The Soul of Shame
Excerpts from Curt Thompson's 2016 book:
1. There is no domain that the creative power of joy, given the right nutrients in the soil, cannot grow in. It is to the world's advantage that the parent, teacher, coach, pastor, police officer, emergency room nurse, middle manager, CEO, boat captain and farmer cultivate cultures of joy. This is important as we wade into the neuroscience of shame, for shame most primitively and powerfully undermines the process of joyful attachment, integration and creativity.
2. It is crucial to note . . . that shame as a neurophysiologic phenomenon is not bad in and of itself. It is, rather, our system's way of warning of possible impending abandonment, although we do not think of it in those terms, and certainly not at very young ages. However, our problem with it is generally that we tend to respond to it by relationally moving away from others rather than toward them, while experiencing within our own minds a similar phenomenon of internal disintegration.
3. The mind flourishes when in relationships of intentionally attuned connection. As it turns out, humans tend to experience no greater distress than when in relationships of intentional, unqualified abandonment -- abandoned physically and left out of the mind of the other.
4. With shame, I not only sense that something is deeply wrong with me, but accompanying this is the naturally extended consequence that because of this profound flaw, you will eventually want nothing to do with me and will leave. Paradoxically, then, shame is a leveraging affect that anticipates abandonment while simultaneously initiating movement away -- leaving. And we can leave in a hundred ways. [50 Ways to Leave Your Lover]
5. Good listeners energize the storyteller, and so encourage the story to be told more faithfully. They also ask good questions, and when necessary limit or redirect the speaker in order to get the best out of the story. Hence, storytelling is much more a dance between teller and listener than it is a monologue. In fact, it is fair to say that the story is what tends to emerge between speaker and listener, both playing a critical role in its telling. This is true even when we are having private thoughts. For no part of our story is not at some level being influenced by our experience with others, whether that person is in the room or not.
6. We have just explored the nature of storytelling and its importance in the way we encounter shame. We have discovered that to understand shame is not a purely academic exercise targeting an abstract topic. Shame is not only something that we weave in and out of our stories, describing it as we experience it, but something that actively, intentionally attempts to shape the stories we are telling. It is dynamic and fluid, changing its shape and consistency to fit the situation in which it finds us in order to dismantle every effort toward goodness and beauty that we desire to co-construct with God. To combat shame we act in such a way that we live in more robust, more confident and more creative stories. Such stories take greater risks of mercy and justice, which naturally make us more vulnerable. For the most human acts of creativity include the willingness to put the products of creation on public display, where they can be embraced or rejected.
7. Vulnerability is not something we choose or that is true in a given moment, while the rest of the time it is not. Rather, it is something we are. So much of what we do in life is designed, among other things, to protect us from the fact that we are vulnerable at all times. To be human is to be vulnerable. In fact, it may be argued that no other animal, in its completely natural, naked state, is more vulnerable than we are. But we have more ways that do -- say, antelope -- for delaing with all the things that could otherwise remind us of that fact. Vulnerability is not a question of if, but rather to what degree. This does not imply that we have no choices of being more openly so, but it is an illusion to believe that we are not vulnerable. It is something we can hide but not that we can eliminate. The question, then, is not if we are or will be vulnerable but rather how and when we enter into it consciously and intentionally for the sake of creating a world of goodness and beauty.
8. In the story centered around Jesus, we read 'Come to me all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest' and 'Draw near to God and he will draw near to you.' The moment we are conscious of feeling vulnerable, we have activated our sense of being alone. But as he did when seeking Adam and Eve, God invites us to live as we were made to live -- in relationship, with him and with others, in the state of being known, not in the state of isolation that shame desires.
9. The process [of rejecting shame] involves shifting our attention from shame -- and the story shame is trying to tell -- back to the story that is true, the story that God is telling in this very moment. To disregard shame, we must acknowledge it and turn away, as if we think nothing of it. The process of seeking shame to reveal where it hides so we may disregard it is made possible by our ongoing interactions with others who know us deeply.