Why we need to get to grips with shame

"If we don't do our work, then we become work for other people" Lama Rod Owens

CW: Some light references to current affairs which include gender-based violence.

"If we don't do our work, then we become work for other people” Lama Rod Owens. 

I love this quote from my dear friend, Lama Rod Owens - it is so apt.

I’ve been thinking about shame a lot lately. I often do when I witness any kind of human suffering. It’s because I have come to know shame well personally and professionally.

Shame is a beast of a human emotion that most people like to avoid at all costs - I say beast, because it can be a powerful and all consuming emotion that researchers have discovered that experiencing shame can show the same brain patterns as people experiencing physical pain. It’s intense. 

We can all experience shame - it is a normal human emotion to experience feelings of shame, but not enough people know how to process and transcend their shame. And in many cultures, unfortunately shame is not a socially acceptable emotion at all, which means we’re less likely to be able to deal with it (hello Brits) and I believe our avoidance of getting to grips with shame can be catastrophic. 

Because unaddressed shame lurks in the shadows and it grows.

So what is shame?

Shame is an intense feeling that we can all experience, that makes us feel that we are inherently bad, inherently flawed and that something we have done (or not done) makes us unworthy and/ or unloveable. 

Some common responses to unprocessed shame can look like:-

Lack of empathy

Lying

Increased judging / blaming others 

Overcompensating / people pleasing 

Withdrawal (numbing / addiction

Shaming others

Anger. 

Lack of empathy, increased judging / blaming others and anger are the manifestations of shame I see over and over again and often in response to some kind of heinous event in the news cycle. 

Unprocessed shame can not only impact our own well-being and sense of self, but unaddressed shame in people who do not know how to healthily regulate their emotions can also be catastrophic. 

When I started the early stages of my mental health and psychotherapy training nearly two decades ago (showing my age), I will never forget the emphasis our lecturer put on communicating how dangerous it was to intentionally shame other people. We were taught, no matter how unspeakable a client's behavior was, how lethal intentionally shaming them could be. Intentionally shaming - re: doing things that intentionally humiliate others or exchanging words such as “you should be ashamed of yourself” , “you are worthless” or  “you are a disgusting human being” type rhetoric. Most of us will have heard these words or perhaps muttered them ourselves.

Often people with a lot of unprocessed shame’s reflex is wanting to shame others. BUT wanting someone to be held accountable for their actions and show remorse for what they have done, is very different to intentionally wanting to shame someone. I think part of the reason we conflate the two is not only because of our personal relationship to shame, but how rarely we see accountability role-modelled (more on that another time).

I saw it in summer 2020 with a lot of liberal white people shaming other white people for their lack of racial literacy - the same lack of racial literacy they were more than likely also displaying up until they posted black squares. 

I also see the all too often careless ways videos and images of people who have been harmed, are shared and then re-shared online, to be seen to be doing the right thing, often without the thought for the family and friends of the people harmed and how the re-sharing and the casual gossip and speculation in the comments may re-traumatise them.

This isn't to take away from the need to raise awareness - but it’s the reactive nature of these shares that interests me and leads me to think it often serves as a distraction from processing our own grief, hurt and, for many, shame.

I also see shame in the way we speak about both victims and perpetrators of violence and it takes me back to that very first lesson I learned in my mental health and counselling training. 

This Tweet thread (or X or whatever the heck it's called)  stopped me in my tracks this week. I was furious when I first saw Fred’s response and then I got to thinking…

How have some men become so desensitized to the suffering of women - in this instance black girls - that they feel justified in making statements that are so minimising and careless?

And if I look at this tweet reply in its entirety, with empathy and factual accuracy - knife crime is an endemic and systemic issue affecting multiple communities of young people across the U.K. including girls and yes, statistically knife crime absolutely does take the lives of more boys and men more than girls and women. 

How have some women become desensitized to the suffering of boys and men losing their lives to street violence?

Two separate, but interconnected issues can exist at one time and talking about one, does not negate the other. 

I think there are many reasons we see these types of responses online - the most common?

Shame. 

I am interested in the disparities in our moral outrage for some and not others. I am interested in what is happening in the inbetween.

I am interested in what happens when there is a lack of empathy for one anothers humanity. And our common reflex to shame one another. Because for shame to exist, empathy has to be absent.

I am interested in how boys and men have been socialised to go to anger instead of vulnerability and processing shame and how catastrophic this can be.

I believe one of the many reasons we see so much human suffering inflicted on one another is because there are a lot of highly shamed people moving through this world who do not know how to process shame.

It’s why getting to grips with shame will always be in some way at the core of the work I do, because we’re at risk of harming one another if we don’t look at our shame. Shame is everywhere, personally, interpersonally, in families, culturally, historically. Shame can also trigger past trauma. Even seeing other people act in certain ways (or a lack of action) can trigger unprocessed shame in us. There’s no escaping it.

We have to get to grips with shame if we want to see a more healthy society.

I don’t have any memories of being taught about what shame was or how to process shame as a child or teenager. I imagine that’s because my caregivers weren't taught other.

So tell me - can you remember being taught as a child or indeed as an adult, what shame is and how to healthily process feelings of shame?

Much Love

Nova

x

LOVE NOTE: If you choose to comment - please engage with respect and care here -  I'm not here for BS - there's enough harm in the world, we don’t need to add to it.