The Usefulness of Guilt

“Shame corrodes the very part of us that believes we are capable of change.” Brene Brown

Shame corrodes the very part of us that believes we are capable of change. Wow. That’s quite a statement.

Shame is a painful feeling caused by a perception of brokenness. In contrast, guilt is the awareness of wrongdoing. We can experience shame without earning it. Shame is that yukky feeling that whispers, “Something is wrong with you!” without doing the hard work of actually inquiring as to the specifics of what is broken. It’s just the WORST, because shame does not offer us hope for change.

Guilt provides us useful information. I did something wrong; I realize it; I can now figure out what I need to do to right the wrong. This is why shame is such a pernicious emotion. If something is WRONG with us, then we’re broken. There’s no fixing it. Yesterday Norah bit the tail off a toy whale eraser. After she picked it out of her teeth, she wanted Meme to “put it back”. Unfortunately, that whale is not going back together no matter how long Norah wails. Shame encourages hiding. But it offers no path to healing. Can you think of examples of when you have felt shame? Are there times when your words have perhaps inflamed the shame in another? Famous shaming phrases to spark your memory:

* How could you do this to me?

* You are such a disappointment.

* Why can’t you be more like ______?

* You have/had so much potential!

* You can do better than this. You are better than this.

* Do you have any idea how this makes me feel?

* You have embarrassed yourself/me/your family.

Taking Responsibility for Solutions

“Courage starts with showing up and letting ourselves be seen.”

Brene Brown

Yesterday I used an example of a time when my husband had a tough conversation with my brother from a place of vulnerability. I was totally confused by the exchange. I had no clue what vulnerability looked like or how to make a decision as an expression of my preferences or core values. For my part, fussing and yelling and threatening and shaming was the only way to handle conflict. I could have played the injured victim and cast Gary as the inconsiderate lout.

One of my favorite quarantine activities is reading to my grandchildren. I am learning a lot! My friend Julie gave the kids a book about fighting (as in, don’t do it). One of the reasons the author suggests we fight is so that we can avoid taking responsibility to actually solve the problem at hand. Mind you, this is a book for young children. Brilliant! I’m not sure that I realized that until this week.

This was what I was good at: embroiling myself in unproductive conflict without actually defining a problem and then seeking a solution. If I had handled the problem with my brother “my way,” it would have involved yelling and screaming and gnashing of teeth. No path forward would have been offered. No consequences delivered, just empty threats and shame-based manipulation. I do not know how long Gary would have stayed with us, disappearing for days at the time, returning when he needed rest and a meal. But what I do know would have happened is that we would have eventually had a terrible falling out. Pete’s approach - showing up, letting Gary see who Pete was and the kind of life Pete wanted - by-passed the slow but inevitable downhill trajectory of living with a vague hope that things would magically improve.

Is there anything you are avoiding or fighting over in an attempt to NOT solve a problem?

Authenticity in Action

My middle brother Gary had a rough decade or so suffering with a substance use disorder. One of his poor decisions included breaking into my house. This was not cool but having lived with his issues for a while, I was more mad about the torn screen than I was aware that we were having a moment when authenticity mattered. Not so my husband.

Pete, who can procrastinate about many things, was clear. He sat my brother down and explained to him that our arrangement (we had offered him shelter in the storm of his life) was not going to work. Pete apologized for not recognizing that Gary’s problems were bigger than room and board could cover. He explained to him that we could not live chaotically, it just wasn’t the way we wanted to roll. He bought a bus ticket for Gary to head on to my parent’s home, where Pete hoped the three of them could sort out next right steps. Pete was gentle and kind; Gary was respectful and appreciative of the ticket. A number of years would pass before any sorting out would occur.

While I cowered in the corner terrified of the vulnerability that Pete was showing, Gary would later share with me that it was a moment of clarity for him. He talked about how Pete didn’t judge him. Pete was leading with HIS perspective - as in - Pete did not want to live in chaos and Gary’s comings and goings and breaking and enterings were disruptive. Gary felt he had nothing he could rage over or disagree with in the conversation.

Without the drama, Gary said, he could see clearly that he was in big trouble and it was his mess to deal with. For the record, he didn’t deal with it for a number of years. But this was one of the moments that piled upon many other ones that ultimately led him to ask for treatment.

What’s it like for you and yours? Can you speak authentically about your feelings, needs, wants, preferences? Can you own them? Can you make decisions based on the life you want to create?

When Self-Protection Damages Authenticity...

On any given day, our best is not great. Imperfect. Human. So let’s try to love one another well, in very practical ways, along the way!

“If you trade your authenticity for safety, you may experience the following: anxiety, depression, eating disorders, addiction, rage, blame, resentment, and inexplicable grief.”

Brene Brown

In today’s quote from Brown, she’s suggesting that leading from a defensive position of self-protection can be bad for our health. This is interesting, right? It seems to me that when I am concerned about my safety, it comes from a place of trying to escape or avoid harm. Notice that her alternative suggestion is not to take up skydiving or snake handling. This is an important contextual clue. If I understand her, I believe what she is saying is that when the cost of self-protection is authenticity, something is off.

In a world where we have so often assessed someone’s character by isolating a particular behavior and ignoring other information, authenticity does indeed feel less safe than riding a bicycle backwards on a mountain road with no helmet. Authenticity requires us to stick to our own stories. It requires some measure of vulnerability - you never really know who has your back until you expose your heart. Judgment has no place in the story because I just cannot figure out how anyone can even try to be authentic and vulnerable if they are sitting in judgment of anyone - including themselves.

Tomorrow, I will share a story about authenticity in the midst of conflict. For today, can you think of a time when you avoided authenticity in favor of playing it safe?

A New Way of Dealing with Imperfections

In yesterday’s blog I asked readers to consider imperfections from Brene Brown’s perspective: “as reminders that we are all in this together.” Too often imperfections are seized upon as objects of ridicule, criticism and judgment. This way of thinking about imperfections does NOT create warm fuzzy feelings of connectedness.

What if she’s right? How might we embrace this new way of dealing with imperfections?

One simple solution might be to separate the behavior from an assessment of character. Here is an example:

When someone is, shall we say, less than honest with us (in our opinion), instead of telling others that this person is a liar, maybe we should have a conversation with said person. Be curious. Ask for clarification. And don’t try to set them up! Don’t bring your mental video of what you think happened and spring it on them like Perry Mason!

Be direct without being aggressive. “Hey, yesterday you said...quote… and I need to circle back around because I’m confused and I really want to understand. Here’s why. Previously, you said….quote…. And unless I am way off base, both of these things do not fit together. What am I missing?” There are a kazillion things that could be going on here. A person can lie without being a liar (one’s a behavior, the second is a character defect). A person can say things that are confusing to others because they are both true in different contexts, not because they are lying in one case and telling the truth in another.