Shame: The Dark Side of Your Story
Shame is one of the strongest emotions we can all feel. How would shame try and be in your way this week? What do you need to remember about yourself in those moments to keep those narratives from sticking? When shame arrives on the scene, you need to pay very close attention to the narrative it is trying to sell you. Did you really do that thing because you are a “terrible person” or were you simply trying to do something and it just didn’t turn out the way you wanted? How many other explanations are out there that have nothing to do with some sort of internalized shame-based narrative? My guess and clinical opinion… hundreds.
Why on earth do we even have shame then if all it is going to do is try and paint us as these villainous, wrong, not good enough things? Shame is present and important to make sure we stay attached to the environment we inhabit. Without shame, there would be no accepted social norms, or at the very least, no emotional drawback to not conforming to those norms. When shame is presenting itself appropriately, and within the congruent intensity, it is a course-correction emotion. If you were out camping in the wild with your friends and family and decided to eat all of the prepared food in one night, shame is coming to knock on your door. Now, shame is not the only emotion that is going to show up, I could name about five or six that could be relevant to that situation; however, we are going to stick with the shame, but just remember, most emotions show up in combination all at once, or in extremely rapid succession. Now, that shame that could be appearing would sound something like, “how could you do that to them, you’re such a selfish, horrible person for doing what you did.” That kind of shame is attempting to punch you right in the change muscle. It wants change NOW with very little compromise. However, what ends up happening is that we have to deal with all of the negative emotional material, that we rarely, if ever, get to the actual behavior change. If we don’t end up making the change, we may be setting ourselves up for an extremely disempowering and disparaging cycle of emotional pain.
What I advocate for instead would be to address the mistake accurately, inviting shame into the conversation as a third-party observer, NOT the main narrator. I do my best to instruct my clients to treat all of the emotions this way in the beginning of their work. The reason being is that when our emotions are being communicated, it can feel like they are the law of the land, but that just isn’t the case, we have all the power in the end. Does this take practice? Of course, but you will be there in no time. Once we have invited shame in, we have to have a small conversation with it. How I would like that to look is that you are trying to ask shame what exactly it wants from you. If it wants to feel like a horrible person so that you never do that again, all we really need to hang onto is that we don’t want this feeling again, therefore, don’t do the behavior again. If you can get to a place where you are simplifying your emotional reactions like this, you will be far more in control of your emotions, and you will be able to regulate within speeds you did not think possible without it.
Moving forward, your job is to bring your shame into the conversation and focus on the fact that it is just ONE voice amongst many, not the one that has executive say over what is and isn’t true. There is only one person who has the power to do that, and it happens to be you. Happy practicing, and if you have any questions, leave a comment below, and we will get you pointed in the right direction in no time.
