How to Help Friends Struggling With Shame

We've all felt the power of shame. We feel exposed, totally flawed, and hopeless to do anything about it. Shame can be so devastating that all we want to do is hide.



And watching a friend suffer a shame experience or listening to a friend share how ashamed they feel about a failure, a broken relationship, or a terrible mistake they've made can trigger shame in us, too. That's one of the paradoxes of shame: it's contagious.

The immense power of shame can make us try to ward it off by sayi...