I Thought It Was Just Me: Women Reclaiming Power and Courage in a Culture of Shame

by Brené Brown

“You cannot shame or belittle people into changing their behaviors.”

there are studies that identify shame as the dominant emotion experienced by mental health clients, exceeding anger, fear, grief and anxiety.

Just listening to someone share a shaming experience can be almost as painful.

Shame is the intensely painful feeling or experience of believing we are flawed and therefore unworthy of acceptance and belonging.

But when it’s suicide, it’s completely different. My mother was the crazy lady who hung herself, so that means I must be crazy too.

anyone. My mom told me that she would deal with my aunt. I don’t know what happened,

just became a quiet person. Ashamed and quiet.

Infertility was shaming for me because it was a lonely feeling. I felt as if no one else could understand my pain, especially all those around me with children.

If we can relate to the story because it’s an issue that we face, the experience is often both painful and strangely comforting. The pain stems from being forced to think about an issue that we probably try to keep under the surface. The comfort comes from recognizing that we are not alone in our struggles; we aren’t the only one.

embarrassment, guilt, humiliation and shame are four different emotional responses.

Guilt and shame are both emotions of self-evaluation; however, that is where the similarities end. The majority of shame researchers agree that the difference between shame and guilt is best understood as the differences between “I am bad” (shame) and “I did something bad” (guilt). Shame is about who we are and guilt is about our behaviors.

It is human nature to want to feel affirmed and valued.

It’s when we feel shame or the fear of shame that we are more likely to engage in self-destructive behaviors, to attack or humiliate others or to stay quiet when we see someone who needs our help.

life, I felt like everything I did was half-assed.

“People believe they deserve their shame; they do not believe they deserve their humiliation.”

schools, I think shame is often more destructive than humiliation for two reasons. First, it’s bad enough to have a child labeled “stupid” at school, but it’s far more detrimental if the child actually believes she is stupid. If a child is shamed into believing that he or she is stupid, the child is potentially being set up for a lifetime of struggle.

Second, I’m finding that the child who experiences humiliation rather than shame is much more likely to come home and tell a parent or caregiver about her experience than the child who experiences shame. In this case, if our child tells us about her humiliating experience,

The child who feels shame internalizes the messages and often starts to act out or shut down.

Once we can distinguish among embarrassment, guilt, shame and humiliation, we can begin to look at why we experience shame and how it affects us.

Women most often experience shame as a web of layered, conflicting and competing social-community expectations. These expectations dictate: • who we should be • what we should be • how we should be

if we understand fear, blame and disconnection as intricately woven together to create shame, it becomes very clear why shame is so powerful, complex and difficult to overcome.

Shame is all about fear.

Shame is about the fear of disconnection. When we are experiencing shame, we are steeped in the fear of being ridiculed, diminished or seen as flawed. We are afraid that we’ve exposed or revealed a part of us that jeopardizes our connection and our worthiness of acceptance.

First, we have an unreasonable number of expectations put upon us, many of which are not even attainable or realistic.

To bring the image of the shame web into focus, let’s use an example that most of us find relevant—body image.

In fact, body image and weight emerged as a shame issue in approximately ninety percent of the women I interviewed.

The culture of shame is reinforced by what we see on television, in advertising and marketing. It’s what we see in movies, what we hear in music and what we read in newspapers and magazines. When it comes to body image, there’s no question about the value of “thin.” To make matters worse, as the “waif look” and “heroin chic” are recycled in yesterday’s fashion magazines, the new ideal body is still tiny, except for a round, voluptuous bottom and huge breasts. This combination is not something that occurs very often in nature. The bone-thin, big-booty and boobs combo is more often a “carved to order” package.

to more than three thousand advertisements a day and watches three years’ worth of television ads over the course of a lifetime. Trying to escape media influences in today’s culture is as feasible as trying to protect ourselves from air pollution by not breathing.

power-over as working like this: “I will define who you are and then I’ll make you believe that’s your own definition.”

“I know it’s empowering and wonderful, but my gut reaction is . . . You’re too fat and not perfect enough—put some clothes on.”

Real power is basically the ability to change something if you want to change it. It’s the ability to make change happen. Real power is unlimited—we don’t need to fight over it because there is plenty to go around. And the great thing about real power is our ability to create it. Real power doesn’t force us to take it away from others—it’s something we create and build with others.

When we talk about shame and powerlessness, we’re really talking about three specific components of real power: consciousness, choice and change.

First, when we feel shame, most of us are not conscious of what we’re feeling and why we’re feeling it. Shame often produces overwhelming and painful feelings of confusion, fear, anger, judgment and/or the need to escape or hide from the situation. It’s difficult to identify shame as the core issue when we’re trying to manage all these very intense feelings. In their interviews, many women described the feelings of powerlessness that often overcome us in shaming moments:

“Shame is that feeling that comes over you like a hot wave and the minute it comes over you think to yourself, ‘Oh, my God, where can I hide? How can I disappear?’ ” • “Shame is the feeling you get when you believe that you’re not worthy of anyone caring about you or loving you. That you’re such a bad person that you can’t even blame other people for not caring about you. You just want the floor to swallow you up.”

When we are experiencing shame we are often thrown into crisis mode. Most of the time we can barely handle all of the by-products of shame—the fear, blame and disconnection.

rather than processing it in the neocortex—the advanced part of the brain that allows us to think, analyze and react—shame can signal our brains to go into our very primal “fight, flight or freeze” mode.

If feeling connected is feeling valued, accepted, worthy and affirmed, then feeling disconnected is feeling diminished, rejected, unworthy and reduced.

While dealing with shame and feelings of disconnection can be a normal part of developing and growing relationships, disconnection can become more serious when it turns into feelings of isolation.

“We believe that the most terrifying and destructive feeling that a person can experience is psychological isolation.

It is a feeling that one is locked out of the possibility of human connection and of being powerless to change the situation. In the extreme, psychological isolation can lead to a sense of hopelessness and desperation.

Shame can make us feel desperate. Reactions to this desperate need to escape from isolation and fear can run the gamut from behavioral issues and acting out to depression, self-injury, eating disorders, addiction, violence and suicide.

“When I feel shame I’m like a crazy person. I do stuff and say stuff I would normally never do or say.”

Shame is the intensely painful feeling or experience of believing we are flawed and therefore unworthy of acceptance and belonging. Women often experience shame when they are entangled in a web of layered, conflicting and competing social-community expectations. Shame creates feelings of fear, blame and disconnection.

shame. As long as connection is critical, the threat of disconnection that leads to shame will also be a part of our lives.

empathy is the strongest antidote for shame.

Women with high levels of shame resilience were both givers and receivers of empathy.

If you put shame in a petri dish and cover it with judgment, silence and secrecy, it grows out of control until it consumes everything in sight—you have basically provided shame with the environment it needs to thrive.

if you put shame in a petri dish and douse it with empathy, shame loses power and starts to fade. Empathy creates a hostile environment for shame—it can’t survive.

Women talked about the power of hearing someone say: • “I understand—I’ve been there.” • “That’s happened to me too.” • “It’s OK, you’re normal.” • “I understand what that’s like.”

Our words are only as effective as our ability to be genuinely present and engaged with someone as she tells her story.