Shame is your ally, not your enemy
Shame is your ally, not your enemy
Working with shame
I have been describing narcissistic behaviour as a self-defence against the discomfort of uncertainty, insecurity and inadequacy that is experienced and reinforced when we feel shame. Shame fuels narcissistic behaviour, but it doesn’t have to.
Shame is a maligned emotion because of the things we automatically think, feel and do when we experience it. Shame is often referred to as a negative emotion (as if emotions have relative value) and is often conflated with a range of other emotional states such as:
guilt
humiliation
rejection
feeling excluded
feeling overlooked
feeling exposed
embarrassment
feeling shy
fear of not being liked or being unattractive
powerlessness
victimhood
unworthy
inadequacy
inferiority
fear of leaving a group/wanting to leave a group
not belonging
feeling worthless and not good enough
fear of being a bad person
This list is not exhaustive and the common attribute is that the feeling of shame and narratives associated with the feeling are internal manifestations. It’s what a person perceives about themselves as a result of their circumstances.
I propose that shame is a misunderstood emotion and aim to convince you that shame is an ally helping you uphold your values and moral principles through your actions, and is not an enemy trying to destroy you.
Descriptions of shame
Unsurprisingly, shame is a thoroughly studied emotion because it is something we want to understand better. In my brief literature search, I have seen shame described negatively here, here and here, in Australian Aboriginal culture here and as a productive emotion here.
Since we’re social creatures and are constantly influenced by what’s happening inside (i.e. beliefs, assumptions, rules, values, expectations, desires, needs) and outside of us (i.e. relationship with another person, group identity, community values, organisational culture, societal norms) shame also needs to be framed in the context of these relationships.
Social psychologists, sociologists and behavioural neuroscientists describe shame as being induced by perceived threats to self-image, social status and reputation, an in-group vs. out-group collective experience, or through moral transgressions and violations of group norms. Shame is proposed to preserve social order, and to maintain social norms and moral behaviours.
An expanded definition of shame
Since many, if not most of our relationships are hierarchical, one person will tend to hold power over and control the relationship more than the other. This dominance-based hierarchical relationship is what I refer to as interpersonal or relational narcissism. Relational narcissism can be present between two people or within a group that organises into a hierarchy and social order, where one person/group eventually holds more power and influence than the others to dictate the norms, expectations, values and moral behaviours of this relationship.
If these are typical conditions in most of our relationships, because they mirror parent-child, authority-subordinate, or master-slave dynamics, then it’s important to view our experience of shame through the lens of inequality and uneven distribution of power.
Definition:
Shame is a measure of the strength in upholding your personal moral principles and cultural values while resisting the pressure to fit into and uphold social norms, moral behaviours and hierarchy of a dominant culture (whose values and principles differ to your own).
Simply put, shame is rooted in an incongruence between your own moral principles, what you do in practice and the context in which it’s happening. Shame is felt when your actions transgress your moral principles and/or violate social norms when you attempt or even fail to please, appease and gain approval from any authority who is perceived to have more power than you in order to fit in and succeed.
I will break down this broad definition of shame in different ways to describe three shames that will be illustrated with different scenarios. This is also a long piece and I will do my best to help you digest it slowly using breaks with prompts for reflection.
Question for reflection: If we’re socialised to default into relationships of inequality, what is required in a relationship for it to be considered a level playing field and both parties experience each other as equals?
A workplace situation….
The workplace has a set of rules, values, norms, expectations, attitudes and behaviours that define the workplace culture that are implicit and explicit. There’s also a social structure, most likely a hierarchy, that assumes those in position of higher status have more power and influence than those lower down in the social order. As an employee who joined the workplace recently, you entered into a pre-existing workplace culture that requires a settling in period to orient yourself to who’s who and what’s expected of you in your role, including what those expectations look like with the different people you work with.
If your workplace has great leadership, you’ll feel supported to develop professionally to excel at your role, feel safe to share ideas, ask questions, make mistakes and develop mutually respectful and trusting relationships with people around you, including your line manager. Disagreements are welcomed, feedback is genuine and supportive and you’re pushed out of your comfort zone enough to facilitate skill development and professional growth. You will feel really good about being there, empowered, productive, valued and fulfilled in your work, and you will be able to model these same behaviours with others as they’ve been modelled to you.
Succeeding in this utopian setting doesn’t require violation of any of your moral principles to cause harm to yourself or anyone else.
However, if you’re in a toxic work environment, you will witness attitudes and behaviours (i.e. hostility, racism, sexism, exclusion, ideas theft) that will make you adjust yourself to either succeed in that environment by adopting those same toxic traits or become more passive by never rocking the boat, people pleasing and placating stronger personalities.
Your success will involve violating several of your moral principles in order to crush your competition to get promoted, to be a bystander (or perpetrator) to another’s mistreatment or bullying, and to protect people in powerful positions by excusing or justifying bad behaviour.
You might also be afraid to make mistakes, say the wrong thing, say things in the wrong way, as you attempt to avoid rejection, disapproval, humiliation and job loss. You could be criticised and blamed by your manager and peers so that you feel doubt about your competence and you lose touch with your self-worth. This will lead to constant anxiety, feeling ashamed, demoralised and loathing yourself every day you are at work.
On top of that, if your empathy is still intact, you will be suffering from moral injury as a result of witnessing others getting harmed and you being a perpetrator of harm because you violated your moral principles in order to uphold the social norms and standards of the workplace. You will feel ashamed about being a perpetrator of harm and won’t allow yourself to acknowledge your dual role as a victim (because of shame) as a result of your moral violation.
In either scenario, you are embodying the (im)moral or (un)ethical behaviours of a dominant culture in order to uphold the existing social order, regardless of the quality of the culture. When you continually violate your moral principles to fit into and uphold the norms, values and practices of the dominant (toxic) culture, you will experience what is known as moral and empathy erosion. You can also think of this process as erasing less desirable aspects of your identity (identity erasure) to successfully assimilate into the dominant culture. The shame induced throughout the gradual assimilation process as you start to see aspects of yourself as ‘wrong’, is often mistakenly called Imposter Syndrome, when it’s more likely a symptom of assimilation trauma. If you successfully assimilate into the toxic dominant culture through annihilation of all your unwanted characteristics, the resulting empathy loss from moral erosion will cause you to develop and express malignant narcissistic traits.
This is the same mechanism by which people become indoctrinated into cults and submit to cult leaders - in religious institutions (which many public and private institutions resemble), yoga, spiritual and social media influencer communities.
Reflection
Take a moment and notice any reactions, thoughts or feelings you have about what you’ve just read. You might be thinking ‘this feels so familiar’ or ‘this sounds like my workplace’ or ‘this is like my family situation’ or ‘this is what happened in my friend group’.
If you’re feeling discomfort with what you just read - you might ask yourself why that is.
You might have new insights about a current situation or flashback of a memory. Note these down so you can refer to them later or comment below.
Take a breath.
If you feel that you can, please keep reading.
My fictional family situation…
I have a tricky relationship with my parents. I constantly feel like I have to live up to the expectations of one of my parents despite being an independent adult living my own life. This parent is the dominant authority figure in my family and everyone in my family system seems to play a role to maintain the social order and hierarchy within my family. My siblings are always treated better than me and seem to get along better with my domineering parent. They get away with not doing anything to help out while I’m expected to do everything for this parent. They use the excuse that they’re not as capable as I am, as if it’s a compliment. I feel like the Black Sheep of my family who can’t do anything right yet I’m expected to look after everyone’s needs before my own, because apparently, mine don’t matter.
When I finally take a moment to reflect on my values, moral principles and what action I need to take to improve my situation, I realise that continuing to fulfil my parent’s unreasonable expectations of me is causing me distress and preventing me from living my own life for me.
I decide to draw a line by telling this parent that I won’t be able to continue doing what they expect of me. Despite delivering this news calmly yet assertively (which I hadn’t before), my parent reacts negatively and isn’t satisfied with the reason I give and calls me selfish. I expected this reaction and I felt great that I was finally able to convey my needs. I know I made the right decision to be congruent with my principles. Even though my parent was disappointed, my decision and how I conducted myself was not harmful.
The next day I wake up feeling uneasy. As the day progresses, I’m aware that the relief has dissipated and I feel ashamed and guilty. I can’t shake the feeling and I feel down for a few days, and I don’t understand why. My decision should feel liberating but instead the shame is consuming me. I think I made a big mistake and I now I feel like I’m the worst person on Earth.
I start to question and doubt myself, and consider overturning my decision to soothe the discomfort and anxiety inside. The anxiety intensifies and I begin to forget the reason I wanted to assert myself. My attention slowly shifts from me as I focus on worrying about my parent. My anxiety about their wellbeing becomes moral distress, and I begin to catastrophize and consider what I need to do to fix this situation so I can feel better.
The scenario I’ve described is common in co-dependent parent-adult child dynamics involving an adult who has not fully individuated from their (narcissistic) parent, despite the adult living a functional and independent life. The adult is still enmeshed with the parent and therefore aspects of the adult’s identity belong to and are an extension of this parent. The adult who is an extension, rather than a a fully independent, autonomous adult, does not realise that their actions to assert their independence from their parent was experienced as a threat-induced shame response by the parent.
The adult will assume the shame they feel is their own and will not be aware that they are experiencing vicarious shame. As long as the parent is experiencing shame as distress, the shame will intensify within the adult and will be experienced as moral distress. The moral distress will cause the adult to feel anxious about the wellbeing of the domineering parent. Eventually the adult will override their own moral principles and values, overturn their previous decision in order to resume their role placating, protecting and pleasing the parent, and restore the social order of the family system.
The adult’s attempt to individuate has been thwarted by the narcissistic parent’s shame.
How did this happen?
The adult violated the social norms and transgressed the moral behaviours of the family culture/system in order to uphold their own moral principles and values. Though the adult acted in congruence with their moral principles, they experienced shame as if they violated their own moral principles because of their enmeshment with the parent.
The individuation process requires the adult to gain increasing clarity about their needs, priorities, rules and moral principles, based in their own values system rather than only those internalised from parents/caregivers, other authorities and influences.
The step toward autonomy and greater independence is perceived as a threat to a narcissistic parent because their narcissistic supply has decreased. Rather than consider what’s best for the adult and rejoice in their increasing independence, the narcissistic parent will lament about what they did so wrong (because it’s all about them), experience shame and a range of other emotions, and recruit (emotionally manipulate) their spouse and other family members to restore the narcissistic supply provided by the adult.
Reflection
Take a moment and notice any reactions, thoughts or feelings you have about what you’ve just read. You might be thinking ‘this is my family!’ or even ‘this is what happened with a friend!’
If you’re feeling discomfort with what you just read - you might ask yourself why that is and if it’s because what you just read hit home.
You might have new insights about a current situation or flashback of a memory. Note these down so you can refer to them later or comment below.
Take another breath.
If you feel that you can, please keep reading.
Shame, its bad name and early childhood adversity
Shame is also the default emotion after years of being abused, emotionally neglected, used, betrayed, invalidated and rejected by the authority figures and caregivers who were trusted from birth and who were supposed to nurture, nourish, love and protect their child from harm. The child internalizes mean, untruthful or cruel narratives about themselves and their value from caregivers, authorities, society and the world around them that eventually become associated with feeling shame. As the child becomes an adult in the hostile or seemingly normal family environment continually exposed to these statements about them, that are reinforced during social, educational and workplace experiences, the statements become the voice of the abuser or bully inside their head.
Each time the adult experiences a situation, a re-enactment or reminder of the abusive/co-dependent parent-child dynamic, the negative narratives and shame come out in full force. The person’s immediate response will be to perform the same program of behaviours to placate the authority while self-punishing to simultaneously protect the authority from assuming any accountability for their actions.
This is not that different to what can happen in a workplace or any other relationship type when there’s dominance in a hierarchical relationship involving abuse of power (narcissistic relationship). The non-dominant person experiences shame for violating the norms and moral behaviours they probably didn’t know they violated and uses this maladaptive approach to self-soothe and self-protect against any authority who abuse and misuse their power.
So far shame sounds like the enemy because of the narratives we absorb throughout our lives that tell us we’re bad, we’ll never be useful enough and we don’t matter, that eventually bond to the emotion - an emotion that in essence is an indicator of our conscience and moral compass.
Keep reading…I’m about to get to the part where shame is reframed as an ally, not the enemy.
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