How to Deal with Shame

Brene Brown describes shame as

“the intensely painful feeling or experience of believing that we are flawed and therefore unworthy of love and belonging.”

Shame is painful, uncomfortable and often buried deeply beneath behaviours that help us to pretend it isn’t there at all.

It is one of the most powerful emotions because it is often fuelled by being the most unspeakable or difficult to confront because we worry the people will reject us if we share the things we are shameful about. The word ‘shame’ means different things to different people, but it’s important to understand that shame is different from guilt and embarrassment.

Guilt is usually understood to involve negative feelings about something you have DONE, while embarrassment is the reaction to that. Shame, on the other hand, involves negative feelings about WHO YOU ARE as a person. Many experiences can evoke this intense feeling including issues with body image, parenting, relationships/sex, financial debt, addiction, experience of trauma, ageing, disability, sexual orientation. The reality of shame is personal and different for everyone. Unresolved shame can lead to feelings of depression, anxiety, and low self esteem.

WHAT ARE THE SYMPTOMS OF SHAME?

Shame is an emotion that can take many forms. Here are some common symptoms of shame:

WANTING TO DISAPPEAR

Most often, shame causes people to want to bury their heads and disappear — anything to pull out of connection with another person. If you’ve ever wanted to avoid returning a phone call, back out of a date, or call in sick for a job interview, you probably were feeling some amount of shame.

ANGER

Another common way people react to shame is by feeling anger. Often it’s easier to blame someone else than to think you may have done something wrong, and the anger helps mitigate your own feelings of shame. For example, when a parent yells at a teenager and the teenager runs to his room and slams the door, the teenager’s anger is really covering up his own feelings of shame.

SELF-BLAME

Shame can also cause people to heap blame onto themselves. For example, when a boss corrects you or gives you criticism, if you respond by thinking, “I am such an idiot. Why did I even take this job? I should quit, I’m not good enough to do it,” you are feeling shame.

ADDICTION

When you’re feeling shame, you may want to use something (alcohol, drugs, food, sex etc.) to give you temporary relief from those negative feelings. However, if those substances get in the way of your life, you may feel ever more shame for using them, causing a vicious cycle. If shame feels like it is affecting your daily life, counselling could be useful to unpack the experiences creating shame for you.

We have a free women’s counselling service at our Beenleigh and Cleveland centres. To make an appointment, please call us on 3050 3060.