Dethroning the Voice of Shame – Part II

Please read Part I here.

No longer neglected as part of the human condition and family of experiences, shame is now being termed as the Master Emotion. Truly a juggernaut of personal and interpersonal affects within culture, shame carries within itself a powerful internal phenomenon of humiliation, anger, abandonment, remorse, and rejection. Shame is now transitioning from being formerly ignored, repressed, and overlooked to having a global platform of prominence and sought after to become better understood within the psychological literature. Examining shame must be a necessity as it has become the primary barrier in relationships between husband and wife, parent and child, teacher and student, and even therapist and client. It continues to inflict wounds upon the self as well as create interpersonal hindrances in moving boldly into relational security, acceptance, trust, freedom, and vulnerability. Though shame can be hidden as an internal phenomenon, it can manifest externally and societally in the faces of addiction, shyness, failure, inferiority, anger, shattered dreams, and broken lives. With a longing for liberation and knowing the gap between where we are and where we want to be, shame limits the self from progressing forward. In our modern societal context, shame continues to cause psychopathologies as lack of intimacy and trust, depression, anxiety, and violence. Of the current landscape of dominant diseases, shame-based dysfunctions as sexual and physical abuse, eating disorders, and substance use and addiction are all part of societal ills; yet, their treatment is amiss and without completion if shame is not addressed at the core of each process toward recovery. At its root, shame causes a rupture in the self and its relationship with others after producing the behaviors of hiding, concealing, and withdrawing in isolation and disconnection. It makes the shamed individual feel worthless, lonely, self-conscious, and embarrassed. Shame can also be a longing unmet and unfulfilled in which it becomes the night side shadow of love; its contrast is love that creates a transcendence above shame. There are measures of feeling profound loneliness, fundamentally flawed, and overridden with a haunting self-doubt in response to its activity within the human soul. 

Scottish knight and revolutionary William Wallace in Braveheart asserts, “Every man dies, but not every man lives.” Once the activity of shame takes place within an individual, we can take notice of various characteristics at play. Shame-consumed individuals demonstrate a constriction of emotion and are seen as led by emotionality in addition to unhealthy thought patterns. The nature and severity of shame’s effects can depend upon these factors: the capacity of the individual to navigate effectively the shaming experience as well as the emotions of shame itself, the number of times the shaming experience occurred and how often it was repeated, how much emotional support was awarded during the shaming experience, whether the shaming experience was conducted privately or publicly, and the identity of the individual that conducted the shame. There are various layers to the entire canvas of shame within the human soul accompanied by a cluster of feelings and experiences that include: 

• Feelings of being exposed: Associated feelings of helplessness and vulnerability can cause the individual to be heightened in self-conscious and exposed to thoughts of being seen as weak and unable to push through this experience 
• Feelings of being less-than and defective: Following the shaming experience, many individuals report being damaged, defective, and corrupted 
• Feelings of isolation and loneliness: Individuals self-absorbed in the cycle of shame often portray being immobilized, isolated, alone, and trapped despite wanting someone to communicate and navigate their inner pain
• Feelings of self-blame: This is especially true when shaming experiences originate during childhood, and shame-consumed individuals typically place blame upon themselves for their experiences 
• Feelings of rage: Anger in this form of rage is a self-protective factor that insulates the self and keeps others away from further exposure to the rupture that shaming experiences have caused

In response to shame’s effects being manifest, a shame-consumed individual can maintain defensive and passive strategies or overtly aggressive strategies to defend against the exposure, humiliation, and emotion of shame. Forms of internalizing shame in which the individual turns inward include: withdrawal in order to escape feelings of rejection and exposure, “checking out” and remaining emotionally numb and disconnected from the external world, isolating behaviors that avoid social situations, avoid intimacy, and seek out privacy to be alone and unseen, adopting perfectionism to be hyper self-critical and not make mistakes while being unreasonable with oneself, being submissive and nonassertive while putting the needs of others first, and comparing oneself to others and feeling less-than. 

Aggressive defensive strategies that turn shame outward include: blame transference and making someone else feel shame in order to reduce personal shame, reaching for power and control to compensate for feelings of defectiveness and internalizing vulnerability, maintaining feelings of contempt in order to feel superior and believe that oneself is better than others rather than maintain feelings of inferiority, demonstrating rage as a self-protective strategy that projects hostility and bitterness toward others, and identifying with the shaming aggressor such that feelings of helplessness, vulnerability, and inferiority are minimized. None of these strategies, either passive or aggressive, can address the roots of shame and promote holistic health. 

Recognizing shame’s effects can become an ongoing process of self-discovery in response to the awareness of certain behaviors and ways of thinking about the self. As various layers of shame on the canvas of the soul become addressed and peeled away, more layers have the opportunity to become confronted and recognized. Giving voice and recognition to address shame stories can have a particular social stigma for the shame-consumed individual precisely because they produce exclusion, suffering, and a sense of caution for the exposure. However, the benefits continue to cascade into an outweighed joy if shame’s effects are overcome. 

Here are several strategies to gaining victory and de-throning the voice of shame: 

• You can only act based upon the present-tense awareness of what occurred in the past, and it may be easier to be hyper-critical with yourself for the insight that was lacking in an earlier age. Forgive yourself for thoughts, feelings, and behaviors of your ‘former’ self and commit to acting upon the awareness you have in this present moment. Forgiveness is a critical process that can heal shame wounds from the past that cannot be altered, and forgiveness produces realization that our tomorrow can be different than our yesterday. 
• Grieve your past wounds and identify, call out, and eventually sit with the pain over the hurts of your shaming experiences, both current and in the past.
• Choose to identify yourself with the common humanity and cultivate a dialogue of self-acceptance that, like with the rest of the human race, you are not alone in the experiences of weaknesses, flaws, mistakes, and sufferings. There is no isolation with the shaming experiences you may have endured, and you are not alone in the experience as history attests to this. 
• Understand your inner dialogue as it relates to the shaming experience and simply observe it, but you do not need to respond to it. Awareness, self-reflection, and a genuine openness with healthy optimism are required to navigate the shame-based inner dialogue. 
• As an alternative to a harsh self-critical voice, expand your emotions vocabulary and sow into a vocabulary that reflects self-acceptance and forgiveness. Statements as “I’m sorry for what happened to you and it’s o.k. to feel the way that you feel. You didn’t deserve this, and I apologize for your pain” can serve to be self-validating in your journey. 

Overcoming the hidden paralysis of shame requires self-compassion and actively recognizing and accepting former wounds and current hurts. The essential challenge to yourself is to remain patient, committed, and willing to address that which contributes to the tendency toward shame. It will help to reduce the vulnerability to a myriad of other problematic circumstances when positioning ourselves in dethroning the voice of shame. Addressing the shame core and the healing of shame can be rather complex to face and unmask; yet, the beneficiaries of the self and other loved ones will realize true joy and freedom when being liberated from its deleterious effects.