By Elayne Savage, PhD
Image by John Hain from Pixabay
Seems these days the most frequent challenge my psychotherapy and workplace consulting clients describe is “Feeling Shame.”
I’m hearing from colleagues, friends and clients about how recent political behaviors and attitudes are bringing up painful family and school memories of criticism, insults, accusations, taunts, lashing out, easing, blaming, baiting or manipulating.
“Hearing about the discord in Congress, I’m realizing how chaotic and divisive my family life was. Mother would pit my sister and me against each other — driving a wedge between us and keeping us from being a united front against her. Each of us would compete with each other, trying to win her favor.”
And another reaction:
“My mother would complain about one child to the other turning one against the other. I think her need was to get one of us to side with her and bolster her narcissism. She seemed to have a need to instill guilt in us.
Over the years we learned to protect ourselves: One of us stopped speaking to her, and the other went to therapy to drop guilt from our repertoire.”
And a frequent story: “I was always sent away from the dinner table and told to go to my room. I told myself I wasn’t good enough to eat with my family.”
Turns out the most troubling part is how feelings of shame seem to take over from memories of perceived slights, finger-pointing, being made ‘bad’ or ‘wrong,’ criticism and blame.
When we feel diminished by criticism or blame, the tendency of many of us is to try to protect ourselves by puffing ourselves up and retaliating.
Before we know it, the 'Attack-Defend’ dynamic is springing into action. Somebody feels attacked, takes something personally and often sees the other person as ‘the enemy.”
The person who feels attacked and vulnerable often defends against the attack by attacking back – sometimes desperately and ferociously:
Shaming
Lashing out
Accusing
Discrediting
Discounting
Slighting
Criticizing
Dismissing
Diminishing
Faulting
Undermining
Smearing
Scorning
You may recognize that each of these is a form of rejection.
And the result is often self-rejection. I see experiencing self-rejection the same as feeling shame.
I Know All About Thin Skin
I’ve lived in it much of my life.
When I was little, if someone looked at me funny I’d cry. I took about everything personally.
If I thought someone was upset with me I’d replay the last few days in my head. I’d pull out my ‘checklist’ of possible “offenses” and go over them in my mind, one at a time. And then once again.
When we were little we were probably hurt by words, looks, or tones of voice – whether they were intended or not. And we carry these cringe-worthy sensitive feelings into our adult years.
I still cringe at the memory of my math teacher holding up my paper filled with red marks and saying to the whole class; "Elayne can do better than this!"
We each have our unique responses and long-term repercussions. We each live with whatever fearful and self-rejecting messages the traumatic experience leads us to take in about ourselves, about the safety of our world and whether we can trust the people in it.
This is especially true if, in our early years, there were inappropriate personal boundary crossings which affected our feelings of safety and trust. Each new situation might be somewhat different, however, our visceral response is very recognizable.
We can expect the original discomfort and fear to re-surface if we find ourselves in another unsafe moment and as we hear other’s stories. For some of us this can be similar to a PTSD-like experience.
The Age-old Chinese Concept of Managing Face
I'm been intrigued with the age-old Chinese concept of 'Managing Face' and I first blogged about it many years ago.
Because respect is such a huge part of my focus with workshop participants, therapy and workplace clients I can't help but notice how the concept of respect and self-respect are woven throughout these definitions:
So let’s explore the Chinese wisdom of ‘Saving Face’ and ‘Losing Face’
Managing Face
The concept of Face ('mian zi') includes personal esteem, your reputation and your honor. In other words, Respect.
Managing Face encompasses: Losing Face, Lending Face, Gaining Face, and Saving Face.
Losing Face
Losing Face is a translation of the Chinese phrase 'tiu lien' which means being unable to show one's face in public: losing your reputation and the respect of others, feeling humiliated losing self-respect.
This would include all the "diss" words I so often write about including: disrespected, dismissed, discounted, displaced, disdained, disregarded, dishonored, disgraced, disenfranchised.
These feelings of course lead to self-rejection and losing face.
Lending Face
Lending Face is making someone look good. One way of doing this is through compliments.
Gaining Face
Gaining Face means gaining prestige through words or deeds. Making a name for yourself.
Saving Face
Saving Face ('yao mianzi') means to be concerned about appearances. Keeping your pride, dignity, reputation and integrity intact. Maintaining acceptance, self-acceptance, self-respect and the respect of others.
The skill of creatively negotiating means allowing someone to gracefully restate an opinion, change their mind or make concessions. Sometimes it only takes a slight change in wording or reframing an idea.
The result is you leave the other person a 'way out.'
Some folks will go to great lengths to 'Save Face.' They may continue a conflict in order not to look 'bad.' They might even blame the other person to deflect the embarrassment away from themselves. They might lie to cover up a mistake or blunder.
So how do we leave ourselves a ‘way out?’
The opposite of self=rejection is of course self-acceptance. Sometimes a good re-framing does the trick!
It’s Embarrassment – Not Shame
It helps to remind myself that most times “It’s really embarrassment – not shame.”
I try thinking of a situation as embarrassing rather than shameful or humiliating. Often a feeling of embarrassment is all that’s warranted. The situation doesn’t call for any more than that.
I try repeating to myself, “I’m only feeling embarrassed.”
At a point in my life I realized how much my over-sensitivity was causing problems at home and at work. I knew I needed to make some changes in how I dealt with the people in my world:
- I decided I wanted to stop these knee-jerk responses when my feelings got hurt.
- I wanted to not revert to childish behavior when I got upset.- I wanted to have my embarrassments just be embarrassments instead of turning into shame.
- I wanted to stop acting like a petulant child, lashing out when I felt unsupported or betrayed.
- I wanted to acknowledge my part in something and not be so quick to blame others.
- I wanted to stop brooding/fixating/dwelling/stewing/ruminating/agonizing about so many perceived slights. I’d be obsessing about what someone did or said –– or what they neglected to do or say. And go automatically into my painful mental checklist mode.
This incessant dwelling and fuming sapped my energy and my productivity and left me depleted.
- I especially wanted to better understand my thin-skinned challenges and begin to choose to do things differently.
Recognizing and Welcoming Corrective Emotional Experiences Into Our Lives
A corrective emotional experience is the opportunity to have a positive emotional experience in the present that balances out negative ones from our past.
I find Franz Alexander's concept of a Corrective Emotional Experience intriguing. We have opportunities to have positive emotional experiences in the present that balance out negative ones from our past.
Consider the possibilities. Re-balancing. Re-experiencing. Re-considering. And re-establishing yourself as an important person on this planet.
What an opportunity to re-claim that part of your soul that may have been damaged long ago by people or circumstances. When a teacher or family member or peer says or does something hurtful it's hard not to take it to heart.
These experiences linger and get replayed in our personal and professional relationships.
All too often we come to expect people in our present to treat us the way we experienced being treated in the past. This expectation is so great in fact, many of us filter out positive and validating responses from people.
We zero in on the negative. It becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy.
Then, along comes a chance to have a Corrective Emotional experience –– an event providing the opportunity to have a different experience.
The trick is to recognize it.
Something changes for us.
In the way we see ourselves.
In the responses we expect from people around us.
In the quality of our connection to others.
Yes, something changes.
For example, past experiences may have left you feeling rejected - hurt, dismissed, disrespected. A similar experience in the present often triggers an old response.
Yet, with being able to recognize the possibility that something could be different this time, you find yourself less entangled. Less prone to get triggered so quickly. More able to act like a grownup.
You discover you are not so upset by the circumstances. You can maintain enough distance from it to observe and notice, rather than be reactive. You can create enough space to take in some new experience of yourself.
You may feel heard, listened to and understood. You may feel accepted, validated, appreciated and well regarded.
As these positive experiences have a chance to grow, there is much less space available for feelings of self-rejection and shame.
©Elayne Savage, PhD