person anymore.

Just really thought that little of myself.

Like I said, we're gonna have the hard conversations and sometimes some of the things we're gonna talk about. It's not always gonna be pretty.

I'm not gonna shy away from the difficult, dark feelings that we have sometimes in this life, in this broken world. It's. It's not easy.

And painful is not pretty, right? It's just not. It's not one of the attributes of pain.

But in God's hands,

pain can become purposeful. And that's. That's where I'm living in my story. And that's where a lot of people live in their stories once they turn it over to our Savior.

Now, I'd like to refer to Scripture, that this particular piece of scripture is so close to my heart because I had read it so many times. Then one day, something just popped out at me.

And I know when that happens, it's the Holy Spirit, right? It's the Lord. He is showing me something,

and he does it for all of his children, right? They will just be reading something. We've read what feels like a million times,

and then all of a sudden, Holy Spirit will reveal something in it that we need to know. And so that's what happened to me with this scripture. It's Hebrews 12:1 2.

Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles. And let us run with perseverance the race that is marked out for us, fixing our eyes on Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of faith,

for the joy set before him. He endured the cross,

scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God,

scorning evil. It's shame.

When I read that and those words jumped out at me, I realized that our Savior had gone through the most horrible death.

There was nothing that he did not experience on the way to the cross.

His friends betrayed him. He was ridiculed. He was mocked. He was beaten. He was.

They tore off his clothes. There's so many horrible, horrible things that happen to Jesus. And with all of that,

this piece of scripture tells us that he endured the cross, but he scorned its shame. It doesn't say that he scorned anything else. And scorn means hate, despise. That's basically just an older English term, if you will.

It doesn't say he hated the ridicule or that he hated being betrayed by his dearest and Closest friends, the disciples doesn't say anything about any of that. It says what he despised was the shame that they were trying to make him feel, that they were trying to heap on Him.

That's what he hated. And when I realized that, I thought to myself, well, if our Savior despised the shame that they were trying to inflict upon him as he was going to endure the cross, if he despised shame in his story, then why in the world would he not despise it in the stories of his children?

He would. The answer is he would absolutely despise, despise us accepting shame in our stories,

wherever the shame is coming from, or if you're shaming yourself because I, I, I've done that,

I've been the person that's been harder on me than anyone. I've been the person who didn't want to forgive myself for some of the things that I've done. I'm the one who shamed myself like my sin broke me far more than other people's sin in my story.

And so the shame that I felt about some of the decisions I made, some of the things I did, those were the things that haunted me the most. And those were the things that I had done.

Not somebody else. It was me. So what I'm saying is it doesn't matter where it's coming from. It's not good whether you're doing it to yourself or whether somebody else is shaming you or, you know, you're believing the lies of the enemy.

It does not matter where that emotion is originating from. What matters is that shame is a liar. It will keep you imprisoned. It will keep you from growing, because it'll tell you you're not worth it.

It will tell you so many horrible things about yourself.

That's why whenever I even hear the word shame, I envision shackles. That's the image that comes because it does. It keeps us imprisoned mentally,

emotionally, and spiritually.

Shame thrives in the darkness, but Jesus is the light.

So when we bring the those things that we feel are unforgivable and just the most horrible things.

Let me be very clear, ladies. When those wounds are wrapped up in shame,

they will not heal unless you bring them to Christ because you will keep them in the dark.

And it thrives there. It only grows. Shame never stays stagnant. I could just tell you that right now, from experience. It always grows. And it thrives in darkness and secrecy.

And the longer it festers that wound, the war, the worse the wound gets. And I'm telling you right now, it will start just to take over you. It won't just be about that one thing anymore that you felt really bad about and that you really just can't conceive of the fact that you had done it.

Like, you're still like, I can't believe I did that, you know? And you're. You're in shock and you're ashamed. It doesn't change. Just live in that one space with that one thing, or if it's multiple things.

It doesn't. It doesn't just live there. It expands, it grows.

It will make you feel worse about yourself. The longer you leave that wound unattended, you can't keep it to yourself. You've got to bring that to God.

And when you pray through that with the Lord and ask him to take that from you,

he's going to pick up that weight off of your soul, that burden, and he's going to tell you that he loves you all the time and that there's nothing that you can do that can separate you from his love.

That's biblical. That's scripture. Please read it. There is nothing that can separate us from the love of Christ. He loves us just the way we are. It's not based on what we've done or what we haven't done, for that matter, right?

It's not based on our deeds. His love is not based on our works. That's the good news, right? Because if I can't earn his love because nothing I do would actually make me worthy of his love, there's nothing.

We don't earn it, we don't deserve it,

then there's nothing I could do that would cause him not to love me either.

There's the beauty about unconditional love, and that's what you get from Jesus. You're not gonna get it from the world all the time. There might be. Maybe your parents, maybe your siblings love you as unconditionally as they can as human beings.

Because humans, we're fallible, right? I mean,

we just are. We're encased in flesh. We're fallible. We're gonna make mistakes, but Jesus loves us unconditionally. And he's the same yesterday, today, and forever. So that will never change.

He never changes.

So that should give us peace in our souls, and it should give us courage to bring these things to him so that he can cleanse us of this horrible emotion that we're not supposed to have.

The emotion that clearly said in the scripture that I read that he despises. He does not want it in your story. He did not want it in his. So hand it over to the Savior and get rid of the shame in your story.

You will be freer than you can imagine. When you start getting that burden lifted off of your heart and your soul, you will be. I mean, it's just life changing.

It really is.

I think that it's important that every week we try to do a little something together where you're pushing your emotional, mental, or spiritual envelope, if you will. Right? You're trying new things and you're exploring.

And I'm going to challenge you to do another exercise because I think it's really important if we want to experience transformation. Right? Transformation is literally based on change. You cannot transform your life or yourself, and neither can Christ if you're not willing to commit to change.

You have to be able to look at those things that are not working and say, I'm going to try something different.

Because if I want to be something different, I have to do different things.

That's why every week I'm going to try to have a challenge for the week or an exercise of some sort so that we can grow together, try new things and find some healing.

That's really what this is all about, right? So that we can have the full, abundant life that Christ had in mind for us before we were even born.

So here we go. What I'd like you to do is look up five pieces of scripture that speak to what God says about you.

So this is literally what the Lord has to say about you as his daughter, or just something he says about his children and in general.

And of course, they'll be affirmative. They're gonna be wonderful, loving statements. I want you to choose which ones speak to you, speak to your soul,

provide you some healing in certain circumstances or situations that you've had in your life where you've doubted, maybe if you were worthy of love or you struggle to think that Jesus could still love you after certain things.

I want you to try to find scripture that will help you negate those incorrect ideas you have of the way the Lord loves you. So I'd like you to pick scripture that speaks over those negative thoughts that you were having that basically when I say, speaks over them, like,

almost crushes them with the truth of God's love.

And that's a personal. That's a personal endeavor doing this assignment.

I could send you the scriptures in an email or a newsletter. Like that would be easy. That would be super easy.

But that's not what I think is going to make A difference for you, I think, when you're dealing with something as deep rooted as shame can be. The scripture that you choose needs to be powerful to you.

Needs to be powerful enough to just to crush that pain. Only you are going to know what scripture is powerful enough to pull up the roots of shame about certain things in your story that have embedded themselves in your soul.

Right? Only you will know what scripture can do that. You'll read it and it'll jump out at you and you'll immediately feel a connection to it.

And that's why I want you to pick out the five pieces of scripture.

It doesn't help you if I pick them out. I'm going to pick out what resonates with me and my story and my pain. And all of that pain is personal.

It just is.

And you know what speaks to yours better than I will. And I know what speaks to mine better than you would.

So that's the assignment for the week.

Now what I think might happen is that these five pieces of scripture might wind up being ones that you hold very close to your heart. Because once scripture has healed wound for you, once you've walked in a season with it and it's given you life and it's healed something broken inside of you,

you're never the same. And that scripture is not the same to you either. It carries an importance, it carries a significance because you've been through a battle together, right? And so I know that certain pieces of scripture I have carried through multiple, multiple battles.

They're like my friends in combat. You might be saying to yourself, wow, she makes it sound like we're going to war.

You know, we kind of are.

Hence why they call it the armor of God,

because it's a very broken world that we live in and we do face spiritual battles every day.

Now I'd like to wrap up the episode by praying over you,

Lord. I ask that when my sister in Christ brings these really dark and hurtful parts of her story to you, that she's met with your love and your truth, that she hears in her heart and soul the truth of who she is in Christ, that she feels your immense love for her and for the grace and the mercy that you bestow upon her soul,

I pray that you give her the peace that transcends all understanding and that you help her guard her heart and her mind in Christ Jesus. I pray all of this in your most holy and beautiful name.

Amen.

So let's make it a point this week to replace any shame-based lie that we have been believing with God's truth.

If this episode has encouraged or blessed you in any way, I'd love for you to share it with a friend who might also need some encouragement.

Until then,

be blessed and be a blessing.

And remember, you were born to be a butterfly.