Shame And Words Of Encouragement

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

We all make mistakes and experience situations after which it can be very embarrassing. Unlike guilt, the experience of shame is associated not so much with an act as with the discovery of defeat in it. With the awareness of the inappropriateness of the act, of its inconsistency, “I wanted to help, but I turned out to be incompetent”, “everyone saw my mistake”, “because of me, others suffered”.

Shame is based on outside judgment, and it can be both real and imaginary.

According to Erickson (Childhood and Society), the feeling of shame is formed in 1-3 years. At this age, the close environment should convince the child of his own strengths and capabilities, help him assert his autonomy and confidence.

Shaming a child beyond measure, when he just got on his feet and begins to cognize the scale of the magnitudes and forces of this world, can increase his feeling of his own insignificance and weakness in front of the big world (or even lead to such a compensatory reaction as provoking shamelessness).

Complicated crisis, traumatic events of this period, excessive shamefulness can form in a child a special sensitivity to situations of shame, from which no one is stuck in adult life.

Shame is about lack of support. Which is also from the outside. And which can be rendered to another through acceptance, presence and dialogue … So that the supporting figure from the outside is internalized and becomes from the inside, and in the future - an internal support.

This becomes possible in the movement towards empathic dialogue, when one's own defenses are noticed and overcome on the way: denial ("nothing like this happened", "no need to be ashamed", "don't cry"), depreciation ("it is not worth such experiences", " no one cares why worry like that "), pity (" poor thing, it's hard for you "," well, you acted like a fool, but you will correct yourself "), when evaluative opinions remain with you (" I think this is nonsense and there is nothing to be ashamed of "), and personal decisions ("let's tell them that …", "we'll think of …", "tomorrow you have to go and apologize"), and it remains respect for a person, acceptance, introduction of your feelings and personal experience into the dialogue.

I saw how you tried

I had a similar story, and I can imagine how you feel

I feel that if I were you, I would have done the same

Someone who experiences shame feels condemnation from the outside, as if the world is watching and judging him. He is not ready to be visible, at the same time he cannot make the world not look. Then man strives to become invisible himself. Often this is expressed in the desire to "sink into the ground", to disappear, to move after what happened to another house or to another city.

For people with fragile autonomy, situations of shame can pose fundamental, existential questions: Do I have the right to be that way? Loser? Weak? Failed? After what have I done? After what you didn't? It's a shame to be like that, and sometimes it's too embarrassing to be.

Therefore, shame is one of the most powerful suicidal impulses. And it cannot be ignored. Be there, and through the sincerity and acceptance of the other, the right words will come by themselves.

Psychologist Mila Grebenyuk

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