Nadine Dyer (00:01.199)
Welcome back. Welcome back, sister. We are so, so grateful to be with you. If you caught us in the last episode, I am here with Ms. Rebecca Hitchcock, who is an author and a Bible teacher. And she is talking to us about shame. last episode, Rebecca shared

kind of her experience, her stories and things that happened to her in her childhood and how shame kind of crept its head. And we talked about shame clouds and the double portion. And we talked about all kinds of stuff. So if you missed that episode, go back. But we're back. And today we're going to talk about practical applications. That's what we're here to talk about. It's like, how do we take this concept and actually apply it so it changes us so we are walking unashamed or shameless?

Rebecca, thank you for being here. We're so happy you're here. Let's dive in.

Rebecca Hitchcock (00:56.728)
Glad to be here.

Nadine Dyer (00:59.245)
So let's talk about practical applications. And I think maybe it would be fitting to start with maybe just like a recap of shame clouds and the double portion and maybe that scripture.

Rebecca Hitchcock (01:12.334)
Sure. Yes. Okay. So I, you know, I've met with women primarily in family rooms outside a church setting and it over the last 25 years over three States. And there were many topics that would come up that we would be, you know, like digging in some had faith, some didn't, some that were seasoned, some weren't, but we're all looking for connection with each other and connection with God. Like we all knew we wanted to grow, right?

So as we did in looking over in the history of these three states that I had been meeting with women and I still do, one of the, I'd always hear this rhetorical question, wait, why didn't I learn that in church? And one of the observations I had was that all of us never really,

Nadine Dyer (01:54.893)
Mm hmm...

Rebecca Hitchcock (02:03.838)
knew that we were hovering under these shame clouds. That's what I like to call shame clouds. Another thing that I refer to is, we were carrying these designer bags that were designed by shame because they were heavy loads to carry, right? Or this hovering of this heaviness of I'm not good enough. I'm not forgiven. I'm not accepted. I'm not approved of usually because of something I did in my past.

Nadine Dyer (02:15.905)
Yeah. Yeah.

Rebecca Hitchcock (02:33.934)
something that had been done to me, or just wrong thinking. You know, we can live in an environment that speaks that, and we've bought the lie. And I truly believe Jesus knew we would, he knows this world. And that's why he said in Isaiah 61:7 seven, for your shame, basically he's saying, I will take your shame and give you a double portion.

Nadine Dyer (03:02.445)
Yeah, yeah. And I love the way you wrapped up our last episode. If you did not listen to the last episode, sister, I really would love to encourage you to do that. But the wrap up was kind of an invitation to sit with God and ask him to take take our shame and to give us revelation, knowledge of what what's there and what needs to be healed and, all that. And so I'm very curious, what would you say to someone to

to our sister who's listening, who's like, I do struggle with shame and I don't know what to do about it. What would be some practical applications that would help her?

Rebecca Hitchcock (03:42.926)
Sure. You know, I'm, it's funny, I'm going to just look here real quick in the book. I do this shame assessment at the end of the chapter. And I often would say, if you can't even do the shame assessment, you definitely are dealing with shame. And I want everyone to know, and the person that's listening to this podcast, we all deal with shame. Not one of us, we'd be lying to ourselves if we didn't confess that we all deal with shame.

Nadine Dyer (04:03.822)
Yeah.

Nadine Dyer (04:09.175)
And you know what's interesting is we never assume somebody else deals with it. Like we think it's only ours. Like we are the only ones who have something shameful that we carry, but we all have it. It's just different.

Rebecca Hitchcock (04:13.358)
It's so true.

Rebecca Hitchcock (04:19.031)
Yes.

You know, there was a phrase that you can read, we're coming in the Easter season and the Pharisees, you know, they were just always casting stones and judgment on Jesus and the message he was coming to bring. And if you can think of a Pharisee, some people watch The Chosen, I think it's a great, I think it's great thing, yeah. And they were just so judgmental, right? And I,

Nadine Dyer (04:44.759)
It's great. I like the chosen. Yeah.

Nadine Dyer (04:50.721)
Yes, yes sure.

Rebecca Hitchcock (04:53.354)
equate the Pharisee. Like I would go Pharisee equals shame. you're going to be, you know, so even if we've had a judgmental critical person around us a lot, you start having that thrown at you all the time. It'll really wear on you and you'll live under a shame cloud.

Nadine Dyer (04:58.255)
Mmm. Whoa, that's good.

Nadine Dyer (05:14.626)
Ugh.

Rebecca Hitchcock (05:16.16)
Because we all experience people like that. And if you have someone, I'm gonna just say right now, if you have someone in your life that is like that, limit your time with them. Or really build yourself up before you start getting in their presence. And you know, there's some that we can't get away from that, you know, family members. And so you speak life to yourself. That's a practical way. Speak life to yourself. What am I gonna say I'm gonna speak life? Well, if I'm...

Nadine Dyer (05:33.251)
Yeah. Yeah.

Nadine Dyer (05:38.703)
Hmm.

Rebecca Hitchcock (05:45.486)
Speaking practically, I am a new creation in Christ. The old has gone, the new has come. That is true if anyone is a believer in Christ. That's 2 Corinthians 5:17. I'm a new creation. I'm forgiven. I am God's child. I am seated in heavenly places. You start professing who you are.

now in this new identity. We got a whole new identity. I'm forgiven. I'm accepted. I'm approved of. I'm worthy. I'm loved. Yes. Yes. And I had shared faith comes from any kind of faith, whatever you're going to believe in from what you hear. So you start speaking negatively to yourself. Faith will build up in that. Faith is like

Nadine Dyer (06:20.107)
I'm loved. Chosen.

Rebecca Hitchcock (06:39.948)
what you believe in, right? So it could be negative faith or positive faith. Which one do you want to believe in?

Nadine Dyer (06:41.98)
and

Nadine Dyer (06:48.163)
Yeah. It's like speak life, don't speak shame. Speak life, don't speak shame. That's such a practical application. And I do think it's a consistent thing, right? It's not like something we just do one and done. It's this continuous speak life, speak life, remember who you are, remember what the Bible says, remember the truth, speak the truth. That's part of that practical application of dissipating shame. What else? Give me more. What else would you?

Rebecca Hitchcock (06:52.575)
Exactly.

Rebecca Hitchcock (07:16.494)
Okay, Nadine, that is so good that you said that. It's not this one and done thing. This is for the seasoned believer. and then usually hate to say it, when you're a seasoned believer, sometimes your challenges get bigger and you need, you have got to be rooted and grounded in this fundamental truth that you are accepted and proved up. And here's the best kicker, not by anything that we did. It's all of what he did for us.

Nadine Dyer (07:42.627)
Right.

Nadine Dyer (07:46.276)
Right.

Rebecca Hitchcock (07:46.54)
That's what gave us the new identity. And if we continue to think that it's something that I do, then you're gonna keep striving, striving to become righteous. You're already righteous in Him. It's never gonna be enough. No, no. But the coolest part was when we started saying these truths about ourselves, which is our identity in Christ, our new found identity.

Nadine Dyer (07:58.529)
enough. It's never gonna work. Ever.

Rebecca Hitchcock (08:12.278)
we started to see the shame clouds dissipate. They just started to dissipate. We started to have the abundant life of love, joy, peace, patience, kindness. We have that in us, yes, because that's the spirit in us, but to see it manifest and live it is because we were like, my gosh, my thinking is so much better. Therefore my emotions are affected better and my walk, like how I'm living my daily life is better. But like you said, it's not just one and done. I mean, I go back to it all the time.

Nadine Dyer (08:15.278)
Yeah.

Nadine Dyer (08:36.932)
Yeah.

Nadine Dyer (08:40.847)
Yeah, it's a continuous, it's an intentionality. It's a remembering because my default is to be distracted by all the things, right? And shame, my default is shame. You know, it's interesting you're talking about your identity in Christ. And for those of you who don't even know where to start with that, like, what does that even mean? Hey, chat GPT, I got to tell you is pretty awesome. You literally can go there and go.

Rebecca Hitchcock (08:44.407)
It is.

Rebecca Hitchcock (08:53.686)
It is. It is our default.

Rebecca Hitchcock (09:00.748)
Yeah. Yeah.

Nadine Dyer (09:07.341)
tell me what it says about my identity in Christ and it would give you like, includes scripture, and it will give you all the things. And maybe you start there. Like if you don't know where to start, start there. Let's utilize technology, right?

Rebecca Hitchcock (09:16.994)
That's awesome.

Rebecca Hitchcock (09:21.056)
Hey, I love that idea. Yes, do that. And then speak it out because when you speak it out, not only are you proclaiming to the enemy the truth, then he scrams, but you also are encouraging yourself.

Nadine Dyer (09:35.651)
Yeah, yeah, write it everywhere, put it on index cards. Like we need a continuous reminder of truth. So the shame clouds will dissipate.

Rebecca Hitchcock (09:42.656)
Yes. let me just share a couple. I'm just going to, okay, this is in the chapter on shame. This was just a shame assessment I came across that I had, I was giggling because I thought, man, I can probably check every single one, you know, but I don't want to live here. I don't want to stay here. So what can I do to get out from under those shame clouds? Okay. Just a few, I'll throw out having, an it isn't nice of me to take when I'm not giving

Nadine Dyer (09:52.548)
Okay.

Nadine Dyer (10:00.43)
Yeah.

Rebecca Hitchcock (10:12.512)
mentality. Because see, that's a worthiness thing. It isn't nice for me to take if I'm not giving. You know, that's the root of a worthiness situation you're dealing with there. Putting my needs last. Because, you know, we could skew it and say, that's so selfish you put your needs first. No. Shouldn't I put the oxygen on myself first so I can be healthy enough to help you? Right? Okay.

Nadine Dyer (10:13.647)
Mm-hmm.

Nadine Dyer (10:22.659)
Yeah.

Nadine Dyer (10:37.505)
Amen. Yeah. Yeah. Because I can't give you what I don't have. It's impossible.

Rebecca Hitchcock (10:41.822)
Exactly. Right. difficult, excuse me, difficulty, excuse me, difficulty. Why can I say that word today? Difficulty receiving. Yeah. Receiving because I feel I'm not worthy. I'm not worthy. So I can't receive believing I am bad, weak, stupid, undeserving. Hmm. I believe the creator of the universe says total opposite of that.

Nadine Dyer (10:51.725)
Difficult. Difficult P. Yes, we did it!

Okay. Yeah.

Nadine Dyer (11:11.191)
He calls us masterpiece. He knit us together in our mother's wombs.

Rebecca Hitchcock (11:13.122)
Yes.

Rebecca Hitchcock (11:16.748)
Yes, we have the mind of Christ, you know. You have a compulsion. No, go ahead.

Nadine Dyer (11:22.807)
It's almost like he calls us, sorry, I get all fired up, but I gotta say it. So he calls us a masterpiece and we're like, well, that's not good enough. That's literally a saying to God, like your masterpiece isn't good enough when we are under the shame clouds. Right. And and you're not good enough either,

Rebecca Hitchcock (11:35.232)
Right?

and he created us in his image.

Rebecca Hitchcock (11:44.974)
But you know, we get into these silly habits and it starts all in our thinking. It's like, what's going on between my two ears? You know? And we just have to change that. It's renew your mind of the truth. There's so much scientific evidence. I have another chapter that talks about switching on the brain of when you decide to think on the thoughts that...

Nadine Dyer (11:53.903)
Yes, yes, yeah.

Rebecca Hitchcock (12:13.166)
Christ has supplied us in his word and what we're talking about right here. Your DNA expression will even change. Now your DNA doesn't change, but the expression of how it is in your body will change. Like people that have been under great trauma, it's epigenetics. They have seen where they started changing the way they think and they speak, like where we're speaking life, their whole DNA expression patterns change. It's scientific. Yeah.

Nadine Dyer (12:40.237)
I

Rebecca Hitchcock (12:42.126)
I'll just say a couple more. You have a compulsion to rescue others who are needy and disadvantaged. A compulsion. Now compulsion is big, right? There's nothing wrong with helping people and disadvantaged and needy, but if there's a compulsion, it's because you don't feel good enough about yourself. So I got to go do this. It's like, you I'm going to keep doing this to make myself feel better.

Nadine Dyer (12:43.885)
Yeah, please.

Nadine Dyer (12:52.856)
Yeah.

Nadine Dyer (13:06.157)
I have to earn my worth. Right? I love that visual.

Rebecca Hitchcock (13:07.496)
Earn. And that's that Pharisee thinking. You gotta earn. Yeah. And this is another good one. Excessive sensitivity and defensiveness to perceived criticism or rejection. So a lot of times you're super sensitive, overly sensitive, anything overly, I would alert anyone, overly anything.

Nadine Dyer (13:24.963)
Hmm.

Rebecca Hitchcock (13:35.886)
I mean, zealous about the Lord is fine. However, defensive to perceived criticism or rejection. Sometimes, you know, I may just not connect with someone, but if I am under a shame cloud, I may take that rejection where they like, not everyone's going to be your friend. That's just, we just know that we're all designed differently. It can be so simple and we make it bigger in our heads because of those shame clouds. Well,

Nadine Dyer (13:41.422)
Yeah.

Rebecca Hitchcock (14:05.154)
I always get rejected whenever I do this, da da da, and that self-fulfilling, well actually self-sabotage, because I'm being self-critical again, I'm being overly sensitive, and I am not confident enough to even hear, I'm sorry about that, I had it on a.

Nadine Dyer (14:09.583)
Self-sabotage.

Nadine Dyer (14:25.273)
You're great. Really, she, they get it. Our listener gets it.

Rebecca Hitchcock (14:32.695)
I had on anyway, what I'm saying is we can be overly sensitive to criticism. And I will always go back to whenever I find myself like that, if I've had someone do me wrong and I have recently, I always go back to Lord, what do want me to know about this? What do want me to know about this? And really pause and take some time.

Nadine Dyer (14:39.683)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Nadine Dyer (14:56.482)
Hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Rebecca Hitchcock (15:04.174)
Because if I fly off the handle and I start judging them, because out of my hurt, rejection feelings, I'm gonna find myself in my shame. Exactly. I'm gonna go right back in, right under that cloud.

Nadine Dyer (15:07.481)
Bye.

Right. Out of my shame, right? Yeah. Out of my shame is projected onto them. Yeah. Yeah. It's interesting because I never thought of like self being self-critical as shame, but that makes a lot of sense. It's almost like putting certain things under the category of shame going, okay, now I can call it what it is. Right. And that's now I can, I can fight it accordingly. And I think that's powerful. You know, what's interesting

Rebecca Hitchcock (15:31.093)
Exactly.

Rebecca Hitchcock (15:35.436)
Exactly.

Nadine Dyer (15:39.247)
Rebecca is on our last episode, you were just sharing and I wrote down like six things that were practical applications. And I want to kind of call some of them out in case you feel like you could speak to them for like practical applications to dissipate the shame. But I wrote down shame dissipates in community because you kept talking about the Bible studies and bringing women together. And what would you say about that? How does that fit here?

Rebecca Hitchcock (15:46.904)
Stop.

Rebecca Hitchcock (16:00.652)
Yes.

Rebecca Hitchcock (16:05.386)
community is so important because isolation, as we all know, the enemy loves to isolate us. I've lived it. I've had, I had postpartum depression through all five of our children. The last one to the point where I couldn't get out of bed. I wasn't even sure I was going to live. I mean, I've lived it. Okay. That isolation, the enemy wanted to take me out and he almost did. Thank God he didn't. And I praise him for saving my life.

the Lord. But we have to live in community. There's something about living in community. That's why God had everyone meeting in community. They were meeting in homes and sharing and in hospitality is such a gift, you know, to have people over. And I know we are in such a technological era and that's great and that's fine. I think it's wonderful. But how beautiful it is when we just have people come over for a meal, you know?

just to be together, you yourself, you felt yourself isolated. That was the impetus for you to start this ministry. Community is so important because in community, if you can share, and it takes time, some share easily when they come into a group, some don't. You receive accountability, you receive love. And I...

Nadine Dyer (17:24.781)
Yeah, it's like you I get you you're still loved here. Yeah.

Rebecca Hitchcock (17:30.238)
Yes, hopefully it's a safe place. I've been in groups where, you know what, some groups have blown up before. Like there's been some really, people that were struggling with a lot of, shame to be honest, a lot of pain and they bring it to the group. And, but hopefully they felt loved on and they felt heard.

if they needed to exit the group because they were so distraught or couldn't really function in a healthy manner. Because sometimes you can do these groups and you're thinking it's gonna be perfect too. That's a false expectation. And you're like, wait, this is a Christian group. We're all meeting together. No, we're all, we all got our issues. With our handbag of shame, let me see what I got in this bag. Let me throw few of these things out. Do you guys have this in your bag?

Nadine Dyer (18:14.767)
We all have shame. We're all walking in with our bags of shame, with our clouds of shame going, hey, let's all get together.

Rebecca Hitchcock (18:25.07)
I do!

Nadine Dyer (18:25.167)
Yeah, there's healing when you can take it out and go, me too. You are not alone. Yes, yes. I've experienced that. I've seen really the power of the, it's like shame will fester and swallow me alive when I keep it to myself. But when I can share it with a safe person that can go, okay, even if they just say, thank you for sharing, it's like a load off of my chest of like, okay, I don't have to live in this anymore.

Rebecca Hitchcock (18:29.864)
Exactly. Yes.

Rebecca Hitchcock (18:45.133)
Yes.

Rebecca Hitchcock (18:53.334)
Right, right, exactly. And that they too know I hear you, you know? I think it's very edifying to any person that comes into a group that I'm sharing my vulnerabilities here. And because I guarantee we all are feeling the same things at some point in our journey.

Nadine Dyer (19:09.807)
Yeah. I would, sorry.

And so I would encourage you sister, if you don't have a community plugin, find one, find one that you can, even if it's just a one friend that you can share authentically your shame with. I think there's a lot to that. There was a couple other things. I'm just going to rattle them off as we kind of start to wrap up because we're already there. You talked a lot about renewing our mind. Like that was a very consistent thing that you've said in both episodes. And it's like an intentionality. And

Rebecca Hitchcock (19:21.453)
Yes.

Rebecca Hitchcock (19:29.654)
Okay, go ahead.

Rebecca Hitchcock (19:34.286)
Mmm.

Nadine Dyer (19:43.415)
and this expectancy as well of, so anything that you want to wrap up with as we wrap up this topic on Unashamed.

Rebecca Hitchcock (19:46.092)
Yes.

Rebecca Hitchcock (19:54.1)
I just, I would encourage, you can Google shame assessments. Seriously, this is just a practical tool and be real honest with yourself when you're reading it and going, wait, yeah, I do have that, or I do do that. And then, then take it to a quiet place to the father, pray about it and say, here, can I have the exchange? I'm going to give you this.

And then will you give me the double portion that you are father that cannot lie? So only your word is true because you cannot lie. I can lie. I'm human. He can't. So here, I want to receive, because now I'm understanding I'm worthy to receive, and I want to receive the double portion. Because he wants to give it to us. He's just waiting for us to come to him.

Nadine Dyer (20:50.745)
Rebecca, thank you so much for just this topic, for these insights, it just has me thinking and I have a lot to just sit with in my quiet time. So sister, if you're listening, let this do what it's supposed to do in your heart, in your mind, in your life.

We are a new creation. You are a new creation. Let's walk in our double portion. Walk as a woman who is loved, who is chosen, who is valued and valuable, who is accepted and worthy, because that is who you are. Not because of anything you've done, but because of whose you are, because of what He did for us. We love you so much, sister.

Rebecca Hitchcock (21:33.902)
Hmm

Nadine Dyer (21:39.427)
We'll talk to you soon. Thanks, Rebecca.

Rebecca Hitchcock (21:43.566)
Thank you.