Shine A Light On Shame

We all experience some degree of shame. How does it manifest in your life, particularly when it becomes destructive? Do you have a specific narrative of shame that you frequently revisit or easily fall back into? Most of us do. 

 

Shame serves as a barrier between ourselves and social groups, triggering an emotional response that signals potential exile—a survival mechanism, especially when group affiliation significantly influences our lives.

 

While shame can sometimes be a motivating or balancing emotion, it often proves counterproductive, convincing us that we are not smart enough, fit enough, or adequate in various aspects of life. Rooted in perfectionism, this narrative of inadequacy is exacerbated by societal comparisons, particularly through idealized portrayals on social media.

 

Here are three steps to address and overcome shame:

 

• Recognition: Acknowledge and accept that everyone experiences shame.
  
• Empathy for Yourself: Counteract shame with self-empathy. Understand that making mistakes is part of being human and doesn't define your worth. Isolate the specific behavior or error, offering yourself grace.
  
• Open Communication: Illuminate shame by sharing it with a trusted individual. Keeping shame hidden leads to disconnection, creating a harmful cycle. Bringing it into the open fosters connection and minimizes shame's power. Focus on the positive aspect of shame, which is humility, and redirect the narrative toward connection with others.
  
  

Show Notes: reidnco.com/podcast

 

Time Stamps:

 

[00:02:17] And you'd be out on your own. And as you can imagine, early man, if you were out on your own, probably your chance of survival was not very good. So shame is really An emotion that at its gift is humility and it's a gift of a reminder of social norms. And even today, the gift of shame is humility and used in the right way and used in the right quantities shame is the thing that kind of keeps you from getting over the tips of your skis and, and reminding you that, you're not infallible, right?

 

[00:06:45] So what do you do about it? Okay, because first of all, everybody walks around with some level of shame. If you don't walk around with any shame, it's because it's a, you have a complete lack of empathy. And I think then you're actually a sociopath. So we all experience some level of shame. And the very first thing is to recognize that that experience of not feeling like you're enough in some ways is universal.

 

[00:12:12] What we can focus in on is the gift that it gives us and pay attention to it, that the gift of shame is humility. And so being able to go to another person. Or even to yourself, okay, going to yourself, going to another person and talking about the very thing that's created that loathing means the loathing loses its power.