Shame Is An Epidemic In Our Culture

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

So says researcher Bren Brown, who has devoted the last 5 years to a project to research interpersonal communications. She found out that the main problem underlying social interaction is vulnerability and inability to accept our own imperfection - the only thing that makes us unique

I spent the first ten years of my work with social workers: I got a degree in social work, interacted with social workers, and pursued a career in this field. One day a new professor came to us and said: "Remember: everything that cannot be measured does not exist." I was very surprised. We are more likely to get used to the fact that life is chaos.

And most of the people around me tried to just love her like that, and I always wanted to organize her - take all this variety and put it in beautiful boxes.

I got used to this: hit the discomfort on the head, push it further and get one five. And I found my way, decided to figure out the most confusing of the topics, understand the code and show the others how it works.

I chose a relationship between people. Because having spent ten years as a social worker, you begin to understand very well that we are all here for the sake of relationships, they are the purpose and meaning of our life. The ability to feel affection, the connection between people at the level of neuroscience - that's what we live for. And I decided to explore the relationship.

“I hate vulnerability. And I thought this was a great chance to attack her with all my tools. I was going to analyze it, understand how it works, and outsmart it. I was going to spend a year on this. As a result, it turned into six years: thousands of stories, hundreds of interviews, some people sent me pages of their diaries"

You know, it happens that you come to your boss, and he says to you: "Here are thirty-seven things in which you are simply the best, and there is one more thing in which you have room to grow." And all that remains in your head is this last thing.

My work looked about the same. When I asked people about love, they talked about grief. When asked about affection, they talked about the most painful partings. When asked about intimacy, I received stories of loss. Very quickly, after six weeks of research, I stumbled upon an unnamed obstacle that affected everything. Stopping to figure out what it was, I realized that it was a shame.

And shame is easy to understand, shame is the fear of losing a relationship. We are all afraid that we are not good enough for a relationship - not slim enough, rich enough, kind. This global feeling is absent only in those people who, in principle, are not able to build relationships.

At the heart of shame is the vulnerability that arises when we understand that in order for a relationship to work, we must open up to people and allow ourselves to be seen as we really are.

I hate vulnerability. And I thought this was a great chance to attack her with all my tools. I was going to analyze it, understand how it works, and outsmart it. I was going to spend a year on this. As a result, it turned into six years: thousands of stories, hundreds of interviews, some people sent me pages of their diaries. I wrote a book about my theory, but something was wrong.

If we divide all the people I interviewed into people who really feel needed - and in the end it all comes down to this feeling - and those who are constantly fighting for this feeling, there was only one difference between them. It was that those with a high degree of love and acceptance believe that they are worthy of love and acceptance. And that's all. They just believe they are worthy of it. That is, what separates us from love and understanding is the fear of not being loved and understood.

Having decided that this needs to be dealt with in more detail, I began to conduct research on this first group of people.

I took a beautiful folder, neatly filed all the files there and wondered what to call it. And the first thing that came to my mind was "Sincere". These were sincere people living with a sense of their own need. It turned out that their main common quality was courage. And it is important that I use this very word: it was formed from the Latin cor, heart. Originally it meant "to tell from the bottom of your heart who you are." Simply put, these people had the courage to be imperfect. They had enough mercy for other people, because they were merciful to themselves - this is a necessary condition. And they had a relationship because they had the courage to give up the idea of what they should be in order to be who they are. Relationships cannot take place without this.

These people had something else in common. Vulnerability. They believed that what makes them vulnerable makes them beautiful, and they accepted it. They, unlike people in the other half of the study, did not talk about vulnerability as something that makes them feel comfortable or, on the contrary, causes huge inconvenience - they talked about the need for it. They talked about being able to be the first to say: “I love you,” that you need to be able to act when there are no guarantees of success, about how to sit quietly and wait for a doctor's call after a serious examination. They were ready to invest in relationships that might not work out, moreover, they considered it a necessary condition.

It turned out that vulnerability was not weakness. It's emotional risk, insecurity, unpredictability, and it energizes our lives every day.

Having researched this topic for over ten years, I have come to the conclusion that vulnerability, the ability to show ourselves weak and be honest is the most accurate tool for measuring our courage.

I then took it as a betrayal, it seemed to me that my research outwitted me. After all, the essence of the research process is to control and predict, to study the phenomenon for the sake of a clear goal. And then I come to the conclusion that the conclusion of my research says that you need to accept vulnerability and stop controlling and predicting. Here I had a crisis. My therapist, of course, called this a spiritual awakening, but I assure you - it was a real crisis.

I found a psychotherapist - this was the kind of psychotherapist that other psychotherapists go to, we need to do this sometimes in order to check the readings of the devices. I brought my folder with the research of happy people to the first meeting. I said, “I have a vulnerability problem. I know that vulnerability is the source of our fears and complexes, but it turns out that love, joy, creativity and understanding are also born from it. I need to sort this out somehow. " And she, in general, nodded and said to me: “This is not good and not bad. It's just what it is. " And I went to deal with this further.

You know, there are people who can accept vulnerability and tenderness and continue to live with them. I am not like this. I hardly communicate with such people, so for me it was a street fight lasting another year. In the end, I lost the battle with vulnerability, but I may have regained my own life.

I went back to research and looked at what decisions these happy, sincere people make, what they do with vulnerability. Why do we have to fight it so badly? I posted a question on Facebook about what makes people feel vulnerable, and in an hour I received a hundred and fifty responses. Asking your husband to look after you when you are sick, take the initiative in sex, fire an employee, hire an employee, invite you on a date, hear a diagnosis from a doctor - all these situations were on the list.

We live in a vulnerable world. We deal with it simply by constantly suppressing our vulnerability. The problem is that feelings cannot be suppressed selectively. You can't choose - here I have vulnerability, fear, pain, I don't need all this, I won't feel it. When we suppress all these feelings, together with them we suppress gratitude, happiness and joy, nothing can be done about it. And then we feel unhappy, and even more vulnerable, and try to find meaning in life, and go to a bar, where we order two bottles of beer and cakes.

Here are a few things I think we should think about. The first is that we make definite things out of uncertain things. Religion has gone from mystery and faith to certainty. “I’m right, you’re not. Shut up". And there is. Unambiguity. The more scary we are, the more vulnerable we are, and this makes us even more scared. This is what today's politics looks like. There are no more discussions, no discussions, only accusations. Blaming is a way to vent pain and discomfort. Second, we are constantly trying to improve our lives. But it doesn't work that way - we basically just pump fat from our thighs to our cheeks. And I really hope that in a hundred years people will look at this and be very surprised. Third, we are desperate to protect our children. Let's talk about how we treat our children. They come into this world programmed to fight. And our task is not to take them in our arms, dress them beautifully and make sure that in their ideal life they play tennis and go to all possible circles. No. We have to look them in the eye and say, “You are not perfect. You came here imperfect and you were created to fight this all your life, but you are worthy of love and care."

Show me one generation of children who have been raised this way, and I'm sure we'll be surprised at how many current problems will simply disappear from the face of the earth.

We pretend that our actions do not affect the people around us. We do this in our personal lives and at work. When we take out a loan, when a deal breaks down, when oil spills in the sea, we pretend that we have nothing to do with it. But this is not the case. When these things happen, I want to say to corporations: “Guys, this is not our first day. We are used to a lot. We just want you to stop pretending and say, “Forgive us. We will fix everything."

Shame is an epidemic in our culture, and in order to recover from it and find a way back towards each other, we need to understand how it affects us and what makes us do. Shame requires three components to grow steadily and unhindered: secrecy, silence, and condemnation. The antidote to shame is empathy. When we are suffering, the strongest people around us must have the courage to tell us: Me too. If we want to find a road to each other, then this road is vulnerability. And it's much easier to stay away from the arena all your life, thinking you'll go there when you're bulletproof and the best.

The point is, it will never happen. And even if you get as close as possible to the ideal, it still turns out that when you enter this arena, people do not want to fight with you. They want to look you in the eye and see your sympathy.

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