How To: Overcome Shame
Shame is an identity crisis.
It tells us that we aren't who we say we are, we aren't who we want to be. It’s that voice in the back of our heads reminding us of every mistake we’ve ever made.
When we feel shame, it’s tempting to look away. But in order to move past it we have to shine a light on it, understand its roots, and create a new narrative to help us move forward.
In this article you’ll find a six-step exercise to work through shame that you can use any way you’d like. It’s based on a journaling exercise I created and have used to overcome shame in my past over everything from relationship trauma, to childhood memories, to an awkward night out. There’s also an accompanying worksheet based on this exercise that you can download and use if you’d like.
First, let’s take a deeper look at shame.
What is shame?
Shame is an emotion rooted in an inner belief that there is something fundamentally wrong with us.
We often feel guilty about specific events, actions, or situations from our past without necessarily feeling ashamed. Shame is about identity. When we feel or believe that those events, actions, or situations occurred due to a fundamental flaw in ourselves, we feel shame.
Shame is a powerful and overwhelming emotion. We flinch, look away, withdraw when we feel it. Shame gains power when we let it sit at the back of our minds. It dies in the light.
Investigate and rewrite the narrative of shame
Just like any trauma or difficult emotion, we aren’t always in the right place to work through it. Time is a great healer. But if you’re ready to tackle your shame head on and move forward in a new direction, these steps will help you do it. The main goal is to understand the roots of the shame you’re feeling, take away the power of the story you’re telling yourself, and write a new story to replace it.
This is best used as a journaling exercise. Get out a notebook or some paper and a pen. Make yourself comfortable; light a candle, put on comfortable clothes, create an environment you can feel safe in.
We’ll walk through each of these steps in detail:
Feel the shame and reflect back on the situations and events that bring it up.
Name the core fears about your identity that are causing a sense of shame.
Understand the influences that generated these core fears.
Counter these fears with examples from your life or your core beliefs.
Affirm a new narrative.
Share your feelings and fears with others.
Download the printable workbook
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Feel and reflect
Focus on an event, action, situation, or period of time that brings up feelings of shame. To unravel the threads, you'll need to sit with your discomfort.
This may be a good time to practice a short meditation, freewrite about these past experiences, or simply list a few of them and identify the common threads.
The goal here is to focus in on an identifiable pattern of shame or a specific experience. Let yourself feel everything that comes up, and begin to sort through it.
Name your fears
As you’re feeling, notice the fears about your identity that come up. What are you afraid this experience means about you? What are you afraid others will think about you?
Shame comes from core fears about who we are as a person. About being fundamentally wrong, broken, unlovable, or flawed in some way.
List all of these fears. Even naming them explicitly can take away some of their power. Next, you’ll deconstruct them.
Understand why
Understand the influences that have contributed to these core fears. Are they rooted in societal expectation or fear of rejection? Are they related to deeper fears from your childhood? Noticing where these fears came from can help dismantle them.
For each fear, write down any influences you think of. Are they internal or external? Are they actually linked to the experience that brought you shame, or did they come from somewhere else?
Counter the narrative
Now that you understand the narrative of your shame, it's time to rewrite it. For each fear on your list, write down three reasons it isn't true. Use concrete examples from your life or your core beliefs.
For example, if your core fear has to do with being unlovable, you might write a list of all the people who love you, just the way you are.
Affirm yourself
For each fear, write down an affirmation that supports your new narrative. This can be a one-time tool or an ongoing ritual.
For example, I have struggled with a core fear that I couldn’t trust my judgement of people. An affirmation that has helped me is simply “I trust my intuition.”
You may want to gather all of your affirmations up in one page and post them on your wall or tuck them in your journal to revisit.
Share your story
Talk about your shame with someone you feel emotionally safe with; a licensed therapist, a friend, a family member, or even strangers on the internet. Shame is often rooted in fear of social rejection; receiving compassion instead is a powerful way to help yourself heal.
Beyond this exercise
Shame can’t be resolved in a day. But this exercise can help rewrite some of the narratives of fear that keep us trapped.
As always, I would love to hear your thoughts on this exercise and anything else I write about. You can dm me on instagram at @alive.and.present.
Cover photo by Tim Foster on Unsplash
