When we talk, we have to access the word-based “thinking” part of our brain.That in itself helps down regulate (reduce) our distressing feelings. Shame is one of those painful feelings. So it follows that to talk about our experiences of shame reduces its power. And when we do it consistently, our overall self esteem will be raised.
Counter-intuitive, right? People who don’t know this principal naturally want to try to hide their shame experiences, often afraid that if they feel shame, that another person will also see them as defective.
Au contraire. A way to defuse shame is to simply express it, instead of further hiding or disguising it.
In “The Courage to Heal,” authors Laura Davis and Ellen Bass write that “one of the most powerful ways to overcome shame. . . is to talk” about it. “Shame exists in an environment of secrecy. When you begin to freely speak the truth about your life, your sense of shame will diminish.”
You just have to be mindful of which people are shaming people, and which aren’t. Then chose the safe ones to share the things you feel inferior about.
“I don’t want to feel sorry for myself.” I so often hear clients tell me, when they are sad, discouraged or hurt. If they have sorrow for themselves, they will often next feel guilt or shame. Sometimes they will go on to have absolute contempt for themselves and call their sorrow for themselves having a “pity-party.”
When I ask them how they would feel if the same thing happened to a friend or a child who was hurt, sad, discouraged or distressed, there are two general responses. Some people would feel compassion for the friend or child, but would feel guilty for feeling compassion for themselves. Anything ’selfish’ is bad for themselves. They apply kinder rules to others.
Other people would condemn the friend or child for feeling sorry. They judge the friend as selfish and negative. They also believe that acknowledging feelings “doesn’t do any good.” These people apply the same harsh rule to others that they apply to themselves.
So many limiting beliefs are embedded in the desire not to feel sorrow for oneself. Some of the beliefs may be:
1. It is “weak” to accept or have kind feelings towards a person not in a “powerful” state or feeling. “Vulnerability” is bad.
2. If one doesn’t condemn the vulnerable feelings, they will grow and grow. (The “Spare the rod, spoil the child” mentality.)
3. One may get “stuck” in the shameful feelings.
4. One will not be able to feel powerful again.
5. One is being “negative” and therefore “bad.”
But the irony is that anytime we condemn ourselves for how we are feeling, that is when we are weakening ourselves. The way to ’strength’ is to validate ourselves for how we are feeling. The root of the word ‘validate’ means to strengthen. To in-validate is to weaken.
To validate ourselves, we need to let ourselves know that it makes sense to feel however we feel. We need to let ourselves know that we can understand ourselves. This may take as little as a few seconds.
THEN, and only then, can we work at shifting and improving our state of mind.
There are so many ways we can work at regulating and adjusting our feelings. But shaming ourselves for how we feel only makes it take longer. So I say, have compassion for yourself. By all means work towards joy and zest.
I believe that in the words of the song, “There’s A time to weep, and a time to laugh; a time to mourn, and a time to dance.” So when you are feeling sad, first feel sorry for yourself.
A client I will call “Joanne” * described how recognizing her inner voices has helped rid herself of panic attacks. Perhaps her recognition will inspire others to separate themselves from the shaming and suppressing voices that we all experience from time to time.
“When something GOOD happened, I used to get panicky. I used to think- or again- hear the voice that would say, ‘Something bad is going to happen now!’ Then I would freak out.
“Once I recognized that voice and could see it was not really ME, I could ask it, ‘What makes you say that?’ Or ‘What do you think is going to happen? Death, famine? What?’ The voice was then stumped and I could see that it didn’t really know about something awful about to happen. it was not an omniscient being. It didn’t even make any sense. What a relief. I feel so grateful.”
So my hope is that we all continue to upgrade our voice recognition software.
* Therapists change the name and other identifying information so that a client’s confidentiality can be maintained
I just finished a session with a client I will call “Joanne.”* She has upgraded her internal voice recognition software and that has changed her life.
She wants to start her own business, and previously has felt too scared to leave her day job. Her work on herself is an example of what we can all do when we gain awareness and understanding of the internal voices that we all have.
Joanne says, “I am so happy about how I have changed. I don’t succumb to the voice in my head that says, whenever I think about starting my business, ‘Who do you think you are.’ I now see that the voice is my mother’s– NOT MINE. I even see her expressionless face as she says it. I can also hear my father’s kinder, but still suppressive voice, ‘You’re getting a little bit too big for your britches.’
“Before, I would get panicky when I heard those voices. I thought that I was the one thinking those thoughts- and I believed them. Now I can hear one of them say, “You need to go sit in the corner now.” I was panicking then because I knew on some level that I was being abandoned when I was excited and hopeful and feeling powerful. And I was being asked to not be who I was. I was also panicking recently because I soooo much want to start my business, and I know now that when I sit in a corner metaphorically, I am killing my spirit. But now that I know those voices are not ME I know that I can just notice them and go on doing what I think is right.
“ Wow. I feel so real and I feel so much power. I don’t think I’m crazy anymore for what I want. I can go for it!”
Recognizing and managing our self-diminishing inner voices makes so much possible for us. I wish that for everyone!
*therapists hide the names & other identifying characteristics of clients to protect their confidentiality
What would the worst words in our language be for you? Swear words? Name calling words? For me one of the ugliest words is “should.” I think it’s ugly because the implied criticism is a sneaky spirit dimmer.
It’s sneaky because people usually think they are trying to be good by ‘shoulding’ themselves (or others). But they are actually hurting themselves (or others).
How are we hurting ourselves? Whenever we use the word ‘should’ we are basically saying that what we are being, doing or having is wrong. We should have in the past. So we were wrong. Or we should now. So we are wrong now. Or we should in the future. So we will be wrong. Wrong, wrong, wrong. Always wrong. We are shaming ourselves. And that’s the spirit dimming.
One thing to do to stop shaming ourselves
So what can we do? I like to change the ‘should’ to “could.” For example, Instead of thinking I ‘should’ return the book to the library today, I ‘could’ return the book to the library today. Or I ‘could’ wait until tomorrow and pay the fine.
Just now when I let go of my ‘should,’ I could begin to think more creatively. I realize other ways I could get the book there. I ‘could’ ask my son to take it in with his returns today, or I ‘could’ call the library and renew it. I didn’t even think of other ways to get the book to he library until I released myself from the creativity freeze of my ‘should.’
When we think in ‘coulds’ we experience more fully our power of choice. We are the boss of our choices. We do not have to obey some edict given to us by others. We can determine our own values and priorities.
A ‘should’ releasing exercise
Here are some steps to take to release constricting should messages.
• Make a list of 3 things you consistently tell yourself you should do.
• Ask yourself how effective it has been in getting yourself to do those things.
• Now change the ‘should’ for each item into a could.
• Now ask yourself what has made you not do what you thought you should. Was it that you never wanted to do it in the first place? Was it that was somebody else’s idea, and not freely chosen by you? What else?
• Ask yourself what you notice now. Write your insights down s that you can jog your memory later.
I hope this gives you a sense of freedom and creativity so that you can make choices that support you, not dim your spirit.
We all need to feel as if we can predict and control our lives. So when something unpredictable or uncontrollable occurs, such as the threat of joblessness or stock market loses, we can feel powerless. Then the mere state of feeling powerless can trigger all the so-called “negative” affects (shame, distress, fear, anger, disgust, dissmell). And we can freak out.
Our society, and in fact all societies, mandate that we suppress, or at the very least, don’t show many of those “negative” emotional states. But what happens to the emotional energy when we suppress our emotions? The suppression causes a kind of emotional and physiological back-up. That back-up we call “stress.”
What can we do?
The first step is to acknowledge your real feelings. Don’t hide in the generality of “I’m stressed out.” One way to recognize the state of experienced powerlessness is when you are feeling intense rage. You can say to yourself, or another person, “I feel so helpless and I’m furious at feeling that way!”
The next step is to observe the situation and determine in what ways you can take your power back. We do have power over how we react to any of life’s scary events and states.
One way to regain power is to realize the things over which we do not have power. You can’t make someone hire you. You cannot make someone love you. You cannot make the Dow Jones Industrial Average go up. Focusing on the areas in which you do have power is restorative.
To take back your power involves setting realistic expectations. If you are looking for a job, know that it most likely will not happen overnight. It may take months. Don’t demand something impossible of yourself.
Another way to regain your inner power is to make sure you separate yourself and disengage from any belief (if you have it) that these life events mean that YOU are inadequate. Even if someone else is so threatened that they are blaming you, you can over time, learn that YOU are not your job or your earning capacity. You can learn not to take inside and believe the evaluations, criticisms and rejections from others.
I don’t dismiss the pain, even anguish, that you may go through on the way to developing the skill of detaching your self- worth from external circumstances. But developing that ability may be an enourmous gift that later you will say was well worth the initial “stress.”
I like to give clients homeplay of writing down every day, and reviewing at the end of the day at least 5 ways they showed adequacy or competency. While doing this homeplay is an immediate self confidence raiser for some, many find it difficult to do at first.
Some of the common difficulties are expressed in the following objections people have to doing the homework. “I won’t give myself credit until my whole book is finished. Each finished chapter doesn’t count.” Another self-discounter is, “It’s no big deal. I do it every day, so how’s that an accomplishment.” Yet another way of robbing the Self is holding to the belief, “If I pat myself on the back, I may not continue working.”
The people who think this way are withholding from themselves an important tool for self-esteem: a focus on what is good and competent about themselves.
When we pay more attention to what we have accomplished rather than what we have not accomplished, we are gifting ourselves. We receive pride in the Self, more assertiveness and feeling more worthy and competent.
How do you treat your Self when you are tired, sick, hurt, sad, discouraged, or depleted? How do you treat yourself when you are excited or in the midst of creating? Whether you are kind or mean to yourself says volumes. A big part of raising self esteem has to do with how we treat our Self when we are vulnerable, exuberant, or in a creative state. These are the states of our Inner Child.
So much healing can occur when we learn how to treat those child states within us. Yet, so many people are “turned off” or find it “ridiculous” at the mere idea of Inner Child comforting. That is a reflection of the belief they internalized- that vulnerable parts of us are “weak.” So the very thing that would help to heal shame, Inner Child work, is spurned because it is considered weak.
Discouragement is shame about temporary defeat. Defeat or failure activates shame for many people. People in the “helping” professions and partners of addicts are often vulnerable to shame when the “helped” other is discouraged about their progress, or in the case of the addict, is discouraged by a relapse.
The challenge is to be able to accept inevitable limitations inherent in working with others, and to accept them without feeling less because of the limitations. After all, we do not have the power to effect change in another. The other person is the only one with the power to do that. The self quality to be strengthened is self-acceptance.
In order to re-balance or right ourselves, we first need to recognize and manage our shame reactions. We need to know:
What shame feels like inside
What activities trigger the shame response
Our responses to our shame experiences:
Secondary affects
Constructed thoughts or images
Retrieved memories
Perceptions, and
Specific behaviors we engage in-i.e., withdrawal, blame
The more we learn about our own patterns, the more “helpful” we can be.
I just saw the movie “Doubt” yesterday and it has me thinking about how we respond to our own emotional states of uncertainty.
Doubt is defined as the state of being unsure of something; to lack confidence in. When they are feeling doubt, sometimes people then feel shame as a secondary response to their own lack of certainty. They think they are “weak” if they are not certain.
The secondary shame reaction comes partly from the belief that we “should” be certain. But to paraphrase (because I don’t remember completely; I’m uncertain), “Certainty is only a feeling. It’s not a fact.”
In contemporary psychology, being able to tolerate uncertainty, to handle ambiguity is an important developmental step. We can then handle the “gray”s, and not devolve to black or white thinking.
Today the obituaries included the playwright Harold Pinter. Reading it has me thinking of the power of plays & screenplays. I know that power first hand, because watching a production of Cyrano de Bergerac at the American Conservatory Theatre in S.F. changed my life.
I had such pangs of regret on Cyrano’s behalf. Because he felt shame about his nose giganticus, he would not risk revealing his love. As an old man, he found that his life-long love, Roxanne, had loved him all along. What a waste of potential love due to the shyster shame!
I decided from that day, to take risks expressing my love. And later I decided to become an actor. And studied at ACT.
Did you play cowboys & Indians or cops & robbers games when you were a kid? The kids in my neighborhood did. Somebody was always the “Loser” who then got his/her hands or feet tied up,” with great gusto by the “Winner.”
The binding by the rope is intended to cause partial paralysis, and a feeling of helplessness. That’s the way shame binds work. Shame makes us feel not only defective, but inhibited. Bound up inside and unable to move forward.
We can experience this bind which can prevent us from acting upon, or expressing:
Feelings (anger, love, fear, joy, sadness, etc.)
Drives (hunger, thirst, intimacy)
Needs (Including: survival, safety, touching, attention, validation, guidance, listening, being authentic, participating, acceptance-belonging, growing through grieving, support, loyalty & trust, accomplishment, creativity, making a contribution, sexuality, fun, freedom, nurturing, unconditional love)
A common feeling/shame bind can occur when an authority figure hurts our feelings. We may understandably feel anger-which quickly changes or is covered over by feeling shame. Then too, we may become afraid and confused. All of these feelings swirling around may make us feel overwhelmed and we may think we are losing control, so we quickly try to suppress the feelings. The suppression then makes us numb.
We may become dysfunctional while this is happening and for several minutes afterward. Then we may become further shamed by feeling so dysfunctional. Even worse it’s in front of the other person.
Here is one 40 year old computer programmer’s description of her process.
“Last week I went to visit my father and within 5 minutes of arriving he started joking about my job. “Here’s the Big Shot Geek Squad.” I felt confused, anxious, angry and helpless- as if I were 5 years old! I hung my head and went numb and wanted to go to my old room to get away. How hatefully familiar that all felt!
“Thankfully, I was able to use what I’ve been learning here. Number one, I was able to observe what was happening. Then, I started taking slow deep breaths, the way we have practiced, to calm and clear up the confusion. Then I stood up and moved around the den. The simple act of moving- not allowing myself to be bound physically really helped. I went for my purse and dug out my car keys, reminding myself that I don’t have to stay in his presence. I’m big now. I can get away- something I couldn’t do when I was 5.
“Next time, if he- when he- does the same thing, I’ll set limits with him. I’ll tell him, “I don’t like it when you joke about my career that way, and if you keep doing it, I won’t visit you anymore.” Boy, does that feel powerful!”
To summarize the steps she took to break out of the bind:
She observed what was happening, both his behavior, and her feelings
She practiced controlled breathing
She moved around the room
She comforted herself with self-talk that reminded her that she could get away now- with a concrete physical object
She started setting boundaries on his behavior
You don’t have to stay stuck in the shame quagmire. It takes work, but Freedom is available.
By Jessica Bennett | NEWSWEEK
From the magazine issue dated Jun 30, 2008
Why do people write confessional blogs? It’s a creative outlet. It’s a forum to vent. It’s an exercise in exhibitionism. To mental-health experts, though, it’s more than that: a blog is medicine. Psychiatrists are starting to tout the therapeutic power of blogging, and many have begun incorporating it into patient treatment. A forthcoming study in the journal CyberPsychology & Behavior even suggests that bloggers might be happier than nonbloggers.
Mental-health experts say blogs are a step up from plain old diaries, chiefly because of the built-in audience. As kids, we learn that if we air our problems, we get help. We associate communication with consolation, particularly when the going gets tough. Blogging fulfills that primal need for sympathy. “Writing is an effort of the brain to communicate for comfort,” says Harvard neurologist Alice Flaherty. “Diaries are a form of that communication, but removed. Blogging gets you closer to that sympathetic audience, and that’s what makes it therapeutic.” According to psychologist John Suler, the anonymity of blogging provides another therapeutic boost: it’s high intimacy with low vulnerability. But blogger beware. “Revealing too much,” says Suler, “can cause shame or guilt.” So blog to your heart’s content, but leave some things to the imagination.
Shame has the power to oppress, silence and shape the way we live, love, work and parent.
“Shame is a social epidemic,” says Brené Brown, a shame and empathy researcher at the University of Huston Graduate College of Social Work. “We are shamed into thinking we are too fat, bad moms, not sexual enough. In our culture, the fear of not belonging and not being acceptable is so insidious that it changes our relationships, families and communities without us even knowing.”
Brown, a qualitative researcher, has written a book, “I Thought It Was Just Me: Women Reclaiming Power and Courage in a Culture of Shame.” She has discovered that shame manifests itself in many ways including addiction, perfectionism, fear and blame. She spent six years interviewing approximately 400 women about their most personal moments of shame – from the woman who was criticized by the gas station clerk when her credit card was declined (she later raged at her unsuspecting toddler as part of the vicious shame cycle), to the high school teacher who was labeled as a rabble-rouser when she spoke out at a faculty meeting (she later quit teaching).
“Shame lurks in all of the familiar places like body image, motherhood, family, parenting, money and work, mental and physical health, addiction, sex, aging and religion,” Brown said. “When we are feeling shame, the camera is zoomed in tight, and all we see is our flawed selves, alone and struggling. We think to ourselves, ‘I’m the only one. Something is wrong with me. I am alone.’ The less we understand shame and how it affects our feelings, thoughts and behaviors, the more power it exerts over our lives.”
While Brown explains that we cannot be completely resistant to shame, we can develop the resilience we need to recognize shame, move through it constructively and grow from the experiences. Across the interviews, women with high levels of shame resilience shared four things in common, which Brown refers to as “The Four Elements of Shame Resilience.”
“These include the ability to recognize shame and understand what triggers it and developing critical awareness about the messages and expectations that drive shame,” Brown said. “In addition, those with high levels of shame resilience can reach out and share their stories. They have connection networks and are able to ’speak shame.’ They can use the word. They can be honest about their feelings and ask for what they need, rather than acting out or shutting down.”
One of Brown’s goals with this research is to create a national dialogue on the issue of shame, so the feelings of pain and isolation can be transformed into compassion and connection.
How comfortable are you with recognizing the following universal human needs?
I ask because many of us may experience shame- a feeling of defectiveness at merely having these needs. Having these interpersonal needs may make us feel vulnerable to others, and we may try to dismiss our needs. But they are here to stay whether or not we recognize, agree with, or try to wish them away.
The need to be in relationship with at least one other significant other
Within these relationships the needs include: feeling understood, secure in the knowledge that one is loved as a separate person in one’s own right, knowing that the relationship is truly wanted by the other and that each feels special to the other.
The need for touching and holding
This need can be a need for the expression of affection or tenderness, or the need for bodily contact or warmth, or a response to emotional need of protection and security
The need for identification
This includes the need to belong to someone or something larger than ourselves and is cherished by us – a group, a cause, an idea that we value
The need for differentiation
We need to sort out the beliefs and practices which we got from others that no longer fit us or no longer serve us. The essential statement is, “This is who I am; I am different.”
The need to nurture
We have needs to give time, assistance and caring to others. When we act upon this need, it meets both the others’ need an our own
The need for affirmation
We need to feel that our inner self is recognized, appreciated, singled out from the rest, unique, and openly admired
The need for power
Our need is to feel in charge of our lives, not to have domination over another. The need is related to having mastery over ourselves and competence over things and with people. Feeling powerless contributes to depression, and despair, and loss of courage and hope
If you want to find out how you shame yourself, you can notice how you talk to yourself after several situations in ehich almost everyone may shame themselves. Listen for the voice with which you talk to your self.
I just got back from a 10 day trip to eastern China with the Culver City Chamber of Commerce. Before our plane of 207 people got there, we experienced the effects of shame.
We were to leave on China East Airlines. The ticket counter was to open at 10:30 am Friday. At 10:45 we were told that it would be another ½ hour before it opened. At the ½ hour, we were told that it would be another 45 minutes. Our Chinese guide/trip organizer told us that in fact it would be longer. “I’m your advocate,” he said. He explained that the time the airline quotes is in order to save face.
Little by little the story unfolded. First it was that there was a slight engine leak, and that it would be fixed soon. Then it was that a new engine had to be flown in to LAX from China. The final story was that a plane had to fly to China, pick up a new engine then fly back with it and get it installed.To make a long and grueling story short, 36 hours after our scheduled flight we took off.
The problem with shame is that it makes us want to hide. Some lie, some disappear, some do all manner of things to escape the painful feeling of shame. One reaction is to feel a need to be superior, or “glorify” oneself. I was struck with the tagline for the China East Airlines: “Performance, glory, achievement.”
In China Road: A Journey into the Future of a Rising Power, the author, Rob Gifford, makes the point that ever since 1842 when China was soundly and humiliatingly defeated in the First Opium War and forced to sign the Nanjing treaty, “everything the Chinese did after 1842…was aboutrestoring China’s greatness.”
“How could you do that to me!?” I heard that phrase, I mean really heard it, when I called my mother to tell her that I had decided to get a divorce from my doctor husband of 10 years.
I had received enough empathic responsiveness from therapy by then to know that her response was ever so self-centered (in the ‘bad’ sense). No concern for what I was going through, or how it would impact my children, or even my later-to-be my ex-husband for that matter.
I had known in my guts, thought not yet in my head, that any ‘problem’ that her offspring had would be experienced by her as a betrayal- as treason, even. I knew not to expect any compassion. She needed the status of having a doctor son-in-law to help her with her own shame and disappointment at not becoming an MD herself.
Now, of course, it’s very funny to me; it’s so outrageous. But what about the other people who still have to live with the daily disconnect of being seen as an extensions of another.Being seen as not existing as a separate self with individual preferences, individual feelings, opinions, needs.
W ell, maybe I can help some. I know what it’s like.
I just finished a session with a client I will call “Joanne.”* She has upgraded her internal voice recognition software and that has changed her life.
What would the worst words in our language be for you? Swear words? Name calling words? For me one of the ugliest words is “should.” I think it’s ugly because the implied criticism is a sneaky spirit dimmer.
