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by
Brené Brown
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March 3 - October 18, 2024
As we learn more about shame resilience and start to put the elements into practice, we can start to move through the by-products of shame—fear, blame and disconnection—and move toward the courage, compassion and connection we need to live our best, authentic lives.
We put so much of our time and energy into making sure that we meet everyone’s expectations and into caring about what other people think of us, that we are often left feeling angry, resentful and fearful.
Sometimes we turn these emotions inward and convince ourselves that we are bad and that maybe we deserve the rejection that we so desperately fear. Other times we lash out—we scream at our partners and children for no apparent reason, or we make a cutting comment to a friend or colleague. Either way, in the end, we are left feeling exhausted, overwhelmed and alone.
As is the case with many epidemics, it seems that we are so mired in our own struggle to take care of ourselves and our families, we just don’t see the connections that allow us to make sense of it and begin to address it as a large-scale problem. We can’t see the enormity of it—we think it’s a personal problem or a self-esteem issue rather than a serious social problem.
Shame and self-esteem are very different issues. We feel shame. We think self-esteem. Our self-esteem is based on how we see ourselves—our strengths and limitations—over time. It is how and what we think of ourselves. Shame is an emotion. It is how we feel when we have certain experiences. When we are in shame, we don’t see the big picture; we don’t accurately think about our strengths and limitations. We just feel alone, exposed and deeply flawed.
“When I think about my self-esteem, I think about who I am in relation to who I want to be, where I come from, what I’ve overcome and what I’ve accomplished. When I feel shame, I’m taken back to this place of smallness where I lose that sense of context. I’m returned to a small place—I can’t see everything else. It’s just a small, lonely place.”
Kayla’s experience points to the shame culture that has taken over many workplaces. We are expected to produce and keep our professional and personal lives artificially compartmentalized in order to succeed. Her boss’s comment is a product of that culture. Although we’re told (and want to believe), “You are not your job,” the messages from employers, colleagues and the media counter that well-intentioned adage with “You are exactly what you do, how well you do it and what you earn.”
Connection is critical because we all have the basic need to feel accepted and to believe that we belong and are valued for who we are.
Shame unravels our connection to others. In fact, I often refer to shame as the fear of disconnection—the fear of being perceived as flawed and unworthy of acceptance or belonging.
the opposite of experiencing shame is experiencing empathy. The prerequisite for empathy is compassion.
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.
Shame is the intensely painful feeling or experience of believing we are flawed and therefore unworthy of acceptance and belonging.
One reason shame is so powerful is its ability to make us feel alone. Like we are the only one or somehow we’re different from everyone else.
Our level of resilience to shame is not dependent solely on our ability to recognize these behaviors and emotions in ourselves, but also on our ability to build connections with others. These connections require us to understand what we share in common when it comes to shame.
Like most of the studies on shame, my research strongly supports the argument that embarrassment, guilt, humiliation and shame are four different emotional responses.
guilt can often be a positive motivator of change, while shame typically leads to worse behavior or paralysis.
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.
Guilt is holding an action or behavior up against our ethics, values and beliefs. We evaluate that behavior (like cheating) and feel guilt when the behavior is inconsistent with who we want to be. Shame is focusing on who we are rather than what we’ve done.
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
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.
This fear of being trapped relates to the way in which the shame web is baited with an impossible ratio of expectations and options. First, we have an unreasonable number of expectations put upon us, many of which are not even attainable or realistic. Second, we have a very limited number of options in terms of how we can meet those expectations.
As you can see on the web illustration, partners, family, friends and self are drawn closest to the center of the web. We most fear disconnection from the people closest to us. In other words, shame is the most powerful when we enforce the expectation ourselves, or when it’s enforced by those closest to us (our partners, our family or friends).
When we are feeling shame and fear, blame is never far behind. Sometimes, we turn inward and blame ourselves and other times we strike out and blame others. When we blame ourselves, we often find ourselves in a cycle of self-loathing and shame. Quietly, we emotionally implode. When we try to get out from underneath the pain of shame and fear by blaming others, we often explode.
there are at least two forms of power—I call them “power-over” and “real power.”
Unfortunately, when most of us hear the word “power” we automatically jump to the concept of power-over—the idea that power is the ability to control people, take advantage of others or exert force over somebody or something. We think of power as finite—there’s only so much, so if I’m going to get some, I’m forced to take it away from you.
Power-over is a dangerous form of power. Dr. Robin Smith, a psychologist and contributor to The Oprah Winfrey Show, described one of the most insidious forms of power-over as working like this: “I will define who you are and then I’ll make you believe that’s your own definition...
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the only way to free ourselves from power-over is to reclaim our real power—the power to create and live by our own definitions.
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.
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.
shame can be so threatening that, 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. In this mode, the neocortex is bypassed and our access to advanced, rational, calm thinking and processing of emotion all but disappears. The primitive part of the brain springs into action and that’s when we find ourselves becoming aggressive, wanting to run and hide or feeling paralyzed; sometimes, without any clue as to why.
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. When I talk about isolation I don’t mean feeling lonely or alone. Jean Baker Miller and Irene Stiver, Relational-Cultural theorists from the Stone Center at Wellesley College, have beautifully captured the overwhelming nature of isolation. They write, “We believe that the most terrifying and destructive feeling that a person can experience is psychological isolation. This is not the same as being
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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.
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.
by resilience, I mean that ability to recognize shame when we experience it, and move through it in a constructive way that allows us to maintain our authenticity and grow from our experiences. And in this process of consciously moving through our shame, we can build stronger and more meaningful connections with the people in our lives.
On the left-hand side of that continuum is shame. Under shame are the by-products of shame: fear, blame and disconnection. In order to get to courage, compassion and connection, we have to discover what moves us away from shame toward resilience.
empathy is the strongest antidote for shame. It’s not just about having our needs for empathy met; shame resilience requires us to be able to respond empathically to others. Women with high levels of shame resilience were both givers and receivers of empathy.
When I asked women to share examples of how they recovered from shame, they described situations in which they were able to talk about their shame with someone who expressed empathy. 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.”
I define empathy as the skill or ability to tap into our own experiences in order to connect with an experience someone is relating to us.
empathy as “the ability to perceive a situation from the other person’s perspective. To see, hear and feel the unique world of the other.”
I believe that empathy is best understood as a skill because being empathic, or having the capacity to show empathy, is not a quality that is innate or intuitive.
In the growing body of empathy research, we are finding that successful leaders often demonstrate high levels of empathy; that empathy is related to academic and professional success; that it can reduce aggression and prejudice and increase altruism. Studies also show that it’s a vital component in successful marriages and effective organizations. The bottom line is that empathy is essential for building meaningful, trusting relationships, which is something we all want and need.
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.
To be able to see the world as others see it. Sometimes the skill of trying to see the world as others see it is called “perspective taking.”
We all see the world through multiple lenses. These lenses represent who we are and the perspectives from which we view the world. Some of the lenses are constantly changing and some have been with us from the day we were born. Conflict is easy to understand when we think about the lens metaphor. Twenty people can witness the same event, hear the same news story or analyze the same situation, but twenty different sets of lenses cause them all to see, hear and deduce very different things. In order to be empathic, we must be willing to recognize and acknowledge our own lens and attempt to see
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To be nonjudgmental. One of the greatest challenges we will face on this path to developing empathy will be to overcome the habit of judging others.
our need to judge others is deeply motivated by our need to evaluate our own abilities, beliefs and values.
judging others allows us to appraise and compare our abilities, beliefs and values against the abilities, beliefs and values of others.
Shame, fear and anxiety are all major incubators of judgment.
This is the vicious cycle. The judgment of others leaves us feeling hurt and ashamed so we judge others as a way to make ourselves feel better.
