At a virtual meditation retreat I attended earlier this year, I had a moment of profound insight, or what the Buddhists call prajña. I sat alone in a rented room, trying to focus on my breathing. I found myself thinking about some minor family conflict and felt the tightening in my chest. I tried to get curious. It felt like a small, spindly ball of ice, as if my heart itself had been frozen over. Suddenly a word popped into my mind: Shame. This was the feeling of shame.
Here is the series of thoughts that followed:
Wow, that’s cool. I can identify this feeling. Huh, I should write an essay about this. Yeah—
An essay? God, you always need to show how smart you are, to turn every wound into wisdom, don’t you? You’re always trying to get control! Can’t you just sit here and feel this instead of trying to escape with thoughts of your own superiority? What’s wrong with you?
Oh, my god, look at that critical mind! Why do you always need to beat up on yourself? You’re such a perfectionist! You’re so afraid to just be human! This is why people don’t like you, ya know.
All along the pain was just getting tighter and tighter and taking up more and more space in my body, until finally, I reached this place where I just couldn’t criticize myself anymore. It’s like I hit a void of empty space, and I just saw.
I saw how I was being critical for being critical. I was shaming myself for shaming myself. I felt a sad compassion for all of it. That was maybe the first time in my life I was able to accept instead of banish my own internal shaming voice, and see that it too was just a part of being me, and that was ok.
I don’t think I’m alone in this tendency to feel bad for feeling bad. It’s what Buddhists sometimes call the “second arrow.” Feeling anxiety, sadness, anger, shame, etc, they say, is like being struck with an arrow. It hurts. But when we judge ourselves for feeling that way, it’s like we are striking ourselves with a second arrow. And, as you can see, I managed a to throw a third, (and sometimes a fourth and a fifth). We feel ashamed for having shame, thinking, I shouldn't feel this way. The shame itself must be evidence that I am bad/broken/defective.
Revisiting Brené Brown's work, I’ve been comforted by her finding that everyone has shame, with the only exception being people incapable of empathy. Our ability to connect and to care about how other people are thinking and feeling leaves us vulnerable to what they think and feel about us. We're social animals; it comes with the territory.
We live in a culture that’s leveraged and exploited our human capacity for empathy and shame in order to control us. It’s taught us to shame ourselves and each other about everything from the shape of our bodies, to the color of our skin, to our ability to throw a ball, to where our kids sleep. It’s seeped into families, schools, organizations, and businesses, convincing us that we are unworthy and that we should sit down, be quiet, and do what we’re told.
It's really hard to remember that our experience of shame is not a personal failure and it's not evidence of our brokenness. It just means that we have the capacity to care. And if we can tap into that caring, there's real tenderness, and grief, and beauty.
Shame is not inherently bad, it’s just not very effective for living well. It fosters fight, flight, and freeze behavior; we lash out, run away, and shut down. But when we can center the caring behind the shame, we build the confidence and courage to speak out, to ask for what we need, and to work for the change we want to see in the world.
How have you seen the second arrow of shame show up in your life? What are your strategies for centering the caring that lives in the shame?
Come post your thoughts in my free online community Mother Den.
Danielle LaSusa Ph.D. is a Philosophical Coach, helping new moms grapple with what it means to make a person. She is the creator of The Meaning of Motherhood course, and co-creator and co-host of Think Hard podcast, which brings fun, accessible, philosophical thinking to the real world. To join her mailing list, subscribe here.
© Copyright Danielle LaSusa PhD, LCC, 2021. All rights reserved.
