It's a darn shame

Let's chat about shame. Everyone knows how much fun it isn't.

Shame is closely tied to overthinking.

And it affects your relationships because it's adeeply social emotion.

Brene Brown defines shame as

the intensely painful feeling or experience of believing that we are flawed and therefore unworthy of love and belonging—something we’ve experienced, done, or failed to do makes us unworthy of connection.

Gershen Kaufman, the author of Shame: The Power of Caring, says shame is “the breaking of the interpersonal bridge.”

Healthy shame

Shame can be healthy.

It may even be essential for our survival as a species.

Some scientists think the human brain evolved to experience shame because it maintained the closely knit tribes our ancient ancestors relied on for survival.

Tribe members who violated social codes were devalued.

The same way you feel about yourself when you unintentionally hurt someone's feelings, break an agreement, or act thoughtlessly. This is healthy shame.

It reminds you that your actions and words affect others and you can't do and say whatever you want.

Ideally, you reflect on your actions and words and identify if and where you need to make changes. Healthy shame helps you maintain healthy connections.

The other kind of shame

But the kind we need to talk about is the shame you internalize, leading to very harsh opinions of yourself and self-punishing words and deeds.

It makes you want to hide, avoid other people, or become invisible. When I was in a shame spiral, I wouldn't call my friends for days on end.

If you can't hide, you:

• avoid eye contact with other people

• hide your true thoughts or feelings

• feel like a complete outsider

Unhealthy shame poisons your life.

The neuroscience of shame

Shame feels so overwhelming because it involves:

• Self-evaluation

Your prefrontal cortex (PFC) reflects on your actions or words and how other people might perceive them.

• Intense emotions

Your amygdala assigns the emotions of fear and anxiety to your self-reflective thoughts and signals your nervous system to create the matching physical sensations. Your insula processes your internal physical sensations, like the gut-wrench of disgust shame often triggers.

• Awareness of your social connections

Your temporal-parietal junction (TPJ) and anterior cingulate cortex (ACC) infer how people may behave toward you and process the social pain of rejection or criticism.

Your default mode network perpetuates your thoughts and feelings of shame as you ruminate on your past or predict your interactions with other people.

Shame and overthinking

Shame triggers overthinking

Shame is rocket fuel for four of the five flavors of overthinking:

• confirming your inner critic's worst opinions about yourself. I believed for many years that if you got through all the layers I presented to the world, you'd find a steaming pile of dog sh*t at my core. Every error I made confirmed this was true.

• leading to rehashing the past, analyzing what you "did wrong", and rehearsing for the future, envisioning how you'll respond when people behave the way you imagine they will.

• making you spend time in other people's brains, imagining and assuming what they think of you and what they'll do in response

• leading inevitably to "what if"ing as you conjure up catastrophic consequences

Overthinking leads to shame

Your inner critic makes minor errors or missteps seem more significant than they are. You feel shame about something no one else even noticed.

Shame and relationships

Shame takes a heavy toll on relationships. All the overthinking means you're not emotionally or mentally present.

You may lash out at your partner to deflect their attention from something you feel ashamed about. Create other kinds of distractions. Or hide the evidence so they can't find out.

You may even create physical distance from your partner because you feel unlovable or unworthy.

Addressing shame

Tried-and-true strategies exist for dealing with unhealthy shame. (Of course, any appropriate apologies are a good first step.)

Right away...

Turn toward your body and your memorized words

Shame feels terrible -- and we find many ways to avoid feeling it. Becoming defensive and angry or self-medicating are two classic tactics.

But avoiding unwanted feelings typically intensifies them.

Instead, become curious about your physical experience of shame.

Where do you feel it in your body? Focus on the actual physical sensations, while avoiding giving them names or labels.

Breathe into the sensations, imagining your breath gently washing over them, like waves of a warm ocean. Gentle is the key word here.

At the same time, start reciting the words you memorized, slowly and silently as you feel into the sensations of shame. Repeat until your mind and body relax a bit.

Tell someone you trust

Shame feeds on secrecy. The most powerful thing you can do immediately to cut power to shame is to tell someone about it.

It's also the thing you'll least want to do.

Choose someone you know will respond with empathy. If doing it face to face feels too risky, do it by phone or text.

What they say in response matters less than simply sharing it with them.

That said, you can ask for a specific response, like a hug without any words or telling you they understand.

Then...

Practice self-compassion

Compassion flows three ways: from someone else to you, from you to someone else, and from you to yourself.

Self-compassion is a widely recommended approach to shame.

You might resist it, thinking that it's self-indulgence, self-pity, weakness, or a lack of accountability.

Self-compassion is acknowledging mistakes, viewing them with kindness while striving to improve.

Writing a self-compassionate letter is a well-researched, effective strategy.

Based on this research, I created a free five-day workbook for writing self-compassionate letters to guide you through the practice.

Longer term...

Observe your thoughts

Several times a day, stop for a minute or two and notice what you were thinking about. Writing it down gives you an idea about the general content of your thoughts.

This practice helps you create a sliver of separation between you and your thoughts. It also helps you react less, increasing your ability to choose whether and how you want to act on them.