SHAME - Part 4

Emotions! Yip, you either love them or you hate them!

Not all emotions are equal, and each emotion has various levels of intensity.

Let’s take the word LOVE.

Love can come in many different forms, with differing levels of intensity.

You can simply LOVE something, as in, you enjoy it.

You can have a LOVE FOR something, as in a love for gardening.

You can be IN LOVE with someone.

And you can really, REALLY LOVE someone with all your heart, that you feel you would die without them!

There is a difference in intensity in each of those above-mentioned sentences regarding love.

Now let’s take the word SHAME.

Again, there are different depths of shame.

You can feel ASHAMED OF someone in your life.

You can BE ASHAMED of something you have done or said.

You can FEEL SHAME when you have done something you know you shouldn’t have done.

And then the worst form of shame in my opinion is when somebody SHAMES YOU! When you are shamed by someone.

And once again you can see that there are different extremes of this negative emotion.

When someone has done something wrong, and they KNOW they have done wrong and they feel ashamed, there is a certain amount of self-loathing.

You feel terrible.

You don’t know what to do.

You don’t know how to explain yourself.

You feel rotten to the core.

And I have always believed that you don’t kick a horse when it is down.

So, when somebody else comes along and thrusts more shame on you, and actually SHAMES you, it’s the worst feeling in this world! And in particular when it is somebody that IS or WAS very close to you.

It is the scariest and deepest form of shame.

The reason this form of shame is the worst, is because when you are ashamed of something YOU have done, it is probably just YOU dealing with that shame, and YOU ALONE.

Perhaps nobody even knows the shame that you carry.

Often people don’t even talk about the things that they are ashamed of.

But to be shamed by somebody else, often brings with it a public awareness.

The person shaming you is external, and it calls attention to the shame that you are already carrying and once again makes that a double shame.

To BE SHAMED includes public humiliation, disgrace, excommunication, and huge amounts of judgement.

To BE SHAMED is the worst form of shame. It eats you to your very core.

It is the type of shame that can be so destructive, and can often lead to self-harm, addictions, and even suicide.

It is the most damaging form of shame around.

So next time when someone in your life does something that you think is pretty shitty or disgusting, and you know that person is feeling pretty shit about it to begin with, let me just tell you, the worst thing that you can do, is to tell them that you are ashamed of them, and that they should feel ashamed of themselves, and then to make that shame public!

In the powerful words of Brene Brown:

“If you put shame in a Petri dish, it needs three things to grow exponentially: secrecy, silence and judgment. If you put the same amount in a Petri dish and douse it with empathy, it can't survive.”

So before you judge someone so harshly, and before you SHAME them, think on these words, and maybe seek to understand, before you judge another.