Strengthen Live: Interrupting & Noticing Shame
It both whispers deep inside us and sometimes thunders into our lives; shame is an emotion every human experiences. It's not always easy to recognise or understand. So let's talk about that.
What is shame?
It's not uncommon for me to be asked to describe shame. So let's start there.
Picture this:
She notices two people glance at her after she speaks and immediately drops her gaze, pulling her shoulders inward, making herself smaller. Her breath catches high in her chest, then comes out in a thin, careful exhale while a hot wave moves through her face. They must think I’m ridiculous, she tells herself, without recognising that the painful certainty of being judged is a type of shame.
And this:
After snapping angrily at someone she loves, she goes quiet, unclenches her fists, and looks down at the floor. Her breathing is shallow at first, then slowly deepens as an uncomfortable heaviness settles in her chest. She feels a strong urge to repair what happened and thinks, That wasn’t how I want to treat people, experiencing shame as a signal that helps her pause and realign with her behavioural values and her own needs.
Or this:
She walks into the room already feeling exposed and anxious, avoiding eye contact and unconsciously smoothing her clothes. Her breath feels tight and shallow, and every small movement around her seems to make her body tense further. Nothing specific has happened, yet a sinking sensation tells her, Something is wrong with me, I don't fit here, and she mistakes the feeling for a fact.
Shame also shows up when we believe that we are 'faulty' or just not good enough. It can also be a deeply emotional experience that we feel intensely in our thoughts and body. It hits us deeply in our sense of self-worth and failure.
Like feeling bad about ourselves and even feeling shame for our emotions and thoughts. A clue is when a person says, 'I know I shouldn't feel this but...'. Although not every 'should' statement disguises shame, I should is often there when someone who is struggling with shame begins to share.
When shame is deeply rooted in us, it's an emotional 'state'. This means that we can 'live with shame' for a season or even many years.
What's particularly tricky with shame is that it thrives in secret. The more we quietly dwell on those thoughts, the tighter its hold on us. One of the most prolific researchers on shame is Brené Brown. She says that shame feeds off three things: secrecy, silence and judgment.
“Shame corrodes the very part of us that believes we are capable of change.”
― Brene Brown, I Thought It Was Just Me: Women Reclaiming Power and Courage in a Culture of Shame
But thankfully, we can work through shame. There is an antidote. And it starts with our relationship with ourselves.
Before I share more, let's talk about what interrupts shame:
The number one question everyone experiencing shame or helping others to interrupt shame asks me is: How do we get rid of shame?
“If we can share our story with someone who responds with empathy and understanding, shame can't survive.”
― Brené Brown, Daring Greatly: How the Courage to be Vulnerable Transforms the Way We Live, Love, Parent and Lead.
Interrupting the vicious cycle of shame requires safe people and self- acceptance. This looks like:
- Empathy from others: Sharing what we're struggling with and receiving compassionate, kind understanding from those we share with.
- Self-compassion: Learning to interrupt the negative, accusing thought spirals with active acceptance of who we are and kindness that refuses to judge ourselves. This doesn't mean that we don't own our mistakes, it means that we more forward from them with acceptance that they happened and a desire to make healthy changes.
- Mercy: An old-fashioned or religious word for many, mercy is the choice and act of letting go of failures, faults and wrongdoing and instead allowing ourselves or others to have a fresh start.
"Mercy triumphs over judgement" James 2:13, The Bible
These three 'ways of being' are key for us to help others move forward through shame and to help ourselves. So the place to start is our relationship with ourselves alongside safe people we can receive encouragement, acceptance and empathy from.
This is deep work. For my coaching clients, this includes learning about their strengths, emotional needs and personal traits so they can begin to understand themselves more deeply and honour those in themselves. Self-compassion and self-acceptance grows our confidence. This, in turn, changes how we communicate with and relate with others with more clarity about what we want and how we expect to be treated.
It's also common for my clients to have a therapist. Someone with whom they can talk through some of the deeper roots of their struggle with shame.
Shame shows up in each of us differently at different times and in different situations. This is because there are different types of shame.
Working with neurodivergent women and people finding themselves as they find freedom from dominating relationships and cultures, I also see how shame is linked to camouflaging behaviours. So let's get into that now.
Shame and Camouflaging Behaviours
Camouflaging behaviours are used by every human in some way. Remember that. We use them as protective and defensive behaviours in social and cultural situations. We also use them to hide behind. You're probably familiar with the term 'masking'. This is one type of camouflaging behaviour in which we push down or hide how we're really feeling. Sometimes for good reason. Sometimes because of shame.
Camouflaging behaviours are not always unhealthy, but much of the time they can be, in the sense that when we're using them, we're not freely being ourselves. Without realising that this is connected with shame, many people use camouflaging behaviours to fit in because they feel that they are too much, too little or not understood or accepted as they are.
There is usually a season of rediscovery when a person begins to realise that they have subconsciously been camouflaging. Maybe when leaving an abusive relationship, finding your way out of a dominant culture or realising that you're neurodivergent and been trying to fit in whilst losing yourself all along.
Just a few examples of what shame in this context can look like:
- Not admitting we need or want help.
- Pretending to be or not be who we really are.
- Feeling like we just don't match up to everyone else and experiencing burnout because we keep pushing themselves to meet other people's expectations.
Can shame be 'positive'?
Let's kick this can down the road a bit! Positive Psychology now understands that every emotional experience can have a light and dark side. This doesn't necessarily mean that when shame is harming us that it's also doing good. That really would be a toxic way to think about it.
Instead, it's important to realise that there are different types of shame. What we call 'adaptive' shame is our inner human mechanism for noticing that we've overstepped a line in some way and need to pause and repair or stop what we're doing because of the effect on us or others. There is an inner moral aspect to it as well as a 'for the social good' aspect. In that sense, it is like a healthy guardrail.
But the majority of the time, we're experiencing other types of shame that can be quite complex and troublesome. So if you're ready for a bit of psychology theory now, perhaps understanding these will help you realise that when we're talking about shame, it's not just a simple emotion. It can have different types of causes.
You may not remember all of these and their names, but what I encourage you to do is realise that it's worth having deeper conversations about shame and what's influencing it in you or your clients.
You'll also notice that shame isn't listed on the Strengthen Emotion Discovery Wheel and this is intentional. I'll share why at the end.
Here's the psychology theory bit!
In psychology, there are 3 broad categories or ways of thinking about or recognising shame:
1) Internal vs External Shame
Internal shame is inward-focused. It can include self-criticism, self-judgement and self-hatred. I often describe this as hitting us at an identity level. We feel that we are not good enough.
External shame is something many of my clients experience. It's how we feel when we know or think that others are judging us; our character, our choices, our identity. We live with thoughts or knowledge that others think we're flawed and it causes us to feel rejected as not good enough. We can experience this even when we don't have the same values as the people judging us. A fundamental human need is belonging. External shame tells us that we don't belong.
2) Shame as State vs Trait
A 'state' is something that last for a season. We call them 'transient' because they're not permanent. Shame as a state is usually a response to something we've done or something we've experienced. Generally, this version of shame resolves as we either repair or make peace with our own actions and faults or when a situation with others is mended, worked through or passes with time.
Examples of this are: Feeling ashamed for saying something hurtful to someone. Once we apologise and make peace with each other, this shame fades. Or feeling shame because someone has treated us badly but we're able to shake off that shame and move forward.
A 'trait' is something we live with more deeply, like a personality trait. Alexithymia (difficulty noticing, naming and talking about feelings) is a trait. When shame is a trait, it is called 'chronic'. This is also very much about our self-identity. Through trauma, adverse childhood experiences and relationships that make us feel worthless, a person can live with a chronic and deep feeling that they are not good enough and are unlovable.
For many people with Alexithymia or neurodivergence, there can be a level of chronic shame that causes them to cope with life by using those camouflaging behaviours we touched on earlier. I find that validation and work on personal strengths and identity are really helpful for people to learn to interrupt shame and recreate their own healthy sense of identity.
3) Adaptive vs Maladaptive Shame
Adaptive shame is often described as 'healthy shame'. It happens when values or social boundaries have been crossed or when we make mistakes. It leads us to amend behaviour and repair relationships or attitudes.
Maladaptive shame is what we think of as 'toxic shame'. You might see this when cultures or people use blame and shame to keep someone low. It makes the person feel bad about themselves rather than about what they've done. Again, feelings of worthlessness, hopelessness and depression may be part of this.
It's also possible for us to feel shame on behalf of others.
We call this 'vicarious'. It happens when we feel shame for what a friend, family member or even our work colleagues have done or how they behave towards others. This can happen whether they also feel shame or whether they are shameless.
I asked my community what questions they have about shame, and this one stood out:
Why do we hold onto shame?
Because it can be deeply rooted in our cultural experience and because it thrives in response to internal and external interactions.
Letting go of shame is possible, it's like lifting our heads as we accept ourselves and grow in confidence. It's also about realising that the shame we might feel from others is actually their issue not ours.
But the deepest answer to that question is that different ones of us hold onto shame for different reasons. As long as we believe what shame says to us, we allow it to feed and breed on our insecurities. Once we tackle those beliefs and the behaviours we've internalised because of them, we begin to walk free from the shackles of shame.
But even when walking free, we still have to learn to handle it when it whispers on the inside or thunders from the outside. Because shame is part of our humanity and thrives in the judgement that humans have for themselves and each other.
Let's remember:
We're not powerless in the face of shame. But the more we hide from it, the more it thrives. When we lift the lid on it by talking with empathetic, safe people, it cannot thrive and we learn to reject its inner critic stingers with self-compassion and self-acceptance.
Here's why the Strengthen Emotion Discovery Wheel is a great resource for conversations about shame:
I purposefully didn't put it in the category of any specific type of emotion in the design because shame fits in all the sections! It's a raw emotion, we feel it in relationship with others and to others, we work through it when we're calming and we can feel it when angry or in high alert. If you or your client identifies shame, then talking about the holistic way it shows up in our emotional experience, body and feelings will help untangle its hold as we ask ourselves:
What do I really want instead of shame?
Because that's a question well worth asking and doing something about.
Useful Self-Compassion Resources:
I regularly signpost my clients to Kirsten Neff's website. She's one of the most highly regarded researchers about self-compassion. Her website includes practices and information that help understanding about self-compassion and to grow it in your own relationship with yourself.
Here's a bit more about the Strengthen Emotion Discovery Wheel. Apologies for the tech quality of this video. I'm currently using my daughter's laptop while mine is off for repair. I'll be redoing this for my website when I am able to. For now, this will explain a little more about the wheel and the resource pack if you're interested.
That's it from me for this article!
If you're subscribed, let me know in the comments about any resources you find useful for interrupting shame. And of course, drop any questions or thoughts you have in the comments too.
Until next time!
Andrea Urquhart
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