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

by Brené Brown

Shame resilience is best conceptualized as a continuum, with shame anchoring one end and empathy anchoring the other end.

Our level of shame resilience is determined by our combined ability to recognize shame and our specific triggers, our level of critical awareness, our willingness to reach out to others and our ability to speak shame. In other words, our position on the shame resilience continuum is actually the sum of our positions on these other four continuums.

If we want to transform our culture of shame into a culture of connection—we need to take what we see, hear, witness and do personally.

Taking it personally means changing the culture by owning our experiences and holding ourselves and others accountable.

If enough of us make small changes in our lives, we will see big changes.

Resilience can start with us; however, it can’t stop with us. We need to understand how and why men struggle with shame and how they build resilience. We need to understand how we can support and connect with our partners, sons, fathers, brothers, friends and colleagues.

His eyes welled up with tears. He said, “We have shame. Deep shame. But when we reach out and share our stories, we get the emotional shit beat out of us.”

Until both men and women are allowed to be who we are rather than who we are supposed to be, it will be impossible to achieve freedom and equality.

When we experience shame, we respond to it with our entire being. It affects the way we feel, think, and act; and, often, we have a strong physical response to shame. In other words, shame is a core emotion—it strikes us at our center and radiates through every part of us.

When I spoke with men, I didn’t hear about layered, conflicting and competing social-community expectations. The expectation, clear and simple: Do not let people see anything that can be perceived as weakness.

As men described their shame experiences to me, I started seeing a very small box. A box that is hammered closed by expectations of always appearing tough, strong, powerful, successful, fearless, in-control and capable.

We reward their willingness to stay in the box by celebrating their “toughness” and reinforce and punish by labeling any demonstration of vulnerability or emotion (especially fear, grief and sadness) as weakness.

In Paul’s story, we can see how his masculinity—his athleticism, winning and toughness—was rewarded.

Men are certainly socialized to hide their vulnerabilities and fears, but it seems that women play an important role in that socialization.

When men and women shame each other and reinforce unattainable gender expectations, we kill intimacy. If we can’t be authentic, we can’t connect in a meaningful way.

Shame starts at home. Fortunately, so does shame resilience. As parents, we have the opportunity to raise children who are courageous, compassionate and connected.

Parenting is a shame minefield. Not only do we hang our self-worth on how we are perceived as parents, but we hang a big part of it on how our children are perceived.

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.