Shame - A Shadow Partner to Overing
Last week, I wrote about how we need to talk about some big emotions–guilt and shame–that come up when we start to shift out of our overing patterns. Many of us feel guilty as we start to establish boundaries and center ourselves in our own lives.
Shame is connected to overing, too. For many people I work with, that shame they feel when setting boundaries and prioritizing themselves bubbles up out of the belief that they don’t deserve that level of care and consideration. I’ve felt this myself!
Guilt and shame often get used interchangeably, but they are different emotions. As we are working our way out of overing, it’s helpful, I think, to understand each of these and their role in perpetuating the behavior we want to change.
Brené Brown succinctly differentiates between guilt and shame this way: guilt is “I did something bad” and shame is “I am bad.”
These are easy definitions to wrap our minds around, and we must also remember the web of guilt and shame can weave is complex. In Atlas of the Heart, Brown notes that shame is the fear of disconnection based in unworthiness and unloveableness. Another way to think about it: shame is an emotion rooted in how I feel about myself, and it makes me unable to separate my worthiness from my actions. On the other hand, guilt comes as a response to harming someone or something else. Guilt recognizes impact and leads to feeling remorse, embarrassment, or the like.
I’m bringing this up because folks tell me often that they feel guilty, and when we dig a little deeper they realize what they are actually feeling is shame. Shame pops up because you believe you are not worthy of _______ (insert: work-life balance, love, money, happiness, joy, a healthy work environment, etc.).
You believe you haven’t earned it.
I hear this when clients say things like, “why should I get to only work 50 hours a week when _______” (comparing your workload to someone else after we’ve hacked their to-do list down from 60+). This one is a classic response from someone who has tied their worth to busyness and productivity. They haven’t internalized the understanding that they are worthy of care and consideration simply by existing. You don’t earn your worth. It’s intrinsic.
We also conflate shame and guilt because shame has a bad reputation. We live in a culture where guilt is more acceptable, maybe even morally superior of an emotion, but shame is dark and hidden. The path out of shame though is shining light on it. In my Awaken Resilience model, ignoring the shame we feel keeps us from regenerating resilience. Instead, when we hold shame near as we would a dear friend who is in pain, we open up and experience greater freedom and wellbeing.
Overing is a response to the shame and unworthiness we feel. Shame kicks us into overachieving, overworking, overcaring sorts of behaviors because we have an old connection between our worthiness coming from what we do rather so that it makes our value dependent upon our production. Based on that pattern, it is easy to connect to how a workplace culture of overworking exploits folks who come in with overing and shame roots.
Next time you find yourself in a shame spin, try this somatic practice:
Shame becomes solidified in the body, and when we experience shame it expresses itself through our body. Most folks slump, curl inward, and the like. According to Peter Levine, PhD, “When a person is in a posture of shame, the shame aspect will continue until you’ve changed the posture.”
Next time you find yourself experiencing guilt or shame like emotions, pause to notice your body posture and felt sensations.
Then see how you can shift them into a confident posture. One of my favorites I learned from Amy Cuddy’s book and research, Presence, where she shows that ‘power posing’ improves brain chemicals and mindset. Her research found that a few minutes standing in an upright standing position can do this - imagine a woman posed with legs slightly spread apart and hands on hips, head high, and back straight.
Try it!