Part 1: Shame is a Bottomless Pit
And the best/worst part is, shame isn't even your own.
Shame is a bottomless pit. It has no end, no bounds.
Rude, right?
I used to cozy up with shame. I wanted to talk it off the ledge, to somehow soothe its insatiable thirst. No, but you are enough! Writing I am enough, I am enough over and over in my journal, saying it aloud to myself in the mirror.
Shame says there’s something fundamentally wrong with who you are, and that wrongness is something to be hidden at all cost. You’re to swallow your shame, so no one else can see it. For if someone were to see your shame? Well, you’d be ousted from the village, your community, or family.
The evolutionary function of shame is exactly this: to withhold the parts of self that could have your thrown out of the village, left to fend for yourself against tigers, bears, and wolves. Shame as a feeling is terrifying. The consequences of shame exposed is death.
Or at least, this is what shame feels like. Similar to anxiety, shame is almost always experienced out of the context of 21st century life. Yes, some may disapprove, but you will likely not be eaten by a bear in the aftermath.
Penny Siopis’ series explore shame
(As a layer of nuance, I want to recognize that for many 2SLGBTQIA+ folks, shame holds a protective function, so they can maintain connection and access to life-saving resources in their community, or family of origin. For some, once shame is moved through and they tell their partner, parents, or friends they’re trans, queer, or non-binary, they do face community expulsion. This does have an impact on access to life-saving resources and care. If you, or anyone you know is struggling with shame, please visit It Gets Better and explore local resources in your community for 2SLGBTQIA+ folks experiencing resource instability.)
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Blame it on my Aquarius sun, but a shame story of mine has been I’m bad because I’m weird.
I’ll never forget the moment when my first therapist called out my use of the word weird in session.
“Weird… that’s a strong word to describe yourself. Who told you you were weird?”
Her curiosity struck me. I didn’t know who told me I was weird.
In that moment, I realized I often felt weird and out of place growing up. In grade school I felt like my skin wasn’t big enough for my body. I was always the second option, the sidekick, the forgotten friend. I thought I acted weird and looked weird. No one saw and understood my heart. I would escape the shame of my separateness by playing Sims, fantasizing about my future, dreaming of marrying a guy like Joey Tribbiani, or Seth Cohen—certified weird guys who would finally get me.
My shame story around this seemingly small word, weird, was thick. It was the bottomless pit, no end in sight, I was never enough.
Maybe your shame story formed around your appearance, your voice, or a beautiful quirk of yours. Shame says “I am bad because…” and we can fill in the blank with a million different reasons, if afforded the time.
Because shame is a never-ending pit, we’re better off building a ladder to climb our way out, rather than continuing our excavation, deepening the hole, with the lost hope of finding our ah-ha moment.
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My guiding theory of shame comes from Accelerated Experiential Dynamic Psychotherapy (AEDP). Shame, along with anxiety and guilt, are emotions we feel as we move beyond our protective strategies, that serve as another layer of defence against our more tender emotional experiences. Sadness, anger, fear, joy, excitement, disgust. Our bodies have learned that to feel these tender emotions is too risky, too much, and so shame, anxiety, and guilt come online to communicate with our protective strategies, hey we need you!
We stay in shame until our protective strategies start working again, or we feel safe enough to feel and experience the underlying core emotion. Shame is akin to purgatory, it’s a holding place until we’re able to enter our cocoon of avoidance, or feel safe enough to process an emotion all the way through.
If we come back to this idea of shame as maintaining connection to our community, we can quickly see how shame is informed by familial, societal, and cultural expectations. In other words, shame is not your own.
Shame as a bottomless pit because someone will always be a conflicting value, opinion, need, or desire. I will always find someone who thinks I’m weird if I keep looking.
Knowing that shame is not your own might be incredibly liberating, or disorienting. Whose shame is it? Understanding who, or where our shame comes from can be helpful, and it can also keep us stuck in the trenches, continuing to dig.
Instead of perpetual excavation, I want to offer a 3-part framework for navigating shame. 1) Experiencing safety in the here-and-now, 2) Owning our shame, and 3) Blooming into a new story outside of the shame we’ve inherited.
In the upcoming weeks we’ll begin to tend to our own shame stories, with a lot less digging, and a heck more love.
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Go Deeper
In preparation for the weeks to come, identify 1-3 of your own shame stories. If shame communicates the belief “I am bad,” why does shame think you’re bad? If we could feel this shame in your body, where does shame live inside?
Alongside shame work, let’s hold on to where you’re blooming. What are 3-8 things you know to be true about you, your essence? Maybe you’re gentle, love quiet time, and being in nature. Maybe you’re soft and also playful, and love to go out and dance just as much as you love to curl up on the couch to sip tea and watch reality TV. Maybe you’re direct and strong willed, and fight for what you believe in. What do you know about you?
Please take care of you as you work through the above prompts. And reach out to a trusted person, or mental-health service provider in your area if you need a layer of support.
