Surely on many occasions you have not dared to carry out an activity for fear of what they will say if you do it wrong or if you make a fool of yourself. It is a feeling of loss of dignity and fear of being humiliated. The origin of the feeling of shame is in our survival instinct.
In the past, and to a certain extent also today, it was necessary to belong to a group in order to survive, so performing a ridiculous action could mean expulsion from the group and, therefore, the ability to survive would be minimal. Thus, the feeling of shame is a residue of that primary instinct to survive. Currently, it has lost its function and is nothing more than an obstacle in our daily lives. Therefore, it is important to know how to deal with it. In this Psychology-Online article, we will tell you how to lose shamethe characteristics of shame and the types of shame that exist.
What is shame
Shame is an emotion or feeling of discomfort caused by the fear that our action will cause rejection in others. In other words, it is also a disturbance of the emotional state due to an action committed that is socially considered humiliating. It is an emotion that limits us due to the fear of being rejected. For this reason, embarrassing people tend to avoid certain situations or contexts for fear of making a fool of themselves.
Do you want to know how to lose shame? Read on to learn the characteristics of shame and how to overcome this feeling.
Characteristics of shame
There are several characteristics that can help you identify your feeling of shame. Next, we will see what the characteristics of shame are:
- Many times is unconscious so we don’t know we have it.
- It is very durableThat is, despite having ended the situation that could cause us shame, this feeling lasts over time.
- The emotions and feelings that arise as a consequence of it, such as low self-esteem, sadness, anxiety, are very intense.
- This accompanied by thoughts, images, negative sentences originating in childhood. Examples of this are thinking that oneself is stupid, useless, the feeling of not being enough, among others.
- The most primary origin, as we said at the beginning of the article, isIt is due to our primary survival instincts. However, there are factors that occur during childhood that can cause some people to have greater feelings of shame than others. On many occasions, a child’s parents send him/her negative messages every time he/she makes a mistake, causing these messages to end up being internalized and making the child feel increasingly insecure about starting. an action.
Why do we feel shame?
Perhaps you have often wondered why we feel shame. The main causes of this feeling are the feeling of vulnerability that we feel towards others, due to social prejudices, and the fear of being excluded for making a fool of ourselves if we do not follow the standards most valued by society. The fear of being rejected makes us adapt to pre-established norms and judge those behaviors or actions that deviate from them.
If you want to know more about shame, in the following article you will find information about it.
Types of shame
How many types of shame are there? We can distinguish different types of shame. Let’s see what they are:
- Loving: The fact that a person knows that we have loving feelings towards them and rejects us can produce a great feeling of shame.
- For being exposed: The reason for the shame is because we have been discovered in a situation, for example, intimate or because a mistake of yours has been exposed publicly.
- By expectations: Sometimes the problem arises because we have high expectations about our future, so that, when we do not achieve these achievements, we feel shame.
- Social exclusion: one of the types of shame is . Not being invited to a meal or a plan with friends can make you feel displaced and a feeling of shame arises.
- Alien: We can feel embarrassed when we are accompanied by someone who can draw attention to their way of dressing, their behavior or their way of thinking, which can cause us to feel ashamed. In this article, you will see.
Exercises to lose shame
How to overcome shame? There are dynamics to lose shame. We recommend the following exercises to stop being shy:
- Accept having imperfections: If you assume that at some point you can make a mistake and make a mistake, you won’t be so embarrassed if it happens. Expose your flaws with grace, so that by acknowledging their existence they become less important to others. In this article, we tell you.
- Set goals: If you are wondering how to lose shame, in addition to setting goals to achieve, also try to force yourself to fulfill them. If at any time you are afraid of making a fool of yourself, remember what your goal is and don’t let that fear stop you from achieving it.
- Look who you surround yourself with: If you surround yourself with people who are too shy, who are afraid of making mistakes, or who judge others when they make them, you will surely end up having greater feelings of shame. When it comes to overcoming shame, try to surround yourself with people who care about enjoying themselves and forget about what others do or what others think about them.
- Work on your self-esteem: If you live dependent on what others are going to think about you, it is because surely your opinion of yourself is not very positive. Another exercise to lose shame is to analyze what you think about yourself and try to modify those messages with more positive ones. Remember that your value does not change by what others think. Discover .
- Be objective: Sometimes we come to analyze situations in a too subjective way that prevents us from seeing what reality is like. To lose shame, try to have a third-person point of view: What would you think of someone who has made that mistake? Surely you wouldn’t have a bad opinion of that person or, at least, it wouldn’t be anything like the one you think they would have of you if you made that same mistake.
- Expose yourself: To overcome shame, expose yourself to what makes you ashamed. You can start with those situations that do not cause you as much anxiety and end with those that cause you more anxiety. This is the best way to combat fears.
If you want to know more, we recommend reading this article about .
This article is merely informative, at Psychology-Online we do not have the power to make a diagnosis or recommend a treatment. We invite you to go to a psychologist to treat your particular case.
Bibliography
- Burgo, J. (2018). Shame: Free yourself, find joy and build true self-esteem. London: Watkins Media.
- Broucek, Francis (1991). Shame and the Self. Guilford Press, New York, p. 5.
- Calderón, G. (2004). The ambivalence of bioethics: five theses to overcome shame. University Orientations, (35), 107-122.