In her book The Gifts of Imperfection, Brene Brown describes shame as “an intensely painful feeling or experience of believing that we are flawed and therefore unworthy of love and belonging.” As a human species we need to belong in order to survive. Love and belonging is our greatest need and our greatest fear is not being worthy of it.

Shame & Guilt

It’s helpful to understand the difference between shame and guilt. We experience guilt after some sort of transgression. We make an evaluation of a specific action “I’ve done something bad.” It can be a signal to become aware that our actions are not congruent with our beliefs and values. We experience shame, however, because of an evaluation of who we are at our very core “I am bad.” It’s a belief that something is fundamentally wrong with who I am as a person, not just what I’ve done.

What Shame Looks Like

Most people are not aware of their shame. Shame can be disguised as perfectionism, self-harm, abusive relationships, workaholism, shut down or over reactive, and anger/rage. I personally never knew I had so much shame. All I knew was that I had strong emotional reactions to making a mistake or to being corrected. My inclination was to want to hide and run away. I often worried about being judged and not being good enough. This showed up at my place of work as I tried harder to be “perfect.”

I remember one particular day when I had let someone down, and I was resolute in my commitment to be more organized so I would not miss or forget anything. One of my co-workers stopped me and said “you know Linda, we still love you.” I found it an odd comment and said “Ok.” She repeated with intention “we still love you.” She looked at me and held my gaze and the truth of what she was trying to tell me sunk in. The root of my need to be perfect was fear of rejection or abandonment, which in essence was my fear of not being worthy of love and belonging.

Shame as Protection

We all have shame and shame has a purpose. It has a survival role that can help us learn right from wrong. When a toddler is corrected and told no, he may turn away or hang his head in shame. A parent may then reassure the child that he is still loved. A parent may explain that he disapproves of the action and not the child. If, however, a parent is not aware or available to reassure the child, he or she may internalize the correction or scolding as an indication that he is a bad child. This triggers the fear that he or she will not be loved.

Shame also serves as protection when we hold the shame of something that’s been done to us, so that we don’t have to confront our perpetrator. If we blame ourselves it can give us a sense of control. We can decide to change our behavior, to hide, play small, or do whatever we need to prevent us from being hurt, abused, or violated again.

Shame Learned

Shame can also develop when young children, who are egocentric, can’t understand what is happening to them or in their environment. They conclude that they are responsible. For example, if they are emotionally, physically, or sexually abused, it must be because of what they did. If they are neglected, if there is violence in the home, if parents get divorced or even if someone dies, they believe it must be because of something they have done. They believe it must be their fault.

As children we can also be shamed by family, friends, and society. We hear messages that we need to look a certain way, have a certain amount of intellect, of athletic ability, or social skills. We are compared to others perhaps in misguided attempts to motivate us, but we receive the message that we are actually “not good enough.”

Befriending Shame

The fear that someone will discover that we are flawed, imperfect, or defective motivates us to hide, to disconnect from others, and often manifests our very fear of not belonging. So what can we do?

1. We can begin by cultivating an awareness of our shame and how it manifest in our lives. How does shame feel in the body? When I experience shame I feel frozen or shut down. My face feels flushed, I can’t hear, I can’t think, my hearts beats rapidly, and I want to disappear. What does it look like for you? Do you shut down or do you get angry? Do you self-harm or lash out? Do you hide?
2. We can then notice and observe that we are in our shame, that we’ve been triggered. We can practice self-compassion by noticing and validating our fear of not being good enough or not being worthy of love and belonging. We can acknowledge our common humanity in that we all struggle with this at times and to varying degrees. We can then practice kindness toward ourselves remembering that we are perfectly imperfect human beings, and we can hold ourselves with care and nurturing. We can ask “what do I need right now?”
3. We can spend time getting to know ourselves better. We can get curious about our thoughts, beliefs, feelings, sensations, and reactions. We can be present for ourselves so that we are not abandoning ourselves. We can stay present to our fears with kindness and give ourselves the reassurance we are needing. We can remind ourselves that we are always worthy of love and belonging regardless of our imperfections. We accept our strengths and our limitations.
4. We can connect to people who care about us and love us unconditionally. Sometimes we need to be reminded, as I was, that we are OK. We are accepted, loved and cared for.
5. And we can always Breathe.