Shame is always protecting you from another emotion you don’t want to feel — whether that’s grief, anger, helplessness, or the feeling of being attacked. The critical move is always the same: feel what’s underneath.
“The shame right now is protecting me from an emotion I don’t want to feel… and so if you feel what’s underneath then you have movement again, then you have the lack of stagnation again.”
When someone has done something they feel is essentially bad — acted in ways they don’t want to — there’s usually tremendous grief and helplessness underneath. Feeling that grief and helplessness is far more likely to stop the behavior than staying in shame. Shame perpetuates: “Shame is the lock that holds the chains of bad habits in place.”
The test for whether you’ve fully processed the shame is empowerment. If the process doesn’t lead to feeling empowered and invigorated, you’re still in the shame. There may also be a fear of empowerment itself — conditioning that says you should feel shame rather than power.
The practical approach: you don’t have to worry too much about the nuance. Just give attention to the shame you can sense. The more you do, the more sensitive you become to it, and the more intolerable it becomes — for yourself and others.
Related Concepts
- Shame dissolves when felt, not fought
- Shame locks in bad habits
- Helplessness is the emotion being avoided
- Shame about grief shuts down all emotions
- Being undefended erodes narcissism
- Shame stagnates behavior
- Self-attack is another form of avoidance
- Embracing intensity removes the need for addictive escape