Most people on the planet have experienced shame. Shame is an emotion that can be unpleasant and is often related to feeling embarrassed. if you feel shame it might be because you feel that someone else knows or has seen something about you that you feel sensitive about sharing. Maybe you tripped and fell in the office, maybe you shared information about yourself with someone and then immediately felt like that was a bad idea.
The physical experience of shame shows up in the body as a flushing sensation in the neck, face and upper chest that feels warm or hot. When you experience shame, the positive is that shame helps keep you in check with how you may be affecting other people. Shame can keep us humble and remind that we are human and make mistakes. It can help us learn when we cross boundaries (ours or someone else’s boundaries) and it can help us learn how to repair damage that we may inflict upon others. Shame does not make you messed up, typical shame allows you to hold yourself accountable for your actions and make repairs. However, it is also good to know when maybe you don’t just have garden-variety shame, but that maybe you feel overly shameful.
Carried Shame
Carried shame is shame that we carry that belongs to other people. We are responding to and carrying the shame of someone else’s hurtful actions, words or embarrassment. The worst part of this is that we feel overwhelming shame and it’s not even our own, we did nothing shameful! The key difference in standard shame versus carried shame is that carried shame is overpowering and feels poisonous.
Shame Attacks
Shame attacks are overwhelming feelings of worthlessness or inadequacy. They can happen in children and usually carry into adulthood.
Where Does Carried Shame Come from?
Generally, if your family members shamed each other or if one or both parents were dealing with their own shame, you likely have absorbed their shame. Kids are amazing sponges, whatever is happening with the parent and the family kids pick up on and often absorb. If a parent isn’t working on his or her shame and this shame is often being absorbed by the children. It’s a terrible situation because the child takes on the parent’s shame, making them feel worthless which often shows up in adulthood beliefs of self. This early childhood shaming is incredibly abusive ( Check out this article at Psychology Today) and ends up creating a shame bind.
Shame Bind
Shame binds begin in childhood with parents who shame children for normal human things. Examples would be a parent shaming a child for having a need or want, for expressing thoughts or emotions or for being a spontaneous child. The parent could also be shaming a child for loving themselves or setting personal limits, like choosing not to hug a relative because the child feels uncomfortable (Holy red flag central batman!). If you child gets a strange feeling about someone, listen listen listen and do not dismiss your child’s feelings. Children’s intuition is spot on and as adult’s many of us have checked out from our own intuition systems. All of these scenarios create shame binds that last into adulthood and can gravely affect a person’s life.
At the root of this shaming from the parent is the parent’s own untreated shame. This shame system binds to our sense of self love, setting limits with others, having and expressing needs and wants, being spontaneous and being real with others. Unfortunately, these shame binds reappear in our adult relationships both romantic, with family and friends. Carried shame can make it difficult for us to express needs in a relationship, set boundaries or can show up as rigidity or control with family and friends.
How do I know if I am feeling shame or a shame bind.
Shame binds feel overwhelming, while standard shame feels unpleasant but eventually goes away. Carried shame feels toxic and to heal fully from carried shame, it’s necessary to engage in therapy work on shame reduction. Shame reduction work will look at identifying sources of past shaming, current carried shame situations. Often the therapist and client will work on returning shame to proper sources and learning how to identify and stop the continued pattern of carrying the shame of the other people. The therapy is empowering and increases self-confidence, self-love and makes it easier to ask for needs and wants, be less controlling and feel better. We learn to feel the difference between standard shame and carried shame in the body and the mind.
If you had a parent that you believe you had a shame bind with and that you are still carrying shame, know that unfortunately you are likely to pick up other people’s shame as an adult. The shame cycles will continue in your current and future relationship until you work with a therapist trained in shame reduction.