Shame: Don’t Kill the Messenger!

by Judy Ryan

In my work in culture transformation, a key concept is that all people are greatly impacted by inferiority complex, a concept from Alfred Adler’s psychology and the basis of much of my company’s work. For the sake of simplicity, I’ll refer to inferiority complex as “shame.” Shame is unprocessed pain for which we wrongly conclude there’s something flawed and unworthy about us. Shame is the root cause of all struggles, both internal and external, because without awareness, we often conclude and confer upon ourselves limiting beliefs, then cement false and negative interpretations we make about ourselves. Internally, we then struggle with addictions, stress, disengagement, obesity, anxiety, depression, or more. (You get my drift.) Similarly, shame is the basis of all external struggles. This may show up in your workplace as gossip, sniping, cliques, and arguing. Societally, it shows up as righteousness, win/lose perspectives, war, crime, corruption, coercion, isms, and every other kind of misbehavior. When we realize that shame underlies all struggles, it might be tempting to be ashamed of shame itself. That would be a terrible mistake. That would be shooting the messenger—a very valuable messenger at that.

Shame begins in us when others lay on us criticism, blame, punishment, persecution, neglect, cruelty, rejection, harm, abandonment and much more. Without proper processing, we carry shame in our bodies, hence why The Body Keeps the Score (a book on trauma) has been a best-seller for months. Some of us carry more shame than others because pain we felt (often for decades) was not processed at all, or in a healthy, complete way. This buried shame, in the dark, is why we’re often “triggered” by what someone else says or does—and why deep down inside, even to us, our reaction can seem crazy, out-of-proportion. Our triggers cause us to avoid our feelings and rush into blame, exaggerating the faults of others and puffing up our own virtues in hopes that no one can see how much things are throwing us. Shame is why so many people take anti-anxiety and anti-depression medications and repeat trauma patterns. Understanding shame as the root cause of all struggles is just the beginning and is much less formidable to each of us when we befriend shame. That’s right—befriend it! Shame may seem like an annoying papercut that won’t let up, but if you could see it for the value it provides, you would gratefully understand the many ways it can lead you to recognize and process your pain so that it no longer rules you (or is avoided), but rather leads to resolution. Then, you can help others process their pain and it’s coasting from there. If we only saw shame as the advocate it’s trying to be, we’d respect it like a check-engine light in our car. Shame does not mean we did anything wrong. Shame is just showing us our pain, so we process it instead of trying to bury it, turn it on ourselves, and turn it on each other. When we do that, shame gets stuck in loops, causing people to end up in self-fulfilling negative patterns that appear hopeless to change or heal in and between people.

What if we thanked and relaxed into shame when it rears up? What if when we felt it, we thought, “You make sense. I know you’re here because either some past or present toxic condition is hurting me or the group and is now ready to be let go of, processed, healed, and/or changed. Thanks for cluing me in. I notice when I pay attention to you and follow your lead, feeling what I’m feeling, I get through quickly and easily, and become a happy, productive, effective person.” Not only should we befriend shame, but also let go of the attitude that shame is like a bad case of shingles that we must get over and never, ever catch again.

Sorry, but that’s an attitude likely to cost dearly for anyone who holds it.
People are often impatient with shame, pain and emotions in general. We fail to realize that our bodies take a bit longer to catch up with our minds once they ‘get’ what’s been going on. Throughout our lives we were (or are) too often told (and now tell ourselves) “Get over it already!” “Didn’t you already work on this?” That’s like a kid coming to you with a second skinned knee and your saying, “You don’t get to have another skinned knee. You’ve already had one of those.” When you listen to shame, you become part of a change process that helps you and everyone around you to quickly recover.

Judy Ryan (judy@LifeworkSystems.com), human systems specialist, is owner of LifeWork Systems. Join her in her mission to create a world in which all people love their lives. She can also be reached at 314-239-4727.
People hire LifeWork Systems because we help businesses become agile and manage their priority system: their human system. I hope this article helps you make sense of what’s most crucial to your evolving organization!