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

by Brené Brown

I don’t have to know “exactly how you feel”—I just have to touch a part of my life that opens me up to hearing your experience. If I can touch that place, I stay out of judgment and I can reach out with empathy. This is where both personal and social healing can begin.

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In any form, in any context and through any delivery system, shame is destructive. The idea that there are two types, healthy shame and toxic shame, did not bear out in any of my research.

The researchers found that when shame proneness increases, substance abuse problems increase.

The ability to recognize and understand their shame triggers 2. High levels of critical awareness about their shame web 3. The willingness to reach out to others 4. The ability to speak shame

One woman told me, “My mouth gets really dry and I feel like I can’t swallow. I try to recognize it and name it right away.” When I asked her how, she said she starts whispering, “Pain, pain, pain, pain, pain, pain.” She explained, once she can acknowledge what’s happening, she can make better choices about how to deal with it.

I physically feel shame in/on my It feels like I know I’m in shame when I feel If I could taste shame, it would taste like If I could smell shame, it would smell like If I could touch shame, it would feel like

Client questions

Recognizing and understanding our triggers is not something that we instinctively know how to do. It’s a process.

Researchers Tamara Ferguson, Heidi Eyre and Michael Ashbaker argue that “unwanted identity” is the quintessential

elicitor of shame.

I’ve been asked many times if I think that shame can only be experienced in areas where we have been shamed by our parents or caregivers, but I don’t think this is the case.

Vulnerability is not weakness.

From the field of health psychology, studies show that perceived vulnerability, meaning the ability to acknowledge that we’re at risk, greatly increases our chances of adhering to some kind of positive health regime.

Health psychology researchers have determined that in order to get patients to comply with prevention routines, they must work on perceived vulnerability. And just like building resilience to shame, the critical issue is not about our level of vulnerability, but the level at which we acknowledge our vulnerabilities.

“Acknowledging vulnerability is possible only if we feel we can reach out for support. To do so, we must feel some competence in our relationships.”

“I’m not weak. I’m stronger than you can imagine. I’m just very vulnerable right now. If I were weak, I’d be dead.”

shame is about perception. Shame is how we see ourselves through other people’s eyes.

I want to be perceived as ______________, _________________, _____________________________, _______________________ and ______________________. I do NOT want to be perceived as __________________, ________________, _______________, __________________ or _______________.

Start

If we look at our unwanted identities, three questions that can help us start to uncover the sources are: 1. What do these perceptions mean to us? 2. Why are they so unwanted? 3. Where did the messages that fuel these identities come from?

#2

Examine your list of unwanted identities and ask yourself, “If people reduce me to this list, what important and wonderful things will they miss about me?”

#3

After studying Dr. Uram’s work, I believe it’s possible that many of our early shame experiences, especially with parents and caregivers, were stored in our brains as traumas.

Dr. Uram explains that the brain does not differentiate between overt or big trauma and covert or small, quiet trauma—it just registers the event as “a threat that we can’t control.”

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.

We change in and through our relationships with others.

“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.”

most of us have not been taught how to see the connection between our private lives and social, political and economic influences.

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What are the social-community expectations around appearance? • Why do these expectations exist? • How do these expectations work? • How is our society influenced by these expectations? • Who benefits from these expectations?

#3

Practicing critical awareness means linking our personal experiences to what we learn from the questions and answers. When we do this, we move toward resilience by learning how to: • Contextualize (I see the big picture); • Normalize (I’m not the only one); and • Demystify (I’ll share what I know with others).

Yes, shame can lead to personal problems and even play a role in mental illness, but shame is also a social construct—it happens between people.

Shame works only if we think we’re alone in it.

Knowledge is power and power is never diminished by sharing it—it is only increased.