Reacting to Shame
When people get triggered into shame, there are four common unconscious reactions:
Worthiness
All human being have intrinsic worthiness, and there is nothing a person needs to do or be in order to be worthy – worthy of love, respect, attention, and connection. Unfortunately, because of the debilitating effects of shame, and how prevalent shaming messages are in our culture and our interpersonal relationships, people can lose sight of their own sense of worthiness.
Defining Worthiness
Worthiness is knowing you are good enough just the way you are, loving and accepting yourself, and feeling free and confident to be authentic.
Authentic people are those who feel “comfortable in their own skin.” Such people are honest, sincere, and direct, and they can laugh at themselves with compassion. Shame prevents us from being authentic because when we feel shame, we hide our true selves. We don’t want other people to know us when we see ourselves as flawed and unworthy of connection.
Neil Clark Warren identifies five characteristics of authentic people:
Cultivating Authenticity and Worthiness
It is possible to cultivate authenticity and worthiness. Learning to move through shame so it doesn’t control you is one way to increase authenticity. And the more authentic you are, the less you have to hide. Authenticity is a daily practice. Choosing authenticity means taking these actions:
Ways to nurture your sense of worthiness:
Brene Brown (2010) defines wholehearted living:
Wholehearted living is about engaging in our lives from a place of worthiness. It means cultivating the courage, compassion, and connection to wake up in the morning and think,
No matter what gets done and how much is left undone; I am enough.
It’s going to bed at night thinking,
Yes, I am imperfect and vulnerable and sometimes afraid, but that doesn’t change the truth that I am also brave and worthy of love and belonging.
Self-Application: From Shame to Worthiness
We can’t be immune to shame. However, we all have the capacity to develop resilience. Shame resilience means we can understand shame, know when we’re in it, and know why we’re in it. It means we can move through it constructively while maintaining our authenticity. And we can increase our courage, compassion, and connection as a result of our experience. In other words, resilience is not about resisting shame but about moving through it in a way that allows us to be our best authentic selves and to return to a place of feeling worthy.