This is how to use Shame to your benefit
It's probably one of the best tools you have
What you’ll get from this article: A way to turn shame, usually a big negative, into a strong positive that helps you have the life you really want.
No AI was used to write, edit, or otherwise modify this article.
Quick note: This article is for the people who know they could achieve more, but for some reason, haven’t yet. If you are functionally disabled and are shamed of having to have someone bathe you, that’s beyond your control, and this may not be for you. You shouldn’t feel shame for things you have no say in.
For everyone else, let’s get started.
At its very core, shame is the feeling of not being worthy. Of there existing a standard that you do not meet, as measured by an entity that you respect.
To make that clearer- In order to feel shame, you must:
1. Know that a measurement exists
2. Have some entity (a person, a grading body, general public, etc) signal that they don’t believe you measure up
3. Have a sense of respect for that entity, even if you don’t feel like you do
If these things are true, then you feel Shame: the feeling like you are lesser-than.
For most people, they feel like they are less than whoever is measuring. Like they are not as good as the person or thing that caused them to feel shame. The root of the shame is contingent on being perceived (whether it’s actually perceived or just the fear of being perceived). This is why when we say ‘I also could hold myself accountable and feel shame to only myself’, the actual bad part comes from someone finding out about it, and their judgement. Yes, we’re ashamed of not meeting our own standards, but mostly because people may judge us for it.
That extra pair of eyes is an important part, because humans are notorious for rationalizing everything in a vacuum (our own heads). I didn’t do the thing because x, y, z. I would have done better, if not for 1, 2, and 3. Those reasons are why it didn’t happen, and it wasn’t my fault. For most people, we can find an excuse if we look hard enough, and that’s why most people are not generally where they want to be. Because we forgive ourselves very easily.
Let’s forget the perspective of the measuring body, though. Instead of society, or a love interest, or a boss, lets focus on that ‘you’ part. You know exactly what you are capable of, and the quickest way to determine it is to ask ‘what do I normally forgive myself for, due to whatever reason’? Internally, we know that if we had done those things, we would probably sleep better at night, yet we did not.
But we could.
If we really wanted those things, we could do them.
We haven’t yet because we keep making excuses, or prioritizing other things.
All it would take to do them is for the reward of doing it to be bigger than the shame of not doing it. There’s a comic that I have loved for years about how we all have exactly the life we really want (done by Akimbo Comics, I’ll paste the full comic in at the bottom, you might want to jump down to it real quick). Essentially, if you wanted more money, you would focus on nothing else. If you wanted to be skinnier, you would eat less. If you wanted a new life, you would create a plan and have it. But generally, we don’t.
We have a litany of reasons, but it boils down to I wanted the other thing more. I wanted to watch TV more than workout, or wanted to have free social time more than I wanted to make money. And for the whattaboutists, but lets say even just 50% of things are like this. That’s still a lot, and changing that 50% could lead to significant life upgrades.
“But I have kids, I don’t have the time”. Kids are hard, undoubtedly. If you can find the space when they nap, or when they are in their Pack-n-Play, you have 20-30 minutes a day to make something happen.
And if you really can’t, because your kids wouldn’t be taken care of, then you are choosing ‘raise my kids well’ over ‘move forward in that other area’, which is completely fine. It means you can release yourself from the shame of not moving forward, because it’s not what you really want anyways. You want to be a good parent, kudos to you.
But if you did want to change, and knew that there were small behavior modifications you could make to do it, what can you do?
Start by looking at the small breaks you’re giving yourself, the little decisions you forgive yourself for. Those are the difference makers, the ones you have to shift, but they won’t shift unless the shame of not doing them is greater than the reward of doing them.
So how do we change the self-destruction? How do we shift our brain to want the higher life quality thing more?
Well, I think we use shame, and I do this in my own life.
It’s pretty straightforward- you find someone you respect and you let them hold you accountable, full stop. Someone where the shame of letting them down is more painful than the actions you have to take.
Here’s an example from my own life:
I’ve always wanted to be lower body fat, but haven’t done it yet. Which is wild, because the math is easy. For the most part, you eat less than you burn, you sleep well, lower stress, and workout more. Diseases may factor in for other people, but they don’t for me, I was just not doing the thing. For years. Why? Oh man, thousands of reasons. But at the core of it, it’s just because the shame of being fat was outweighed by the hard choices and actions of changing it.
So I asked myself, how can I make that shame bigger? How can I make it outweigh the hardness of change?
I found someone I respected, someone who had done the action themselves, and asked them to hold me accountable. My friend had lost a lot of weight by nothing other than learning more about nutrition, buckling down, and doing what it took. Over 30lbs. He was what I could have been, if I had made better choices.
If I asked him to hold me accountable, and still didn’t do it (despite being perfectly able to), then I was literally lesser than him in that aspect. Not in general, but in that one aspect. It just also happens to be an aspect where I am not going to allow myself to feel the shame of being lesser than him, because I don’t HAVE to be. I could be more, I was just making excuses. And if I didn’t do it and he saw that, I would have to live with the shame of my very good friend knowing concretely that I could not accomplish what he did, because I simply chose not to.
In this case, and many similar cases, shame can be our friend. Shame keeps us accountable to do the things we know we can do, because we know we are capable of them if we buckled down. If it’s really out of my hands, I wouldn’t feel any shame, because I can’t control it, and if I do, then i’m just hurting myself.
If you want to do the same, here are some steps:
-Acknowledge your potential
-Understand that you have actively chosen not to reach it
-Find a way to make the pain of change less than the shame of not achieving
With love, from me to you,
Alec
Comic:
