The Human-ness of shame…….

In one form or another, we all know what shame feels like. Shame is hardwired into our neurobiology, evolved over millennia and embedded in our nervous systems. Shame has persisted, for better and for worse, to champion various survival functions; to keep us from harm, to keep us safely attached to others—to keep us alive.

When we’re still little, we’re dependent on the adults in our lives for our survival. We need them to feed us, bathe us, explain the world to us, clean and bandage our cuts, contain us and celebrate us. As we start to talk and walk, we discover that the world interacts with us; we can have impact and be impacted. This learning takes place in relationships, in small, every day interactions. We reach for a hot stove and our parent yells at us—and we feel some shame. Patricia DeYoung, in her book Understanding and Treating Chronic Shame, defines shame as “the experience of one’s felt sense of self disintegrating in relation to a dysregulating other”. When we experience the “no” and “bad”, our young self, our place in our little social ecosystem, momentarily disintegrates. 

Hopefully that disintegration is fleeting. Ideally we learn we’re okay through a series of ruptures and repairs. We get reprimanded and although we might feel some momentary distress, it’s dissolved through responsive, connected caregiving. It becomes clear that we can do something “bad” but that doesn’t mean that we, ourselves, are bad. We understand that even in that overwhelming moment, we were loved and seen as good and whole.

But although shame may be a biological vestige of a survival function, when it pulls us under, even in those small, time-limited moments, it is devastating. We melt, freeze, will ourselves to disappear. From this state, on repeat and without repair, the overwhelming belief that sinks into us is, I’m bad.

Shame, in this form, has traversed its protective-function boundaries. It holds on to us for years and decades, transmuting everything we experience. When ingested whole, shame becomes an un-nuanced, unmetabolized interpretation of who we are..“Something’s wrong with me”. “I’m a failure”. It’s no longer the uncomfortable yet mostly short lived shame that shows up to keep us from the thing that might hurt us. Instead, we enter the arena of toxic shame, which pervades every aspect of our being, identity and functioning.

Think about it. What if we don’t get to have a repair and recover from the shame state? What if we are left alone with the “I’m bad” feeling for a few hours. What if we are even left in the I’m bad place repeatedly, day after day and year after year? We might logically draw the conclusion that there must be something bad in us. We are shameful. Somewhere along the line, an interpretation about ourselves has taken root. I’m wrong. I’m not lovable. Chronic shame is created in this way “when this disintegration/dysregulation happens continually and is unrepaired” (Patricia De Young).

We avoid, sleep, scroll, drink, compulsively chase dopamine in our phones, our relationships, food and fantasies. Some of us learn how to wall ourselves off from any feeling to avoid this feeling. We think about things rather than feel about things, as we unconsciously attempt to harness the sharper edges of our narrative into a less painful shape.

Shame spirals are sneaky and quick. Much of the time they’re completely automatic and out of conscious awareness. When our shame gets triggered, before we even recognize it as shame, we’re halfway down that rabbit hole to every bad thing we’ve ever done. Before we know it, the hating parts of ourselves have cleanly pinned our hated parts into a permanent shape of every horrible thing and feeling within us. We’re trapped and paralyzed. We’re awful and we don’t deserve. We might as well stop trying. One thing becomes everything, and everything, including us, is bad. 

What would happen if we could pull ourselves up and out of that shame hole to look down on the process from some safe distance?

We might be able to notice the moment we step up to the rabbit hole. Maybe we could watch as our toes approach the edge. What if in that moment we could actually choose to take a step back? Maybe we could even point our finger at the hole and name it - that’s Shame. Maybe we could recognize it - that’s something that we’re all wired with a capacity for. Something that evolutionarily was meant to keep us safe and alive. Imagine if we were able to notice, with less conviction, the next thought that comes from that rapidly approaching shame state? What if, rather than throwing that thought onto the shame conflagration we’re preparing for ourselves, we just notice the embers, recognize them as shame, and choose to let the thought drop. What if we can say to an externalized shame state — so what? I’m having a thought that I don’t deserve this. Of course I’m having this thought; I’m in a shame state. Perhaps in those moments we could remember that all our thinking from this state is going to be stained by shame.

If we can start to practice that, we’re one step closer to extricating ourselves from toxic shame. We can remind ourselves that shame is an affect state. It’s physiological before it becomes narrative. Our heart rate speeds up but then it comes back down. We can endeavor to ride the shame wave, which – while ranging from disintegrating to uncomfortable – has a beginning, a middle and an end. And we can remember that, after all, this is also just a really painful part of being human. 

By Kyla Winner-Connor