the shame of it

[Hopalong]

I want to open a thread about shame.
A friend refers to it as a "shame system". (Referring to a family member who is hitting bottom with alcoholism -- she feels that it's shame, deeper than denial, that is killing him.) I resist the "system" description because though it's probably accurate, I don't believe the answer lies in a cerebral analysis.

I've been thinking of how I feel shame over evil done in the name of my country. War, capital punishment, environmental degradation.
I feel shame for those who oppress, even when they oppress me.
I feel shame over racism -- the ghastly statistics about wealth, income, and imprisonment inequities.
I feel shame over sexism -- how our culture has gone retrograde and is more exploitative than ever.

Personally, I am interested in observing what shame is when I feel a wave or spurt of it. I think it's going on in me more than I know.
I think it's below my radar, a lot. I believe sometimes when I'm afraid, it's because I'm ashamed of admitting loneliness or failure.
I don't "think" shame, I feel it. Like a wave of something toxic.

I often see shame as an "enemy emotion", in a way. It feels like an attack on the self, from the self. It frightens me. I think that's key.
But the term "shameless" works for me...when applied to politicians or the brutal, I nod--it's a satisfying word. I feel that same judgment.

So, if judging others as "shameless" now and then works for me, I wonder why I avoid accepting my own shame.

I have mentioned here before an illuminating comment I heard once on TV--will trot it out again.
Guilt is a necessary and appropriate emotion that signals: I have made a mistake, and now I must make what amends I can.
Shame -- (wasn't really defined, on its own, by the speaker)
Toxic shame -- I am the mistake.

I love the compassion implicit in the "toxic shame" definition. But I might alter the "guilt" definition she gave. I would say instead of "made a mistake":
Guilt -- a necessary and appropriate emotion that signals: I have done harm. Now I must do all I can to repair the harm. ("Mistake" sounds like "an accident" and relieves me of the responsibility to own my own darkness, the wrong and harmful impulses I can have as a human being.)
Shame -- well, this is helpful: http://www.google.com/#hl=en&q=shame&tbs=dfn:1&tbo=u&sa=X&ei=m718TrWpKofw0gHDnZn6Dw&sqi=2&ved=0CCIQkQ4&bav=on.2,or.r_gc.r_pw.&fp=c7a894f853d8d86&biw=1668&bih=895

Hmm. Guilt http://www.google.com/#hl=en&q=guilt&tbs=dfn:1&tbo=u&sa=X&ei=Lb58Tp63EoTz0gGnqsgR&sqi=2&ved=0CCMQkQ4&bav=on.2,or.r_gc.r_pw.&fp=c7a894f853d8d86&biw=1668&bih=895 seems to be less nuanced, more legalistic. I think maybe as a culture we've just ditched 'shame' for 'guilt' as more common parlance.

But the material on shame seems more important to me. For me.
For me, it's about where I am in my life. Feeling shame rises up, and I hide from it. At the same time, shame helps paralyse me and makes it harder for me to take the actions that would result in creating situations I feel less ashamed of. It's STOOPID. A vicious little cycle.

That's it...anybody have thoughts on shame? What it's about in you?
What does it mean for you?

xo
Hops

[Guest]

Interesting Hops. I agree about 'feeling' shame. Can't remember the last time I felt it strongly. Is it like having a long face to face conversation when to your horror, you realise you have huge lump of nose-debris attached to the end of yours? (that sounds like a joke, but it's serious).

how I feel shame over evil done in the name of my country. War, capital punishment, environmental degradation.

Well, I don't call any country my country. I don't feel responsible for what the govt of this country, where I was born and live, does. I don't identify that strongly (and am glad of that). I'm also not powerful enough to influence what it does that much - okay I could choose to do stuff but i don't. Thinks: do I feel shame because I'm not an activist or cause-promoter of some sort? No, i think about that occasionally and decide I don't. I really don't feel a part of ...stuff.

The evil done by your country, or 'my' country, or ANY country (I'm building up now!) doesn't make me feel shame. Shame for what? Being human?

If i think enough about evil done, i get very very angry and then i get sad and then i get over myself. One small speck of a human doesn't add up to much - thankfully. Unfortunately, the small specks of humans who do add up to millions of deaths etc etc are so damn shame-driven (i suppose) that harming others is part of how they get over themselves, for an hour or two, i guess.

When the govt where I live does really stupid stuff I want to go in there and say: who advised you to do this? Why? Where was the advice? What the hell are you playing at? and so on. When Obama said something recently about not caring what Standard and Poor's rates the US as because "we'll always be a triple A country" I did actually laugh in astonishment. Hilarious. Who wrote that? How could he read it and agree to say it? I don't know. What utter bullshit, really. See? Anger.

[Hopalong]

Wow, FW.
I envy you not feeling personal shame often.

(Stipulated--the politics stuff, the offloading of shame that must be behind so much blindness and cruelty. I know that's not resolvable on my scale, either.)

I am most interested in personal shame, what triggers it, how it feels to others, how they recognize that feeling as opposed to anxiety or fatigue or whatever...

I just think there is or might be some epiphany in it. (For me). Thinking about shame in one's own life.
When it's recognized. Whether it's an "enemy emotion" -- to others too?

thanks for writing,
Hops

[Guest]

Hops, I don't know if I feel personal shame or not. I don't know if what you call shame is what i might call something else. I just don't know. I do know that i have felt hot horrible shame sometimes, the kind of feeling that is hard to bear - you have to shut it out of your mind and then approach it later, examine it, poke it over, see what responsibility might apply to you now, or not. Understand it, move on. Change, even. Admit any wrongdoing, understand it, put it where it belongs. Heck i suppose my shame is in the past and not the present then. Ha, now I'm wondering if I'm defective for not having shame???? Oh well.

I tried your links and both times got just the google home page, possibly because I'm out of your jurisdiction?

i wonder if feeling shame is linked to being too responsible for things outside of you, or perhaps like some sorts of shyness/social paranoia (everyone is looking at me), it is the flipside of grandiosity? Noone is looking, and mostly noone cares enough to be noticing, so what's the shame about - because we're paranoid or because we're 'special'?

It seems to me that shame may be very much linked to 'ego' or 'self' and the attachment to. But I know nothing.

edit: so shame, maybe, is something to do with

taking your self too seriously
thinking that what you do, or, what you are, is somehow important.

I imagine that shame doesn't like humour very much.

oh Hops and ENVY! I could write on that but I'm not much good at writing right now. You're much better.

[Guest]

"we'll always be a triple A country"

I thought about this some more. Why did I laugh, with surprise?

I still harbour optimism.
I'm surprised that the US is this much on the defensive. Learn Mandarin? That's not the way, or any way.

That phrase says it all. Talk about 'will the last person please turn off the lights'; and I don't mean the US.

Ha! The phrase SHAME ON YOU could be used a hell of  alot more than it is these days. It needs reviving. Any volunteers?

[Hopalong]

Ah-hah.
I think there's something true in that, FW, what you said about it being "special" so feel so much shame. It really could be grandiosity--which is........tada and oh horrors..........an Nspot. In my view.

Ugh. Now I'm feeling ashamed for feeling shame.

Just kidding. I'm not really. But the ego connection is definitely something for me to think about.

Sorry about the links--but if you just Google "shame definition" -- the Wiki page was the first one. Likewsie for "guilt definition."

tx,
Hops

[sKePTiKal]

I'm not not sure there ISN'T something valuable in examining feeling shame, say for the actions of another person or one's country. That's waaaay too much responsibility (and punishment) for one person, IMO. But we'll save that for later.

Hops: the way shame works for me is that yes, I'm singled out as someone "special" all right. But it's more as the worstest, awfulest, most despicable excuse for a human being with no redeeming value whatsoever. Someone who must hide in my shame... and it IS a punishment - for "who one is" (as if, you'll never change unless we beat this out of you). And yet, one is who one is....

... SO. In the Wiki definition, that talks about shame being an attack on the self, which then causes the self to "split" - into two selves... it's like having an "evil twin". Some of our "urges" get labelled shameful and attributed to the evil twin which is, to the best of one's ability hidden and dis-owned as "self"... and then we try to pro-actively support the other attributes in the "good self"... except it doesn't have much passion, energy, or free will - it's always trying to fit someone else's requirements or definition of "who we are".  This is what river talks about, when she refers to the "Self in Exile". Shame is the weapon used that causes this to happen.

But, while it is definitely connected to ego... ego in itself is not a bad thing. (Not having one at all is very bad! - that's like not having any boundaries; what buddhism refers to as "ego", is slightly different, I think). Nspots, of the variety I think you're talking about here... are healthy ones, Hops.

[teartracks]

Much like a sound bite, but I'll throw it into the mix.

"Guilt says I've done something wrong; shame says there is something wrong with me.

Guilt says I've made a mistake; shame says I am a mistake.

Guilt says what did was not good; shame says I am no good."


And what the heck, I like this essay, so I'll throw it in too.

“ … our models can tyrannize us by setting up unrealistic standards of
heroism, therefore condemning us to frustrated shame”
dick keyes

http://www.labri.org/england/resources/08042008/DK04_Shame-and-Guilt.pdf

tt

[Guest]

Hops

what you said about it being "special" so feel so much shame. It really could be grandiosity--which is........tada and oh horrors..........an Nspot.

Not necessarily; perhaps like depressed people sometimes being so self-absorbed that you want to shout at them! Too much inwards, not enough outwards.

[BonesMS]

One thing that may be a constant struggle....understanding the difference between healthy shame and toxic shame.

[sKePTiKal]

Hops - what you wrote as a definition of guilt had a remedy included in it; a way to resolve the uncomfortable feeling. What is the remedy for healthy shame? toxic shame?

That's not a rhetorical question. I don't have an answer to suggest yet.

[Hopalong]

I'm not sure of a remedy either...
I am interested in knowing whether anyone else thinks shame may be "below the radar" and be sometimes confused with other feelings, like anxiety or anger or fatigue...

I think because I see it as an "enemy emotion" I'm avoiding recognizing it.

Hops

[Guest]

Hops
I was out clearing leaves thinking about your questions, and trying to peg that shame moment, what it feels like. This is what I'd call healthy shame, definitely. It does you some sort of good. It doesn't need a remedy, so long as you accept it?

And I thought, I can remember an exact moment when I suddenly realised after some interactions: "Oh God, I'm so up myself." That's how I can describe it (the particular moment I had, and there are different feelings, such as shock/horror), and the feeling is quite distinct. It says:

I have let myself down.

Or: what I thought I was doing there, what I was being, the image I had of myself there - was wrong. I was not living up to the standards I set myself; or, I was believing my own PR, if that makes sense.

I guess it's like an internal guilt and self-recrimination all at once. I have done myself wrong.

It's a difficult one to peg though because sometimes it seems to be eaten up inside you as soon as it happens. It's also painful because you get to blame yourself and forgive yourself, all on your own, as it were.

Is that anywhere close to what you're thinking about? Or am I up myself again? (quite possible)

[Hopalong]

That is extremely helpful, FW--thank you!

I am really helped by this notion: I have let myself down.

Thank you. That really does bring this feeling into better focus.
And the lightning speed of it, too.

It's like--one feels it, then has to forgive oneself in order not to be overcome by it...all at once.

I think humor helps (you have abundant) -- and compassion.

Sometimes I think if I could better identify and understand the actual momentary process that's going on when shame is triggered, then I wouldn't have to work so hard, with so many tapioca aphorisms and affirmations, to have compassion for myself generally.

Appreciate this a lot.

xo
Hops

[Hopalong]

and your thoughts too, Bones, TT, PR--

I am still absorbing.

xo
Hops