One Way to Build Resilience to Shame – Reach Out!
Continuing our theme of resilience, this week’s dual topics are guilt and shame, and how to tell the difference between them.
Guilt is what we feel if we do something specific that goes against our values. Shame can be the painful feeling of humiliation or distress caused by our awareness of doing something wrong. Guilt is the result of an action. Shame can result from our feeling of guilt.
According to Brené Brown, the antidote to shame is empathy and self-compassion. “I believe that guilt is adaptive and helpful – it’s holding something we’ve done or failed to do up against our values and feeling psychological discomfort,” she says. “I define shame as the intensely painful feeling or experience of believing that we are flawed and therefore unworthy of love and belonging – something we’ve experienced, done, or failed to do makes us unworthy of connection. I don’t believe shame is helpful or productive. In fact, I think shame is much more likely to be the source of destructive, hurtful behavior than the solution or cure.”
(Here’s a link to Brown’s interview on 60 Minutes on the importance of being in connection with others, in case you missed it.)
Over seven years, Brown conducted hundreds of interviews about shame, and she found that women with the highest levels of shame resilience had four things in common:
Recognizing shame and its triggers
Practicing critical awareness
Reaching out
Speaking shame
You probably know this already, but my favorite of these is reaching out. After all, that’s what Courage to Caregivers was founded on – the notion that no one should take this journey alone.
The goal of our curriculum – and everything we do at Courage to Caregivers – is to empower caregivers with the tools and resources to be the strongest, most resilient people we can be. Quite often, we don’t tell you anything that you don’t already know. We’re just reminding you that, amidst these hard trauma-filled days, you DO know stuff … and you CAN do it.
It takes a lot of courage to reach out and acknowledge that you don’t want to do this alone. That kind of courage can lead to resilience.
"We are hardwired to connect with others, it's what gives purpose and meaning to our lives, and without it, there is suffering." - Brené Brown
How do we do this amidst our current HARD situation of sheltering in place amidst the fear and uncertainty of this pandemic? Reach out - if YOU need help, ASK. Or if you have some extra love or kindness to GIVE - check on a family member or friend. Write a card, note or letter to someone you've been meaning to connect with. Text or call someone just because. FaceTime or video chat someone - the power to look into a loved ones eyes makes all the difference in forging connection. Send an email to someone sharing how all this has you feeling. Setup a free Zoom account and host a "Zarty" - a Zoom "party"!
Just remember, you CAN do hard things. I'm here - we're here - for YOU. Let’s do HARD together.