How to Deal with Shame and Reduce Anxiety

Read on to learn how to deal with shame and reduce anxiety.

What is Shame?

Author, researcher, and vulnerability guru, Brene Brown has done amazing work highlighting the importance of releasing shame.

I’m currently reading her book, Daring Greatly, where she explains the pitfalls of shame and how it negatively impacts our lives. She defines shame as, “…the intensely painful feeling or experience of believing that we are flawed and therefore unworthy of love and belonging…”

Shame comes from believing you’re inadequate and not good enough. It is the feeling of doubting your worthiness.

I’ve always known that I had deep feelings of insecurity, inferiority, and low-self esteem, but I never explored the deeper causes. After reading Dr. Neff’s and Brene Brown’s books, I finally realized what I was feeling was shame.

Shame comes from comparing ourselves to others and believing we don’t measure up.

Sometimes when I experience a ‘shame attack’ it feels like I can’t breathe. Like I got punched in the stomach. I feel ashamed of myself and just want to hide away. In the moment, I believe I’m flawed and unworthy, and that I deserve to feel bad about myself.

Shame vs. Guilt

Although sometimes they feel similar, guilt and shame are different. According to Brown, guilt is when you feel bad about something you did, and shame is when you feel bad about who you are as a person.

Guilt can be productive because it helps us to learn from our mistakes and to be honest with ourselves about our actions. But shame, Brown argues, does not have any productive benefits.

We may believe that shame motivates us to be better, however, it only stunts our growth and keeps us dwelling in negativity.

Roots of Shame

Another realization I had was I picked up the habit of shame early in my childhood.

Some of my most emotionally painful memories are from when I was about two years old. I remember my dad yelling and cursing at me, sometimes even publicly shaming me, for making innocent mistakes that any two-year old would have done.

I remember feeling extremely ashamed and like I was a bad person. My dad was very hot tempered and would lay these heavy shame trips on me. I had to constantly walk on eggshells to avoid his ridicule and anger.

I stopped trusting myself to act naturally. I received the message that I should always filter myself to please others because I was flawed and a bad person.

I learned to internalize the critical voice of my father into my own shame-inducing self-talk. Whenever I make mistakes or act ‘imperfectly,’ I berate myself with a hoard of negative judgements, making me feel ashamed.

My dad eventually improved upon his temper, but those early years left deep emotional wounds within myself that I’m still working on healing.

Read Related: 5 Tips for Coping with Social Anxiety

Shame is caused by Negative Core Beliefs

From Dr. Neff’s book, The Mindful Self-Compassion Workbook, I learned that my feelings of shame were caused by my negative core beliefs about myself.

Beliefs are just thoughts that we think frequently and habitually. Often, we’re not even conscious of them.

I was not even aware that I had these limiting beliefs still lingering within me. I thought I had released most of them through years of my personal-growth work.

Dr. Neff writes, “When we reveal our negative core beliefs, at least to ourselves, they begin to lose their power over us.”

Through doing the journaling exercises offered in her book, I became aware of the limiting beliefs and negative self-talk that would come up whenever I experienced feelings of shame.  

One negative belief I’ve had since childhood is that there’s something wrong with me – that I’m inherently flawed and weirdly abnormal. Having social anxiety only further validated this belief because it seemed like proof there was something very wrong with me.

Influenced by Shame

I realized the role that shame plays in my social anxiety. It makes me feel embarrassed about who I am, and my thoughts and feelings. Feeling this way makes it hard for me to open up to others.

Having ‘shame attacks’ is such an emotionally painful experience that I unconsciously try to avoid any situation that might trigger these feelings.

For example, I fear saying something stupid in a social setting, others negatively judging me for it, and then I anticipate that I’d feel intense shame because of this. To avoid these feelings of shame, I avoid saying anything I think would be judged negatively by others.

Filtering myself in this way makes me feel trapped because I’m not able to fully express my authentic self.

When we feel ashamed about certain parts of ourselves – we’re not loving ourselves fully.

Shame makes us hide parts of ourselves from others. When we judge ourselves harshly for our imperfections, we assume others will judge us in the same way.

Read Related: Why I Finally Chose to Become an Optimist

Next Steps

So, all this talk about shame might seem kind of depressing – but there is a silver lining.

Personally, I’m very excited to finally have a deeper understanding of the negative feelings I’ve been experiencing for so long.

I’m happy to report that I’ve been working on releasing my feelings of shame and it’s been drastically reducing my anxiety. I feel so much lighter, happier, and more confident. It feels like a weight is being lifted off my shoulders, and I can be myself more naturally.

It’s also uplifting to know that I’m not alone – Dr. Neff and Brene Brown, and many other researchers have uncovered that shame is prevalent among a vast majority of the population.

Everyone experiences shame from time to time, and healing doesn’t mean that you’ll never feel it again. Healing requires developing what Brene Brown calls ‘shame-resilience.’ This means recovering more quickly when you have a ‘shame attack’ and choosing self-loving thoughts instead. The more we learn how to deal with shame the easier it is to move away from anxiety and other negative thoughts.

The Power of Self-Compassion

Five years ago, hearing the term ‘self-compassion’ would have made me want to vomit.

But now I’ve found self-compassion to be so simple, yet extremely effective in combating shame and anxiety. I also learned about it in Dr. Neff’s Mindful Self-Compassion Workbook which was recommended to me by my therapist.

Self-compassion means being kind to yourself, and talking to yourself in a supportive, loving way, like you would to a close friend.

Self-compassion is a great tool to replace negative thoughts and calm yourself down when feeling shame or anxiety.

To learn more about self-compassion click here.

Healing Shame

Overall, I’ve learned that shame makes me feel inferior, doubt my worth, and only fuels my anxiety. There are so many benefits of releasing shame such as increased confidence, vulnerability, and reduced anxiety.

By releasing shame, we give ourselves permission to be our authentic selves and live full, inspired lives. We let go of negative beliefs that tell us we’re unworthy, not good enough, and inadequate. We give up comparing ourselves to others and instead value ourselves just the way we are now.

It does not happen all at once but takes practice and persistence. Self-compassion is a key tool to deal with shame and reduce anxiety. Replace shame by changing your inner self talk to one of self-kindness and acceptance.

Connection & Empathy – the Antidote to Shame

The last thing I’ve learned about shame is that it is fueled by silence and isolation. Hiding and denial of our shame and negative beliefs only make them worse. 

The first step is awareness and being honest with yourself. Next, have the courage to reach out to others and connect. Share your story, struggles, and difficult thoughts/feelings with those who you trust. This will remind you that you’re not alone. Feeling empathy and connection with others heals shame.

I learned this, again, from the amazing Brene Brown.

She writes, “Shame resilience is about moving from shame to empathy – the real antidote to shame. If we can share our story with someone who responds with empathy and understanding, shame can’t survive. Self-compassion is also critically important, but because shame is a social concept – it happens between people- it also heals best between people.” (Daring Greatly)

You don’t have to deal with your shame and anxiety alone. Reach out to close friends or family. You’ll be surprised to find that many people also experience these same feelings.

Resisting Shame Culture

We live in a very shame-centric culture where we’re constantly being compared with and judged by others.

Our society encourages us to feel ashamed when we don’t fit in or are different in any way. But instead of waiting around for society to change – we can choose to not give into this messaging.

When we choose to approve of ourselves, the approval of others becomes less important, and less hurtful when we don’t receive it.

Even when you’re surrounded by toxic people, you don’t have to give in to being affected by what they say or think about you. Instead, you can choose to release your negative beliefs and feelings of shame and replace it with self-love and self-compassion.

This is a process and takes practice. So be gentle with yourself and find a supportive network.

So let’s practice letting go of shame together, and share what we learn along the way :).

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