How do you work on shame?

[barefoot]

This may be too huge a topic but I’m increasingly aware of how much shame I carry and wondered if anyone has anything to share around what has helped them. Either in therapy or else on your own (exercises, reading etc) It’s getting in the way so much.
Thanks.

 

[somerandomguy]

Shame is tough.

I think I really had to understand on a deep emotional level that it wasn't my fault before I could get close to tackling my shame. And once I was able to love myself that helped even more. And I think when I managed to really feel compassion for myself is when shame really stopped having any power over me.

 

[NightSky]

I’m working on this *exact* topic in therapy. Just realizing over the last few weeks what a massive obstacle this is.
I just listened to this podcast ‎The Liturgists Podcast: Shame - Live from Seattle on Apple Podcasts
(Don’t know if that will work if you don’t have an iphone?) but there’s a cohost on this podcast named Hillary McBride and she talks from about 16:00-35:00 or so of the episode and it was so, so good. The whole episode is, but particularly her insight.
I’m also reading a book called The Soul of Shame.
I always find Brene Brown anything to be amazing. She’s a fantastic resource for shame and vulnerability. But I find I need more by way of what to DO to start changing how shame has become a part of me.

 

[Wendell_R]

I think I really had to understand on a deep emotional level that it wasn't my fault before I could get close to tackling my shame. And once I was able to love myself that helped even more. And I think when I managed to really feel compassion for myself is when shame really stopped having any power over me.

Yes!

In terms of what to DO:
1. Read about forgiveness. This can range from the religious (the Christian concept of God's grace) to the secular (people who work with felons in prisons). I found reading about folks working with felons to be really powerful. Absorbing the idea that if these people can be accepted without shame, then why can't I?

2. Listen to our therapists, who accept us for who we are as worthwhile people. Really listen, and question why we take the voices in our head as somehow more worthy of what our therapists say. We need to do this many times to even start to hear this.

3. Accept that there were traumatic events that were not our choice. It is too easy for us to dissect traumatic memories and say, "If only I had done X, this wouldn't have happened to me." It can help to avoid this microscopic dissection and keep the message really simple--I did not choose this. We need to remind ourselves of this over and over.

3. Accept that we cannot be perfect and that's okay and still love ourselves. I think it's easy to equate our fallibility as humans with the trauma that was imposed on us, as in, "I missed this opportunity, I made this mistake, so I must be a bad person." Accepting our humanity and acknowledging our limitations paradoxically can reduce the sense of shame we carry. We do not need to be perfect to be without shame. We need to remind ourselves of this over and over.

 

[barefoot]

I really had to understand on a deep emotional level that it wasn't my fault

when I managed to really feel compassion for myself is when shame really stopped having any power over me.

I think I’m still a long way off with these things...but it is encouraging and inspiring to see that you have made such brilliant progress in these areas. So, that gives me hope that it is possible for me too.

Do you know how you were able to make shifts in these areas? ie what made it possible for you to come to realise that it wasn’t your fault? How did you become more self-compassionate?

Another aspect I struggle with is minimising what happened because it wasn’t that bad.

how shame has become a part of me.

This really struck me and is how I’m starting to feel. That it’s not just that sometimes I feel shame. It’s not just a fleeting feeling. It seems to be ever-present, something I carry all the time. It seems to have just crept up on me without me really realising and now it’s flowing inside every part of me.

Thanks for the podcast recommendation. I’ll have a listen. Just realised I don’t think I’ve ever listened to a podcast before! That makes me feel very out of touch!

Listen to our therapists, who accept us for who we are as worthwhile people. Really listen, and question why we take the voices in our head as somehow more worthy of what our therapists say.

Yes, I need to try to do this, I think. It’s very hard to accept and believe what she says. For some reason, whenever she tells me things eg that I’m not disgusting, that it wasn’t my fault, that perhaps it was bad enough, I just find myself stubbornly insisting that my version of the truth is right and that she is wrong.

It is too easy for us to dissect traumatic memories and say, "If only I had done X, this wouldn't have happened to me." It can help to avoid this microscopic dissection and keep the message really simple--I did not choose this.

Yes...I do this intellectual dissection all the time. I will try out this new message you’ve suggested: I did not choose this. Because, no matter what my intellectualising and rationalising can come up with, that statement is still true.

 

[somerandomguy]

Do you know how you were able to make shifts in these areas? ie what made it possible for you to come to realise that it wasn’t your fault? How did you become more self-compassionate?

Ironically I think it was my codependency traits that made this easier. Often I take what "experts" say and assume they are correct, no matter what I think or feel about the issue. When my T told me it wasn't my fault, I was at least willing to consider that. My wife said the same thing. And pretty much everyone I liked and trusted on this message board also said it.

Once I really, truly believed it wasn't my fault, I found it much easier to practice trying to love and feel compassion for myself. I found people I loved and had compassion for in my life - mostly my son - and tried taking what I felt for him and applying it to myself.

Another aspect I struggle with is minimising what happened because it wasn’t that bad.

I went through that, and I think we all do. Again, a lot of people that I really trusted told me that it really WAS that bad. My therapist in particular showed appropriate emotional responses when I described what happened to me, which made me reconsider how horrible I thought it actually was. It was actually horrible, and not just "something that happened."

@barefoot, what you went through really was that bad. And it was not your fault.

I will try out this new message you’ve suggested: I did not choose this.

You did not choose it. That is absolutely true. It was not your fault.

 

[The Albatross]

I've yet to find resources about guilt/shame/blame that are as effective as the 12 step models (part of my experience) which has whole books devoted to it. But here's a decent site:
Guilt and Shame

 

[Rani G2]

wondered if anyone has anything to share around what has helped them. Either in therapy or else on your own

@barefoot
Shame/shameful self talk was manifested as a survival mechanism. Dealing with Parents/caregivers who were uncapable of attunement, No secure attachment and so on. My own sense-making was to realize that there is/was something wrong with me, that is why my Parents/caregiver is engaging with me in this manner. His/her actions are legitimate because I deserve it. From what I understand its a organism-environment system. Years of Therapy and by disarticulating constructions in mind, not only cognitively but also through bodily experiences, things begin to shift slowly.

 

[user27357]

@PURUSHA

so right on. We are wired to feel it, like part of our survival to this advanced age on this planet was based on the need to be part of a group and shame is the internal alarm that tells us we are getting close to being like those people that got banished from the cave for misbehaving and died out in the cold.

dichotomy? duality? sometimes the things that our brain does to try to make us better tears at our self image to the point of doing damage.

For all of the horrible advice and shame my dad piled on me, he had one nugget of truth: He told me that I should "consider the source" when being criticized and maybe be able to ignore criticism from those that are not worthy of judging me (although he did it in a way that was shaming me for being hurt by some one elses criticism that he deemed unfit because of their financial status). In the end, he was right, and I try to consider the source when i remember the things he said over the years and the way it has made me feel for so long. he just wanted me to be like him- thankfully I knew better even way back when. I know way better now, yet shame is like a mold that we pry ourselves out of before the true form can be allowed to take shape.

 

[grit]

I find there are times where the limitation of language becomes stark such as shame. First and foremost what is shame To YOU? Where do u feel it in your body? When do u feel it... What is the first thing you do? If you do not know that... How do u know what you feel is shame?
For me shame feels like losing a face... I get numb or itchy or warm sensations on my face or cheeks or mouth or sometimes it is like electricity all over my skin.
How do work on it? I use language in my head if I cannt say it out loud at the time to say I felt shame. When she or he said that or looked at me like that I felt shame and I wonder why? Where is it coming from? I always try to find the source. Sometimes the experience is too far into my infancy and I may have to dissociate in therapy to gain insight and other times it can mean it is just under my awareness and I have to accept. Shane's BFF is denial in my experience. The more honest good or bad I accept of my character the easier for me to get over shame and experience integration. Whenever I see myself saying I am not that type of such and such of course... Shame is working overtime. Accepting the most unsavory side of us fully is the cure... Especially with one person observing it.. But being alone and fully accepting and loving that unsavory side is goldstand.

 

[Changing4Best]

I haven't really worked on it, though I probably should. I don't feel so much shame about what happened to me as I do about what I do in my life these days that somehow relates to my abuse. There are things that my abuser(s) taught me to do that I still do to some degree these days, even though I do not want to. It is hard to explain....

 

[whiteraven]

I just recently realized that I experience/feel shame. I haven't been able to connect it with anything from the past yet, but when I figure out how to start addressing it, I hope to.

You're definitely not alone with this!