Abrahams explains it like this: “Shame is a universal emotion we feel when we violate social norms. At such moments we feel humiliated, exposed, and small and are unable to look another person straight in the eye.”
“We can feel sick to our stomach, red in the face, and we typically want to hide from everyone.”
While it’s a common emotion that everyone will feel, Abrahams describes it as “an underground emotion” that’s “different from other emotions that we can talk about.”
Weird, huh?
“When we feel or reflect on our behaviour that causes us shame, we can become consumed with believing we – as a person – are bad,” explains Abrahams.
If you’re wondering if this is just the same as guilt – same. But apparently, they’re actually two very separate emotions.
While they may seem closely linked, Abrahams said that when we feel guilt, it’s our behaviour that is usually deemed as ‘bad’, whereas with shame, we don’t absorb the ‘badness’ into our sense of self, as we do with guilt.
Shame goes to a deeper level of the psyche, where there’s a more painful awareness of the self. While shame can be felt in many situations, Abrahams said there is something at the core of shame that is always present – a fear of disconnection.
“Leading shame expert Brene Brown hits the nail perfectly on the head in her definition that ‘shame is the intensely painful feeling or experience of believing that we are flawed and therefore unworthy of love and belonging.’”
“Her research shows that humans are hard-wired in every way for connection, love and belonging.”
While the feeling of shame can be brief and fleeting, it can also be an enduring emotion that can make you feel like you are fundamentally flawed and not ‘good enough’.
“Shame can exist wherever we believe we’re flawed, fearing people who are important to us will see us as not up to scratch, and then flick us away,” said Abrahams.
How sad!
“Humans are social animals, as are many mammals. As social animals, we work hard to keep within the bounds of the various communities we belong. We need the feeling of inclusion.”
“There’s a reason we do this. We want others to see us in a desirable way and our ego helps us create and curate the image of ourselves that we wish to portray.”
“When we behave in a way that’s out of the social norm, it will tap into our primitive fear that others will find out we’re not good enough, or unworthy, or unlovable – and any of these translate to being abandonable. And in our primitive DNA we know that being abandoned by our herd is deadly – just as it is for mammals in the wild.”
Meaning? We have to stay on top of our game in order to protect ourselves.
“We even have our ego telling us to behave in certain ways to protect our identity in public. It works hard to prevent us from being cancelled. Shame is why cancel culture is so powerful.
“We can brutally judge someone who mis-stepped too far for our liking as unworthy, cut them down and then ostracise them. We become judge and jury, and feel blemish-free and pure in our self-image, implying ‘we’d never behave so poorly’. Social media has fuelled this exponentially.”