Vulnerability and Shame
Some of you may have read Brene Brown’s book ‘Daring Greatly’ and I want to endorse it as a great read. Why do I speak so highly of it? Because I have dealt with shame for decades in my clinical practice and whilst I believe shame underpins so many issues people struggle with, it is often difficult to make it accessible. The reason for this is the nature of shame. I said to a client recently that unpacking shame can feel like being asked to approach a large, vicious animal poised for attack, without any defence at all. Not something people are in a great hurry to try!! Guilt and shame are not interchangeable. Guilt is a difficult emotion but we can do something about it, to ease it or atone for it. It is the difference between “I did something bad” and “I am bad” – there is no fixing that!! Shame says we are the problem – our Self – that there is something fundamentally wrong with us. Even if we can rationalise that this can’t possibly be true, if shame is driving our lives, that is essentially what we believe. And it is unbearable!! Therefore we have to construct defences to hide our “badness” from ourselves and others. This creates a split in us, and so much unconscious emotional energy then goes into portraying the person we want to be seen as (our persona), that will somehow magically make up for the rottenness at our core. So much of this is out of our awareness, because we have usually put a lot of psychic energy into hiding it from ourselves as well as others, from a young age.
As Brene Brown says, our deepest need is for connection and belonging– and yet shame tells us we are not worthy or good enough for love, belonging or connection. Therefore shame is pain and shame is the fear of disconnection. Ironically it also stops us from connecting authentically. I’ll reiterate that – because deep down we feel that we are not worthy of love, because we believe the essence of who we are is flawed, we then try and hide our unloveability – there are a myriad of defences, but they are always about some way to control our environment or ourselves and also about numbing ourselves to pain. We can only be partially successful in the numbing and control because the need to be loved and connected keeps breaking out in some way or other. We believe that if people really see us as we are, through the shame lens, they will reject us. Therefore we often create a self-fulfilling prophecy, the ultimate double-bind. We yearn to have closeness, then the terror of being seen, gets us to sabotage and hide or push away. The protection will always be some version of fight, flight or freeze. It is when we pick a fight with our partner about not cleaning the bathroom, when we actually want to be held and appreciated for how hard we’ve worked all week. It is when we turn away from our child’s vulnerability because our own was trodden on and shamed. It is when we drink ourselves into oblivion after closing on a fantastic business deal; because we can’t tell anyone how terrifying it was that we might fail…..
Debra Leuptnitz a psychoanalyst from the USA, writes about Arthur Schopenhauer’s well known fable about porcupines, as an analogy for the double bind that can exist in human connection. In the middle of winter Porcupines mill around and as they get cold, they move closer and closer together for warmth, but just as they get close enough to snuggle, they start to poke each other with their quills. In order to stop the pain, they spread out and distance and pretty soon start to shiver, which sends them back in search of each other!! And so the cycle goes on….
Rober G Lee, a Gestalt therapist, talks about shame turning needs into yearnings. The thing with yearnings is that they cannot fully be expressed as needs, because to do so brings up Shame, which is unbearable, so we avoid the need. I remember Robert, running a workshop in Brisbane, where he asked people to brainstorm how a shame attack feels. The white board was full of highly emotional descriptions – wanting to disappear, disgust, self-hatred, loathing, unlovable – you get the picture. Therefore, what should be beautiful has been conditioned to be associated with something hideous. This is really a tragedy if allowed to go unchecked. It is why a man or woman who wants to curl in their partner’s lap and sob out the pain of abandonment or rejection, will scream with rage or pick constantly at faults or become driven or get drunk or escape into pornography. The needs are not allowed and have to be numbed. However, if we start to understand shame we can see that what we might agree are unhelpful or poor behaviours are actually clues to what we yearn for. Susan Johnson in her book “Hold me tight” describes these clues as protests. Protests that we are alone, scared, vulnerable and hurt and yearning to be loved and understood and can’t express it, because we see it as weak and shameful. There is an Australian movie called the Men’s Group (2008). It was probably never destined to be a best seller – far too confronting – but for me it is a brilliant expose of the damage Australian culture can do with notions of traditional masculinity. The shame of these men and the destructive protections they develop is literally painful to watch.
Brene Brown also has some useful things to say about how men and women are each shamed for not fitting a very narrow description of “goodness” as men and women. Women are meant to be nice, modest, thin, sexy, nurturing – as she says – “stay as small, sweet and quiet as possible”. Men on the other hand are expected to be strong, in control, risk - taking, winners who provide financially and are always practical. Whilst we might agree that these are ridiculous and narrow stereotypes, we have all been shaped by them. And there is so much shaming that happens that we are not aware of. The double bind!! Marilyn Frye describes a double bind as “ a situation in which options are very limited and all of them expose us to penalty, censure or deprivation.” In other words, you can’t win!! All paths will lead to shame. Look out for these in our relationships. Many women feel they have to be assertive and strong to cut it with men (and other women) in the workplace, but somehow keep everyone feeling good, be nurturing, caring, kind and a sex goddess into the bargain. Many men feel they can’t win when they are expected to be vulnerable, talk about their feelings, be emotionally connected, but also be the rock, be the strong one, the provider who keeps everyone afloat. We all need to examine the mixed messages we might be giving ourselves and each other, our sons and our daughters, about how we want them to be. Often these can be subtle or disguised as humour.
Recently my partner and I took our six year old son camping in a rural Australian environment. He had blue nail polish on that his big sister had put on him the day before. There was a crowd sitting around and one of the women, whom I know to be a lovely, warm, compassionate person, said to him “What? Your sister’s trying to turn you into a girl!!” There was no malice, just thoughtlessness, acting out from her own value system. To support him in not being shamed, I coached him to say
“ No!! All the boys in Brisbane wear blue nail polish!!” He delivered it in a big voice and everyone roared laughing, but these messages are so powerful, day after day, year after year.
The truth is we all need the same thing – to experience support, acceptance, love, respect, kindness, trust and affection. To know that we can expose our imperfections and get support to build something better. The worst behaviours come from hiding what we are ashamed of. How do we love each other, every day, in words, gestures, actions, thoughts and intentions? Love is the best antidote to shame once it’s out in the open, but the only way to get rid of shame is to take the first step and speak of it. As Brene says,”the less we talk about shame, the more control it has over our lives.” Ask yourselves – what are you ashamed of in yourself? How do you numb yourself so you don’t feel shame or fear?
