Shame
- Olly Alexander
- Oct 9, 2022
- 37 min read
Updated: Jan 25
INTRODUCTION
“Shame is a soul eating emotion” said the psychiatrist and spiritual Master Carl Jung. But isn’t it time for you to allow your self to stop reacting and start creating, for your sake? In this epic article I give you the definitive guide on shame, how to heal from it, and how you can harness that inner nuclear reactor for limitless creativity.
You know, the dark power that got you to where you are that you are perhaps a little afraid of? It’s time to doubt your doubts and believe you are limitless. I will tell you how…
Shame
“Soul, if you want to learn secrets, your heart must forget about shame and dignity. You are God’s lover, yet you worry what people are saying.” ― Rumi
Rumi nails it yet again: Shame drives us to seek external validation and a state of emotional insobriety, the true source of our unhappiness, where our happiness is dependent on people, events, and things. Not the PET you always wanted, if you pardon the acronym. As Aristotle wrote “Happiness depends upon ourselves.”
The key is to find our true Self and to love our selves (why the plural? - more on that later when we come to our adult Self, our inner child, shadow, and inner critic who all reside within), and then from this place of serenity to help others. The Dalai Lama XIV said “Only the development of compassion and understanding for others can bring us the tranquility and happiness we all seek.”
Shame is the birthplace of fear and pain; Trauma is the infancy of shame; Egocentric fear is the childhood of anxiety, depression and addiction; Shame is the adolescence of seeking external validation; External validation is the adulthood of unhappiness; Yet it is your birthright to love your Self; Your birthright is wellbeing.
Anthony Gucciardi wrote that "The butterfly does not look back at the caterpillar in shame, just as you should not look back at your past in shame. Your past was part of your own transformation."
The scene for your life is set from a preverbal age. Shame is a response to childhood trauma. More on this to follow. For two brilliant overviews on childhood trauma read 'Complex PTSD: From Surviving to Thriving' by Pete Walker, and 'The Body Keeps the Score: Mind, Brain and Body in the Transformation of Trauma' by Bessel van der Kolk.
It is in your hands to be happy, you just don’t know it yet. Ralph Waldo Emerson said “Most of the shadows in life are caused by standing in our own sunshine.” The default, innate, nature of all human beings is wellbeing. We are all born fundamentally connected to each other and to something supremely benevolent that powers all of life, a Universal force. We arrive in this world perfectly healthy, full of the clarity and peace of mind we so often chase as adults, who were raised without unconditional love. So how did we stray off the path, and how can we return to it? Even as we grow up and feel like the connection has faded, it hasn’t. Because, essentially, it’s who we are, it can’t fade. Taking our own idle thinking at face value is the primary cause of all suffering. It’s so simple. We are all well. All is well. Always. There are no exceptions, caveats, conditions, or logical rules to remember, but we sometimes need a little reminding. That’s what this article is for. That’s my purpose. That’s why I had to break down, to break through, for you, to remind you of this. The way out is through. Follow me, I will be your guide, side by side, every step of the way.
I have studied philosophy, positive psychology, medicine, spirituality, timeless Truths, transformation, and spent the last four years living all this, combined with my lived experience, in order unite all the concepts I have learned and provide clarity, so that I can guide you to find your purpose, lose your shame, ditch your inner critic, free your mind from your negative inner voice and thoughts, and ultimately to find bliss in this life. This will enthuse you to do the same for others. Touch one soul at a time.
Confucius encapsulates it perfectly “We have two lives, and the second begins when we realise we only have one.” Perhaps together we can save the world, one day at a time, and bring it back from the crisis that we appear to be in right now. I am not saying anything new that hasn’t been said since around 500BC when Siddhartha became Enlightened as the Buddha and “The Bhagavad Gita” was written, at around the same time, via the Stoics, right through to modern day philosophers, psychologists, coaches, spiritual leaders, and those devoted to personal growth and transformation. What I have realised is that they all have the same message, and that the boundaries between the different disciplines are simply different ways of viewing the same concepts. For example Carl Jung was a philosopher, a psychologist, and a spiritual leader. They are all the same thing when they get close to the Truth. So let’s get clarity on these timeless Truths. You can’t argue with natural law: Scientists can bend the laws of physics, but no-one can break the Natural Laws, such as Karma. We are all just voices, echoing these same Truths for the current generation. For example Buddha said “Do not dwell in the past, do not dream of the future, concentrate the mind on the present moment.” Eckhart Tolle echoed “Realise deeply that the present moment is all you have. Make the NOW the primary focus of your life.” There is nothing new to discover. Just clarity and simplicity. All is well, right now, in the present moment, as you read this, and just breathe. What’s so wonderful is that you are beginning to listen. You have stepped onto the right path. The possibilities are limitless…
Are you sceptical? I am not surprised. I would have been too. If you are noticing that in this very moment you are most certainly not in touch with your innate wellbeing, I hear you. I really hear you. I see you. You are so forgivable. You are so worthy. Let me bring you home. Let me guide you to find your way home. If stress and mental chaos were home they would feel like home, right? Struggle and mental busyness go against your nature and that’s why you struggle to fix them. That’s why you strive to return home, to the wellbeing into which you were born. That is home. Home is inside you. You just need a little light to find your way back. Thats why I am here, and why I wrote this article for you.
Those moments of supreme peace and spiritual bliss that you sometimes experience (maybe in Nature, maybe when deeply connecting with those that you love, or when your life and purpose momentarily align) are who you naturally are. When you’re experiencing anything else, you’re simply in a fog of thought. Nothing can change your basic nature. Not age, culture, conditioning, abuse, a horrific childhood, unfit parents, anxiety, depression, fear, worry, obsession, or shame. Your innate wellbeing and serenity is always right there, only sometimes masked by mental chit-chat. So, quiet the mind, open the heart, and read on.
Shame is universal. Everyone battles with shame, which is extremely beneficial since we isolate ourselves so much when we believe it’s only us. Carl Rogers famously said: “The things that we feel most separate us from one another are actually the ones that we have most in common.”
Dr. Gabor Maté says “Shame is the deepest of the negative emotions, a feeling we will do anything to avoid. Unfortunately, our abiding fear of shame impairs our ability to see reality.” We feel shame because we are human, not because we are bad: Among the millions of animal species on the globe, our ability for shame is unique. Chimpanzees and bonobos, do sense some minor forms of guilt, embarrassment, and a desire to make amends, but nothing like humans. Shame pretends to serve as a cautionary signal: Shame is a warning from the brain that we might be rejected or cut off from the social group. Dale Carnegie said “The deepest principle in human nature is the craving to be appreciated.” Shame is the brain’s way of dealing with the threat of disconnection. The solution, then, is first of all to reconnect with our Self, to remove the threat of the ‘Invisible Lion’ (we have an appropriate response to threat, but it is to a threat that no longer exists - hence the invisible lion), and from that place to reconnect with others with compassion. Its time to doubt your doubts and trust your intuition, with a little help from what has been written about shame. There are many elements and solutions to recovering from shame, not just compassion, which is oft-touted as the sole antidote. How can all these concepts be connected? Well, as Dr. Gabor Maté says, “Trauma is what you suffer alone.” Food for thought. Are you ready for clarity on shame? Let’s dive in and elucidate then….
What is shame?
Shame haunts our soul and whispers in our ear at night saying “What if you are not enough?” Every day your shame voices are trying to convince you that you are less than human. Shame is the negative bias in our head that is meant to keep us alive by encouraging connection — be better and you will be loved. It relentlessly drives us to seek success to prove the inner voice, that forever present inner critic, wrong: But no-one told shame about the tall poppy syndrome.
Brené Brown wrote in The Gifts of Imperfection “Shame works like the zoom lens on a camera. When we are feeling shame, the camera is zoomed in tight and all we see is our flawed selves, alone and struggling.” It is human nature to see our strengths minimised as if we were gazing the wrong way through a telescope, and our weaknesses magnified with the telescope the other way round.
Leigh Bardugo wrote “We can endure all kinds of pain. It’s shame that eats men whole.” I am not being dramatic: I know. Brené Brown says “Shame is the deep and abiding belief or experience that I am flawed and defective and therefore unworthy of love or belonging… Shame is an epidemic in our culture.” You are not alone. Troy Love adds “Shame is anger turned inwards.” But anger against whom - your Self? Yes, and the terrible consequence of this is that “Shame corrodes the very part of us that believes we are capable of change” (Brené Brown, I Thought It Was Just Me: Women Reclaiming Power and Courage in a Culture of Shame). It’s no surprise that with all this self-hatred that self-compassion has been widely described as the antidote to shame. Responding with compassion to our mistakes is a good place to start countering shame. Brené Brown says “If you put shame in a Petri dish, it needs three things to grow exponentially: secrecy, silence and judgment. If you put the same amount of shame in a Petri dish and douse it with empathy, it can’t survive.” Empathy and compassion are very different. They are represented in different areas of the brain. With empathy, we share in the pain of others, but we don’t go so far as to genuinely help them. Compassion allows us to step back from the emotion of empathy and ask, “How can we help?” True compassion for others begins with genuine compassion for oneself. It’s impossible to aide people achieve their equilibrium if you’re overwhelmed and out of balance yourself. Getting enough sleep and taking pauses during the day are examples of self-compassion. So are mindfulness, meditation, yoga, eating healthily, all forms of self care, and keeping our life in balance, without overemphasis on any one part such as work. Self-compassion requires letting go of excessive self-criticism. We need to berating ourselves for what we could have done better or differently. Instead, we need to cultivate positive self-talk. After that, we need to reframe failures as a learning opportunity. FAIL means First Attempt In Learning (please pardon the acronyms - being a medical doctor I am rather fond of them!). Compassion is not the only antidote to shame - love and connection, amongst other approaches and concepts, are also important in recovery. Craig Thompson said “Shame is always easier to handle if you have someone to share it with.” This is why 12 step recovery groups have the aphorism ”The Fellowship loves you until you love your self.” Then you can love the people who matter deeply to you in your life. There are many more factors that may also help, and I will delineate these in this article, from personal experience and from a thorough literature review. I don’t think I have missed anything and please forgive me for the length of this article - its such an important topics in our mental wellbeing! I will publish much more bitesized, hopefully tasty, morsels soon. Let’s be inspired by philosophers, psychologists, and speakers on timeless Truths. You will find that the message is pretty unified: Uniquely by those thinkers who have recovered from childhood trauma and shame, and have lived to tell their story and to create.
Dr. Christopher Germer, psychologist, says “People come into therapy. They often feel defective. Shame is the glue or the stickiness that makes difficult emotions persist. Shame is an attack on the self, a core belief that I am not good enough in some way. That’s shame.” Shame has been referred to as “The swampland of the soul” by certain Jungian analysts. They’re alluding to the way we can get caught into and entrenched in our shame stories, which are often painful and untrue. We can begin to embrace our authentic selves and halt the shame spiral by digging into the mud and casting light on toxic shame and its origins. More on this below, but suffice it to say that shame is secondary to childhood trauma and abuse. This may be due to an unvalidated childhood, where there is an absence of unconditional love, or emotional deprivation, as well as other forms of abuse. Laura Davis wrote “Abuse manipulates and twists a child’s natural sense of trust and love. Her innocent feelings are belittled or mocked and she learns to ignore her feelings. She can’t afford to feel the full range of feelings in her body while she’s being abused — pain, outrage, hate, vengeance, confusion, arousal. So she short-circuits them and goes numb. For many children, any expression of feelings, even a single tear, is cause for more severe abuse. Again, the only recourse is to shut down. Feelings go underground.” Such children create a false self in an attempt to be accepted, so there is a rupture of the self. Imagine the younger version of you being literally fractured into different parts. That resonated with me. John Bradshaw, counsellor and personal growth author, wrote in his brilliant book Healing The Shame That Binds You “The agony of this chronic stage of being cannot be endured for long. At the deepest level, toxic shame triggers our basic automatic defensive cover-ups. Freud called these automatic cover-ups our primary ego defences. Once these defences are in place they function automatically and unconsciously, sending our true and authentic selves into hiding. We develop a false identity out of this basic core. We become master impersonators. We avoid our core agony and pain and over a period of years, we avoid our avoidance.” He continued “Children are natural Zen masters; their world is brand new in each and every moment.” John Bradshaw, like all best authors, writes from the heart, personal lived experience, vast expertise, and is a modern day philosopher. It takes a lot to overcome these Zen masters with a totally unvalidated childhood, but it is truly an epidemic of our disconnected times. Toxic shame is a fundamental belief that “I am bad. I am broken. I need to hide my authentic self from the world.” You may have heard about the negative effects of toxic shame from speakers like Brené Brown in her numerous Ted Talks and YouTube videos on the subject, but recognising when toxic shame enters our lives today and undermines our relationships, particularly with ourselves, can be difficult: Shame hides from the light. Our task is to shine a light on it.
Listening to Shame, with Brené Brown at her TED talk.
Shame is such a hot topic, with educators and mental health specialists warning us about the dangers of toxic shame to our health and well-being. However, recognising toxic shame and how it affects our lives and relationships, especially our relationship with ourselves, can be challenging. Let’s try to overcome this by defining the different types of shame.
What is toxic shame?
Toxic shame is what people mean by shame. Toxic shame is a feeling that you’re worthless. It occurs when you are treated badly by others as a child, even if you don’t remember it, and you internalise that treatment as a core belief about yourself. When severe, it can form the lens through which all self-evaluation is viewed.
Toxic shame describes false, pathological shame, a paralysing global assessment of oneself as a person, and John Bradshaw states that toxic shame is induced, inside children, by all forms of child abuse. Toxic shame can develop as a result of physical, sexual, or emotional abuse as well as neglect as a child. When a parent abuses them, whether emotionally or physically, a child may feel both perplexed and outraged at first. When a child is ignored, a lack of parental availability and presence might be misinterpreted as “I’m not deserving of love and care.” Emotional deprivation is a form of abuse. This gives you an unvalidated childhood. Is it any surprise that the consequence is to seek validation outside of your self, and the primary cure is to give your self validation from within? Toxic shame often induces what is known as complex trauma in children who cannot cope with toxic shaming as it occurs and who dissociate the shame until it is possible to cope with. John Bradshaw wrote “Since the earliest period of our life was preverbal, everything depended on emotional interaction. Without someone to reflect our emotions, we had no way of knowing who we were.” Shame is a result of being taught repeatedly that we are something bad, not that we did something bad. As a result, it may make us resistant to receiving favourable feedback from others or oneself. When we are in toxic shame, we can lose empathy for ourselves and others. We look at ourselves as inherently bad and at others with scepticism and doubt. Toxic shame convinces you that you are the problem rather than evaluating your actions and others’ reactions to them. You believe and feel you are not enough and do not deserve to have true intimacy or connection because there is something wrong with your true nature that you must hide from others.
To have shame as an identity means that you feel defective as a human being: It becomes toxic and dehumanising and it’s literally unbearable, to the point of suicide. Shame creates a false self as you feel that your true self is defective and flawed. Once one becomes a false self one ceases to exist psychologically according to John Bradshaw. Once you stop being an authentic human being in this way you need recovery, not punishment. As we hear in Dr Gabor Maté’s truly incisive film, “The Wisdom of trauma”, most of the world’s prison inmates are victims of victims — people who were abused as children, whose parents were most likely abused too, and so it goes on. Can institutions really go on pretending to solve the world’s problems using methods that replicate the cause of those problems? How ethical is that? Institutions as abusers? Really? Have we learned nothing from the vast tomes and personal accounts that have been published on this subject? Toxic shame leads to depression, most other forms of mental illness, as well as syndromes of false self. The layers of secrecy and cover up from being in this false self are the source of all suffering for human beings. The recovery of the true self is central to the solution. Toxic shame is cunning, baffling, and powerful and leads to addiction. Dr Gabor Maté says “Addiction is not a choice that anybody makes; it’s not a moral failure. What it actually is: It’s a response to human suffering.”
How Childhood trauma Leads to Addiction, by Dr Gabor Maté, world expert on addiction, brought to life by After Skool.
John Bradshaw said “Hell, in my opinion, is never finding your true self and never living your own life or knowing who you are. Our healthy shame is essential as the foundation of our spirituality. By reminding us of our essential limitations, our healthy shame lets us know that we are not God. Our healthy shame points us in the direction of some larger meaning. Our healthy shame is the psychological ground of our humility. To be shame-bound means that whenever you feel any feeling, need or drive, you immediately feel ashamed. The dynamic core of your human life is grounded in your feelings, needs and drives. When these are bound by shame, you are shamed to the core.”
How does toxic shame happen?
Attacks by parents, peers or partners during childhood development and adulthood can contribute to toxic shame. If it’s hysterical it’s historical: Childhood trauma sets the scene. Adulthood trauma is traumatic usually because we experienced trauma as children. We often internalise harmful statements (“You are stupid”; “You are worthless”; “You are a loser”) about us, believing they define us as people, and negative events that speak deeply and loudly to us. They reverberate us to the core. Statements like the ones above, as well as acts like withholding love, ignoring, or persistent criticism, can pierce our sense of self like a tunnelling machine, leaving a void filled with toxic shame about who we are fundamentally our core. We internalise the negative messages about ourselves and our personality until they become part of our identity. This is toxic shame. The logical mind may be able to distinguish between truth and the bombardment of negative messages, but our emotional mind will often begin repeating these words like a mantra, every minute of the day. This is why we can’t defeat shame with cognition and logic, we need an emotional approach that includes self-compassion and self-love, as well as modalities such as mindfulness that help us deal with intrusive thoughts.
What are the benefits of losing our toxic shame?
We move from egocentricity to a life of service to others. Shannon Alder wrote “God whispered, “You endured a lot. For that I am truly sorry, but grateful. I needed you to struggle to help so many. Through that process you would grow into who you have now become. Didn’t you know that I gave all my struggles to my favourite children? One only needs to look at the struggles given to your older brother Jesus to know how important you have been to me.” It is not that God sends his strongest battles to his toughest soldiers, but that God creates his toughest soldiers by sending them into battle. Life loves you so much that it sends you difficulties to make you strong. Read that again.
Shame and society
Damaged Leaders Rule The World, by Gabor Maté & Russell Brand
Shame is a really tricky thing to identify, and can go totally undetected because we carry so many layers of it. Basically, society is built upon it and held together by it. Capitalism relies on unvalidated children with fragile egos becoming CEOs or political leaders (can you think of any?) and driving people to burnout by capitalising on their unrelenting need for success. But this is not right, and is totally unsustainable for individuals. Why else is there a majority of people experiencing burn out in most professions. Over 77% of people have experienced burnout: The world is in crisis. We need to stop judging ourselves and others. Wilson Kanadi said “Those who judge will never understand, and those who understand will never judge.” People are disposed of by judgement. We don’t need to recruit more people to do the same to them. We need compassionate leadership in companies, institutions, and government. Otherwise, we are just replaceable cannon fodder. The world is running out of physically and mentally healthy people. We are being burned out! We need to embrace our common humanity as flawed human beings if we are to improve well-being. We are not bad people trying to get well, we are ill trying to get better. We need to support spiritual awakening, happiness, and joy. Nothing external can make us happy or define us.
Brené Brown wrote in The Gifts of Imperfection “We cultivate love when we allow our most vulnerable and powerful selves to be deeply seen and known, and when we honour the spiritual connection that grows from that offering with trust, respect, kindness and affection. Love is not something we give or get; it is something that we nurture and grow, a connection that can only be cultivated between two people when it exists within each one of them — we can only love others as much as we love ourselves. Shame, blame, disrespect, betrayal, and the withholding of affection damage the roots from which love grows. Love can only survive these injuries if they are acknowledged, healed and rare.”
What can you do if you think you suffer from toxic shame?
In her article “Toxic Shame: What It Is and What to Do about It” Diane Poole Heller says “Gaining a sense of awareness around the narrative you have been repeating is vital.” When you find yourself reinforcing negative self-talk like, “I am worthless. No one will ever truly love me,” stand back for a moment. Ask yourself: Is that true? Whose words am I repeating? Then, see if you can offer yourself another perspective and say, “Well, that’s not really true. My grandma loves me; my sister loves me; my dog loves me!” I would add that we need to remove the need for external validation. If we love our selves we are in love for life. Not in an egocentric way, but in a compassionate way — forgiving our traumatised inner child, who was obliged to run the show while we had a fragile ego. Diane continues “Toxic shame cycles can trigger a fight-flight-freeze fear response, especially in a disagreement or argument with a loved one. In a sense, shame hijacks the brain because the part of the brain wired for a logical response shuts down, and the survival part takes over. If we can take the time to pause and re-evaluate, we give ourselves a chance to stop the shame spiral and bring our “thinking brain” back into the conversation.” In other words, bring the adult into the room whenever we enter the room. Trauma work, inner child work and embodiment are key to this, which I delineate in a previous article on medium “Your Life Has Crashed: What Now? 5 Key Elements To Awaken Your Dream Life.”
Diane reminds us that “Compassion can be an antidote to toxic shame. It’s time to rebuild those compassion muscles! When we are in toxic shame, we can lose empathy for ourselves and others. We look at ourselves as inherently bad and at others with skepticism and doubt. Responding with compassion to our mistakes is a good place to start countering shame. Remember, our successes and failures are a part of the collective human condition. I make mistakes. You make mistakes. We are all imperfect. Letting yourself off the hook with kindness and empathy when you mess up can help your brain return to its natural state of homeostasis and out of constant survival and anxiety mode. In addition, connecting with others and extending them the same compassion will improve relationships — and is healthy for your brain and emotions!… When we can lovingly accept our own imperfections, we are more empathic toward others.” I have also found that the converse is true, that having compassion for others really helps you have compassion for your self.
Key tasks for overcoming toxic shame
1. Develop an awareness of your inner dialogue’s script and develop your ability to observe rather than react to it. Mindfulness meditation is key to this is a powerful strategy to become less reactive to thoughts or feelings we experience. Noting is an attention tool that consists of an instant of acknowledging your object of focus followed by a few seconds of gently keeping your attention on your object of focus. In the case of thinking, the object of focus is what you’re seeing in the mind, what you’re hearing in the mind, or both. Labelling supports the noting process. As soon as you note your object of focus, you apply a label to keep yourself on track. Noting and labelling techniques are a significant component of mindfulness meditation practice because they help to interrupt the endlessly repeating sequence of attachment and identification with all sensory experience. Meditation is very useful for overcoming shame. The process of labelling our experiences, including shame, has been shown to deactivate the amygdala, according to research. Labelling and noting can assist you to transition from a reactive to a reflective state. Research has shown that mental noting and labelling help us regulate our emotions and improve the emotional wiring in our brains. Watch shame like a passing wave that you simply float over, rather than fighting it. Labelling is like framing a photograph: it contains it. In this way you use the mind to free yourself from the mind. You can control your mind, so let’s empower you.
2. Develop greater self compassion — choose compassion as an alternative to shame to cultivate a dialogue of increased self-acceptance of your humanity. This implies accepting that you, like everyone else, have flaws and shortcomings, make mistakes, and suffer. Even when we believe we are alone in being ashamed, we really are not.
3. Become a “witness to” your wounds and grieve them. It’s ok to cry. You don’t need to be invincible. Allow your inner child to show up, hug them, and love them unconditionally. Embodiment exercises can allow your adult to converse with your inner child, find out what they need, and give it to them. This necessitates the ability to recognise and sit with the anguish that comes with your current and past injuries. ‘What is hysterical is historical’ means that it is very painful it is likely to be due to childhood trauma that is being reactivated by current circumstance.
4. Forgive yourself for your “past selves’” feelings, attitudes, actions, and behaviours. It’s easy to berate oneself in retrospect for the understanding you lacked at a younger age. Can you blame an almost preverbal (inner) child for developing coping mechanisms and using these as they entered adult life alone? Your inner critic sets alight, maintains and fans the flame of the fire of shame. Never argue with your inner critic, because that gets you nowhere very quickly, simply evict them. Pay no attention to your inner critic: Your adult self and your inner child are a family now and you really don’t need them. Develop a more compassionate inner dialogue as an alternative to a brutally critical voice to expand your compassionate self. This entails developing a vocabulary that represents forgiveness and self-acceptance over time, even if you aren’t constantly experiencing it. Determine what compassion-filled phrases you would have liked to have heard as a child and what you require now. Your adult self replaces your inner critic or superego. This might include, for example, “I’m sorry for your pain,” “You didn’t deserve what happened to you,” ”You’re only human–we all make mistakes,” or, “It’s okay to feel what you feel.”
Opening ourselves to compassion and breaking through the paralysis of shame
Shame doesn’t heal shame, and threat-based minds don’t come up with helpful insights for recovery. We feel shame because we are human, not because we are bad. The compassionate mind is developing the human’s natural capacity to be deeply helpful to themselves.
Being open to self-compassion entails consciously identifying and accepting the hurts that have arisen as a result of prior wounds — those that are responsible for your shame. Current events only make you feel ashamed as they resonate with your inner child’s traumatic memories. It frequently necessitates making peace with a previous version of oneself. It necessitates admitting and reminding your self often that it’s all too easy to chastise oneself in retrospect for your previous lack of awareness. Be kind to past versions of your self that didn’t know the things you know. How could you know if you didn’t know. But now that you know, you know. Say to your self “I release myself from versions of me that I created to survive.”
Unfortunately, shame can make it difficult to practise self-compassion. It can make you reject compassion and help from others, as well as compassion from yourself. As a result, dealing with this problem may necessitate the help of a mental health specialist.
On a bigger scale, we should encourage children to embrace self-compassion as a means of overcoming shame. When left unaddressed, shame issues can have a negative influence on social interaction, self-worth, and academic performance throughout life. Although we may aim high, we can fall through burnout or self-sabotage. We become our own worst enemy. The psychic energy required for concentrated concentration is depleted when there is a background of toxic shame. Presence, focus, and creativity are depleted. When dealing with this potentially debilitating emotion, doing so leads to enhanced emotional intelligence. Overcoming toxic shame’s immobility encourages self-expression and assertion. It improves our ability to be totally present with ourselves and others at the same time. It lowers our susceptibility to anger and, as a result, allows us to live a more fulfilling life.
I believe that the following are synonymous:
Love = awakening = awareness = happiness = joy = fearlessness = peace = serenity — freedom from failure = freedom from shame = spiritual awakening = deep connection = all is well.
As Frankie Goes To Hollywood sings in The Power of Love “Love is the light; Scaring darkness away”. Find your self, love your self, and from there you can fill the world with compassion, one conversation and one helpful action at a time. Worth a try right?
Breaking the cycle of shame involves training the compassionate mind and then using it to regulate your emotions and engage in helpful behaviours such as service to others.
Compassion is the antidote to shame
Compassion, originating from the Latin compati via old French compassio, literally means to suffer with. The connection of suffering with another person brings compassion beyond sympathy into the realm of empathy. Dr. Deborah Lee, psychologist says “Compassion is shame’s antidote.” She continues “Somebody who has profound feelings of shame walks around with an internal dialogue that is highly toxic and self-critical. There is nothing in our minds or in our life experience that is beyond the reach of our compassion. Nothing that is beyond the reach and the touch of our compassion. We just have to work at letting it in.”
“This is my letter to the world That never wrote to me” ― Emily Dickinson
Fyodor Dostoyevsky wrote “Compassion is the chief law of human existence.” The Dalai Lama XIV says in The Art of Happiness “If you want others to be happy, practice compassion. If you want to be happy, practice compassion.” Plato wrote “Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a harder battle.” The Dalai Lama XIV said “Compassion is the radicalism of our time.”
Will Bowen wrote “Hurt people hurt people. We are not being judgmental by separating ourselves from such people. But we should do so with compassion. Compassion is defined as a “keen awareness of the suffering of another coupled with a desire to see it relieved.” People hurt others as a result of their own inner strife and pain. Avoid the reactive response of believing they are bad; they already think so and are acting that way. They aren’t bad; they are damaged and they deserve compassion. Note that compassion is an internal process, an understanding of the painful and troubled road trod by another. It is not trying to change or fix that person.”
Compassion, and in particular self compassion as this is where all compassion begins, is essential to enlightenment. “If there are people you haven’t forgiven, you’re not going to really awaken. You have to let go”(Eckhart Tolle). Buddha said “Those who judge will never understand, and those who understand will never judge” and “You will not be punished for your anger, you will be punished by your anger.” Carl Jung wrote “Thinking is difficult, that’s why most people judge.” Make peace with your past so that it wont disturb your future. Buddha said “Holding on to anger is like grasping a hot coal with the intent of throwing it at someone else; you are the one who gets burned.” Nelson Mandela echoed “Resentment is like drinking poison and then hoping it will kill your enemy.” A Chinese proverb sums this up “f you hold on to resentment, you may as well dig two graves.” Everyone seems to have a clear idea of how other people should lead their lives, but none about his or her own. Jesus said “Let the one among you who is without sin be the first to cast a stone.” Friedrich Nietzsche said “You have your way. I have my way. As for the right way, the correct way, and the only way, it does not exist.” Who are you to judge? Martin Luther King, Jr. wrote “We must develop and maintain the capacity to forgive. He who is devoid of the power to forgive is devoid of the power to love. There is some good in the worst of us and some evil in the best of us. When we discover this, we are less prone to hate our enemies.” “Be curious, not judgmental” (Walt Whitman, poet and journalist).
Dr Dennis Tirch “We are stabilised by compassion. We know that, from the day we’re born to the day we die, the presence of compassion, care, secure attachment emotions will contribute to our well-being on every level. And that’s very different from the kind of social threat response that we find in shame.”
Dr. Chris Willard, psychologist at Harvard Medical School “I think about shame sometimes as being like this big barrel of oil almost or something that gets knocked over so easily and can start to overwhelm us and flood people really with this just like icky, sticky mire and muck and self-compassion can really start to absorb that, and actually better than absorb it, what it can do is actually start to ultimately really transform it in some ways.”
Dr. Buczynski “When we look at shame through the eyes of compassion, it looks very different. When shame meets compassion, something very different transpires.”
Dr. Germer “Compassion allows us to rescue the sense of self, to begin to hold ourselves in our moment of shame in a way that we can reconstitute ourselves and then be able to do something useful with it.”
Dr. Kristin Neff: “The research shows a really strong negative link between self-compassion and shame. Actually, I was just on a paper that showed veterans coming back from combat, that self-compassion reduces suicidal ideation. And one of the main ways it does that is by reducing shame. You know, so extreme shame can lead to thoughts of killing oneself. And so this very important aspect to how do we do shame. We can’t tell people, “Stop being so ashamed of yourself.” You know, that doesn’t really work. But we can help people have compassion, kind of be understanding towards themselves, recognize that they aren’t alone. Recognize this is part of the human experience and be kind to themselves. And that reduces shame and therefore can do things like reduce PTSD or suicidal ideation.”
Shannon Hennig says “In a culture where shame and self-admonishment is the norm, self-compassion is a practice that maybe you’ve never heard of. There’s constant talk about self-care and the vital importance of “filling our own cup” first, before we try to take care of others. It’s become so popular now that there are self-care coaches, self-care subscription boxes, retreats, and countless articles being published about its importance. We’re shamed into thinking that focus on ourselves is indulgent or even immoral. Self-esteem is also often on our lips as we talk about what is typically our lack of it. We compare, criticise, and scrutinise ourselves as we desperately look for why or how we’re better than others. It’s a painful cycle that all of us get caught up in and it can have a devastating effect on our mental health. Low self-esteem can fuel depression and anxiety. It can also cause us to develop destructive behaviours and thought patterns that harm us and those around us. It feeds perfectionism and sets us up for constant failure because ultimately we’ll never be good enough. There will always be someone or something better. We’re left feeling ashamed of who we are because we don’t measure up.”
What would it be like to be a sympathetic, loving, and supportive presence on your inner child’s side? What would it be like if you were in that situation? And what would you like to say to them?
Before we talk about the actual practice of self-compassion, it’s important to define what it is. Dr. Kristin Neff is an internationally renowned expert on self-compassion and according to her, self-compassion is treating yourself with the same care and kindness as you would a good friend. It means affording yourself the same grace and understanding you do to others when they make a mistake or are going through a hard time. According to Neff, self-compassion has three main components:
Self-kindness
Common humanity
Mindfulness
Self-kindness is just as it sounds. Jack Kornfield wrote “If your compassion does not include yourself, it is incomplete.” When you’re struggling or suffering it’s simply being kind and understanding towards yourself. Rather than telling yourself to “snap out of it” or invalidating your feelings by denying they exist, you make space for them. You allow yourself to sit with them. It may be uncomfortable or feel counter intuitive, but uncomfortable feelings are part of being human. Self-compassion entails being warm and understanding toward ourselves when we suffer, fail, or feel inadequate, rather than ignoring our pain or flagellating ourselves with self-criticism. Self-compassionate people recognise that being imperfect, failing, and experiencing life difficulties is inevitable, so they tend to be gentle with themselves when confronted with painful experiences rather than getting angry when life falls short of set ideals. People cannot always be or get exactly what they want. When this reality is denied or fought against suffering increases in the form of stress, frustration and self-criticism. When this reality is accepted with sympathy and kindness, greater emotional equanimity is experienced.
Shared humanity: “A human being is a part of the whole called by us universe, a part limited in time and space. He experiences himself, his thoughts and feeling as something separated from the rest, a kind of optical delusion of his consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few persons nearest to us. Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty” (Albert Einstein). Neil deGrasse Tyson says “For me, I am driven by two main philosophies: know more today about the world than I knew yesterday and lessen the suffering of others. You’d be surprised how far that gets you.” Albert Schweitzer wrote “Until he extends the circle of his compassion to all living things, man will not himself find peace.” We all make mistakes and mess up. Not a single one of us is perfect. As humans we will suffer with feelings of grief, loss, insecurity, anger, disappointment and fear. It’s these shared experiences that bring us together and connect us. Mother Theresa reminds us that “If we have no peace, it is because we have forgotten that we belong to each other.” The Buddha said “True love is born from understanding.” When we’re quick to criticise or judge ourselves it can lead to increased isolation. Acknowledging that we’re all in this together can bring about an increased sense of belonging. It’s these shared experiences that bring us together and connect us. When we’re quick to criticise or judge ourselves it can lead to increased isolation. “It is the job of thinking people not to be on the side of the executioners.” Albert Camus wrote “It is the job of thinking people not to be on the side of the executioners.” Mother Theresa said “I would rather make mistakes in kindness and compassion than work miracles in unkindness and hardness.” Frustration at not having things exactly as we want is often accompanied by an irrational but pervasive sense of isolation — as if “I” were the only person suffering or making mistakes. All humans suffer, however. The very definition of being “human” means that one is mortal, vulnerable and imperfect. Therefore, self-compassion involves recognising that suffering and personal inadequacy is part of the shared human experience — something that we all go through rather than being something that happens to “me” alone. It also means recognising that personal thoughts, feelings and actions are impacted by “external” factors such as parenting history, culture, genetic and environmental conditions, as well as the behaviour and expectations of others. Thich Nhat Hahn calls the intricate web of reciprocal cause and effect in which we are all imbedded “interbeing.” Recognising our essential interbeing allows us to be less judgmental about our personal failings. After all, if we had full control over our behaviour, how many people would consciously choose to have anger issues, addiction issues, debilitating social anxiety, eating disorders, and so on? Many aspects of ourselves and the circumstances of our lives are not of our choosing, but instead stem from innumerable factors (genetic and/or environmental) that we have little control over. By recognising our essential interdependence, therefore, failings and life difficulties do not have to be taken so personally, but can be acknowledged with non-judgmental compassion and understanding. Roy Bennet wrote “We are all different. Don’t judge, understand instead.” Steve Maraboli said “How would your life be different if…You stopped making negative judgmental assumptions about people you encounter? Let today be the day…You look for the good in everyone you meet and respect their journey… It is only with true love and compassion that we can begin to mend what is broken in the world. It is these two blessed things that can begin to heal all broken hearts.” Thich Nhat Hanh reminds us that action is required “Compassion is a verb.” John Holmes agrees “There is no exercise better for the heart than reaching down and lifting people up.” Jenni Schaefer reminds us that compassion begins with the self and involves action. “Real hope combined with real action has always pulled me through difficult times. Real hope combined with doing nothing has never pulled me through.” Saint Francis Of Assisi wrote “If you have men who will exclude any of God’s creatures from the shelter of compassion and pity, you will have men who will deal likewise with their fellow men.”
Albert Einstein wrote “A human being is a part of the whole called by us universe, a part limited in time and space. He experiences himself, his thoughts and feeling as something separated from the rest, a kind of optical delusion of his consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few persons nearest to us. Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty.”
Pema Chödrön wrote “Compassion is not a relationship between the healer and the wounded. It’s a relationship between equals. Only when we know our own darkness well can we be present with the darkness of others. Compassion becomes real when we recognise our shared humanity.”
Albert Camus reminds us that the world is full of spiritually sick, asleep people “I have no idea what’s awaiting me, or what will happen when this all ends. For the moment I know this: there are sick people and they need curing.”
Finally, the idea of mindfulness as it relates to self-compassion is the act of observing life as it is. It’s about centering yourself in the present and leaning into whatever pain or discomfort you might be feeling. Mindfulness means that you allow an awareness of your pain to enter into your consciousness. You meet it and sit with it, rather than trying to problem solve your way out of it. Mindfulness won’t necessarily make the pain disappear, but in removing your resistance to it, you can decrease your suffering. There are plenty of benefits to self-compassion. Not only does the regular practice of self-compassion move us away from being our own worst critics, it has immediate benefits for our emotional resilience. If we can get out of our own heads for long enough to realise that, “I’m not the only one who feels this way”, failures and set backs are less damaging. We can see that everyone will share these feelings at some point in time and suddenly they don’t feel quite as heavy. Self-compassion also requires taking a balanced approach to our negative emotions so that feelings are neither suppressed nor exaggerated. This equilibrated stance stems from the process of relating personal experiences to those of others who are also suffering, thus putting our own situation into a larger perspective. It also stems from the willingness to observe our negative thoughts and emotions with openness and clarity, so that they are held in mindful awareness. Mindfulness is a non-judgmental, receptive mind state in which one observes thoughts and feelings as they are, without trying to suppress or deny them. We cannot ignore our pain and feel compassion for it at the same time. At the same time, mindfulness requires that we not be “over-identified” with thoughts and feelings, so that we are caught up and swept away by negative reactivity.
Some may argue that self-compassion is like self-pity where we focus only on ourselves. This simply isn’t true. Self-compassion allows us to see things as they are — no more and no less. It puts your problems into perspective. Self-compassion also isn’t self-indulgent as it’s not focused on pleasure-seeking, rather it allows us the space to evaluate whether something is beneficial over the longer term.
There is also a myth that self-criticism is motivating, and therefore acting compassionately towards yourself means you’re going soft. Neff argues, and research supports, that this simply isn’t true. We know that self-criticism makes you fear failure and miserably push yourself towards whatever ends you’re trying to achieve.
Eventually, you lose faith in yourself and your abilities. Your self-esteem is further eroded and you fundamentally believe that “I am bad person and should be ashamed”, rather than focusing on changing behaviours that might not be working in your best interest.
Moving away from lifelong patterns of judgement and self-criticism isn’t an easy task. It’s not like we can wake up and suddenly decide that we’re our own best friends and the world is rosy. But by making subtle shifts in our thinking and behaviour, we can move towards a regular practice of self-compassion that allows us to interact with our pain in a novel way. With practice, it can become our new normal and change our lives.
Adding self-compassion into your day doesn’t have to be complicated. There are plenty of small actions that you can easily incorporate into your routine. Challenge yourself to identify some of your more destructive thought patterns and observe where they come from. They may be rooted in a painful past experience and are simply a coping mechanism that you’ve developed over time.
Others may include evaluating your self-esteem, or setting aside time to work on a self-care activity. It’s important to approach these activities mindfully and to focus on your behaviours, not thoughts about whether what you do or how you act is good or bad. Moving away from the language of shame and worthiness is challenging, especially if these are lifelong patterns of thought and action.
Self-compassion is a radical act in a world where we’re taught that we’re not good enough and that emotional reactions to life’s circumstances are a reflection of weak character. With practice, self-compassion can fundamentally shift how you view yourself and others, leading to a place of quiet comfort, calm and acceptance.
How to lose shame
Self love
Self compassion
Trauma work
Ditch the inner critic
Openness
Mindfulness and meditation for thoughts and feelings
Humility
Acceptance
Emotional sobriety
Connection with others
Inner child work
Embodiment
Find your self through TLC
Tell your story
Help others
How to find your superpower through Transformative Life Coaching (TLC)
Inner child work for limitless creativity
Find your Self to become intuitive and expand your consciousness
Find your Dharma
Work on limiting assumptions - your shadow
The Most Eye Opening 10 Minutes Of Your Life by Dr Gabor Maté
As Dr Gabor Maté says “So by love in this case, I don’t mean the emotion, I mean the capacity to be present with and understand and see the other human being for exactly who they are, accept them for who they are and invite them unconditionally to be in your presence, exactly how they are — that’s what love is!”
These are the emotions that I have covered for you in my series on emotions (click on the link to be taken to them):
Namaste.
Olly
Email me:
My gift is to be your guide on your very own 'Hero's Journey'...
Hello,
I am delighted and enchanted to meet you. I coach men with 'Deep Coaching', 'Supercoaching', and Transformative Life Coaching (TLC). Thank you for reading this far. I very much look forward to connecting with the highest version of you, to seeing your highest possibility, and to our conversations. Please do contact me via my email for a free connection call and a free experience of coaching on Zoom or in person.
“Transformative life coaching uniquely creates and holds the space for you to see your self afresh, with clarity, and step into new ways of BEing, which will transform how you perceive and intuitively create your world. My work is to guide you to raise your own conscious awareness to the level that you want to achieve.”
I have a Bachelor's degree in Natural Sciences from Trinity College, Cambridge; a Master's Degree in Philosophy from Trinity College, Cambridge; a PhD Doctorate in Scientific Research from University College London (UCL); a Medical Degree (MD/MBBS) from The Royal Free Hospital School of Medicine, London and have been a doctor and reconstructive trauma and cancer surgeon in London for 20 years. I have a number of other higher qualifications in science and surgery. I have published over 50 peer reviewed PubMed cited scientific journal articles, have been an associate editor and frequent scientific faculty member, and am the author of several scientific books. I have been awarded my Diploma in Transformative Life Coaching in London, which has International Coaching Federation (ICF) Accreditation, as well as the UK Association for Coaching (AC), and the European Mentoring and Coaching Council (EMCC). I have been on my own transformative journey full time for over five years and I am ready to be your guide to you finding out who you really are and how the world works.
I hear you. I see the highest in you, and I will continue to do so until you see it for your Self. I have ultimate compassion for you I will never judge you. We will fulfil your dreams and discover your purpose and what gives your life meaning. We are dealing with infinite possibility here. Together, we will lead you to remembering the light that resides in you. I have written 400 articles for you and an eBook to guide you on your transformative journey, which are all available for free on my website - click on the link below:
Please let me know if you would like to join our 'VOICE for men' VIP community: 'Vulnerability & Openness Is a Choice Ensemble', 'Visibility Is Power', where men can find their strength, courage, and authenticity, by dropping their egocentric fears and instead communicate openly with vulnerability. We are co-creating this space. It will change your life. It will empower you. This community is a safe space for men to connect and discuss philosophy, spirituality, positive psychology, awakening to Self-realisation, wisdom and timeless Truths, to share our experience, strength and hope, and to find solutions to our pain and fears. Our meeting is free to join. There is no script, just sharing.