Focus on me being Better
Not on me being Bitter
You plan on using resiliency to survive a shame storm, but you must survive it every time.
After rock bottom, you hurt enough to change, grow, and learn to heal from shame. I’d better get to work looking at myself.
Another shame storm will come and go today or tomorrow. I fear I will react rather than respond the next time I am triggered.
This is my story today about surviving a shame storm.
What is the Story I’m Telling Myself?
What caused the shame storm? What is the content of the story I’m telling myself? Well, it doesn’t matter much.
You know you will be triggered at some point, probably by your usual shame trigger. My shame trigger was my perception of a critical comment about my behavior. I do not take criticism well; it sets me into instant shame.
Again, the content doesn’t matter, as our triggers are unique. The first step is to notice that you are triggered. What is the story I’m telling myself?
Notice the Shame Storm Start
It takes seconds or minutes to realize you need a moment to yourself.
I felt embarrassed, and suddenly, in the spotlight (in my mind, anyway), other people magically perceive I am bad.
I left and went to a quiet space to feel the shame. I didn’t want to stop it.
Stop what you are doing. If we are in the hotbed of shame, we are usually running a story over and over in our heads or we are working desperately to fix something about ourselves. Stop and do neither. You do not have to explain it nor you do have to make a plan to fix it. Instead, notice exactly what is happening ~ Hilary Kinavey, MS, LPC
Feel the Emotion
Feel the emotion: tightness in the chest, buzzing in the back of the mind, the onset of mind fog. It feels like the start of a cortisol surge. Fight or flight has been activated, and I’m all sympathetic.
I over-intellectualize, so I know that for 10-30 minutes after cortisol hits, blood flow to the decision-making areas of my brain drops by 30%. I cannot give up 30% of my decision-making capacity when getting angry when I’m triggered. I’m usually hanging on by a thread–I need that 30%! I have gotten angry so often that the path is very well-worn in my mind. The path is made by walking, so I need to make good decisions now rather than go down the path of anger. Now is the time to focus on metacognition and think about my thinking.
Metacognition and the Storm
Now is a good time to be curious. After you feel the emotion and notice that it flows and passes through your body (and you didn’t die—fear of feeling emotions can cripple you, too) and without judgment or comparison, think about your thinking.
Remember, we are not re-hatching the situation and trying to solve it, planning revenge, or being a victim and hurt by how we were wronged. That’s not the thinking we are aiming for. We want to know the quality of our thinking currently.
Metacognition means you have to feel bad emotions; you don’t have to wallow in them. I had felt shame, and it was fine. It didn’t kill me, and I didn’t have to react.
My shame storms involve pervasive thought patterns. What might serve better than a pattern of pervasive self-abuse?
The Ground Game
Now seems like a good time to return to the ground game.
It is all about being worthy, okay, just the way you are, and, especially importantly, worthy of love and capable of providing all the love you need, all by yourself. You can choose to love yourself; once you do, you feel pretty good daily.
Even though I had a pretty good shame storm after being triggered (likely for something that didn’t even happen; it is just the story in my mind that I am telling myself), I’m ok.
Since your amygdala does not know the difference between what is actually happening and what you think might be happening, you can set off shame just by feeling shame. It’s a positive feedback loop that happens when you trip a trigger.
So I didn’t suffer. But there is still work to do.
Be Kind to Yourself
This is the time to be kind to yourself. Self-compassion is huge. It’s fine that you took a second to put yourself in a better position to respond rather than react.
After all, you do want to over-identify, which means being judgemental. Being kind means flowing through emotions and thoughts without trying to restrict or interrupt them. Other people have the same problems, too. Instead of beating myself up for feeling shame, which I will likely feel at times for the rest of my life, I will try self-compassion and being kind to myself.
Elements of Shame Resilience
Mostly after Brene Brown’s work, there are some elements of shame resilience:
Develop an early warning system and understand triggers. Once physical symptoms grip us, it is too late. Name shame early so you do not put yourself in the position to respond in inauthentic ways. Triggers can cause us to skip the physical symptoms and go right into a reactive state full of cortisol and even adrenaline—positive reinforcement pathways in the brain cause shame storms.
Practicing critical awareness. Since shame is a universal emotion, yet something you’d never wish upon your child or your inner child, you know it is not what you want nor what others would wish for you. The sad truth is shame makes you think you are unique in your suffering when it is a universal condition of being human. Some figure out they are worthy early, and others must hit bottom.
Moreover, by now, you have taken precautions because it is pretty easy to rely on yourself to behave if you have put yourself in a position where behavior is the best solution. If this might be a shame storm and there is the possibility that you might get angry or otherwise misrepresent your authentic self, create some space to honor your feelings and get to a better space before you respond.
Empathy is a hostile environment for shame
The Aftermath of a Shame Storm
Shame loves the darkness. You have to talk about shame. That’s why I’m writing this. It helps me. Writing has earned my trust to tell what has happened. It is best just to say it before I feel self-limiting beliefs.
Even better than that, just be honest and vulnerable with someone who knows you are just talking. Be heard.
I had a shame storm today. I recognized it and then felt it. Then, after being okay with it happening, I moved on. Why not? After all, you can choose what you think—why not replace thoughts that no longer serve you?
More than anything, it is just another day. About half the days are going to be better than the other half of the days.
Figure out what works for you and do it. There are some common themes—self-acceptance and self-love. Self-care, and most importantly a practice of mindfulness.
If you find a shortcut to self-care, one that doesn’t numb, have at it!
Because, in the end, you want to wind up being your authentic self. THAT’S the person who knows they are worthy to love themselves.
It is common to love yourself. Most people do. And it’s a choice. Shame is a choice, too, once you accept responsibility as an adult to awaken and fix your inner child wounds.
You find the freedom to control your thoughts and be your true self through radical acceptance and responding rather than reacting. You cannot stop shame, but you can decide what it means to you.