SHAME — ON WHO and WHY
Insecurity has plagued me most of this year. I recently moved into a new house, a home of my dreams, but the effect it has had on me cannot be described as perfectly desirable. My otherwise well-to-do life has been dominated by constant comparisons and unnecessary thoughts. At work too, I have been busy either convincing myself about my superiority over someone or justifying why I am not as good as them. This futile yet mostly helpless thought process has cost me restlessness and deep anxiety.
What’s more troubling is that I, being fully aware of the futility of it was still having these thoughts and could do nothing but let it affect me adversely. On bright days I would practice gratitude to break from its shackles but it wouldn’t be long before I would be in it’s grasps again. I had to get to the bottom of it, the root cause of this insecurity and the need to be good with everyone. Like they say — “ When the student is ready, the teacher will appear!” A good friend and guide introduced me to the concept of Shame and as I delved into this topic I really could see things more clearly.
Shame is a core belief one holds of themselves. There is a healthy aspect to shame too but that mostly qualifies as guilt. The shame we will address here is mostly to do with the negative beliefs that one holds of oneself. These are beliefs that make one feel less than or unworthy or greater than or resentful or inadequate or broken or flawed in some irreparable way. This leaves one feeling alone, feeling insignificant, unimportant and worthless. The more critical question then in my mind was how does one develop these core beliefs.
Like most behavioral and psychological problems the roots of these beliefs trace back to our childhood. That is not to say that our parents, family or systems are to be blamed. I, for one, believe our family, our parents in particular did the best they could for us. A lot of it might be so subtle and sub-conscious that one might not even realize it. Growing up, our experiences and interactions shape our personality and the more value one sees in self, the more desirable one feels, the more relevant one feels, the more secure a person he ends up becoming. The reality is, most cultures and environments are counterintuitive to this end, and this is where the challenge begins.
Criticism has become a norm and “positive feedback” is a way to hold the reins and keep the child in check. Given how competitive it is out there we are hardly able to not compare, and we don’t realize the effect it might have on a young mind. Sadly, the mind carries the burden of these unplanted seeds that make one less powerful or insignificant and shame kicks in. In order to overcome shame we wear masks and try to conceal our shameful selves only to end up feeling more shameful and disgusted! Our coping strategies include hiding our true self, compensate with use of substance, give extra love and respect to others or isolate ourselves. All of these strategies, however, are counter productive to the cause of hiding shame and make us more resentful within.
Some of the emotions of shame are pain, fear, anxiety and insecurity. Though negative, these feelings are so common that any undesirable event in the immediate past can be blamed for the experience. Therefore, an understanding of why these emotions have empowered us becomes very important. Like with most other problems awareness is the first step to the solution here as well. The ability to diagnose one’s emotions and co-relate them with a cause isolates the suffering from the sufferer.
Shame is toxic by nature and one way to keep it in check is to differentiate the action from the doer. A shameful persons feels miserable because he associates himself with his action; a guilty person on the other hand recognizes that while his action is inappropriate, it doesn’t define him and that the action can be rectified or compensated for in some way. This distinction becomes very important for one to maintain a healthy relationship with oneself.
Unfortunately, opening up about shameful topics and experiences is not an easy thing to do, as shame is something most people try very hard to avoid feeling, owning, acknowledging, or addressing. Simply put, the natural reaction to shame is to hide it. Because of this, shame-based people sometimes isolate and keep secrets, or they worry more about looking good than feeling good, or they become people-pleasers, or they busy themselves with the problems of those around them to such a degree that they never have time to look at themselves.
Ultimately, realizing the patterns of shame and opening up to yourself and saying that it is OK, will start the upward spiral to improvement. Isolating each incident and separating the action from the doer will help one develop self-esteem and instill the confidence required to take off the masks and reveal our true selves.
I intend to write more on this topic in the coming weeks — ways to identify shame, how it manifests in various people and situations and mostly importantly how one can overcome it. With this article I only intended to introduce the topic, just the way I got introduced to it and just the way it struck a chord with me.
