We all want to feel good about ourselves, express our potential, and feel valued by others. Although all of this is possible, sometimes life and how we relate to it get in the way. When life pushes back on us, we sometimes experience emotions like shame; the feeling that we are not good enough, are flawed, have done something wrong, or are judged as insignificant, or rejected by others.
Shame is a social emotion that affects our behaviour, as well as how we think and feel about ourselves. Although we can never really know, evolutionary psychologists speculate that shame evolved in our early ancestors as a defence against the social threats or judgements of others. Like many hunter-gatherers alive today, our ancestors lived in small communities where maintaining good relationships with others had a direct impact on survival. When we experience shame, we feel that other people may not value us somehow. This plays a useful purpose as it guides our behaviour, thoughts, and actions to anticipate and avoid the disapproval of others in the social group.
With shame, it is as if some weakness that we would rather avoid has been exposed. As young children, many of us may have experienced feelings of shame when we found ourselves the victim of teasing or ridicule, when a difference from the group norm, like being fat or wearing glasses was pointed out. The truth is that we all have imperfections, so feeling shame is part of being human.
In our body, we may experience shame as a sudden sense of sinking, contraction, anxiety, or dread. We may hide some aspects of how we look from other people, avoid eye contact, lower our heads, and our posture may become slumped. Like all emotions, shame tells us that something needs attention, drives us to act, and shows others how we feel. It is an ironic “shame” that when we experience shame, we do our best to push the feelings away. Shame is a painful and unwanted emotion, so it is no surprise that we often avoid acknowledging what’s happening as we experience it. The consequence is that shame gets pushed into the background and layered on top of all the other painful experiences of shame we hold within ourselves.
It’s important to realise that shame is about how we indirectly interpret or perceive our experience, rather than what is directly happening in the world. Like other emotions, shame is powerful because it also re-energizes painful emotional memories from the distant past. Shame is often beneath feelings of low self-worth, how we feel about our appearance, self-critical or judgemental thoughts, and social comparisons. On top of all this, in our culture, it’s hard to avoid the implied shame that seeps through the media, advertising, and consumer tech industries, where social judgement and comparison are used to sell products.
So, how can we use mindfulness to be more aware of this powerful and often unrecognised emotion? How can we bring compassion, care, and kindness to the shame we hold within ourselves, our interactions with others, and across our wider society?
Here are some ways that mindfulness can help us to work more skilfully with shame:
- We are more likely to notice the thoughts and feelings that are around when we are present to our experience.
- Practising mindfulness, we begin to see that we are not our thoughts and feelings, as they come and go, and that we are always much more than our thoughts and feelings.
- Becoming friendly with, moving towards, and allowing ourselves to experience emotions like shame, rather than automatically pushing the painful feeling away.
- Learning to identify the signifying sensations, feelings, and thoughts that arise when we feel shame.
- Noticing the repeated habit patterns or situations where we are self-critical or feel worthless and small that have shame in the background.
- Acknowledging, and using aware curiosity to investigate and gain insight into how we experience powerful and complex emotions like shame.
Shame is part of the lived human experience. As social beings, we need to maintain good relationships and avoid conflicts with the people around us. Although shame is useful as it allows us to anticipate potential difficulties in our relationships, it also has a downside that can limit who we are. By noticing how shame operates in awareness, we can free ourselves from the old habit patterns that no longer serve us, so we can reach our potential and feel valued within ourselves.
Suggested weekly practice
- Explore how feelings of shame play out in your life. Where do you feel unworthy? What is it that you sometimes feel ashamed of? Who makes you feel not good enough, or feel like you have done something wrong?
- Identify where the shame you feel is more about the past than the present. For instance, is past shame active in the background when you experience some social anxiety or awkwardness? Is feeling shame serving you in this moment?
- Notice when you avoid feeling shame, as well as the impulse to push the painful feeling away. Instead, see what happens when you acknowledge shame and allow the feeling to be as it is.
Guidance
Find somewhere undisturbed and sit in a comfortable, dignified and upright posture, where you can remain alert and aware. There are two guided practices for this session. You can close your eyes or lower your gaze while the meditations play.
- Play the first settling practice, then read through the session content, which you can print off if that helps.
- Then play the second practice to mindfully explore a recent experience of feeling shame, and to see what insights emerge.
