Shame is the painful feeling of humiliation or distress caused by your conscious awareness that you have done something wrong or foolish and that makes you wrong and foolish. It is comprised of the deepest and innermost memories of disdain we can have for ourselves because it creates a barrier between us and others. Our shameful memories are the ones we go to the greatest lengths to hide from other people lest they discover our dark secrets and permanently turn on us.
The parts of ourselves we disavow
Shame lives in the shadowy recesses of our minds and may only get air time when our defenses are down. Drugs and alcohol provide such fertile ground, allowing the mind to wander to areas that are usually well-guarded. People who are under the influence are frequently brought to emotional states of regret, apologies, rage, or suicidality. Sleep also produces a state of unconscious exploration. When the body is calm, the mind is free to explore topics that are normally repressed. You may find your mind cycles through memories you normally don’t think about. Childhood humiliation, social faux pas, and foolish acts come out to play in the middle of the night.
Repression, denial, sublimation, and humor normally keep shame in the unconscious realm so we can carry on with the activities of daily life. If these memories weren’t so hard to imagine other people accepting, we would probably release them as easily as we do non-shameful memories. It is our belief, our perception, of what these experiences say about us that makes them so shameful.
Shame lurks in the shadows
These experiences are things we find so unacceptable that we are certain others would never accept them either. Therefore, we decide, either consciously and unconsciously, to hide these parts of ourselves to preserve our standing in the community.
If we split off from these experiences we may project them onto others and see our experiences as as they play out in other people. We can then dissociate ourselves from them and preserve our opinions about ourselves. But we can’t hide forever. These projections interfere with our ability to form authentic relationships with other people just as we have an inauthentic with ourselves. It is only when we have the courage to look at these parts of ourselves and befriend them, that we can transform the experiences that caused them and alchemize them into new strength.
