I am not worthy...
“My wife and daughters would rather see me die on my horse than watch me fall off. Women in my life are harder on me than anyone else.” - From a Ted Talk given by Brene Brown
Introduction
I invite you to consider how it is that you could be helping to perpetuate the shame train in someone else’s mind?
For decades my story has been “What’s wrong with me?” At an early age, I came to the stark and sometimes useful realization that the only person that I could change was me. Now while this is true, it is not the entire story. My father always said that there are three sides to a story. There is my side, your side, and what happened. When we pull back and place all of the blame on ourselves, we remove the possibility that the other person has some responsibility in this. It is also important to note that some things are based on our interpretation. There is our stuff, the other person’s, and then there is some information that is lost or mistranslated in communication. This concept is all well and good until we place the full blame on ourselves and allow it to fuel the dialogue, saying that there is something wrong with us.
It was only recently that I learned that the internal monologue that continually asked, “What is wrong with me?” is, in fact, shameful. I would think that I like myself, but I did not like the way other people treated me. Instead of taking the time to parse out perhaps a miscommunication, or a complete incompatibility of values, I just blamed myself. I have since learned that there are a plethora of reasons people act the way that they do. I am also learning that I have a lot to give, and for which to be grateful.
Because of my ongoing challenges with shame (which are true of all of us), I wanted to craft an article that could begin to address such a sharp, painful, and universal subject.
Much of the information in this article is sourced from either Brene Brown’s Ted Talk on Shame, or her audiobook “Men, Women and Worthiness.”
Brene starts by mentioning that Jungian psychologists liken shame to a metaphorical swampland of the human soul. Like a swamp, shame seems to be a place where no one wants to go, and no one knows much about it. For me, if I know something about a point that is adding to my discomfort, understanding something about that aspect, intellectually helps me to live with more ease. I can metaphorically look at it, but it loses its power to some degree. Providing this sort of understanding is an attempt with this article.
Roots of shame
Let us begin with where shame comes. Because we all seek connection and belonging, we all experience shame. The origins are from our biology. If we did not fit in historically, we died. We lived in tribes, and for us to prosper, we had to be accepted and belong.
When we seek a connection, and we are rejected, we can feel shame. The internal dialogue can sound something like I am not worthy; I am not good enough; I am bad at this or that. It is essential to take a step back and look at guilt as well. Guilt is a bit different in that it comes in the form of “I made a mistake” or “that was a stupid move,” whereas shame is “I am a mistake” or “I am stupid.” A critical thing to note is that shame is strongly correlated to depression and addiction; guilt is not. This notion, for me, is essential to comprehend and internalize. I grew up with alcoholic parents. If I do not want to follow in their footsteps, I need to understand shame.
Shame is a subjective experience. I could undergo the same circumstance as you and feel little to no shame while a shameful feeling overburdens you. The same can be said about guilt. Some people feel very guilty about lying; others do not. Some people feel very shameful for lying; others do not. This concept extends further with the differentiation between genders. Because of certain expectations, men and women experience shame for different reasons.
Something that took me a long time to realize is that shame can look a lot like trauma. When we experience trauma, our emotions become dysregulated, and we fall into the automatic fight, flight, or freeze response. The issue is that once we do this once, it will happen every time that we experience the same thing. For shame, because it was useful during our ancestry, we are wired to experience it as a traumatic event. If we were shamed from the group, we died. So when we feel shame now, it can be crippling.
When we experience shame, we tend to move toward, away, or against it. This term is to say, some people move toward the shaming situation and become confrontational. Other people walk away from the anxiety-provoking location and are avoidant. A third group will lash out in anger or rage. These are all symptoms of trauma, as well.
The Fuel For Shame
As a part of wanting to feel connected and like we belong, we need to experience being seen and being heard. Therefore, it makes sense that if we do not feel seen or heard, we will experience shame. Brene breaks the fuel for shame down into three words: secrets, silence, and judgment. These all make sense to me because they all cut us off from feeling connected, safe, and secure. Secrets make us feel like outsiders. Silence is the opposite of connection. Judgment is the opposite of acceptance.
Brene makes an interesting observation about judgment and how we apply that to others. She says that we judge things in people that we are insecure about in ourselves. I would take it a step further and say what we don’t like about other people is a reflection of what we don’t like about ourselves. This notion seems to be another stem of shame rearing its ugly head.
Depending on how we interpret and experience shame, we could become angry, enraged, avoidant, shutdown, sad, etc. There are a couple of amusing anecdotes that Brene shares surrounding how people misinterpret the results of shame. For example, one lady emailed her and said something along the lines of, “I don’t experience shame, but if you give a talk about perfectionism, I would be interested.” Brene responded with something similar to “Shame is the root of perfectionism.” Once we start realizing shame for what it is, we can shift toward the light of understanding and compassion.
Shame in Women
According to social norms, women need to be able to do everything, all of the time and effortlessly. I cannot speak from experience as to how that feels. It does, however, make sense to me that having expectations placed upon us that are impossible to meet would fuel the fires of shame.
Brene tells an intriguing story about a dancer in a movie that illustrates her point about conforming to the expectation of women. She talks about the final dance scene of a film where this lady creates a stunningly choreographed dance. She goes to a very well known dance school to audition without ever having been trained formally in dance. This woman was a steelworker by day and exotic dancer by night. Regardless, she put together this amazingly choreographed routine that included ballet, break dancing, and several other styles. By the end of her performance, the judges were tapping their feet and were flabbergasted. Brene then goes onto say that it took five actors/actresses to film that final scene. They had to bring in experts in each dance style to be doubled for the original actress. Brene’s point here is that women feel that they need to, as a single person, play the role of five or more people and do it without showing any effort at all. This idea makes sense to me as being an easily shame provoking experience.
Shame in Men
The primary standard for men is don’t be weak. This concept was the reason for the quote at the beginning of this article. The interesting thing here, especially in relationships with women, is the double standard. We, as men, are told to open up and be vulnerable. However, when we do, we are immediately rejected. This result is because deep down, women want us to be strong.
Brene brings up a thought-provoking anecdote where a man passed up a job promotion to spend more time at home with his wife and kids. He spoke to his wife about this, and it was agreed. However, sometime after this happened, his wife had to start thinking about going back to work because the finances were tight. She was upset about this. In the end, the expectation was to spend more time with us, but also get more money. The guy felt pretty upset when he found this out because he got emotionally pummeled by his colleagues at work for passing this opportunity up. He then got beat up at home for not getting more money in place of spending more time with the family.
This experience all makes sense to me in the context of the hero’s journey. It is expected for men to go out into the world and conquer the unknown. It is our job to span the chasm between chaos and order. We must be explorers and conquerors. It makes sense to me that these are deeply ingrained attributes that stem from our biology.
We were designed to propagate as a species. Men go and gather the resources; women stay and protect the children. This concept is not a bad thing. This idea is not some fabricated “gender role.” This notion is how biology has designed us to survive and propagate. If we do not protect our young by both going out and gathering resources, along with being risk-averse as to keep them out of harm’s way, then our offspring would perish. This strategy takes a team effort (a mother and a father).
The Power of Language
A knowledgeable mentor of mine touched on shame by way of how we form our sentences. He mentioned that “what” and “should” statements are shameful. It took me a few minutes to start to comprehend what he meant. After running some mental simulations, it began to occur to me that this was obvious. When we say, “What are you doing?” It’s more like, “Are you stupid, what do you think you are doing, you are an idiot.” The same can be said for should. Instead of “You should go to the gym.” It’s more like, “You should go to the gym because you aren’t looking like you’ve been there much lately.” Instead, we can invite people to consider things. For example, instead of saying, “You should go to the gym there out of shape, person.” We can say, “I invite you to consider how going to the gym might be beneficial for you.” It seems to be a lower shame approach to me.
The Antidote For Shame
One thing that many people seem to value and spend a great deal of time pursuing is happiness. We need two things to be happy in life: work and love. To feel loved, we need to be seen and heard. This idea does not include being understood. We might think that we want to be understood, but we do not know what that means. If someone tries to understand us, our boundaries will indeed be overstepped, and we will become smothered. With that being said, we want to be seen and heard.
When we are talking about shame, we don’t want people to pity us; that is to say, “You poor thing.” Pity has some semblance of that is or could not happen to me. Empathy is “I feel you.” We do not want someone to feel bad or sorry for us. Instead, something more genuine would be, “I have no idea what you are going through, but I am here for you.” I encountered this countless times with the loss of my father. People would say, “I’m sorry for your loss. Let me know if there is anything that I can do.” First, I don’t want someone to be sorry for me. That is pity. Secondly, there is nothing that you can do aside from listening and attempt to feel with me. I want to be seen and heard.
The last point here is awareness. It makes sense to me that we need to take a step back and become aware of our actions and how those impact others. We are all human and imperfect. We can take the time to be mindful and consider how certain expectations and specific actions can make others feel shame. This idea seems to be especially powerful in the realm of gender and group identity politics.
If I am a member of a “group” or a set of people with a specific label, that does not mean that I have all the traits of all members of that group. That is to say, just because I am a “man” does not make me like all men. That is not to say that some expectations are not valid. What does make sense is that we are tending toward extremes. I think that as a man, I should have control over my emotions most of the time. If, however, sometimes I struggle, that is okay. If I struggle all the time, perhaps I should reach out for support. I only provide an example of a male situation, because that is the only realm in which I can claim to have any semblance of “knowing”.
The point here is that we project expectations onto others to an extreme degree. We are humans and are never perfect. So to say, if you do not conform to some norm, then you are worthless, is not correct (This quickly turns into “If I don’t conform to this norm, I am worthless.” This situation is shame at its finest). If we say we have these expectations of you, you didn’t meet them this one time, and that is okay, (You did something stupid, not you are dumb) then this seems to be a more empathetic and aware approach.
Conclusions
Shame is a powerfully, destructive emotion. It is a cynical and silent abuser. It is something that is deeply ingrained in us. We will never get rid of it, because it is, for example, the reason that we wear clothes. By becoming aware of our inner conversation, we can shine light onto it. Instead of telling ourselves, “I am not worthy,” we can think, “I have upstanding values and am worthy; I just messed up this one time.” By becoming aware of how we are communicating with others, we can reduce the potential for them to feel shame. In the end, empathy and compassion are a solid road to the reduction of shame. We, as humans, want to be seen and heard. If we do our part to see and listen to others, then it seems that shame will be reduced. Additionally, keeping at the forefront of our minds that we are entirely fallible humans appears to be an excellent approach to cultivating these situations where seeing and hearing people becomes a central tenet of our daily lives.