How to get rid of shame. How to get rid of shame

Shame is one of the most harmful and destructive emotions a person can experience. It occurs when people are disappointed with their behavior, comparing it with their own or social norms. Feelings of shame provoke self-destruction and risky behavior, use of alcohol and drugs, and can also lead to long-term physical and emotional problems, including pain, depression, low self-esteem and anxiety. It is important to understand that you can avoid such problems entirely by making a serious effort to overcome shame and learn to value yourself and your own achievements. You are much more than an action once taken, a word spoken, or an emotion that arises.

Steps

Part 1

Stop striving for perfection. Trying to live up to perfection in any area of ​​life creates unrealistic expectations, low self-esteem, and feelings of shame when we fall short. The idea of ​​perfection is a social construct created by society and the media that we will be perfect people if we look, act and think a certain way, but it has little to do with reality.

Down with the constant repetition of the past. Constantly thinking about negative feelings can cause excessive feelings of shame and self-hatred. According to research, constantly thinking about your own feelings of shame causes depression, social anxiety and even increases blood pressure.

Show yourself compassion. When the danger of flashback arises, begin to practice self-compassion and kindness. Become your own friend. Instead of scolding and berating yourself (“I’m a stupid and worthless person”), try treating yourself the way a friend or loved one would. To do this, you need to monitor your behavior and understand that you would not allow your friend to allow such destructive thoughts for him. Self-compassion has many benefits, including mental health, increased life satisfaction, and decreased self-criticism.

Think less about the past. For many people, shame paralyzes them in the present moment; they become restless, fearful, depressed and extremely critical of themselves. It is very important that the past remains the past; it cannot be changed or turned back, but you can change the influence of the past on the future. Be able to overcome your shame and live a vibrant life.

• Change and transformation are always possible. This is one of the main advantages of human nature. You don't have to hold on to the past your whole life.
• Life is a long journey, and you can always recover from a difficult period.

1. Be flexible. Stop reacting to your experiences from an all-or-nothing perspective. This line of thinking widens the gap between our expectations and real possibilities. Stop perceiving life in black and white, when it is often grey. There are no true “rules” of life; all people think and behave differently, creating their own variations of such “rules”.

   Don't be influenced by others. If you have negative thoughts, they may be caused by people around you, even close friends and family. To overcome shame and move on with your life, you should minimize the number of people who “poison” your thoughts.

   • Try to perceive negative statements as weights weighing 10 kilograms. They put pressure on you and it’s hard for you to straighten your back. Free yourself from such burdens and remember that people do not define your identity. Only you can decide who you really are.

2. Develop awareness. Self-awareness therapy has been shown to make it easier to accept yourself and reduce feelings of shame. Mindfulness is a special method that invites you to learn to observe your emotions without escalating the situation. In other words, you learn to coolly analyze your experiences without suppressing them.

   Learn acceptance. It is important to accept what you cannot change. You are you, that’s how it should be. A number of studies show that acceptance helps people move beyond the cycle of shame and begin to live fulfilling lives.

   Part 2

   Increase your self-esteem

   1. Focus on the positive. Instead of wasting time feeling shame for not living up to made-up standards, focus on your successes and accomplishments. You will understand that you have something to be proud of, and your contribution to this world is no worse than that of other people.

      Lend a helping hand to others. It has long been known that those who help others and volunteer have higher self-esteem than others. It may seem counterintuitive that helping others makes us feel better, but science suggests that connecting with others increases our positive perception of ourselves.

      Daily positive judgments. Positive statements are meant to boost your self-confidence and encourage you. Such actions have a positive impact on self-esteem and also increase self-compassion. After all, you don't blame your friends the same way you blame yourself; you show empathy when they feel guilt or shame. Treat yourself the same way, be kinder. Take a moment each day to say out loud, write down, or think about positive thoughts. Here are some examples:

      • “I am a good person and deserve better, even if I have done questionable things in the past.”
      • “I make mistakes and learn from them.”
      • “I have a lot to give to the world, benefit myself and others.”

   2. Distinguish opinions from facts. Many of us have a hard time separating opinions from facts. A fact is an immutable truth, while an opinion is your thoughts based on some facts, but they are not facts.

      • For example, “I am 17 years old” is a fact. You were born 17 years ago, this is indicated in the metric. No one will argue with this. But “I'm stupid for my age” is an opinion, even if you can find evidence for it, such as not being able to drive or not having a job. However, if you think about this opinion more carefully, you can see it in a critical light. Perhaps you don’t know how to drive because your parents have to work a lot and simply don’t have time to teach you or don’t have the opportunity to send you to courses. Not having a job could be because you're looking after younger siblings after school.
      • Taking a more sober look at existing opinions helps you understand that paying close attention to the details can change your attitude.

   3. Appreciate your uniqueness. By comparing yourself to others, you deceive yourself in assessing your own individuality. Remember that you are a unique individual with much to give to the world. Leave the shame behind and shine the way you can and should.

      • Focus on your individuality and the things that make you you, rather than hiding behind the veil of social conformity. Perhaps you like to combine incongruous clothes or listen to European pop music and know how to make all sorts of crafts. Discover these sides of your personality, don't hide them in the shadows; you will be surprised (and delighted!) at what new facets you can discover if you hone your skills and thoughts. Alan Turing, Steve Jobs and Thomas Edison were all individuals whose uniqueness helped them achieve unique discoveries and achievements.
      • Nowhere does it say that you HAVE to look like everyone else, have the same hobbies, or live the same lifestyle. So, no one is obliged to follow fashion in clothing or music, or have a family and children by the age of 30. This is promoted by society and the media, but is not the ultimate truth. Do what you like best and what makes you happy. Remember that you should only please yourself. You can’t escape yourself, so listen to your inner rhythm, not someone else’s.

   4. Surround yourself with positive social support. Almost all people need social and emotional support—from family members, friends, coworkers, and others in their social circle. We benefit from discussing and developing solutions to problems with others. Oddly enough, social support helps us cope with our problems on our own, as it increases self-esteem.

Deep down, do you feel worthless or unworthy of love? Do you want to hide? Do you think that if other people see who you really are, they will reject you?

Shame is a person’s deep and lasting belief in the inferiority of his personality. Shame can manifest itself as an internal feeling of not being good enough (no matter how hard we try), not lovable, not deserving, and not worthy of love.

Shame can be well disguised. People with seemingly high self-esteem may also be susceptible to shame.

Shame is a message that we absorbed into ourselves as children. Family environments where we have been controlled and punished, ignored or abandoned, where we have been verbally, physically, emotionally or sexually abused or experienced trauma can all lead to deep feelings of shame.

Children, like sponges, absorb everything their parents tell them. The child, as such, is not able to understand the meaning of the events taking place and how to relate to them. Usually, they grow up feeling and believing that they are bad.

If we grow up with a deep sense of shame, we find that it significantly disrupts our lives. It affects our personality (our sense of who we are), our intimacy with others, and our self-esteem. Shame can affect self-esteem in many different ways - we can feel better or worse than others.

Origin of Shame

Periodic rejection (emotional or physical) is a powerful teacher. Examples of ways in which shame is cultivated in children include the following:

• When a parent points out that the child was not wanted, even as a joke.

• When a child is publicly humiliated.

• When judgment is directed at the child as a whole, and not at specific behavior.

• When a child, in order to be accepted, is forced to hide aspects of his real personality, for example: his needs, joys, sorrows, fears, mistakes, successes.

• When a child's emotional or physical boundaries are violated, for example in cases of overt or covert abuse.

• When children are deprived of personal space, for example, if parents check their personal belongings or read diaries.

• When such important events for a child as birthdays or gifts are treated with indifference.

• When a child feels that a parent or family member is somehow inferior to other adult figures in his or her world. For example, when a family member is an alcoholic or has a physical or mental disability and this difference is never discussed or the child is unable to express his feelings about this difference.

• When trust in significant adults is undermined or destroyed as a result of failure or neglect.

• When a child grows up in a family where adults themselves are ashamed and feel helpless in this world.

• When a child is made to feel inferior, worthless, unattractive, or unwanted in the world or society in general, for example because of learning difficulties or inappropriate clothing compared to peers.

• When the child is constantly judged for the actions or emotional state of the parent, or the child simply cannot live up to the unrealistic expectations of his parent.

• When parents use silence as punishment. In this case, children feel completely bad and think that it is impossible to restore the relationship.

Consequences of shame

• complete lack of self-respect

• high level of self-criticism

• Frequent outbursts of anger and criticism of others

• difficulty establishing and maintaining close relationships, resulting in superficial relationships

• isolation and loneliness

• depression

• Constantly blaming others and pointing out their mistakes or shortcomings

• perfectionism as a way to avoid shame in the future

• self-flagellation and self-destruction

• numbness or "lostness"

How psychotherapy helps you get rid of shame

If the problem of shame is not addressed, then it will begin to control our lives. To cope with this problem, you must first understand its essence. To do this, we need a psychologically safe place where we feel secure enough to face our most painful feelings and perhaps understand where they come from.

Healing from shame is possible only by coming to a deep understanding that the true nature of our personality has nothing to do with our assumed but erroneous opinion about ourselves.

As we work with a psychologist to challenge the distorted beliefs we have believed throughout our lives, to heal the wounds of our inner child, to address our needs, to uncover lost parts of our self, the core of our shame weakens and becomes smaller.

Defining shame and understanding the process of its formation in ourselves gives us the opportunity to control this feeling. For example: what or who caused my shame? How do I experience a “shame attack”? Do I take my anger or anger out on others or go crazy with painful self-criticism? What helps me get through the shame and feel like everything is okay again? What reduces my tendency to feel shame?

For most people who grew up in adverse and difficult circumstances, reducing the impact of shame on a person is a long-term and possibly ongoing process.

Psychotherapy is perhaps the only place in life where this kind of research is possible. A trained therapist can provide the objectivity and support needed to turn our negative self-images around and reappraise the experiences that have led us to believe we are unworthy of love.

People who were abused, abused, or otherwise harassed as young adults, or those who experience painful events as adults, such as job loss or adultery, may experience deep feelings of shame and blame themselves for what happened.

Consulting with a therapist, in a safe and secure environment, can help you question your feelings of shame and ultimately overcome them.

You will be able to really get to the bottom of the truth, understand what really happened and see your role in all of this.

My work experience shows that, in most cases, the client's role is completely disproportionate to the feeling of shame that engulfs them. They usually feel more shame than they need to. This shows how much shame can consume a person's personality and affect their self-belief. You may also begin to understand the extent to which shame is currently controlling you.

Through your experience of working with a psychologist to whom you open up without being rejected, it becomes possible for you to free yourself from feelings of shame.

By shining a light on what seems dark and dirty in a safe, nonjudgmental environment, we can break down the foundation of shame and set you free.

Dealing with shame with the help of a therapist takes courage. However, huge rewards await you.

As a result of examining our most painful beliefs and feelings, we may realize that the truth about us is very different from what we originally believed. We learn that we are not bad. We learn that we are, in fact, desirable and even attractive people.

Tags: Psychotherapy , Self-doubt , Shame ,

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In the last article “” we looked at what kind of attitude a shameful person develops towards himself.

He treats himself as something unworthy.

Let's consider this attitude towards ourselves as a bad habit. Then you can treat it like any harmful habit. For example, he will learn to notice its phenomena, track, stop and do something more useful instead.

I described the external physical manifestations of shame in the first part:

• a person’s voice may change, become cruel and angry, for example.
• A person may blush, shrink, look at the floor, hide his face.
• The pulse may increase, dry mouth and tinnitus may occur.

Physical phenomena are all individual for each person, but their combination in the same person when experiencing shame will be similar. You can learn to recognize them.

It will be useful to learn to compare the physical phenomena of shame and a belittling attitude towards oneself.

How to get rid of shame - start to notice a bad attitude towards yourself

First we need to study what this bad attitude consists of and how it is expressed. It can manifest itself as an inner voice or “sound” in the head as a thought. The inner blaming voice often feels like a cruel critic, offending, insulting, ridiculing and humiliating.

In 90% of cases, it is difficult for a person to notice how he insults and humiliates himself. How to get rid of shame? The easiest way to do this is with the help of a psychologist or psychotherapist. To independently learn to track this process, you need to look at what a person does to himself from the outside.

For example, a person says: “I screwed up so much, it’s just funny.” He then continues to talk about his failure in a cheerful and mocking tone.

Or he talks about his painful childhood experiences: “How could I perceive it so acutely then, how could I believe in it, it’s stupid and funny.” Laughs bitterly. He speaks about himself in a disdainful tone: “Only a fool or a madman could worry so much about such a trifle.”

Or a person comes to a psychologist and says: “How can I force myself to complete this task. Well, as soon as possible, do something with me.” It looks as if a person brought a worthless and inferior creature (himself, that is), to a psychologist. And this creature really bothered people.

Or: “Well, as much as possible. I have already tortured myself, I am tired of myself with my fear. Fool!". Here strong aggression towards oneself is already manifested.

Or hatred is expressed in an open form: “I hate myself when something doesn’t work out for me. I hate myself for these feelings.”

Or depressive: “I’m disgusted with myself. I sit for 30 minutes before calling my colleague. I'm tired. I don't want to live like this. »

Every word spoken about oneself in such a tone, every thought thought about oneself in such a context is a habitual humiliation of oneself. How to get rid of shame? Imagine if someone else said those harsh words to you? You would probably perceive this as undignified, humiliating treatment.

But when you say this about yourself, you are not always able to realize it.

Therefore, the first task is to start noticing what you are doing to yourself.

Of course, we have certain difficulties and shortcomings that we can and should work with, which can and should be corrected. But if you think about changing yourself in such a belittling tone, it turns out that you are trying to fight with yourself and against yourself.

No good changes can come from this. You will fight with yourself, the internal conflict will intensify, you will feel worse and worse, and the desired changes will not be achieved.

If you tell a psychologist, for example: “I’m such a completely worthless, boring guy, I’m already a burden to myself, let’s fix me up a little” - you don’t notice the inner critical voice. You seem to be at one with your “inner critic.” You invite others and the psychologist to also scold or ridicule yourself. But our main task in this place is to stop. Protect your dignity from yourself.

How to get rid of shame - learn to stop yourself

Once you notice that you are shaming and belittling yourself in your inner speech, it is important to learn to pay attention to what you are doing and stop yourself. This will answer the question: how to get rid of shame and at the same time protect you from yourself.

Exercise:

In the last article we said that the habitual way of dealing with oneself is born as a result of the mechanism of internalization and introjection. These mechanisms carry out, as it were, a psychological merging of a person with those from whom a person adopts the usual way of treating himself. It’s like swallowing other people’s norms, scenarios, behavior without digesting. If you treat yourself poorly, these are harmful and even toxic norms.

Indeed, the person seems to be poisoned by a bad attitude towards himself. When a person thinks about himself, his perception seems to be distorted. It’s as if he’s looking through a distorting mirror, in which he seems ugly to himself. When a person “puts away” the mirror and looks at other people, he sees them in beauty and respect.

How to get rid of shame? Sometimes it helps to come to an agreement with yourself and not believe this perception of yours. For example, treat this as the effect of a poison or drug on the body. Then the person will know that this is the toxic effect of poison, that something is now “floating” before his eyes, not because he has gone crazy, but this is a narcotic effect.

Introjection has the same poisonous toxic effect. A person can no longer understand what he is like. He is completely in the grip of a feeling of shame and self-loathing.

However, the brain can function not only under the influence of feelings. We can separate our cognitive perception from our emotional perception. This division is clearly visible in a situation when a person says: “I understand with my mind that everything is generally fine with me, but I feel as if I am really nothing.”

To understand how to get rid of shame, we can use this feature of the brain. For example, imagine that this experience of being insignificant is poisoning. You cannot now recognize what is true and what is not. But you can trust another person - a supportive friend, a psychologist, who will tell you that this is not so.

Sometimes convincing yourself doesn't work very well. This happens because trauma that is inflicted in contact with another person (with a parent, for example) can only be healed in contact with another person (with a psychologist, for example).

When a person habitually humiliates himself from minute to minute, from year to year, unfortunately, he forgets what dignity is. We need to return a decent attitude towards ourselves.

How to get rid of shame - we designate the process of humiliating ourselves in the form of critical voices

Sometimes it helps a lot to label this as critical voices. We call feelings of humiliation, feeling bad, etc. certain words. Then, from the position of an outside observer, you can evaluate what is happening.

Let's imagine this picture. Here is an unhappy person. He feels bad, something is not working out for him. We share roles. A critic comes and begins to humiliate him. Does it help the suffering person or not? Most likely it doesn't help. Moreover, the picture from the outside often looks very unfair and cruel.

To learn how to get rid of shame, at this moment it is useful to stop and try to evaluate the picture drawn by your imagination.

Ask yourself, what do you see? What emotional reaction does what one person is saying to another in this picture evoke in you? Try to appeal to your sense of justice.

As sad as it is, a person can answer: “Yes, that’s how it is. I'm so bad."

Then we can move on to the next exercise.

How to get rid of shame - Exercise “identification with the child”

Imagine saying these words to your child. If you don’t have children, imagine that you have a son or daughter, and someone from the outside says these words to him or her.

For example, a baby learns to walk. He falls, tries to get up and fails. And someone adult says to him: “You’re a nonentity! Why haven’t you learned to walk by your age? Look, Vasya is running, not like you. I'm sick of falling already! Of course you won't succeed! You’re just cross-armed and bandy-legged, you’re just pathetic!”

This picture helps you shake yourself and realize the severity and cruelty of these words. In such conditions, one can more sharply feel all their injustice.

Most of us would never say that to our child and would never allow anyone else to say such words to them. We understand how painful and unfair this is.

In this exercise, through identification with the child, you can fully feel the cruelty of what you are doing to yourself. Then it will become a little clearer how to get rid of shame.

Personalizing the “inner critic”

The degree of cruelty that our inner critics show towards us is generally difficult to see anywhere in the adult world. Perhaps at school, in closed children's institutions, in prison, in war. What we say to ourselves, people usually don’t say to each other.

To get rid of shame, our main work with you will be aimed at stopping humiliating yourself. Is it that easy to do it yourself? Hardly ever. This requires a lot of work.

One more trick may help us. Let's draw up a portrait or image of our inner critic, imagine it in the form of a certain character. This could be a collective image consisting of people you have met in life.

Imagine that this image “speaks.”

Now try saying it out loud on behalf of your inner critic. Sometimes, at the moment of voicing the words of a critical character, a person’s voice even changes - it becomes hard, sometimes high-pitched, loud.

This is how you begin to get to know your inner critic.

You can draw it to imagine it better.

This is necessary in order to learn to separate your criticizing part from the criticized part.

The pitfalls of the “inner critic”

Even in this exercise, a person may begin to scold, criticize, belittle and shame himself. For example, saying that he won’t succeed anyway.

This is also one of the manifestations of the inner critic. Then you can try to imagine what you could answer him.

It often helps to tell yourself:

“I won’t always be able to notice how I scold myself. I won't always be able to help but believe bad words about myself. But I can do it sometimes. That's for sure."

At this point, a person comes out of merging with his inner critic.

When looking for an answer to the question of how to get rid of shame, attempts to negotiate with the inner critic often do not have a positive effect. This happens because the critical part treats the criticized part with contempt, arrogance, and sees it as insignificance.

Negotiations with such a person are impossible. Therefore, here we need to pay attention to the form in which the inner critic “speaks,” and not to the content. Then we begin to defend ourselves, to protest against the way we treat ourselves. A person should have the feeling: “This can’t happen to me. No matter what I’ve done in life, I don’t deserve this kind of treatment.”

However, stopping a bad habit is not enough. You still need to “grow” a new form of behavior to replace the bad habit. Next time we will talk about what else you can do instead of scolding and belittling yourself.

In the meantime, if you have questions on this topic, you can schedule a consultation with me.

How to overcome feelings of shame

Pozharisky I.

Rich or poor, fat or thin, successful or unlucky, we all experience shame from time to time, whether we admit it or not […]

Rich or poor, fat or thin, successful or unlucky, we all experience shame from time to time, whether we admit it or not (and usually we don’t). Shame can close us off from the world around us and become destructive to ourselves and others.

The essence of experiencing one's own shame

Shame is an extremely unpleasant destructive feeling, usually associated with a negative assessment of one’s own personality, existing voluntary urges to renounce personal needs, and volitional suppression of one’s desires. A person gripped by shame experiences fear of exposure, distrusts others, and feels his own powerlessness and uselessness.

Shame is one of the most destructive human feelings. He is able to convince us that the barely audible voice in our heads is right, the one that constantly insists on saying: “I knew you would fail,” “No one could love you.” Indomitable painful modesty controls the life of an individual: thinking, behavior, does not allow one to enjoy the present and makes it impossible to build a happy future.

As a shameful emotion, shame communicates an internal state of inadequacy, unworthiness, dishonor, regret, or disconnection. Constant shyness is a clear signal that a person’s positive emotions and feelings are muted. After all, any other individual or circumstance does not cause positive experiences, but is rewarded with embarrassment and makes one incapable of fruitful activity.

Shame prevents you from living up to your own ideals or standards. Excessive shyness can cause a person to feel spoiled, bad, and different from others. Accordingly, such a feeling prompts him to hide from others, or requires him to do something to save face. It is therefore not surprising that the suppression and repression of shame can lead to the abandonment of personal interests and the emergence of harmful addictions designed to mask the overwhelming impact of one's own shame.

Shame is often confused with guilt - a natural feeling that a person can experience as a result of an offense, when he feels regret about what he has done and wants to correct the situation. If a person has a desire to admit her guilt or a need to talk with others about an event that occurred that left her feeling guilty, then it is much less likely that she will pass on the experience of shame to others. Most likely, a person will hide what he feels because shame does not differentiate between the action being performed and the individual's experiences. Therefore, with shame, “unworthy” behavior is not separated from the “unworthy” Self, as is the case with guilt.

It is very important to know ways to deal with shame, to use methods of creating healthy barriers against feelings of dishonor and shame. However, it should be remembered that working with a sense of hard work requires consistency, determination and dedication. How to get rid of unnatural shyness? The first step is to find out on what foundation the feeling of total embarrassment is built.

Why does shame arise?

As a rule, shame is formed and strengthened on the following grounds:

• existing addictions (alcohol, drugs, psycho-emotional);
• experienced physical, sexual, moral violence;
• regularly experiencing aggression from loved ones;
• deep depression;
• eating disorders.

For some people, shame depends on the situation. For example, a man experienced a fiasco on his first intimate date. He feels embarrassed, confused, awkward. This is natural and temporary. The next time a love meeting takes place at the highest level, the man will feel the opposite feelings.

But for many other people, shame is not an immediate idea or a logical response to what is happening. For them, modesty is a growing malignant tumor, increasing in size by the day and by the hour. And this cancerous formation controls everything a person thinks about, what he says, what he does. It shapes the worldview and perception of oneself, completely separating a person from the foundations of a safe and comfortable existence.

The situation, real or imagined, can trigger a shame reaction. You might, for example, attack yourself as a loser in a competition or convince yourself that others will find out about some hidden flaw. Shame will be felt when the subject anticipates being considered inferior or lacking in intelligence, appearance, or ability. For example, a woman who has gained weight finds it very difficult to leave her home because she wants to avoid the embarrassment of being seen in public. She has devalued her own personality because she expects others to judge her harshly.

Moral attack on others often serves as a defensive strategy to escape the feelings of the shamed person. To avoid the self-degrading effects of shame, a person expresses contempt for or shames another person by transferring his embarrassment onto another. For example, an individual who expected to be assessed in society as an inadequate person will manipulate his partner's self-esteem by humiliating him. When he becomes weak and embarrassed and needs his approval, he will gain self-confidence and will be able to blame his partner for any failure and failure.

Projecting one's own shame onto another person is a typical defensive maneuver among narcissists because narcissism is based on unbearable, unconscious shame. Feeling the need to hide their diminished sense of self-worth, narcissists can appear arrogant and cause envy in those around them.

Why is pathological shyness dangerous?

Shame is a contagious feeling. It is especially dangerous for children because it is a hidden experience, especially among victims of violence and abuse. The expectation of being shamed by peers makes the child anxious and vulnerable, and he is often the target of bullying.

Shame can be experienced as an intense negative emotion of self-hatred. In an effort to repress this feeling, a person will act like a bully and encourage those around him to engage in similar illegal behavior. In fact, he wants to minimize his painful experiences by causing embarrassment and shame in others. Children who are regularly bullied and teased can easily understand what makes other kids feel ashamed. They are very skilled at inducing feelings of shame among their peers. And this makes shame a contagious feeling.

Children are also susceptible to taking on feelings of shame for another person when they are associated with someone who behaves shamefully and unworthily. When children are mentally abandoned by their parents, exposed to physical abuse, or feel neglected by their relatives, they often take on the shame that belongs to the adult who caused the pain, because they believe that they themselves are “bad.” Some children behave this way, considering themselves to blame for the embarrassment that really belongs to their parents.

On the other hand, parents may also feel intense shame about their children's behavior. Since many adults dream of the ideal child who will make Herculean efforts to gain honor from society, a child or teenager who cannot achieve the standard desired by his parents, or whose behavior causes embarrassment, will form a shame reaction in them. Some parents deny any personal blame for their children's bad behavior in an attempt to renounce social shame. Other adults, on the contrary, take on too much responsibility and feel shame for any misdeeds of the child.

Any situation that devalues ​​the individual and causes remorse can also foster anger or even rage. This includes circumstances that provoke envy, require comparison of oneself with others, cause fear of being ostracized from society, or evoke fantasies of a rival's misfortune. The anger experienced by a subject who is ashamed is like a poison that destroys positive conscious thoughts. But even if a person who is consumed by shame manages to transfer shame to another, he will still experience the overwhelming effects of intoxication. Shame, when taken on by a work partner, loved one, close friend or stranger, can make the bearer physically and emotionally ill.

How to remove the feeling of shame

The pathological experience of shame must be transformed in the place where it reigns: in the conscious mind. This means identifying and remembering ideas that fuel shame, acquiring new functional thoughts, and turning to them when feelings of shame arise. This means reinforcing constructive tendencies to the point that when thoughts of unhealthy, rich food come into play, the person can resist them and act in the opposite direction. Work on acquiring positive attitudes must be carried out until such ideas become a worldview.

There is no doubt that it is difficult to observe your thoughts. But there is good news: people change the way they think, see and perceive the world every day. They change their narratives and behavior. And whether it's a cool businesswoman who realizes she needs to spend more time with her daughter, or a stay-at-home mom who doesn't realize that she's actually doing all the functions “well” at the moment, people all the time are changing. The personal history recalled by a person is not the truth - memories are only an interpretation of the past.

How to remove the feeling of shame? We follow the basic rules.

Process and perfection

A process, any action, is better than waiting for perfection. Creating sustainable positive self-esteem, breaking the core of shame, consistently working on it is better than doing nothing at all. And acting to achieve order in the inner world is the first step towards perfection itself.

Shame is a strong glacier, but it can be melted. The thing to remember is that no one is perfect. So start educating yourself and move forward. Regardless of where you start, you need to start moving now.

My truth has a right to exist

You need to soberly realize that the truth of your life is the only truth you have. A true personal story and present mindset is all you have, all you are now.

What do you do when you wake up? How do you relate to others? How are your ideas perceived by others? What do you think about your spouse? How do you evaluate your own life? So the question is: are you comfortable telling this truth? Are you comfortable living and telling your closest friends that this is your life?

Because where you have to start is to recognize even the smallest shortcomings and flaws. Understand what makes you feel unloved. Identify what you tell yourself about your own personality. Find out what exactly makes you feel shame.

Write it down and say the phrases out loud. When you do this mindfully, negative beliefs about yourself become less powerful. Remember that no matter what happens to you, you have the right to your truth.

Let's tell the world about our shame

The next time you feel embarrassed, talk to a close, trusted friend about your feelings. Remember, the less you talk about your obsessive experiences, the more power they have over your life.

Be selective and spend time designing your own life

If the world is a big theater, then decorate the stage to your liking. Surely, the problem is that you yourself don’t know what you want to do with your life. This is because it is in this aspect that shame cuts deep, which indicates: “I can’t do this” because “I lack ability, talent, perseverance, etc.”

But the variables in your life are not controlled by IQ, they are controlled by the mind. Therefore, realize that you have an amazing chance, a wonderful opportunity to change your life.

Explore your surroundings. Is one of your friends an emotional vampire? Then stop answering your calls immediately. Is one of your friends hindering your endeavors? Put it back in its place. Do you want to start practicing yoga? Do it no matter what people think. When you operate on your own terms, play by your own rules and not others' rules, you grow as a person and actively build confidence in yourself simply by your actions.

Eliminate hateful thoughts about yourself

A thought is an assumption. It arises and exists because it tries to deprive us of a real perception of life and tries to hide the truth. Very often, thoughts are a potent poison that poisons the entire existence. That is why it is important to change the course and content of your thoughts, to make your thinking more constructive and functional.

Anyone can change the perception of their own personality, so they can make this perception positive. Analyze what you say about yourself. Imagine all these words and their negative impact. Would you say such negative phrases to your adorable child? Most reasonable people will not address negativity to their child. So why, even if words seem harmless, do you not say them to others, but say them about yourself?

Write down all the negative thoughts about yourself and say them out loud. You will notice that they are losing strength. Know what thoughts live in your head, the specific sentences that you use when talking about yourself, the specific patterns of perception of your own personality that you offer to people, this will be your reality.

Checking the validity of shame

Most of the shameful facts and damaging thoughts are not true. Let's give an example. You cannot be a writer because you are convinced that all famous authors have an excellent philological education. This belief stops you from trying to type on your keyboard. Let's look at this attitude rationally by conducting a thought experiment. First, project this thought onto someone else, such as a child. Imagine telling him, “Baby, you can’t be a writer because only those with relevant degrees can be authors.”

When the existing standard in thoughts is projected onto someone else, stupidity is clearly felt. Will you have the courage to step on potential and thwart your own child's aspirations? If not, then why put barriers on yourself?

Building barriers is not only a disservice to oneself, but such a position does not stand up to logical criticism. There are countless college dropouts who have written excellent, sought-after books. Living with the shameful assumption that lack of education will prevent you from writing is not just a detrimental quality to your potential, but also a negligent attitude towards the truth. Explore your shameful and inhibiting thoughts, no matter what they look like. Pull out the roots that hold them up.

Accept your flaws and grow

Remember, every person has some flaws, there have been disgraceful situations. But many disadvantages can be attractive in certain circumstances. For example, love is absolutely independent of human perfection. After all, many ideal people are boring because they are fake. You need to get to know yourself and grow as a person without trying to become perfect in everything.

Afterword

Quite often, it is not possible to overcome destructive experiences on your own, since the feeling of shame has become the dominant feeling that controls thinking and behavior. In such a situation, there is only one way out - to seek help from a qualified, experienced psychologist. A competent specialist knows exactly how to overcome illogical, hypertrophied pangs of conscience.

Contact the Irakli Pozharisky Center for Psychology and Rehabilitation, understand your true essence, accept your unique personality and learn steps aimed at achieving a harmonious state of inner peace. With the help of a psychologist, it will be possible to identify the sources of painful feelings and take the path of liberation from shame.

The content of the article:

The feeling of shame is embarrassment, self-condemnation, when a person is embarrassed by what he has done, from the realization that his actions could cause harm to others. This is a feeling that is unknown only to people without complexes or cynics. However, they are also ashamed of themselves because of missed opportunities in life. Consequently, this feeling is familiar to almost everyone. You just need to understand the varieties and causes of the condition that has arisen, which affects the soul and body.

The influence of shame on a person's life

Strange as it may sound, beauty is not the only thing that will save the world. He will be helped by a society that consists of harmonious people who know their worth. Excessive self-doubt and programming for a guilt complex can destroy the life of any person.

Don’t confuse embarrassment from an accidental offense with a systematic sense of shame in a vulnerable and sophisticated nature. Guilt is something that can become a temporary phenomenon in the life of a person who has made a mistake and feels discomfort because of it. With a feeling of shame, everything is much more complicated, because in this case other psychological mechanisms are at work.

Experts in the field of human souls and actions determine the influence of a feeling of shame on a person’s life according to the following parameters:

• Low self-esteem. A subject who considers himself the worst can become exactly that in the eyes of society. No one wants to deal with a depressed person who is constantly doubting themselves.
• Fear of public opinion. The feeling of shame is very often nothing more than the fear of appearing different from everyone else. Some people don't understand that this is not bad at all, and drown their lives in an ocean of self-flagellation.
• Blocking wishes. Psychologists say that shame makes a person give up his dreams. A vulnerable introvert emotionally freezes from the artificially created prospect of public condemnation for himself.
• Self-contempt. This parameter is very close to low self-esteem, but is its most extreme point of development. A constant feeling of shame makes a person such a complex person that he has no time to evaluate the actions of others in the process of self-destruction.

The main reasons for a person to feel shame

Sometimes it is worth focusing attention on those people who have atrophied such a feeling as shame. Such individuals should not only be feared, but it is also necessary to completely stop communicating with them. However, there is a category of people who do not harm others and need help. The reasons for their problems may have a very different educational nature, which should be sorted out.

Sources of shame in children

The reasons for this phenomenon primarily lie in the following factors:

1. Parents' little sacrifice. Very often, adults do not think about their words, which they utter in anger or with the best intentions only for themselves. Phrases like “are you waiting for me to die” or “why are you not like Vanya from the next door” cause irreparable harm to the child’s psyche. The child begins to think that he is really worse than the neighbor’s kid. The worst thing is that Vanechka can grow up to be an egoist, and a child with a good position in life, thanks to his parents, will become an outcast. A feeling of shame will be a constant companion for such a victim of parental pedagogical illiteracy.
2. Stencil child. It is very easy to identify such children or teenagers. Cliched adult phrases and a lack of personal opinion are the hallmarks of these children. Tyrant parents, of course, love their children, but they want to raise them to resemble themselves. If a child either cannot or does not want to meet this standard, the mechanism of guilt is triggered. At first this will be expressed in doubts about one’s worth and in relation to one’s parents, and then an adult will begin to be ashamed of everything and everyone.
3. Outcast from the children's group. No one has yet abolished the concept of the influence of the social environment on a person. The film by the wonderful director Rolan Bykov, “Scarecrow,” clearly and harshly shows this very phenomenon. The child's psyche is very fragile, so a feeling of shame can be instilled due to the elementary cruelty of peers towards the chosen victim.

Sources of shame in adults

He should understand for himself the main reasons for the impasse that has arisen, which can be characterized as follows:

• Humiliation by a loved one. We trust our family and friends, so we open our souls to them. Sometimes they then selflessly spit on it, causing very severe trauma. When analyzing the act, it is simply impossible to figure out why his relatives could do this to him. The result is shame for oneself, because the one who was closest and dearest hit me in the gut.
• Unpleasant life situation. Very few people can boast that they are not afraid of the fact of being compromised in the eyes of society. Only shocking people or a category of the population under the sonorous popular name “don’t care” are happy about this. One moment of shame can turn even a very self-confident person into an openly harassed person with a constant feeling of shame.
• Victim of gossip. A bad person is the one about whom the main guardians of public opinion do not like to gossip. Such individuals do not notice their sins and mistakes because of the iron principles that their actions cannot be condemned, since everyone is ideal. As for neighbors, colleagues, or even a person passing by with a disgustingly happy face, in this case, intensive work is underway to spread misinformation. Someone will simply smile at this fact, but many can become hostage to such public opinion.

Remember! In each of these cases, you need to remain yourself. To succumb to the pressure of strangers in case of provocation means to directly abandon one’s own “I”.

Signs of a shy person

However, psychologists have been able to find “traps” that clearly identify people with a similar position in life:

1. The desire to be invisible. Modesty is a wonderful feeling that especially adorns graduates of the boarding school for noble maidens. No one claims that arrogance is a worthy human quality. However, the passion to get lost in the crowd cannot be an adequate desire of a self-sufficient person.
2. Frequent mood changes. This manifestation of the essence is also typical for melancholic people, who are subject to not strong, but long-lasting outbursts of anger. Such people are ready to destroy the offender, wipe him off the face of the earth, and at the same time turn it around its axis. The plans described are grandiose in scale, but only a revenge developer with a chronic sense of shame knows about them.
3. Suicidal tendencies. If we do not take into account mentally ill people who simply cherish the dream of a beautiful death from life, then this desire clearly reveals the owner of a chronic guilt complex. Among people who want to commit suicide, the largest percentage are representatives of the club of active self-torturers.
4. Irrational behavior. Violation of adaptation in this case makes a person an explorer of his own soul. He is so immersed in his complexes that he does not care about analyzing the life of his neighbor, who is a chronic alcoholic. Such a person has only one thought in his head: I am the worst, period.

Varieties of personality depending on the manifestation of feelings of shame

It would seem that there is no reason for alarm, but such people are easy to identify by the following signs:

• Blue thief. As already mentioned, this category of people is easy to calculate. Their sense of shame is hypocrisy and outright meanness in its most sophisticated manifestation. Consequently, it would be a stretch to call such a contingent people bashful.
• Victim of childhood trauma. In this case, it is worth saying that a person could have had a different position in life if he had had a different format of upbringing in childhood. Practice shows that most broken destinies and broken families have an underlying cause of crippled childhood.
• Secret Psychopath. Very often, individuals with a chronic sense of shame suffer from the fact that they cannot throw out their negative emotions. Basically, these are melancholic people with prolonged bouts of aggressiveness, which they keep inside themselves.
• Thirty-three misfortunes. The classic loser often becomes hostage to such concepts as chronic feelings of guilt and shame. He is haunted by misfortunes, so he considers himself a worthless person and a toy in the hands of fate. At best, he will perceive what is happening with a smile, ashamed of his mistakes in life. At worst, he will give up his life, considering himself an outcast from society.

Note! In the life of every person there are streaks of failure or stressful situations that do not spill out. In this case, it is important not to allow feelings of shame and guilt to infiltrate your life and destroy it.

How to overcome feelings of shame

The question of how to get rid of the feeling of shame can be solved this way:

1. Self-hypnosis. No one can convince himself as much as the person himself. “It’s a shame when you see that you have nothing to show” is an excellent expression in this case. They discuss - it’s wonderful, they impose complexes - they remember, they don’t give life - that means you are their meaning of being. You need to act exactly according to this scheme so as not to become a hostage to chronic feelings of guilt.
2. Reassessment of life values. Very often we are ashamed of what is truly beautiful. Many are afraid to show their sentimentality or hobbies that border on kitsch. It is only important to remember that all people are individual and cannot be standardized. In this case, you should not be ashamed of yourself, because the norm is a very approximate concept.
3. Visiting a psychotherapist. In this case, even a friend will come in handy, who will take on the mission of a vest for the copious tears of a friend. If the problem is out of control, then the help of a specialist will not hurt, but, on the contrary, will significantly ease your state of mind and help establish internal harmony.
4. Extravagant act. People don’t give bad advice when they say that wedges are knocked out with wedges. There is no need to go to extremes such as walking naked down the street or singing folk songs in the city’s central park. You just need to find out for yourself the cause of false shame and try to solve it in an alternative way.