How to turn shame as to a resource of becoming more creative

Let’s be honest with ourselves, we all have felt shame and been ashamed in our lives. We remember vividly those overwhelming and tangibly uncontrollable feelings in an aftermath of an experience of embarrassment, disgrace, misunderstanding, inadequacy, humiliation, disappointment or simply just not being heard by someone we respect. We paralyze mentally and even physically by just wanting to pull ourselves under a turtle shell and hope that we did not even exist. I have felt myself ultimately inadequate and to be honest a total loser when attending to a meeting where everyone else has been thoroughly prepared and equipped with piles of smudged notes, cryptic mindmaps and dashing pitches and I can barely find a pen and a scruffy receipt to write on and look as efficient, productive and proficient. Luckily technology and multiple devices serve a shelter to save us from these crashdowns. So shame is basically a feeling where we lose control and connection from our inner selves and also disconnect from other people resulting to an vicious cycle of isolation and blocking our creativity.

Why shame tend to block our creativity

Shame is an extremely powerful, painful and pervasive emotion but also very humane emotion and not to mention an emotion not to be ashamed of. It is derived from a basic need of acceptance and being appreciated in a society, community or a group we live in. Shame and guilt are related emotions both of self-blame. Shame makes us unrationally fearsome for example critics and judgements we face, it can burst out as an unexpected aggression, restless frustration or dejection, it can make us even physically secluded from other people and cause unwanted lonelyness. All in all emotions can vary from mild embarrassement to self-destructive thoughts depending on a suffered trauma in a wide sense.

“Shame is a soul eating emotion.” ― C.G. Jung

As said no one is immune when it comes to feeling of shame although experiences and situations where those feelings arise and occur might vary depending on a person, one’s life situation, experiences and possible unprocessed traumas from childhood. It is very common to feel ashamed about things related to succeeding in work, pursuing nobel of your lifetime, being ”the best buddy to your kids” parenthood, aging gracefully but staying unalteredly young, addictions of all kinds and also concerns of sexuality and relationships. In addition, shame often comes on a stage where expectations and standards to innerself are set so high and they have become unreachable so that there is no reasonable and constructively motivating relation in between them. A pursuit after perfectionism conceals our vulnerability and natural compassion besides blocking creativity from blooming.

Shame is also an effective mean to direct and regulate expected behaviour of people in societies and smaller entities e.g inside of a family. Children learn more or less unconsciously through shame what kind of behaviour, values and activities are expected from them. Likewise what kind of behaviour or actions are unaccepted and not respected, even leading to undesirable consequences to not only young generation’s mind but also it can create comprehensive cultural and economical disfunctionality in a society.

I have a cutting clear and still somewhat painful memory from my childhood when I wanted to attend ballet school because of my gymnastic girlfriend living next door asked me to join her hobby. I was thrilled and saw crystal clear in my eyes a world of featherlight fairies in tutus and I was eager to learn magical skill of dancing on top of the toes. So I ran excited to my mom to get a permission to step that illustrious world and she looked at me with her lenient but worried face and after a while of pondering her head she allowed me to join the ballet school. The reason for her concern wasn’t the fact that ballet school was far away and I needed to travel there alone with two buses in my 6 years age. The real reason why she was so doubtful and pensive was because I was a chubby girl then and she thought I would be horribly picked on among the other tiny budding ballerinas. And later I learned that I put her into this inconvenient and disconcerting situation instead of realizing myself to be ashamed of my body and give up from my dancing dream. Luckily I was too young or unconcerned to care about how I looked then and lived my dream over ten years almost to become a professional dancer.

Embrace shame and turn it into a resource of greater creativity

“If you are never scared, embarrassed, or hurt, it means you never take chances.” ―Julia Soul

Shameful situations happen not only in our childhood but through our lives and unfortunately there is no grab solution where one could just crawl and hide into a hole to avoid shame to pop out when there is already a vulnerable ground for it. However, there are ways how to handle and treat emotional shame and learn how to tolerate it and not to let it dauntingly gnaw your creativity and self confidence. Although it has been stated in researches that feeling of shame is actually purely negative and destructive emotion without having a constructively positive side or element in per se.

There is always a strong, ruthless and pitiless “inner judge” in our minds, whispering devilishly straight into our ears that we are not good enough, unlimitlessly pushing us further, if it is even worth of trying, because failure is evident anyway. In any case, you can always name handful of people by heart who shine and master things better. The absurd and insane misconception behind this is an assumption that the world would be ready and accomplished already leaving no more voices meant meaningful to say nor worth of hearing. “Inner judge” keeps reminding us that there is a huge risk of losing our treasured faces, remains of dignity or at least the well sheltered mask. Hence accompanying humiliation will become so unbearable that this worst case scenario actually becomes true.

How to handle and learn to tolerate shame to not block our creativity but also feed our creativity

1) Recognize and acknowledge the shame eruptions and shame triggers. First of all we need to recognize the patterns and vulnerability in our inner selves which trigger shame to erupt as an emotion when we are faced “a hot seat or a spotlight”. Eruption is by far unavoidable like a sempiternal volcano that has to let the gasifying steam out once in a decades. Through observing our individual body reactions physical signals might occur autonomically first before actual shameful emotions arise. By means of consciously recognising and identifying irrational erupted emotions of desperation, worthlessness, inadequacy, disgrace and embarrassment deriving from shame we can understand and acknowledge the patterns and triggers of shame and deep fears related to it. In addition, it is important to acknowledge the context and origins of original event of shame, when it happened, in what circumstances and does it still reflect and address the current person we are. More we understand our patterns and shame traps, easier it becomes to mute its strong and crushing voice.

2) Be critical. It is necessary to be critical towards the reactions arisen from emotions of shame and interpretations made from them. In addition, be critical towards the community, group or people whether it is media or a close person who might have caused emotions of shame to arise. However, this means also being analytical to our own thoughts and self assessment, do those shame causing events still evaluate us as persons or can we objectify and “take a seat from the audience” instead. I acknowledge that my mom’s idealistic purpose was to protect me from being bullied and therefore getting painful stiches to my self confidence. Her purpose was well-intentioned but it hide also a comprehension of shame that I was to learn in my early dancing years. So essentially being critical and self aware it can help us restabilize our insights, determine the present and our inside on our own terms.

3) Talk your shame out. Shame is usually well shrouded secret that is needed to be hidden in all means. Instead sharing a situation which caused feelings of shame with a trustworthy person make them more visible, concrete and recognizable to ourselves and helps us to understand more rationally the delusion and trap of it. In addition, by discussing about it aloud it becomes more clear how to separate feelings from guilt and low self esteem as well and serve a feeling of sooth in resolving the trauma. It also helps us to step out from the eye of an eruption to see our patterns of shame from external perspective and in time emotions of shame won’t bubble inside of our skin anymore as strong and self-defeating.

4) Reconnect and learn through compassion. Shame breaks always connection and understanding between people and those involved in a shame causing incident. It’s very important to reconnect with the people around and approach them with genuine compassion in order to be able to get over the emotions of shame and become more open to throw ourselves towards others and also take the other person’s boots if needed. Compassion is the best weapon against shame, self criticism, most of the fears and feelings of insulation. Essentially shame is a social installation and without social structures and rules there was no shame. Therefore, it is important to learn away triggers of shame and reinstall emotions with compassion and reconnecting with people using these means. This will also release loads of resources and capacity to more creative mindset. Eventually we cannot control how other people perceive our personality and us as persons. This fact liberates tremendous amount of capacity to focus on essential improvement and self learning.

Basically learning and using these four means, toleration towards emotions of shame increase and limitations to block our creativity decrease. Self confidence builds up stronger and more substantial and unflinching when it indulges and leaves space for creativity to bloom. It sets the mind open up to new diverse angles and intriguing windows when we don’t need to hide our own shameful and shady corners at the same time. It’s not only making our minds more loose and creative but also soothes us to learn and feel we are not alone and exceptional rara avises with our feelings yet part of the society and communities we live in.

“If we can share our story with someone who responds with empathy and understanding, shame can’t survive.” ― Brené Brown

How do you defeat emotions of shame and use the process to a greater creativity and self improvement?

Thanks for reading this article. I hope you enjoyed it. I would love you to share your opinions, comments and experience as well.