I have been thinking about shame recently and how that has played a role not just in my life, but in the lives of clients and loved ones. As someone who still struggles with occasional self-shaming and as someone who hears and bears witness to others’ self-shaming, I know the destructive nature of this behavior and the profound effect it can have on people. I am reminded on a near daily basis that you cannot shame yourself into self-love.

It seems as though many people believe that beating ourselves up can improve performance or somehow enhance us, but such is not the case. There is a difference between showing tough love and beating ourselves up. Tough love can sound like inspiration or motivation. Beating ourselves up sounds like denigration and leads to feelings of unworthiness. This is self-shaming.

Self-shaming sounds like calling ourselves derogatory names. It sounds like yelling at ourselves for perceived mistakes or wrong doings. Self-shaming sounds like the opposite of self-compassion. Self-shaming rarely, if ever, leads to self-love.

When we think about shame, we often find ourselves feeling a certain way. Shame is that little voice inside us that says we are not good enough, pretty enough, handsome enough, smart enough, thin enough … enough of anything. Shame tells us we ARE not enough. It is different from guilt, which tells us we have done something bad. Shame can be the result of internalizing guilt to the point of making ourselves feel as though we are unworthy of the forgiveness of others and the forgiveness of ourselves. Shame leaves us feeling as though we are unworthy of love and belonging both from others and from ourselves.

When we shame ourselves for simply being human, we create for ourselves a broken record of self-defeating thoughts, which can lead to negative self-talk and behaviors which perpetuate those thoughts and that all leaves us feeling as though we are not good enough. So, how do we counteract all that? It starts with recognizing that we as humans are perfectly imperfect beings who sometimes learn by making mistakes and who are worthy of love and belonging simply because we exist. Countering self-shaming is dependent upon the way we talk to ourselves and by practicing self-compassion.

Self-compassion is a crucial component of self-love. It is challenging to offer others compassion if we cannot offer ourselves compassion. Self-compassion sounds like giving ourselves credit for doing the best we can with what we have right now. Self-compassion sounds like celebrating our accomplishments and victories, no matter how small or big. Self-compassion sounds like being kind and gentle with ourselves. Offering ourselves compassion is not selfish. It is necessary to move away from self-shaming.

When we think about self-love, many people seem to think that that is selfish, that somehow offering ourselves the same love we give freely to others somehow is to be frowned upon. This could not be further from the truth. In fact, the opposite is true. It can be challenging to freely love and accept others as the perfectly imperfect beings that they are if we cannot freely love and accept ourselves first.

It took me years to change the sound of my internal monologue, that one that beat myself up for even the smallest mistake or misdeed. But the more I practiced countering those self-shaming and self-defeating statements with self-compassion and loving statements, the better I started feeling not just about myself but about my entire life. What steps might you be able to take to counter your self-shaming statements? What would those statements sound like? I encourage you to notice and reflect on how you feel after even just a few days of practicing saying loving things to yourself. My suspicion is that you will notice feeling better about yourself and your life.

Brene Brown offers a great TEDTalk about shame and you can find it here: https://www.ted.com/talks/brene_brown_listening_to_shame.

~ Karri Christiansen, MSW, LSW, CADC, CCTP

Many of us from time to time find ourselves feeling either as though we have failed at something, or worse, that we ARE failures. The word “failure” has only seven letters but really is a big, heavy word with pretty bad connotations.

Those who feel that they have failed at something be it at work or in their personal lives often can feel as if they have hit a road block. I wonder, though, what would happen if instead of looking at failure as a road block, they looked at failure as a speed bump that if they move slowly over it really does little damage? For many who feel like they ARE a failure, it seems as though the thought often is that failure is final. What if instead we considered failure as an opportunity to learn, grow and become? What if instead we looked at failure as part of success? What if instead of looking at failure as something from which we cannot recover as a launching point for something better?

How do we do that, though? It starts with recognizing that struggle, that failure sometimes is part of life. Most of us will struggle at some point in our lives. But that struggle does not mean that we are failing. That struggle means that we are growing.

Sometimes we feel like we are failing, as though we are failures, because our careers, our love lives, our relationships are not quite what we would want them to be. I wonder if that feeling could be a signal that perhaps it is time for change. Maybe we are unhappy with our careers because they have become unfulfilling or we feel there is no room for growth. Maybe that is a sign that now might be a good time to consider a career change. Changing careers does not mean you have failed at one thing, it means that you are meant for something different, something that better aligns with your hopes, dreams and aspirations.

Feeling as though our love lives are rife with failure perhaps means that we need to take stock of our relationships and look at any relationship patterns. Maybe it means that we need to reconsider both what it means to be a good partner and what kind of partner we deserve. Perhaps we can look at failure in our love lives as a signal that we deserve better and then demand better.

So many of us view failure as some sort of indication that we are somehow lesser than or unworthy of love or belonging. This could not be further from the truth. None of us is successful at every single thing we do. If we allow it, failure can be a teacher. What is failure teaching you? What can you learn about yourself from what you perceive as a failing? Failure does not have to be final. It only is final if you allow it to be so.

~ Karri Christiansen, MSW, LSW, CADC, CCTP