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

by Brené Brown

Compassion is not a virtue—it is a commitment. It’s not something we have or don’t have—it’s something we choose to practice.

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

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

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.

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

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.

If we can’t pull it all off—lose the weight, bake and eat the cake, smoke the cigarettes and look cool, stay healthy and fit, buy all the products and, at the same time, love ourselves for who we are—GOTCHA! We get trapped in the shame web. That’s when our fear starts to turn to blame and disconnection.

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.

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

four defining attributes of empathy. They are: (1) to be able to see the world as others see it; (2) to be nonjudgmental; (3) to understand another person’s feelings; and (4) to communicate your understanding of that person’s feelings.

However, when we experience something in the present that triggers an old trauma memory, we reexperience the sense of the original trauma. So, rather than remembering the wound, we become the wound. This makes sense when we think of how we are often returned to a place of smallness and helplessness when we feel shame.

According to Dr. Hartling, in order to deal with shame, some of us move away by withdrawing, hiding, silencing ourselves and keeping secrets. Some of us move toward by seeking to appease and please. And, some of us move against by trying to gain power over others, being aggressive and using shame to fight shame.

“Awareness is knowing something exists, critical awareness is knowing why it exists, how it works, how our society is impacted by it and who benefits from it.”

The concept of critical awareness is sometimes called critical consciousness or critical perspective. It’s the belief that we can increase personal power by understanding the link between our personal experiences and larger social systems.

About eighty million Americans are obese. • Approximately seven million girls and women suffer from an eating disorder. • Up to nineteen percent of college-aged women are bulimic. • Eating disorders are the third most common chronic illness among females. • The latest surveys show very young girls are going on diets because they think they are fat and unattractive. In one American survey, eighty-one percent of ten-year-old girls had already dieted at least once. • A research survey found that the single largest group of high-school students considering or attempting suicide are girls who feel they are overweight. • Twenty-five years ago, top models and beauty queens weighed only eight percent less than the average woman; now they weigh twenty-three percent less. The current media ideal for women is achievable by less than five percent of the female population—and that’s just in terms of weight and size. • Among women over eighteen looking at themselves in the mirror, research indicates that at least eighty percent are unhappy with what they see. Many will not even be seeing an accurate reflection. Most of us have heard that people with anorexia see themselves as larger than they really are, but some recent research indicates that this kind of distorted body image is by no means confined to those suffering from eating disorders—in some studies up to eighty percent of women overestimated their size. Increasing numbers of women with no weight problems or clinical psychologica...

Who benefits from the appearance expectations? • The $38 billion hair industry. • The $33 billion diet industry. • The $24 billion skincare industry. • The $18 billion makeup industry. • The $15 billion perfume industry. • The $13 billion cosmetic surgery industry.

Relational-Cultural Theory: We heal through our connections with others. Relational-Cultural Theory grew out of a collaborative process of theory building initiated by the scholars at the Stone Center at Wellesley College. In their book, The Healing Connection, Jean Baker Miller and Irene Stiver write, “If we observe women’s lives carefully, without attempting to force our observations into preexisting patterns, we discover that an inner sense of connection to others is the central organizing feature of women’s development. By listening to the stories women tell about their lives and examining these

stories seriously, we have found that, quite contrary to what one would expect based on the governing models of development emphasizing separation, women’s sense of self and of worth is most often grounded in the ability to make and maintain relationships.”

A protest is not always a million people marching on the capital. Sometimes a protest is four or five people showing up at a school board meeting or in someone’s office. Regardless of size and scope, when we come together to ask for what we need, some people will label our actions as “protest.” If that stops us, we have to ask, “Who benefits by that?”

We need help, but we don’t ask for it. We get angry because we don’t get it. We feel ashamed for even thinking someone would help us when we knew they wouldn’t. For me, asking for help is a work in progress.

Improvement is a far more realistic goal than perfection.

When we give ourselves permission to be imperfect, when we find self-worth despite our imperfections, when we build connection networks that affirm and value us as imperfect beings, we are much more capable of change.

Again, if we are going to recognize and accept what makes us human, including our imperfections and less-than-extraordinary lives, we must embrace our fears and vulnerabilities.