Change is a fact of life. But when it happens, change uproots our sense of security and safety. We are emotionally thrown back into times when we had little to no control. We hold on tightly to the ways in which we think things “should be,” instead of accepting where things are right now in reality. We escape our disappointment and pain through distractions, ultimately creating more suffering for ourselves. Learning how to accept the unexpected can be empowering—a means for becoming more adaptive—even when we get what we didn’t expect in life. It can be a way of understanding that everything in this world, both pleasant and unpleasant will eventually pass.
Cutting to the Core: Overcoming Shame
Regular shame vs. core shame. Everyone experiences shame. It’s the excruciating feeling that signals we fell short of who or what we wanted to be in the eyes of another. When we experience shame our body reacts in visceral ways. Our face gets hot, we want to run, lash out, or check out. For some, this is a temporary state that passes. They are able to frame the shaming situation as a singular event, and don’t attribute it to their self-worth. For others, the experience of shame is more pervasive. It triggers a deep seated belief that they are fundamentally flawed or unlovable. In the therapy world, we call this core shame.
The role of past experiences. Core shame can often be traced back to relational trauma. As children, the idea of caretakers and the world at large being “bad” is just too overwhelming. To protect ourselves, we attribute our caretakers’ shortcomings as our own. Take for example a child of divorce. Often we see the child blaming themselves for the separation, even though it is a matter occurring between the caretakers. They say, “did I do something to make them leave?” We can also look at a caretaker who is overwhelmed with work demands or a mentally unwell sibling and has little bandwidth for the child. Again, not being old enough to understand the complexities of the situation, the child can attribute the lack of attention to their being unlovable. Getting over one of these events is a massive task on its own. Unfortunately, some children have repeated events like this over the course of their development.
Societal wounds and internalized oppression. For those with marginalized identities, unpacking core shame becomes more nuanced. By it’s very nature, oppression is contingent upon assigning negative characteristics to a group of people. Being bombarded with images that don’t reflect your reality, or tell you that you are in some way flawed is it’s own kind of trauma. This is especially the case when you have been the recipient of violence for one of your identities by peers and authorities. Over time, people can internalize the violence and accept negative messages projected onto them as true, which can contribute to a self belief that “I’m powerless, weak, or defective.”
Understanding your reactions to shame. Shame is a tricky emotional state to heal from. It’s insidious, and plays in the background of our interactions. Because the experience of shame is hard to recognize in the moment, we can look towards our behaviors to better understand what’s going on internally. The Compass of Shame (Nathanson, 1992) is a great tool to do a quick spot check when you are feeling intense emotions. Do you recognize yourself in one of the following categories?
Hiding from Others: Isolating, avoiding situations
Hiding from Yourself: Engaging in compulsive behaviors (drugs, sex, shopping)
Attacking Others: Lashing out, blaming, getting even
Attacking Yourself: Putting yourself down
Moving towards a new relationship with yourself. If you identified with any of the behaviors above, you are not alone. There is a way to survive shame attacks and maintain your sense of self-worth regardless of how much its hurts. You can start by recognizing that the behaviors you have collected to deal with shame served you well at one point in your life. Give yourself a break. Start the slow work of befriending the parts of yourself that hide and attack. Ask them what purpose they serve, how they protect you, and what they need from you? Sometimes this internal check-in when you feel distressed can be enough to slow things down and reduce the sting.
Understanding Attachment Needs
The basic human condition is to search for safety and connection in relationships. It is an evolutionary means of survival that has been programmed into our DNA. As children, we need to experience consistency from caregivers to feel safe. We need to be seen emotionally to have the feeling that someone “gets us.” We need to know that when we are distressed, someone can calm us down. And we need to feel celebrated for our achievements. As adults, we may or may not have experienced some or all of these needs. Unmet attachment needs can shape the way we show up in our relationships, and impact our mental health. For some, that means becoming pre-occupied with the availability of our romantic interest, scanning for danger, and remaining in a state of hyper-vigilance. For others, that means feeling overwhelmed, claustrophobic, and shutting down. And if that wasn’t enough to grapple with, there are those who experience a combination of both, with different people, or the same person.
Therapy is largely about getting in touch with our attachment models—the messages we internalized about ourselves, and others as children. If our experiences with caregivers, and even peers, were marked by feelings of shame or not feeling safe, we will most likely find ourselves in those same situations as adults, because they feel familiar. Reprogramming our attachment models means noticing how we orient towards these older experiences when we meet new people, but also recording new experiences that counter our old ways of engaging. One of the best ways to start working on our attachment needs is with a therapist. In therapy we build up a repertoire of positive experiences with someone who is reliable and emotionally attuned to our experience. Experiencing this gives us something to search for when we meet new people. We start to “go where the water is warm” because we know what warm feels like.
Dealing With Difficult Emotions
Pain is a given in life. We lose people, become disappointed, and encounter rejection. Yet there is something to be learned in all these situations that makes us stronger. Unlike pain, which is inevitable, suffering comes when we avoid emotions brought on by painful experiences at all cost. It’s not uncommon when faced with difficult emotions to develop ways of coping that take us out of our direct experience. We become focused on story lines about ourselves, and others. We find ways to self soothe through substances, social media, sex, and eating. While these strategies temporarily protect us from uncomfortable feelings, over time they take us farther away from the brilliance of our true selves. Meditation is a vehicle for slowly letting go of the ways in which we avoid difficult feelings. When we sit in silence, the stories we tell ourselves about ourselves become more apparent. Noticing the pre-occupation with our self-narrative gives us the chance to hit pause, drop into our body, and experience the difficult emotions that are bubbling under the surface. Therapy can be a form of meditation. It’s a space where we bear witness to our stories, and have an opportunity to be with with the full range of our experiences so we can become more resilient in our own lives.