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

by Brené Brown

shame is so powerful that we sometimes feel shame just talking about shame.

Shame forces us to put so much value on what other people think that we lose ourselves in the process of trying to meet everyone else’s expectations.

we need to understand that shame is the voice of perfectionism. Whether we’re talking about appearance, work, motherhood, health or family, it’s not the quest for perfection that is so painful; it’s failing to meet the unattainable expectations that lead to the painful wash of shame.

Courage is a heart word. The root of the word courage is cor—the Latin word for heart. In one of its earliest forms, the word courage meant “To speak one’s mind by telling all one’s heart.” Over time, this definition has changed, and today, we typically associate courage with heroic and brave deeds.

Shame comes from outside of us—from the messages and expectations of our culture. What comes from the inside of us is a very human need to belong, to relate.

I often refer to shame as the fear of disconnection—the fear of being perceived as flawed and unworthy of acceptance or belonging.

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.”

Unlike many of the other topics that professionals study, there is no “us and them” when it comes to shame. As professionals, we don’t have the luxury of thinking, “Let me learn about this topic that affects my patients so I can help them.” Shame is universal—no one is exempt.

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

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 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.

Donald Klein captures the differences between shame and humiliation when he writes, “People believe they deserve their shame; they do not believe they deserve their humiliation.”

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.

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.

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.

Again, 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.

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

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.

Teresa Wiseman, a nursing scholar in England, identifies 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.

According to research conducted by Sidney Shrauger and Marion Patterson, judging others allows us to appraise and compare our abilities, beliefs and values against the abilities, beliefs and values of others. This explains why we most often judge others around the issues that are important in our lives.

Reverend Jane Spahr, a Presbyterian minister and gay/lesbian rights activist, also attended the conference. Reverend Spahr told the stories of Saint George and Saint Martha to illustrate the different ways we think about courage. She explained that Saint George slew the dragon because the dragon was bad, but Saint Martha tamed and befriended the dragon. She went on to say, “This is one of our feminist myths that has been lost. Courage could mean to slay the dragon. But could it also mean to tame our fears?”

When we develop and practice empathy, courage and compassion, we move from disconnection to connection. This creates the liberation we need to enjoy the things we value rather than be imprisoned by what others expect.