Shame. Stages Of Inner Work With Shame

2024 Author: Harry Day | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 15:43

Author: Elena Monique

Shame is an inner feeling of inadequacy. When I am seized by shame, I do not feel myself. Not only is no positive experience of myself happening to me, but no experience of myself at all. My energy leaks and dries up. And it is impossible even to imagine that I can be competent in something, or that someone can love or respect me.

Even worse, I begin to behave in a way that reinforces all these feelings. I can say stupid things and make all sorts of mistakes, I start to leave everything in a mess and do not finish things, and if I do something, it is disgusting. As a result, I feel guilty for being such a burden to others, and I go deeper into the hole. From there, I look out and see a world in which everyone is successful, and only I am always a complete failure. In such a state, I usually cannot imagine what could be somehow different. I believe that this is what I am, and that is how life is, and nothing can be changed. Shame is intensified by inner voices that constantly evaluate us. They remind us that we are "defective" and must change or improve in order for us to "succeed" in order to win and succeed.

Shame cuts us off from ourselves, cuts us off from the center. Shame makes us feel disconnected from the experience of being at home inside. And many of us have lived in shame for so long that we don’t know at all what it’s like to feel at home inside. We are identified with shame; we all have shame, but each one treats it differently. Some of us have shame on the very surface, they are constantly tormented by a sense of their own inadequacy, and they are deeply identified with the image of a "failure". Others move between feelings of unworthiness and adequate dependence on how things are going in practical terms. Successes lift them up, defeats throw them down. And they rush between megalomania and an inferiority complex, the roles of "winner" and "loser", depending on the feedback they receive from outside. There are people who compensate for their shame with "success" so well that they consider themselves "winners" and everyone else looks like "losers." But for those of us who effectively compensate for shame, it may take deep trauma, such as loss, rejection, illness, accident, or exhaustion, to look within and see behind the mask. Without traveling into our own shame, we cannot find myself. We can drown in shame or overcome it, but in any case, it controls our inner life. It will be helpful to come in contact with a deep inner feeling that says: "I am inadequate, I am a failure and therefore must hide my inadequacy from others so that they never know the truth about me." Getting to know this part of me made me more human. If I cover up my shame with compensation, then I feel like I'm running away from myself. Behind the facade is an ever-present fear that does not go away despite all my efforts to cope with it. The coping process becomes an endless struggle, because until we learn to deal with underlying fear, insecurity, or shame, they will always haunt us. A huge part of automatic behavior comes from shame. Identified with the ashamed part, we do not trust ourselves and feel dependent on others for self-esteem, love, and attention. We so desperately need to cover up the emptiness of shame that we become pleasing, doing, saving. We choose a role or behavior that brings at least some relief; the wound of shame plunges us into a bubble of shame. From it, we see the world as a dangerous, competing jungle, where there is only struggle and no love. We believe that if we do not fight, compete and compare, we will not survive. And by remaining in a bubble of shame, we are convinced that others are better than us. They are more lovable, successful, competent, intelligent, attractive, strong, sensitive, spiritual, warm-hearted, brave, aware, and so on. Of course, each of us has our own personal combination of these "mores", which we project onto other people. Cut off from feeling ourselves, we go for evaluation to others and live in a compromise. Our relationship is built on compromise. Our self-esteem is further reduced. The shattered self-image builds up internal tension in us and we can easily move into some form of compensatory behavior. But that only adds to the shame. Shame is a consequence of the fact that I was brought up in an environment where my being was not recognized, and was forced to conform to a strange world, insensitive at its core. As a result, I lost touch with my own essential qualities and energies and lost contact with the center. Shame contamination occurs when a child's natural spontaneity, self-love and liveliness are suppressed and when his essential needs are not met. This can happen as a result of violence, judgment, comparison, or the expectations that we are exposed to as children. It also happens when a child becomes infected with repression, fears and life-denying attitudes from the parents or the culture in which they are raised. Each of us has had our own unique experience of embezzling shame. It rarely happens that someone avoids him. We are often cared for by loving people, and they have good intentions. But they have also experienced shame and, without knowing it, pass it on to us. "Working through" shame is an important process that makes us deeply human and sensitive. It may be necessary to go through a period of blame and anger towards people who have shamed us. But if we manage at some point to recognize that every experience we have received, no matter how painful, has its own meaning, we will achieve a much deeper vision.

STAGES OF INTERNAL WORK WITH SHAME:

1. Feelings of shame.

Shame is healed by the creation within the space to feel and watch when it comes. It brings depth and softness. We feel and observe the ashamed Child within us and within everyone. We set the healing process in motion by simply staying with shame and experiencing it. When he comes, be aware, without trying to change anything. We are trying to see, feel and understand this state. Remember that shame is not ourselves. We don't do anything else.

2. Recognition of stimuli.

Shame-provoking factors are sometimes obvious, sometimes almost subtle. It can be like someone is looking at us or talking to us when we are not fulfilling someone else's expectations. This is close to feeling humiliated.

3. Investigation - Where Shame Comes From.

These stimuli have much in common with what we were shamed for in childhood (condemnation, comparison, punishment. Often people who care about us, who also carry shame in themselves and without knowing it, pass it on to us.

4. Recognizing compensation

We become very much unidentified with shame when we begin to recognize the ways in which we run away from it. We each have our own way of not feeling shame or hiding it. But basically they all come down to two categories: either "bloat" or "deflate"

To bloat is to do more, to be better, to make the best possible impression, to climb the career ladder, to prove. When we swell, we use our energy to make sure that shame doesn't overpower us and we can never relax.

Blow-out - we give up and suppress ourselves. We raise the white flag because we have not dealt with the tremendous shock and pain.

Sometimes we give up in some areas of our life and bloat in others.

5. Exit

Find meaning in our experiences of shame. Formulate a metaphor for this state (preferably humorous)

Shame is cured by acceptance, trust, legalization (trust yourself to others)

A person learns to face his shame without always using protection, often gaining the courage to face reality.

Purpose: To transform painful shame into moderate beneficial shame. Moderate shame is uncomfortable, but not too much, the person does not despise himself entirely, and, despite the initial frustration, he can forgive himself and draw conclusions to correct mistakes. Moderate shame allows a person to keep track of their relationship with the world. Instead of trying to eradicate shame, you must learn to use it constructively as a signal for change. In this case, a person will be able to regulate his behavior in order to please others without losing a sense of basic autonomy, he will be able to remain alone without an irresistible fear of abandonment., A movement will begin from shame to pride, to self-esteem.