How to Heal Your Shame and Supercharge Your Empathy

A lot of people these days seem to be lacking in empathy. We watch horrors on the news and we’re hardly moved. We hear of terrible tragedies befalling other people and we’re barely motivated to offer any help. We walk by homeless people on the street and we don’t even notice them.

Maybe it’s the amount of sensationalism we’re bombarded with every day that’s causing us to be so emotionally shut down. Maybe it’s the stress of modern life. Whatever it is, it’s not doing us any good.

We need to have empathy for one-another. It’s what keeps our society from crumbling into chaos and violence. It’s what enables us to feel a sense of connection and belonging with others. When we feel connected, our stress levels go down. Our immune system is boosted. We’re happier and healthier when we feel that sense of connection.

One reason why we might be lacking in empathy these days is that many people are dealing with a lot of shame. How to we develop shame? When bad things happen to us, it’s a psychological defense mechanism to blame ourselves. On the surface, this doesn’t seem to make any sense, but think of it this way:

When we’re in a hurtful situation and we feel powerless to change the situation, it causes feelings of despair to arise within us. These feelings of helplessness and hopelessness are almost worse than the feelings of sadness, hurt or anger that arise in response to our hurtful experiences.

It’s almost intolerable to feel so helpless and hopeless, so we unconsciously default to a primitive defense mechanism that is supposed to make us feel like we have more power and choice that perhaps we do. We blame ourselves because if the bad things that are happening to us are our fault, then we’re convinced that we have the power to change them.

Unfortunately, blaming ourselves for the bad things we’re experiencing doesn’t actually work. When bad things are happening to us that we can’t control – such as childhood abuse or neglect, or an adult diagnosis of a life-threatening illness – taking on responsibility for what’s happening doesn’t make it possible for us to change things. We just end up feeling worse because on top of the bad situation, we also feel bad about ourselves for not being able to change it.

As time passes, the self-blame turns into shame. We feel ashamed of the abuse we suffered as a child, or for the medical condition that has afflicted us. Then this really interesting psychological defense mechanism kicks in and adds insult to injury: we believe, deep down, that we are shameful and we deserve to feel shame, so we act in ways that will perpetuate our shame; like a self-fulfilling prophesy.

People who carry a lot of shame will behave self-destructively. Someone who was sexually abused will be promiscuous and go after abusive partners, in part to maintain the shame that they feel they deserve, deep down inside. Someone who grew up being told that they were a “bad child” might become an overeater or a drug abuser as an adult, in an unconscious attempt to maintain the shame they’re convinced that they deserve to feel.

The more we engage in our self-destructive, shame-producing behaviors, the more shame we feel. We create a shame spiral that grows and grows. And the more shame we feel the less empathy we feel, because shame isolates us and separates us from others. We feel undeserving of connection and unworthy of love. We can’t feel empathy toward others when we have no empathy for ourselves.

So, the answer to our empathy problem is, in part, to let go of our own shame. Primitive defense mechanisms (like self-blame and shame) arise spontaneously in our psyche but they don’t really work. We need to replace them with better self-care and better attitudes toward ourselves.

We need to start letting ourselves off the hook for the bad things that happened to us in the past. We even need to start forgiving ourselves for the bad choices we’ve been making that have been perpetuating our shame.

Just as we created a shame spiral by repeatedly engaging in behaviors that would perpetuate our shame, we can break the shame spiral by stopping these behaviors and by giving ourselves compassion and acceptance; forgiveness and love.

When we’re compassionate toward ourselves, we can heal the pain caused by the original hurts and perpetuated by our repeated self-destructive behaviors. We can build self-love and this will open our hearts to others. Suddenly, we can have empathy for ourselves and for everyone else.

And the pay-off of having more empathy is huge. Multiple studies have shown that being a caring, giving person makes us so much happier than being a selfish or insensitive one. The more empathy we feel toward ourselves, the more empathy we can feel toward others, and the more empathy we feel toward others, the happier we are.

On a physical level, shame causes stress. It raises the levels of Cortisol, our body’s stress hormone. This leads to obesity, premature aging, and a lowered ability of our immune system to fight disease. On the other hand, empathy for ourselves and others increases Oxytocin, the bonding hormone in our body, which lowers the levels of Cortisol and promotes well-being.

In my recent podcast with Dr. Brian Goldman he spoke eloquently about the role of shame in our lack of empathy and how important it is for us to let go of our shame.

Even if you’ve been carrying a lot of shame up until now, you don’t have to hold on to it. You can start to let go of the shame and self-blame and be more empathetic with yourself. You’ll feel happier, healthier and more connected to others, and it’ll be a lot easier to care about everyone else when you’re not busy hating on yourself.

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