When I began this post, I couldn’t escape the irony—I feel slightly ashamed to be writing about shame. And that illustrates shame’s power over us. We don’t like to talk about it. Thus, we suffer in silence, vainly pretending we don’t have any shame issues. But we do. Every one of us. And it’s wreaking havoc with our lives, especially those of us who struggle with people pleasing.
As shame researcher Brene Brown says: “Shame forces us to put so much value on what other people think that we lose ourselves in the process of trying to meet everyone else’s expectations.”
She further states:
The constant struggle to feel accepted and worthy is unrelenting. We put so much of our time and energy into making sure that we meet everyone’s expectations and into caring about what people think of us, that we are often left feeling angry, resentful, and fearful. Sometimes we turn these emotions inward and convince ourselves that we are bad and that maybe we deserve the rejection that we so desperately fear. Other times we lash out—we scream at our partners and children for no apparent reason, or we make a cutting comment to a friend or colleague. Either way, in the end, we are left feeling exhausted, overwhelmed, and alone.”
Brene Brown
Not a very pretty picture, is it? If we want to be healthy, whole, and able to accomplish our God-given purposes to the fullest, we must learn how to deflate shame’s power.
How shame hijacks our lives
We’ve been taught that shame isn’t a suitable topic for polite conversation. Why bring it up? Isn’t that like poking a hornet’s nest? Can’t we leave well enough alone?
No. Because avoiding it increases its power over us. When we don’t talk about it, shame stays hidden and thus ignored. Allowed to fester in the dark corners of our souls where no one can see.
We may not see it, but we see its effects. Shame attacks identity, erodes self-worth, and leaves us looking for someone to blame. Experts say shame plays a role in things like depression, anxiety disorders, addiction, eating disorders, bullying, suicide, sexual assault, and family violence. It’s also a root cause of people pleasing and perfectionism.
It’s a problem of epidemic proportions because it has an impact on all of us. What makes it ‘silent’ is our inability or unwillingness to talk openly about shame and explore the ways in which it affects our individual lives, our families, our communities, and society.”
Brene Brown
Shame is not the same as guilt
Shame directly attacks our identity and worth as a person. It is often confused with guilt, but in fact the two are different in an important way: guilt is a judgment of an action while shame is a judgment of who we are as a person.
Guilt occurs as a result of something we did (or didn’t do). Guilt causes us to regret the action and motivates us to change our behavior or make amends.
In contrast, shame occurs when someone evaluates us negatively. It focuses on identity and labels the doer “bad” rather than the action. This causes feelings of worthlessness and powerlessness instead of remorse and saps our motivation to change or make amends.
To state it simply: guilt says “I did something bad” while shame says “I am bad.”
And when a person hears others label them “bad”, (i.e. stupid, ugly, or worthless) over and over again, they begin to believe it. When this happens, shame has hijacked their life.
Where does shame come from?
We hear shame messages everywhere. They arise from society’s and individual’s expectations of: who we should be, what we should be, and how we should be.
Brene Brown describes what she calls the shame web. Imagine you are in the center of a spider’s web where each strand is labeled with a different source of expectations you should live up to. Some strands are closer to you, and represent those with the most influence on you, such as parents, siblings, and spouse. The strands farther from the center represent other influences, from teachers and coaches to advertisements and magazine photos. All of them are part of the web of expectations that keep us stuck in fear, blame, and disconnection.
If you don’t like spiders, I have a different visual for you. Remember that mainstay of 70s potlucks and family dinners, the Jello mold? (I know this is a bit corny but stay with me.)
Imagine you are a Jello mold sitting on a plate in the fridge. The chunks of fruit embedded in you represent the words and expectations of family and close friends. Their messages sink deep into your being and flavor who you are.
The next layer of influence are the objects right next to you. These objects could tilt over and squash your Jello out of shape or spill some of their contents onto you. These are people you come in contact with, who can affect you by their spoken or unspoken judgments.
Farther away, you have the rest of the items in the fridge. They don’t touch you directly, and you might not see them from your location, but they can fill the fridge with odors that can seep into you. In a similar way, our culture and society subtly feed us shaming messages that seep into our souls whether we are aware of them or not.
There is hope!
We can’t avoid shame. We can’t build a force field that will keep it from touching us.
But we can learn to become more resilient in the face of it. The next few posts will outline some simple but powerful actions we can take to become better at recognizing shame and handling our reactions and emotions wisely. Things like recognizing our triggers, gaining perspective, and developing empathy.
If we want to successfully deal with the shame in our lives, we have to understand why we feel it and how it affects out lives, including the behaviors, thoughts, and feelings we deal with every day.”
Brene Brown
Material excerpted from I Thought It Was Just Me (But It Isn’t) Making the Journey From “What Will People Think?” to “I Am Enough.” by Brene Brown, Ph.D.
