The Soul of Shame: Retelling the Stories We Believe About Ourselves

by Curt Thompson

This movement toward virtual infinite separation is our desperate attempt to deescalate the awful emotional sensation that we are enduring at the moment. For instance, in turning our gaze and body away from someone, we seek as expeditiously as possible to reduce the acutely painful feeling of being exposed. We are not aware that we simultaneously reinforce the deeply felt notion, captured via implicit memory tracts, that we are in fact shameful. Little do we know that this neuropsychological response in the long run only serves to reinforce our proclivity to reactivate the very state we are seeking to escape, not least because we often find ourselves having to cope with this state by ourselves in isolation—a state that decreases the flexibility and resilience of the mind—the very isolation that shame has created in the first place.