A few years ago I ran a six-month training on managing stress through mindfulness for social-service workers.
These men and women were on the front lines of helping the homeless and people with serious mental-health problems. Suffice it to say, their work was more stressful and intense than most.
People often think mindfulness is about peace and relaxation. While these effects can show up, should you be so lucky, it’s also about effort, turning toward that which you’d rather avoid, and, of course, practice.
During our first meeting, I attempted to use some levity in describing the deep and rigorous work ahead of us. At one point I nodded to my two co-facilitators, telling the group, “These two are really sweet and accommodating. I’m the slave driver.”
The following week, one of the participants, who happened to be a black woman, asked if she could talk to me. Then, speaking softly but firmly, she revealed, “What you said really upset and hurt me, and I spent the last week processing it with my colleagues at work.” I was startled. “What did I say?” And then I froze. “I’m the slave driver.” The words came flooding back to me, chased by a wave of heat spreading up my body to my face. I felt like throwing up.
“How could I have been so thoughtless, so unaware? And I call myself a mindfulness teacher!”’
In the seconds that it took for the full realization and weight of my mistake to hit me, I felt myself shrink inside and had the desperate urge to hide or just turn and run out the door.
If you haven’t recognized it yet, let me introduce you to shame, the most painful, cringe-
inducing of human emotions. Guilt, humiliation, and embarrassment, close cousins of shame, are often confused with it, but they are not the same thing. When we make a mistake, feel remorse, and want to fix it, that’s guilt. When we feel put down and think it’s undeserved, that’s humiliation. When we feel foolish in front of others, that’s embarrassment.
But when shame hits, we feel naked, exposed, our shameful selves out on display for everyone to see. Instead of feeling regretful for having done something wrong, through shame’s warped lens we see ourselves as wrong, bad, even unworthy. Or as researcher and author Brené Brown explains in discussing the difference between shame and guilt: “Guilt is: I’m sorry, I made a mistake. Shame is: I’m sorry, I am a mistake.”
Shame’s reason for being
All emotions are experienced in the mind and in the body, and for good reason. Science tells us that emotions—desired or disliked—ready us to meet environmental circumstances by activating our nervous, cardiovascular, and musculoskeletal systems.
The “heat” I felt rise to my face when confronted about my careless words was the involuntary dilation of blood vessels that, from an evolutionary purpose, would provide a visual clue to others that something is awry.
Shame might also be experienced as a heaviness in the chest, a hollow sense of dread, or nausea—the body’s way of saying, Uh-oh, something’s wrong here— followed by an accelerated heart rate, sweating, avoidance of eye contact, or a desire to make yourself small, hide, or flee.
Brain imaging research reveals increased activity in the frontal (concerned with identity) and temporal (clues us into to others’ feelings) lobes and limbic system (the seat of emotion) when we experience shame. Other studies suggest that shame can trigger a systemic inflammatory response, something associated with conditions including atherosclerosis, myocardial infarction, stroke, insulin resistance/Type 2 diabetes, and cognitive decline.
The latter led psychology researchers at the University of British Columbia to warn, somewhat wanly, “long-term experiences of shame might have the potential to negatively influence health and well-being.”
As you’ve surely experienced for yourself, shame is a full-sensory assault, completely taking over how we feel, think, and act. The question is, why? Why does shame feel so threatening?
Social science indicates that shame’s primary adaptive function is to stop us from acting against social norms, making sure we behave appropriately so we don’t get ostracized or cast out. This is called social self-preservation, and it makes sense: Survival of the species is dependent upon community; we don’t survive long in isolation.
Shame also serves the more personal purpose of helping us recognize when we’ve gone against our own values, and can provide the jolt we need to set us back on track. Indeed, the reactions associated with shame are so aversive that it’s a profound relief when they leave.
Once I was able to get my bearings through the heat and confusion of my shame, I stammered a heartfelt apology to the young woman standing before me. It helped; I felt a bit of space open up. But I realized that I wasn’t done: No matter how awkward it would be, I needed to acknowledge what I had said and apologize to the entire group. Thankfully, they received this with good grace.
In the end, shame revealed to me a need to be even more mindful about how my words and actions impact others and reflect my core values. It was an unexpected—and painful—support to my life’s work and practice.
The lengths of shame
The shame I felt during that training is the kind of “normal” shame all of us feel at one time or another. We blunder, flub, and barrel our way into situations that we dearly wish we could reverse. And, best-case scenario, the experience is instructive, as it was for me.
But what about more extreme experiences of shame? The ones that feel out of our control, such as when kids are repeatedly bullied at school or face denigration and abuse at home? Psychological studies have shown that when people are regularly shamed and sent messages that they’re “no good,” they come to see themselves as deeply flawed and unlovable. They internalize the shame, and may even doubt their right to exist. As psychologist and creator of Emotion-Focused Therapy Les Greenberg says, “If you’re treated like garbage, you come to believe you’re garbage.”
It’s not surprising that people with a strong and fixed shame identity often suffer from depression or anxiety. Chronic shame can also lead to eating disorders, addiction, self-denigration, and even self-harm.
Eventually those living under the perpetual cloud of shame shut down, isolate, or lash out in anger. This makes interacting with others difficult and can keep healthy relationships, just the thing that can help heal the wounds of shame, at bay.
Being with it
Whatever the extent that shame plays in our lives, from a “normal” incident to something more extreme, one thing is certain: It’s hard to face. And when shame hits, the impulse is to escape—physically, mentally, or emotionally. Tuning out, deflecting blame, pretending to shrug it off while burying the shame deep inside, or turning to some other means to defuse uncomfortable emotions are just some of the ways we attempt to dodge shame.
And these things work, in the short term. They offer immediate relief from the hot, sickening sensation of self-loathing overwhelming us in the moment. But in the long run, relying on avoidance tactics to deal with difficult feelings only means that we don’t learn what we can tolerate, come through, or manage in healthier ways.
The truth is, you can’t complete