Shame: We All Have It. What to Do About It

Over the last few weeks, we've been discussing some very sensitive issues: vulnerability, sacred wounds, perfectionism, and what underlies all of them, shame.

People tend to believe that shame is reserved for those unfortunate souls who suffered horribly dysfunctional childhoods, but the truth is that we all experience shame----many of us just don't cop to it. This denial, of course, is what causes shame to go underground and wreak havoc on our minds, emotions, and bodies.

Shame researcher and author Brene Brown, defines shame as the intensely painful feeling or experience of believing that we are flawed and therefore unworthy of love and belonging. Some of us live from this place, constantly berating ourselves and trying to compensate for our inadequacy, while others are just occasional visitors. But, according to Brown, unless you are incapable of normal human emotions, you do experience shame. The question is: how do you manage it? How do you bolster yourself against it's effects?

Brown writes:

Shame resilience is the ability to recognize shame, to move through it constructively while maintaining worthiness and authenticity, and to ultimately develop more courage, compassion, and connection as a result of our experience....Shame needs three things to grow out of control in our lives: secrecy, silence, and judgment. When something shaming happens and we keep it locked up, it festers and grows. It consumes us. We need to share our experience....If we can find someone who has earned the right to hear our story, we need to tell it. Shame loses power when it is spoken.

So, shame thrives on secrecy, silence, and judgment, and is healed through honest and courageous sharing with others. But notice that Brene specifies that we share with people who have "earned the right to hear our story." What does that mean, and why is it important?

When we share our thoughts and feelings with the wrong people (or under the wrong circumstances), it can backfire and make us feel worse. Therefore, it's necessary to exercise discretion and healthy boundaries when sharing sensitive personal information with others, at least when we are most vulnerable. Someone who has earned the right to hear your (shame) story, is a person you trust to respond with love, compassion, and non-judgment. (Note that later, when you've become less sensitive to the reactions of others, you can be even more courageous about putting your truth out there.)

Other shame resilience recommendations from Brown include:

• Understanding shame (and guilt)
• Recognizing what messages and expectations trigger shame
• Heightening our awareness by reality-checking the messages we receive and expectations we and others place on us. (i.e: reminding ourselves that advertising images do not represent reality, and that nobody's perfect, no matter how they appear)
• Using/accepting the word "shame," and talking about feelings and needs
• Connecting with other authentic people 

For more information, please check out Brene Brown's books and audios, The Gifts of Imperfection, Daring Greatly, I Thought It Was Just Me, Women & Shame, and others.

How to Overcome Perfectionism (and actually enjoy life)

Last week we discussed the pitfalls of perfectionism, and there are many! The bottom line: perfectionism is not an effective way of being the best you can be; instead, it is an attempt to transcend feelings of shame and unworthiness, and it doesn't work.

In her best-selling book, The Gifts of Imperfection, Brene Brown writes:

To overcome perfectionism, we need to be able to acknowledge our vulnerabilities to universal experiences of shame, judgment, and blame; develop shame resilience; and practice self-compassion. When we become more loving and compassionate with ourselves and we begin to practice shame resilience, we can embrace our imperfections. It is in embracing our imperfections that we find our truest gifts: courage, compassion and connection.

Let's take a quick look at these three gifts.

• Courage: As humans, we are extremely vulnerable, and if we've experienced a steady diet of judgment or criticism, we're more susceptible to wanting to protect ourselves or hide our weaknesses. Courage, however, is when we put our true selves out there, knowing that we might fail or others might not approve (and knowing that we can deal with this). Ironically, when we choose courage and personal authenticity over approval, we (and others) find us more lovable. 
• Compassion: Cultivating compassion for self and others means that we understand we're all human and that we deserve kindness and the benefit of the doubt. This doesn't remove accountability, but instead replaces condemnation with respect and accountability. When we stop blaming ourselves, we stop needing to blame others.
• Connection: When we're busy trying to be superhuman (or fighting that "never good enough" feeling), we disconnect from our true selves and other people, and we make ourselves less authentic and available for real connection. The truth is that we're all in this together and we're all imperfect. When we show up as real people, without hiding our "flaws," we attract other real people, and we get to experience the connection that we came into these bodies to experience. Face it, comparing ourselves to others and coming up "better than" or "worse than" is no way to live!  

For me, personally, it's also been of critical importance to realize that advertising and television images are not real. What looks like perfect ease, perfect self-confidence, perfect relationships, and perfect beauty are not realistic expectations or goals, and we set ourselves and our loved ones up for suffering when we demand those ideals in our lives. Also important is learning to "zoom out." Perfectionists suffer/cause suffering because they zoom in on what's "wrong" and fail to see the big picture.

   

Please join me here next week as we continue the work of overcoming perfectionism by exploring what Brown calls "shame resilience."

Thanks, and have an authentic, courageous, and compassionate week.

Why Perfectionism is Not Your Friend

Lately, I've been thinking a lot about perfectionism. It started a few weeks ago when a friend of mine told me a story about her sister-in-law, who was a "perfect" person. According to my friend, the sister-in-law presented only images of having it all together. Her marriage was perfect, her children were perfect, her house was perfect, her clothes were perfect, even her recent vacation (whom others in attendance deemed "disastrous") was perfect. According to this lady, everything in her life was fabulous all the time. 

I'd never heard of anyone like this (or maybe I'd just never realized the extent to which some people go to appear bigger and better than life), and I wondered why someone would claim to have had a glorious vacation when her flight was cancelled, her luggage was lost for several days, she had become sick, and had reportedly melted down and screamed at the hotel staff. (Personally, I would have enjoyed sharing the drama story, more than pretending it never happened---but that's just me.)

This got me questioning how many "perfect" people I'd been fooled by over the years, people who appeared to possess confidence, conviction, and everything else that is enviable. I traced my newly discovered gullibility back to my first Barbie doll and the American advertising industry's airbrushed images of flawless beauty, spotless homes, and uninterrupted happiness. Wow, I wondered, how could I have spent half a century vaguely believing that what looks good is good? Aaack!

So I went out and found an excellent book, The Gifts of Imperfection, by research professor Brene Brown. This is what she wrote:

• Perfectionism is not the same thing as striving to be your best. Perfectionism is the belief that if we live perfect, look perfect, and act perfect, we can minimize the pain of blame, judgment, and shame.
• Perfectionism is not self-improvement. Perfectionism is, at its core, about trying to earn approval and acceptance.
• Perfectionism is self-destructive simply because there is no such thing as perfect. Perfection is an unattainable goal.
• Perfectionism is addictive because when we do invariably experience shame, judgment, and blame, we often believe it's because we weren't perfect enough. So rather than questioning the faulty logic of perfectionism, we become even more entrenched in our quest to live, look, and do everything just right.
• Perfectionism hampers success. In fact, it's often the path to depression, anxiety, addiction, [eating disorders, obsessive-compulsive disorders], and life-paralysis....It's terrifying to risk when you're a perfectionist; your self worth is on the line.
• Feeling shamed, judged, and blamed (and the fear of these feelings) are realities of the human experience. Perfectionism actually increases the odds that we'll experience painful emotions and often leads to self-blame: It's my fault I'm feeling this way because "I'm not good enough."
• Perfectionism exists along a continuum. We all have some perfectionistic tendencies. For some, perfectionism may only emerge when they're feeling particularly vulnerable. For others, perfectionism can be compulsive, chronic, and debilitating, similar to addiction.

Please join me here next week as we focus on how to overcome perfectionism and make peace with our humanness. 

"Purposeful" as a Frame of Reference

Whether you believe that everyone has an inherent life purpose or that we create our own as we go, you'll probably agree that purposeful actions and intentions yield better results than those which are random and haphazard. 

When you live your life according to what is purposeful for you (what matters, and what will lead to desired results), you gain a refreshing clarity and focus. When you have information about and understand your intrinsic values and purpose, you're able to weigh every choice against that. Every day, you can wake up and quickly determine what is most purposeful for you to do, say, or experience. (This takes into account not just your life purpose work, but your overall values as an individual, partner, parent, citizen, etc.)

One day, it might feel purposeful to clean out the garage, or visit an aging relative, or make sales calls, or skip work and go to the beach. It’s not a simple matter of “shoulds” or ”wants,” but a matter of what aligns best with your overall values and desired outcomes. 

Seeing your day, week, year, or life this way is a game changer. It eliminates scatteredness and cuts down on inessential or meaningless tasks/energy drains. It takes some of the drudgery out of activities that you’d otherwise rather not do. If it’s purposeful for you to cut down on sugar or organize your office, there’s more motivation and meaningfulness in your efforts than if you approached it from the perspective of “I should...” or “I have to...” It feels more grown up.

This week, I invite you to use purposefulness as a frame of reference to help you make meaningful, value-based choices of how to spend your time, energy, money, and other resources, as well as to weed out less purposeful endeavors. 

For instance, each morning focus/prioritize your day to include as many purposeful choices as possible (tasks, activities, purchases, relationships, etc.) Maybe hire a house cleaner or get family members to pitch in more if your cleaning time would be better spent doing more essential or purposeful tasks. If you're looking for a job, apply only for those that feel in alignment with your values and goals. Whatever the choice is to be made, ask yourself, “Is this purposeful for me?"

If You had a Personal Mantra or Motto, What would it be?

If you had a motto in life, what would it be?

• Life's too short not to have fun 
• It's all good
• Whatever can go wrong, will go wrong
• Live and let live 
• Always a bridesmaid, never a bride
• Hakuna Matata
• Nobody has any money
• Live, love, laugh
• My bad...
• Thank you, God! 
• The best things in life are free 
• Any job worth doing is worth doing well 
• Be here now
• There aren't enough hours in the day...
• Love makes the world go 'round 
• No good deed goes unpunished
• Breathe... 
• You can do whatever you set your mind to
• The devil made me do it!
• I'm good enough, smart enough, and doggonit, people like me!
• If at first you don't succeed, try, try again
• etc.

Interesting exercise, isn't it? Most of us don't realize we have an unconscious (or semi-consious) mantra playing in our heads, but we do. It might not involve words, per se, as much as a persistent feeling, such as unappreciated, grateful just to be alive, or overwhelmed. 

Some of us bounce back and forth between two main states, such as happy/grateful and grumpy/discouraged, or some other form of okay and not okay, in which case there might be two alternating mantras. But, for the most part, people don't vary much from their established credo, so it's worth considering what you're reinforcing in yourself day after day.

Personally, I tend to sway gently back and forth between, All is well (Ommmm...), and Everything's a mess! I feel either peaceful and content, or like everything's gone to hell in a hand basket. (I only admit this, by the way, as a means of encouraging you to own up to your underground motto. I assure you, it's quite liberating, and now that I know what's lurking there, I can challenge these dualistic thoughts when they arise).

This week, I invite you to unearth a statement or two that sums up your philosophical stance on life. What effect does this motto have on you? Does it yield the results you're looking for, or is it limiting you in some important way? If it's a happy mantra, does it reflect your true thoughts and feelings, or is it more of an affirmation? Is this masking a deeper belief about life? If so, what is it?

Why Problems are Our Friends

Unless you're a math major, you probably don't enjoy problems. In fact, our egos consider personal problems to be an abomination---things we should readily avoid or resolve as quickly as possible, and possibly even a sign of loserdome. Difficulty is bad. Smooth sailing is good. Right?

From our limited 3-D perspective, most of us would agree with this, but from the higher perspective of growth and development, problems are one of the greatest learning tools available to us. In fact, I believe we came into these human bodies for the purpose of learning lessons though adversity. After all, if earth is a school, it is the School of Hard Knocks, and our souls love that. Why? Because nothing transforms us faster or more effectively than challenges.

Imagine, for example, that you are an eternal soul who wishes to learn about forgiveness. You think to yourself, "Gee, how can I best learn the meaning of forgiveness? I guess I could float around the universe for a couple eons and chat with other souls about forgiveness. I might eventually learn a thing or two from that. Or, I could put on my superhero pants and be born into a physical body where I experienced something traumatic. It might cause me to suffer and struggle for a while, but eventually I'd get tired of all that and find a way to forgive and move forward. Yep, that would that be an efficient way to learn. Within a few earth years, I'd know a lot about forgiveness."

This is exactly what I think we're doing here. We might think our problems and difficulties are unfair, or random (God forbid), but what if every difficulty we experienced was designed to help us learn and grow?

We all have problem areas, or what I think of as themes. For instance, we might have an easy time with career, finances, and health, but struggle terribly with relationships. Or maybe our relationships and work life are good, but we struggle with low self esteem or addictions. We all have a variety of problems throughout the course of our lives, but the chronic ones constitute the themes, and these themes point to our reason for being here. Problems may be aggravating, but they are the keys to our personal, as well as collective, evolution.

This week, I ask you to view your problems as golden learning opportunities, especially the big or longstanding ones. What are these difficulties trying to teach you? That life is unfair? I think not. Dig a little deeper, and I believe you'll find a more satisfying and helpful answer---one that points to a beautiful quality of being you're struggling to birth. Hang in there, and know that you will eventually succeed, and that the universe ultimately supports you, no matter how long your journey takes.

When Imperfect is Perfectly Fine

Several weeks ago I hurt my foot while hiking in the beautiful green hills. I was in good shape at the time and had been eating really well. I was off sugar and gluten, and was feeling great. Then I twisted my foot, and the good times came to a screeching halt.

Today, then, after eating a sizable caramel-filled chocolate Easter egg and a handful of (stolen) jelly beans, I decided it was time to make my way back to healthy living. This would include a different, more foot-friendly way to exercise, so I went on Youtube to find some workout videos that took my injury into account.

To my surprise, the videos were inspiring. The first one featured a lovely personal trainer who was in a boot-style brace. Not at all gracefully, she demonstrated a few good exercises that would help her audience get back in shape, even while staying off a hurt foot. She mentioned that she loved hardwood floors, especially because of their character and imperfections. She encouraged us not to get down about being imperfect or experiencing a setback. I appreciated that.

The next video featured a second fitness guru, who told the story of injuring her ankle and not being able to exercise on it for six months. She said she'd been depressed and angry, and had gained weight, but then a physical therapist helped her get back on track using upper body exercises. This, apparently had the effect of opening a new world of possibilities for the young woman, who was now encouraging us to embrace our issue as an opportunity for a personal and physical renaissance.

I tried out all the exercises, felt a happy rush, and decided that if these ladies could make peace with their temporary disability, so could I. If they were able to see the beauty in setbacks and human trials and imperfections, I could too. There was a split second there when I saw my impaired body and imperfect self as being more wonderfully unique and beautiful because of it. It was just a flash of insight, but one I hope to not soon forget.

This week, I ask you to embrace your humanness, and accept (if only for a moment) that thing that bugs you the most about yourself. And if you're doing okay with yourself, go ahead and extend that acceptance out toward somebody else in your life. It'll feel great.