UNDERSTANDING AND COMBATING SHAME (AKA GREMLIN NINJA WARRIOR TRAINING)
I loved the third chapter of Daring Greatly, in which Brené discusses some pretty heavy topics like: the correlation between perfectionism and shame, how shame-based cultures (corporations, families, countries) stifle creativity and innovation, how shame can perpetuate addictions, and the different things that cause women (appearance, issues around motherhood) vs. men (weakness, showing fear) to experience shame.
Brené says shame is: “the intensely painful feeling or experience of believing that we are flawed and therefore unworthy of love and belonging…” And that “sometimes shame is the result of us playing the old recordings that were programmed when we were children.”
Shame is the root of so much junk in our lives and causes us to tie our self worth to other people’s opinions of us which is super dangerous–both from the “I’m super awesome and can do no wrong” perspective and from the “I totally suck and nothing I do will ever be worth anything, so I’m not worth anything” perspective. When we stop tying our self-worth to people’s reactions to us and to our work, that’s when the freedom to be creative comes. I realized that a lot of my writer’s block comes from paralyzing perfectionism, the root of which is shame and fear of judgement. yikes.
When we visited Hillsong London in October, the pastor said during his sermon that deep, crippling shame is what keeps a lot of people locked in the stranglehold of addiction (to alcohol, food, sex, drugs, etc.). Brené’s research totally confirms this; shame causes people to withdraw from those around them and to keep secrets, which helps keep them trapped in the cycle of addiction.
Shame is also the root of the bullying and mean-girl culture that’s so pervasive today; those who feel shame deeply attempt to shame others. “We’re so desperate to get out and stay out of shame that we’re constantly serving up the people around us as more deserving prey.”
Like so many other strongholds, shame begins to dissipate once it is exposed, confronted, and spoken about:
Shame derives its power from being unspeakable. That’s why it loves perfectionists–it’s so easy to keep us quiet. If we cultivate enough awareness about shame to name it and speak to it, we’ve basically cut it off at the knees. Shame hates having words wrapped around it. If we speak shame, it begins to wither. Just the way exposure to light was deadly for the gremlins, language and story bring light to shame and destroy it.
This post is a link up with Carrie, who blogs at Waiting with Joy.
