I had a visceral reaction when Andrew compared shame to being under a rock. I knew exactly what he was talking about when he described the folly of trying to make decisions while in that impossibly dark, heavy, suffocating place. When we experience shame, we are hijacked by the limbic part of the brain that limits our options to “flight, fight, or freeze.” Those survival responses rarely leave room for thought, which is why most of us desperately shift around under the rock, looking for reflexive relief by hiding, blaming or lashing out, or by people pleasing.
