Any ideas on healing shame? I’m busy watching this, still half-way…
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It’s a hard one for me and I think a lot of people in general struggle with this in degrees.
I think it requires a lot of bravery to risk exposure of your true feelings and thoughts.
For me, I live with chronic shame for just about everything and I want to blame that in part on our society and of course for upbringing and not getting any approval or ‘implied shame’ or ‘indirect shame’.
“Guys aren’t supposed to care about how they look.”
“Don’t be a cry baby.”
“When are you going to stop playing those games?”
“Do you think you’ll ever grow out of those?”
“When will you get a job?”
“Only ■■■■■■■ are skinny.”
Meanwhile I’ve gotten the opposite responses at times but it’s like my mind goes to extremes.
Either I am accepting of myself or I push myself away to gain others approval. Or I just have a rebellious attitude which just hides the shame or makes it worse.
Feels like it’s really a hard matter of self-acceptance and not caring about others approval.
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Ah! But what just comes up was something that has hurt the most physically which is that guys are not supposed to cry and ‘be tough’ or not have mental health problems like depression/anxiety/etc.
I’ve pushed myself to bad extremes because of that one.
Like, I’ve lifted sofas because I lacked the assertiveness and was fed some indirect shame to do it anyway.
That lifting of sofas thing has led to serious muscle strains in my arms that was disabling. It made me cramp intensely and took a week or so to fully heal.
Ever since I now feel averse to physical activities because of fearing that kind of pain.
Now, if I find myself getting into that kind of thing I think it’s important to assert ‘No!’ to people that want to use shame to get you to do something they want that isn’t good for you or dangerous.
This issue is pretty complex as far as I see it lol. Feels like I could write an essay in all the ways shame shows up and how damaging it is and can be.
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There’s a part of me that almost feels guilty for working through a lot of my trauma. Almost like it proves that what happened to me must not have been that bad and that all the bad habits and things I did wrong were just me being a bad person.
I know that that’s not true but sometimes I struggle with these thoughts.
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I had a lot of shame. Working the AA program helped make my life more livable.
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There is one thing I will say that is kind of important still to talk about with understanding shame.
It’s that it acts like a sort of block to healing more so than it is just a reaction that causes your body to feel awful and lowers your mood.
I mentioned this somewhere else, but the hardest thing in healing is also not shaming yourself for having a ‘dark side’. But the hard thing is not letting it control you…
For me, I do have a dark side that likes to see people in pain - I hate to admit that, but that’s what shame does. When we feel like that it’s wrong, this thing that’s in the background never comes up.
And to heal it always really just seems like realizing it comes from pain. Otherwise, I just try not to let it control me… But it doesn’t lighten up if there’s no acceptance of it and the pain underneath. It’s very hard to soothe sometimes.
Just writing this is hard because there’s definitely a concern that there’s too much shame about having any ‘dark side’ to you at all. As long as it’s not on the forefront and creating pain and havoc…
It requires heartful awareness though and willingness to feel vulnerable to it.
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Thanks all. And thanks genbu, for that vulnerable and valuable contribution. I think that is a very good point. Sometimes I need to think before responding though…and my mind is very “full” now. Going to respond better… but I think you have a key thing here…how to cope with that darker side created by pain, is very relevant.
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It also helped me shrink the list of things I actually had to be ashamed of, namely those things that were under my control. I used to take ownership of things I didn’t need to, like the abuse from my childhood.
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I wanted to share another resource from Bessel Van Der Kolk because I love listening to him talk. It helps me feel a bit more soothed and understanding of this issue.
And I think he’s a very good resource on this issue even though this is talking about trauma induced shame… It’s important that he says: kids make meaning out of the neglect/abuse and think, “It’s because I’m a bad person.”.
It’s funny because I do feel these thoughts too lingering a lot around me. Like, I don’t make eye contact and have very low self-esteem and confidence because there is that constantly nagging thought of being very bad and therefore unlovable.
I want to say too that affirmations have not really helped and personally I find that they can backfire. It’s like you’re pulling a rubber band that snaps back and makes the negative thoughts stronger/more affirmed.
But just becoming more aware of those feelings/thoughts helps relieve them a bit.
… Still makes me feel very defensive though. Like there’s a body experience of getting cold that I resist often.
I do have strong opinions though that differ from my family though - and have for a long time - that makes me feel very ‘bad’ because it’s not things that they would agree with.
That also reduces self-esteem/worth and confidence. Sometimes I am more assertive about my thoughts/opinions but I do like to hide them still.
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I dealt with my shame in therapy. glad for it…don’t blame myself so much anymore…it’s still there though.
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Thanks all. The last week was a rollercoaster like never before, everything coming together. Touched in the core.
My family carried a lot of shame, they shoved it on me as a child. I took it. Threw it back. Took it.
Started to unwrap their presents of shame, one by one, the last years. To carefully decide whose they were. I gave theirs back. They threw them in my face. I threw them back. No use: do not fight evil with evil. I decided to put them outside. It is up to them to selfreflect and unwrap their shame. Or not. But I will no longer accept being blamed for being abused as kid, or becoming anxious of abuse, or demanding it to stop. It is sad, for there is no true connection, if they refuse to unwrap your own shame.
Then the presents that were actually mine. These hurt the most. I too created a dark side from pain, @genbu. Thank you, for being vulnerable. I fought back in bad ways. I numbed it with alcohol. I fled from good people. Chose bad relationships. And more. I hurt people and myself. And still. I’ve been doing prayer therapy the last weeks. And it brings…fundamental changes…that…are rather overwhelming.
Affirmations feel like lies. What helps me is to see the good and bad both. To feel the shame. To confess it. Ask for forgiveness. Try correct things I do wrong, in my clumsy ways. Try do things differently, even if I’m still learning. Forgiving others. Seeing the balance of their good and bad, and empathizing with how the latter was created. It’s a learning process. But something fundamental clicked the last days. After therapy, some encounters. Which is odd. Everything came together in weird ways.
I hope EMDR will help as well…to stop the stupid flashbacks… which makes me respond in not mature ways.
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I think that’s the way. As I just had done this myself the other day and it was pretty harsh but felt freeing after a while.
However, I have a problem with shame still as some of it is not really rightly placed. Also, it is challenging to realize that it creates a fake personality essentially - which is why I dislike it being used so much in modern society.
Like, I had doubts about some of the beliefs I had about it, but it’s like a barrier to healing because it blocks how we really feel about something.
I shared some of those ideas with others and they said they felt a lot better after I helped them to realize something regarding some popular beliefs that get spread around.
As a major example: Don’t have a victim mentality.
I mentioned that a lot of people who do this may actually not be healing because of the fact that it causes people to operate from shame.
Why? Because it does this to your already ‘negative’ thoughts, “Oh, I’m in victim mentality but I shouldn’t feel this way!”. So essentially, you run from the feelings that are underneath and you don’t really feel what it’s meaning to convey.
What’s more important is to actually work with what you’re ACTUALLY feeling to create any change at all.
Some said that resonated and it made them feel lighter - as it has with me. And this also makes being creative a lot easier for me too.
Trying to ‘force’ beliefs never works because it’s like trying to undo a neural network that is made up of so many connections that believe the opposite.
Also… I do think that it tends to get in the way of intimacy in relationships AND… an ad showed up just now today that was also explaining that for most of us that are ‘work focused’ are actually operating from an avoidant attachment style to avoid feeling connected to anyone. (Though it’s not really been news to me since decades ago…)
I was like, yeah? That’s kind of how I’ve been operating… Or feel myself wanting to.
There are other things I’m thinking but I’m just still … working out those thoughts or only willing to share them elsewhere.
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Just for laughs… its so true.
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Haha…that gave me a good laugh. It’s secretly true indeed. 
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