237. The psychology of shame

Actually it was requested a lot of times, a lot of times, and as with all listener requested episodes, I always am like, how have I never done this before? Because when you start thinking about it, A lot of us live with shame about who we are, and we carry that in silence. We are ashamed, each of us. I think of something in our lives, of our past, our past mistakes, maybe our bodies, our choices, our identity, our entire personhood at times, and that shame takes over

quite literally everything. It can become a constant companion and everything that we do, so that when we wake up we feel like we aren't good enough. When we want to take a risk or do something brave, we can't trust ourselves when good things happen to us, we think we don't deserve them. Shame is above all else, at its core, at its beginnings, it's a social or moral emotion. That's what it was, what it's kind of evolved to be.

We feel it very intensely in situations where we believe that we have upset, offended, disgusted someone, or when we go against some social norm or moral health by society. That means that perhaps we deserve to be punished, outcast, we are unworthy of acceptance and forgiveness. This is what makes it a deeply painful emotion that seems so hardwired

into our social brains. It's a way to make us behave, make sure that we are good boys and girls, and also that we hide behavior that we think others will judge us for. We hide ourselves away all together when we think that our mistakes or something about us makes us unsavory as a whole, not worthy of being seen. This is the problem with chronic shame. It's that we don't just feel this emotion in response to specific circumstances,

because that would be guilt. We feel shame even when we are alone, even when there is no audience, there is no offensive behavior that we have committed. And that is the kind of shame that I want to discuss today. Toxic make shame that just doesn't accompany a hiccup or small mistake, but which kind of ends up feeling like part of our DNA. And that's what it means to

be shame bound. And it's one of the big battles that a lot of us have to overcome in our twenties to be released from this very oppressive force that keeps us small. And that is what shame does. Shame keeps us small because it becomes self imposed.

ashamed of. I don't think that it will come as a surprise that, sadly, this pattern has a lot of roots in trauma, and not just the big trauma that we think of, but small moments where we were made to feel terrible and disgusting because of part of who

we were. So let's talk about it today. I want to really discuss how shame gets implanted in our self concept, what that feels like, what that does to our ambition, what that does to our direction, but also some of the best advice I have encountered in a long time on how to release ourself from being shame bound. I know this is something that a lot of us live with for different reasons, and we're going to discuss those

as well. But I really hope that if the thing what you might actually realize is that the thing that is keeping you from everything you might want, everything that you could be, is not a lack of effort. It's not because you're lazy, it's not because you don't know what you want. It's not because you're not capable. It's because of an inherent shame that you feel around being seen and being loud and being heard. So without further ado,

let's discuss the psychology of shame. Brene Brown is one of my favorite favorite researchers people in general, and in her very well known ted talk, which is called The Power of Vulnerability, was released almost fourteen years ago. It's incredibly popular. It's a must watch. She says that shame is essentially the fear of disconnection, and it sits very closely besides our fear of loneliness, of judgment, ostracization, and social pain, because basically it is posing a very insidious

and toxic line of questioning. Is there something about me that if other people were to know or were to say, they would believe I wasn't worthy of belonging? And if there is, I better hide it? Or else how could I be loved and accepted? There is this kind of toss up in our brain. Either I can be truthful, open, I can be myself and maybe I won't ever be loved. Or I can be secretive and I can conceal who I really am and maybe I can be loved. Those in our mind when we are shamed bound are the

only two options. We never once think, well, maybe the things I'm ashamed of others would just see as part of me. That would just be something that they love and that they would nurture. That's not how chronic shame works. It's a very limited belief that if you are unworthy in some ways, you'd better be hiding that part of yourself. This results in a number of really really unfortunate, unhappy

behaviors and compulsions, like the need to self isolate. If you've ever found yourself, you know, self isolating after a big social event and you don't think that you're an introvert or hiding away after like a really long exhausting day in front of people, or after a big presentation, or after you've spoken your mind, feeling the need to be silent. Maybe that comes from shame. There's also an

intense embarrassment or anxiety in social situations. There is a self loathing, there is a self sabotage, feeling of rejection, all of which stop us from attempting anything that might make us feel seen, because that is what shame does. It's a minimizer. Literally, think about the physical actions and behaviors, the physicalities that a company feeling shame. Think about the last time that you were like, oh my gosh, I feel ashamed. You were probably not making eye contact, you

were slouching your shoulders, lowering your head, almost curling into yourself. Physically, socially, mentally, shame's goal is to shrink us. The opposite of shame in that sense is self acceptance excepting who you are, your body, your identity, how you've gotten here, even if you have regrets, and that self acceptance, that self confidence, that is what makes us expansive, self assured creatures, passionate, outspoken, loud about life creatures. And that's the goal here, that's

the direction that we want to move in. But before we get there, I do need to give you few more crucial details about the pathology and the underworkings underpinnings of shame. So shame is universal. I know it feels like quite a solitary experience, that is the nature of it. But the only people on this planet who don't experience shame are those who have essentially no human empathy. They have no desire to be liked or be seen or

accepted by others. So we might call these people psychopaths, right, and a few studies have found a very strong association between psychopathy and low shame proneness, which basically means that even if you were to do something that's like objectively wrong and immoral, you still don't feel bad about it. There was a really fascinating case study that I dug out of the archives and I was looking into this, and it's on a man, This an unnamed man who was in prison in the US, and he had admitted

his crime. His crime was armed robbery and actually resulted in someone being murdered. But even years later, he felt no remorse at all, He felt no shame. He believed that he was justified because of how he was raised, and when he was in prison, he continued to steal, to lie, to do interviews, what he almost bragged about his crimes, whatever he could to basically get his way, even when it meant others were hurt. All because of that. You know that part of us that lights up when

we hurt, we injure, we upset someone else. Our shame center his basically wasn't working. And that's kind of the alternative that we're working with. Shame is also very different to guilt. I know they are sometimes used interchangeably, but guilt,

I actually believe it's adaptive. You know, it is tied to a specific situation in which we have done something objectively wrong, We've made a mistake, and we can say, you know, I feel guilty for how I've acted, because I've messed up, I've hurt someone, And that acknowledgment of a specific instance in which we have gone against our own kind of our own expectations for ourselves, our own standards, that makes us a better person. We bring ourselves back

in line. Shame, on the other hand, it does not make you a better person. At no point is shame going to make you better. In fact, it's just so incredibly destructive because it rests on the premises that it's not just that we sometimes make mistakes, is that our whole sense of self we are a mistake. We are wrong, even when we have no evidence for that, even when it's not situation specific, like guilt. Oftentimes, when you feel shame,

you begin to notice that no one's even around. You haven't hurt anyone, You are a good person, there's nothing that you can think of, but you still feel this deep sting just by existing. Also, I think the other key point here that I didn't mention before, guilt actually has somewhere to go right. You know, we can rectify our mistakes, we can apologize, it can motivate good behavior. Shame lingers, it doesn't exit. It just implants deeper and

deeper within us. Something really important to remember is that no matter how long you have carried your shame, no matter how long you and shame have shared the same home, beIN companions, none of us were born ashamed of who we are. At some point, and this is a sad thing to say. Actually, someone had to teach you that there was something about how you look, how you act, your identity, your existence that was a defensive to them

and that shouldn't be seen. Think about the shame that a lot of people used to associate with being queer, with being part of the lgbt QA plus community. At some point, someone said something really demeaning to you, or maybe someone's parents, so that they would be shamed to have a queer son or a queer daughter, or you know, you see things in the media that just villainize people who are literally just living their life. That is leading probably led a lot of people to internalize that therefore

they are shameful and that is not the case. Or the shame of making a mistake as a child and being criticized for so much more than the action, you know, instead of just your parents scolding you and saying I can't believe you spilt the milk. It's I can't believe you are so clumsy, You are so lazy, You are worthless, you are useless. Can you see that shame is not about what you've done. It's associated with who you are? And how can any part of who you are be

inherently shameful? It becomes implanted in our minds until the point where it is self imposed. We end up using it against ourselves without ever needing anyone else to tell it to us. Again, I heard doctor Pete Levine. He's a very well known trauma doctor and trauma specialist. Look

him up if you're interested in this. But I heard him say in a video the other day that shame is like a cancer that grows from the injury of trauma and from the wound of betrayal, especially into personal trauma and interpersonal betrayal, which is basically the trauma we encounter from the transgressions and actions of others, especially people that we trust, And that cancer from these situations becomes deeply lodged in our bodies and our minds, and it

affects and infects all other aspects of our life, your relationships, how you show up at work, in class, how you walk into a room, what you feel you deserve from your life. Nothing remains untouched. So how do we get to this place? This doesn't just happen. How do we get here? Well, Doctor Levine, same guy. He suggested that there are two specific pathways through which we adopt chronic

shame or we become shamebound. The first is if you are traumatized or humiliated as a young child or a teenager, either by a parent, a sibling, a friend, a bully, a teacher, whoever it may be. Someone trespasses against your sense of self worth by harming you, by making you

feel useless and small. And because of our limited critical thinking skills at the time or our limited life experience as children, the only way that we can make sense of what we're experiencing is by internalizing what has happened, which causes us to basically assume that something must be fundamentally wrong with us. We lay the blame on our own innate badness because we have to assume that we are the cause. The other common denominator, because how else

could we continue to trust people? How could we continue to trust people that we rely on, like our parents, like our teachers, like our family. They must be right. This is actually part of what he proposes as a survival strategy. We cannot possibly think that the people that we rely on for security and safety would be wrong about things like this, because then they could be wrong about other things, and then you know who could help us.

The other element of this, occurring in childhood especially, is that all the people that we feel ashamed or feel shamed by are often older and wiser, and so we deduce that they must know something about our character that we don't. They are the truthholders. We have this big red cross on us. They must be correct. We are wrong and awful and bad because they told us that we were. The more experiences we have like this, the more difficult it is to deny our badness, the more

oppressive and entrenched the shame becomes. This can also be more pronounced for people who who's just identities in general

are criticized by a very oppressive, dominating prejudice society. We do see higher rates of internalized shame in the queer community, amongst people of color, amongst people in marginalized religions, because there is this system that says, and there is this you know, it's held up by the media, it's held up by discrimination, by prejudice, by stereotypes that essentially says, we don't really like you that much, and there's no reason that we don't like you. There's just some part

of you that's wrong. And it's just so awful that children from a very young age begin to pick that up shame. I really want this to be very apparent. Shame is not dispersed equally across society. The second way that chronic shame develops can come about a little bit later, and it really comes down to a fear of being left out, which feeds off again our fear of loneliness and our fear of being excluded, very human, primal fears.

I don't think I have to tell you, hopefully, I don't have to tell you that community and belonging are so important. They're just literally our lifeblood. It's one of our foundational psychological needs, and not just a physical need,

but an emotional need as well. There's a really well known study using fMRI technology, which is basically a machine that shows us which parts of our brains are active when we're doing certain things, and it examined the brains of people who were made to feel lonely, disconnected, and rejected, versus the brains of participants who are made to feel accepted, included,

and connected. The brain scans of the participants who were made to feel isolated were just lighting up in the areas of the brain responsible for pain and perceiving danger, meaning that this experience of not being liked or welcomed was physically uncomfortable at times. Now, if you know what that feels like to have people not like you, and to not only have them not like you, but to make that known to be openly judged, you are going to work pretty hard to stop that from happening again.

And here is where your shame, seemingly to you, feels useful because you're like, Okay, if I listen to my shame, I'll never step out of line. If I listen to my shame, I'll never do something that's wrong. I'll be able to make friends, I'll be loved. Any time you go to therefore, you know they're onwards. Go to change anything about yourself, to put yourself out there, to bet on yourself, to be authentic, vulnerable. That shameful voice comes in and says, don't do it. Don't let yourself be seen.

The more visible you are, the less safe we are. Take a step back. That shameful voice. You think that it's acting as your protector. It's convincing you that it's keeping you safe from reject and exclusion. But you know, although our shame likes to masquerade as a form of self preservation, it ultimately limits your ability to experience life because it's keeping you tied down. So that smallness is one of the consequences of letting shame be the loudest

voice in the room. And that's actually how I like to think about it. It's the guy in class in your meeting who's always interrupting you, you know. It's the voice that just doesn't know when to shut up. It's the voice that's saying, oh, well, actually this, well, actually that. Another real loss is that when when you are shame bound, even when good things happen to you, you still don't

believe that you deserve them. When someone listens, when someone lets us be vulnerable and accepts us, we never totally accept it. We are waiting for the so called emotional jump scare because our self concept has been reprogrammed time and time again, to assume the worst, to have our guy,

to cut ourselves down before someone else can. Actually, it's really interesting because it's really interesting, and this is kind of a side note, but there has been some really cool, fascinating research, not cool, but definitely fascinating research that shows that people who experience more shame often are quite obsessed with self improvement because they are constantly trying to fix or fix something about themselves or to show that they are deserving of things by working hard to change who

they are. And so sometimes it's like, well, I can't have anything that comes easy because I don't deserve it, so there must be there is something deeply, deeply wrong about me that if I focus on self improvement, on getting really really fit, on learning, or making my life seem perfect, then I can prove that all these good

things have actually worked hard for them. So quite an interesting, very interesting point of view, especially as someone who I'm like, ooh, I like work in the self help, self improved space. I want people to get the most out of their life. It's interesting how many of us might actually be doing that because of a shame of never being good enough, chronic shame. I think this is very similar is also reflected often in people pleasing, because we of course prioritize

the opinions of others over our own. We want them to stay happy with us, even if it means a loss of personal identity and less personal fulfillment. And shame can also lead to self sabotaging behaviors where we consciously undermine our success or our happiness by procrastinating, by neglecting opportunities, neglecting relationships, minimizing ourselves in front of others, or even engaging in really risky behaviors to confirm negative beliefs about ourselves.

Because when you have lived that long in shame, it feels like home. What's that quote? It's like better the hell you know than the heaven that you don't, And that is where we are at. I think another element of it is also, you know, success and doing well brings attention, and that spotlight might reveal even more aspects of us that we should be ashamed of, and we can't have that. So you know, you go out and get drunk the night before a big meeting, you ruin

the relationship before it can progress. And at least you know you already feel comfortable in that understanding of yourself. You are a failure, You're not enough, You'll never deserve this. Can you kind of see what doctor Levine was saying. It is a cancer the way that shame manifests itself. It metastasizes into everything that we do. So what I want to talk about next is where we can go

from here. We've identified the problem. I think maybe I'm saying things to you and you're just nodding your head, being like, yeah, I already knew that. I've literally lived with this fears. What do I do about it? How do I be more big and vulnerable and authentic when I'm being told by my own brain to be quite small and visible. Well we are going to talk about all of that and a lot more after the short so stay with us. Shame is kind of like a

bad habit. It won't change unless you do. And I'm not saying it won't change unless you get better and you prove it wrong. I mean that it's always going to feel like you're fighting with yourself until you accept it. Until it's almost like when you lay back in the ocean and you just let it take you and you lie in it and you realize that You've been struggling against something for so long that if you just turned around and said it's okay, I see you, I accept this,

maybe it would start to fade a little bit. The person, and I've already mentioned her once in this episode, obviously I am obsessed, But the person I always turned to her for advice on this is Brene Brown. And obviously Brene Brown, She's made her career on shame, guilt, vulnerability, and the best thing she ever said about the shame cycle is that an actual bad person, a person who has done things they deserve to feel ashamed for, they would never sit down and question whether they are a

bad person. They would never admit their mistakes. So the very fact that you were considering your worthiness as evidence in yourself that you are worthy. You are someone deserving of love, You have empathy, you are someone who is lovable, someone who can be forgiven, however big or large that mistake was, and you are actually it might sound surprising, you are someone who was enough, regardless of what makes you believe that is not true. So there are a

few steps we can take to truly accepting that fact. First, don't let your shame be general force it to be specific. You know this sounds very strange, but you see, one of the reasons Shaane is so good at convincing us that we're worthless is it takes a single instant of embarrassment or a slip up or a thought and it

applies the feeling to everything. So instead of saying, you know, I feel bad because I said the wrong thing to my really good friend and I hurt them, I feel awful because I wish I was a better friend in that moment, our shame takes that feeling and it removes a bunch of information and it concludes, well, I am bad, I am wrong, I am awful, even after the situation has long passed. That over generalization is what causes trouble. So instead, learn to add information back into the negative

statements that you tell yourself. You need to realize that shame relies on you taking everything that it says truthfully and not interrogating how it could be so general. You know, are you really a bad person always without question? Or are you just feeling bad? So I want you to replace the I am awful with I'm feeling awful, I am wrong with I am just assuming that I'm wrong I feel I assume I'm thinking that I am. Use those exact words instead to kind of put some reality

back into your faulty thinking. So let's use the example of a really common one, I am an unlovable person to kind of show how this works. Is this statement I am unlovable? True? Is it? You know? Is it fact? Could you find this fact on Wikipedia? Has someone done a peer reviewed experiment on this and come to you with a solid, you know, thesis conclusion hypothesis saying yeah, this is I've conducted, you know, millions of interviews and I did heaps of studies and oh, by the way, yes,

you are unlovable? Or or is this an emotions based conclusion? It's emotions based, right, It's coming from you. So I want you to replace I am with I feel I feel like an unlovable person and then ask why is there something that has triggered this feeling? Is there a specific recent memory? Maybe there is, and you can add that in I feel unlovable because of how badly that date went. I feel unlovable because that person didn't treat

me well. That puts distance between you and the immediate instinct to go to shame you can kind of now see that this isn't something intrinsic about you. It's actually a feeling, not a fact, and it's about how someone else chose to treat you. That's a sign of their flawed character, not your own. This is not a permanent fact. I just want to say that again. It's a momentary experience based on someone else's actions, not your inherent worth.

The other alternative is that you may searching for a recent memory where you've been made to feel this way and you just can't find one. It's like no evidence, there's no reason why you should be feeling this way, and it must be based on something else. And that thing that it's based on a shame. It's not a real statement. There is no evidence for why you should be feeling this way. It's just shame. That is what

it is. Either way, when we rely on those I am broad statements, they are just incorrect because they are way too general. Next, I think it's really worthwhile to explore your shame and try and find an origin point. Like you know how every villain has an origin story, Your shame has an origin story as well. As I said before, you know, no one is born feeling disgusting and deserving, shameful. It's a learned behavior, it's a learned habit.

And when we do the really hard autobiographical work of looking back through our memories in our past, often that becomes very very clear, very quickly. You can see that there is a line between the thoughts and the feelings you have about yourself now and the things your younger self encountered and internalized. I'm going to provide an example,

my own example here. I think of all the shame that I have felt about my body for years, and it was so hard to even think of where that may have come from, because my opinions of my bodies were just so hurtful to even touch. But when I reflected, I saw this very clear line in my memory, a

before and after around a series of events. The first was a picture day when I was when I was seven, and we I don't know if you remember this, but we did our big class photo and I remember getting the photo and the boy, this boy said that I looked like a whale. I was wearing this little dress and I kind of looked at all the other girls and I was just like, oh my god, I'm bigger than them. Bear in mind, I was seven, Like I wasn't like, look at that. Now I feel the need

to justify. I'm gonna I'm gona stop myself there. But I remember like taking the photo home and telling my mom that I was like, oh, there was a fan behind me. It was blowing my dress up. That's why I have such a belly. It's really sad to think of now that's how I felt. And that was my first experience of shame. And then maybe a week later, I was at after school care and we were watching

a movie and I remember what it's called. It was called The Little Princess, and a much older boy said to me, you know you would look like her, meaning the main character, if you weren't so fat, And oh my god, I can still remember how I just had this like hot flush all across my face and my skin was like prinkly, like oh, just more. I wanted to hide. And that was the moment that I think I was like, oh, this is a new feeling. This is the feeling. This is shame. It's really kind of

sad to relive those memories. But the self knowledge that came with that was so powerful, you know, to be an adult knowing so much better now and kind of rethinking how I would have responded. I know I would have stood up for my seven, I think maybe seven or eight year old self. And so now now that it's my own thoughts that are saying those cruel things, you look fat in that outfit, everyone is going to think, so you know, you should wear something more flattering, you

should cover up. You know, that's my own voice now telling me those things. But I picture that voice as this ten year old boy, and I think, oh my gosh, what do you know. You're a child. Shut up. I'm an adult. You're ten. I'm the adult. I'm gonna wear what I want. So that's how I picture it. I picture it as the first voice that I heard it as you know, when that shame was implanted in my brain. It was spoken as a ten year old. And I think about him, and you know, he's a fucking kid.

I don't need to listen to that. That's one approach. Or I also think about myself as a child suddenly being very awoken to a world of judgment and unkindness, and it must have been such a shock, And I think, how would my present adult self comfort her if adult me had been in out building watching that situation, ready to intervene. What would I have done. I would have pulled her aside, and I would have said, you have value, no matter what anyone else thinks. I think you are

the most beautiful girl in the world. And you deserve to love your body because it does so much for you. Look at how it takes care of you. You don't need to hide for anyone, especially not this boy. And confidence is going to be your superpower. And I would say those things. When you are reflecting on those origins of your shame, consciously bring empathy, kindness, compassion back into

those memories. Because shame is so socially orientated, often we think that we need others to approve of us in order to heal from it. But there is a lot of self forgiveness that you can provide yourself. For me, it was about apologizing to my younger self for ever believing that this person knew who I was, or forever believing that I needed to hide, forever believing that something

was wrong about me. I've learnt that's not the case, and now I'm going to go forward, and you're going to go forward, nurturing the part of you that still wants to withdraw and instead showing up as this big protector, this big strong person, this adult who is going to defend you. We also want to practice the kind of unconditional love that we've always craved by showing it to ourselves. Don't hide from the shame. In fact, speak it out loud. I'm ashamed of my past, I'm ashamed of who I am,

I'm ashamed of my body. And yet, and yet I choose to love myself anyways because I am as deserving of love as anyone else. I love others unconditionally, so I can love myself the same way. In fact, think about all the people who know and love you, not because they're forced to, but because they want to. They want to be by your side. They have the freedom to be friends with anyone, and they are choosing with that freedom to love you. It's just a further proof

of how brilliant you are. And wouldn't they love you even more the more they saw of you? Reflect on your own relationships here, doesn't your love only grow with more vulnerability when someone shows you more of who they are. Don't you just love them more? That goes both ways. Finally, I want you to question what staying small out of shame? What's it going to get you? And is that actually your dream destination in life? What is the cost of

staying small versus the benefit of staying safe. Shame is just fear, and fear is something you don't have to listen to. It's a fear of failure. It's a fear of embarrassment, of loneliness. As we discussed before, and when you have your last moments on this earth, do you want to think, Oh, I'm so so glad I let myself be scared. That was a great decision. Or do you want to think, I'm so glad I let myself be free. I'm so glad I listened to the people

that mattered and I ignored the rest. I'm so glad I let myself be authentic, vulnerable. I put myself out there. I took risks on myself. I just knew who the fuck I was. And I want a serious answer from you, because I do believe that you can overcome chronic shame. If you see what waits on the other side, that

is a very motivating thing. And for me, you know, it's just been as we said, total acceptance, because why would I live my life based on what a mean voice says to me in my head when that's not even my voice, someone else's voice that's just snuck in there. It's not welcome for me. That has really helped me build a courage to try anything and everything, even if it goes wrong. It's It's resulted in the ability to

commit to my dreams because I deserve them. It's evolved into the capacity to accept love, and I really want that for you. It does make me quite sad to think of how many of us don't realize that the root of everything we don't like about ourselves is not the fact that those things aren't worthy. It's that we just feel shameful about them. And shame is not a fact. It's a feeling. You know, the parts about yourself that you don't like, there is nothing inherently bad about them.

It is that someone at some point has conditioned you, taught you to feel that way, and I don't want you to feel that way anymore. So I hope that this episode has helped you understand the root of it, has helped you go back and discover the origin, discover the villain, the villain origin story, and I hope that you start treating that younger version of yourself with the kindness that you always deserved, and that includes treating your

current self with the kindness that they deserve. Because you and that child itself are not different. You're the same person, You're on the same timeline here. If you enjoyed this episode, make sure you're following along. Maybe share it with a friend, share it with a parent if they might need to learn this lesson. That's a bit audacious. Just hopefully it reaches the people that it needs to reach. That's all I'm saying. Make sure that you are following us on

Instagram at that Psychology Podcast. If you have further questions, queries, stories to be shared, please let us know. We would love to hear from you. We're also taking episode suggestions. Just slide into our DMS and tell us what you want to hear about. Until next time, remember stay safe, stay kind, and most importantly, with this episode, be gentle with yourself. You don't deserve to live in shame. You don't deserve to be shame bound, not one bit. And we will talk very very soon.