Breathe free for a change - do I need to hear this a day after my daughter’s beautiful wedding hosted by the groom’s huge perfect family at their ocean homestead surrounded by their loving family and friends who have lived their lives there together and are rightly proud of their family dynasty- as they should be because they are amazing and accept my daughter with open arms. Shame is beating on my skull as I writhe with thoughts of everything I should have done and said and given and bought and provided and affirmed and soothed if I wasn’t such a weird scared phony awkward eccentric with family trouble so unaddressed that family is now completely estranged. My daughter now has a new perfect shiny family so I should feel only joy for her! And of course I do - except- for shame, for shame, for shame, I just feel miserable for our tiny family’s sense of loss, and terrified that she has a new improved mother who is helpful, loving, happy, social and available. My puny life was just mortifyingly on display and I’m glad to have read Polly this morning and will try to have some self-compassion.
I don’t know you or your daughter, but the way your daughter was brought up, with all its spots and imperfections, has made her into the kind of person who can attract that kind of love into her life. Congratulations to her, and to you.
I have not gone through the kid wedding situation yet, but I feel this. My family of origin is dysfunctional and my husbands family is authentic and real. They have conflict with each other, and I would not refer to them as bright and shiny, but even when things get tough or they argue, they still show up for each other. My family just retreats and stops answering their phones. It makes me endlessly sad and the shame, the shame, the shame.... My mantra for years has been that I am breaking generational trauma. Sounds like you did that too! Great job mama. PS I know it still hurts sometimes, but you did it!
It’s like we’re cosmically connected or something because your newsletter in my inbox today was a huge help to me. I saw a picture that an ex who brutally broke up with me nearly a year ago posted of himself looking really smug and I felt such DEEP shame.
I felt ashamed that I still feel deeply hurt and angry that he gets to live his life and I have to deal with these everyday barrage of emotions. Ashamed that I’m still not “over it”. Ashamed that I wish my life was like a rom com and I could get my chance to stick it to the man. Ashamed that I thought he looked nice and that the dress I tried on at reformation earlier in the day made me look awful and reminded me of the times my mum would make comments about my growing body.
Worries that maybe the girl he’s with now or wanting to be with is everything that I couldn’t be no matter how hard I tried but maybe I didn’t try enough? More shame.
Then I read this and nearly cried at the coffee shop but then I held that back too because of shame. Thank you for writing this because it really mirrored back to me how much I’ve let it control my life.
Reading this made me want to literally strip down, sprint through the living room shrieking, and then eat cake with my hands. Shame doesn’t stand a chance when joy gets that unruly. Thanks for the reminder that life gets way more fun when we stop auditioning and just let ourselves be the weird, wonderful mess we already are.
Back in elementary school, I even felt ashamed of my knowledge. When one teacher praised me to another, it was so unbearable that even today I can instantly recall the picture and the traumatic feeling, reliving it all over again. It felt like I wanted to collapse into myself, into a non-existent point, only because I couldn’t stand being the center of attention. It was a long process, but I consciously worked through it, and today I know how to accept a compliment with ease.
I don’t know how to do a good job at work without shame. My primary motivations are:
1. I should do this thing to prove I am amazing
2. I better to do this to prove I’m not a total POS
Every damn thing we do as children is evaluated and labeled in mostly innocuous seeming ways. You took a nap? Good job!! You stacked some blocks?! Wow, you’re amazing! Every damn thing we do is brought back to our selves. We can’t just do something and not have it MEAN something about ourselves, our worth, and our (as children) ability to survive. Everyone thinks I’m a cuckoo for not telling my child “good job,” but I try to celebrate his wins with him and not make them about HIM. (I hope he doesn’t think I’m withholding validation and I hope he feels my approval as unconditional but parenting is a crapshoot so who tf knows.)
ANYWAY, at work I try to focus on my sense of contributing, to the satisfaction of creating something. I try to enjoy my strengths rather than using them to prop up a sense of worth. I try not to label my weaknesses as moral failings, but just predispositions I’m doing my best to manage. But it’s hard to not overly focus on my performance and rely on shame as motivation, especially when you see your colleagues doing it and applying the good/bad framework to others.
"Every time you feel too much, care too much, long for too much, shame tells you that your pain means you’re pathetic and embarrassing and weak. Your most unique traits doom you to be isolated and rejected forever. You will always fail."
...oof. One of the most direct and impactful things I've read to date. I'd say this is especially true to those who are of a more neurodivergent persuasion, among other types of folks.
To be conditioned for feeling shame about what you love at the same time you're to feel ashamed of what you struggle with...it is a bit confusing, to put it in as benign and mild a light as I can think to. It's a fine way to help guide someone into a life in which they wake up in their mid-30s and feel no sense of accomplishment to speak of, regardless of any degrees or work accolades one may have accumulated. Everything, even straightforwardly praiseworthy things, are all too easily turned into additional monuments of shame. That doesn't really matter, that's weird to be interested in, that plaque was just given to you out of pity, et al.
Shame ensures that a sense of agency will remain completely at bay, I've noticed. Not the prettiest fate for as long as it remains in place.
From the perspective of Affect Theory which seems emotion (affect) as core, shame is an innate affect and its forms include embarrassment, shyness, humiliation. I highly recommend the seminal work about shame by G. Kaufman, Shame and the Power of Caring, which was foundational in the Recovery Movement and has been widely quoted and copied. When you hear someone talk about a shame spiral (like Cher in Clueless), that’s where the term originated.
Shame has become a part of me so terribly, I find it hard to even express what its done to me. My shoulders and neck hold so much shame because my mother always wanted me to hide my body because of HER shame around me accidentally being even slightly sexually attractive. My while teenage to early 20s was just ridden with chronic pain and posture issues. This further translated into extreme hate for myself, my sexuality and a constant battle of trying to understand "how to be attractive" to the men I want. I am now 28, living in Europe (shame is a foreign concept that women here dont understand the way I do) and I;m "free-er" but still plagued with the same shame. I overcorrect my posture, I try to be open but I can never be as endlessly freely sexy as the women here and my shame perpetuates. I often wallow in how men dont approach me and Im always met with strange advice on how to be more attractive and how I need to just "own my secuality!" but what does that look to a body that feels shame in each crevice and nook? The worst thing is Im incredibly beautiful and intellegent and charming and an artist - yet whenever I hear feedback on why I dont have a booming dating life it's always "Youre beautiful and perfect as your are BUT....."
Will this shame ever end? Will I ever feel good in my body? I dont know, but this essay felt like a tight hug. Thank you Polly.
This piece lands with me in ways I didn’t expect especially the part about shame rewriting our stories so thoroughly that we sometimes forget what actually brings us joy or connection. I’ve noticed, in my own life and writing, how the quiet search for wholeness often runs parallel to reckoning with shame; it's rarely dramatic, but more like slowly carving out room for self-compassion after years of auditioning for roles I couldn’t quite fit.
I’ve been trying to capture some of these moments; the awkward grace of starting over, the ways small acts or everyday objects quietly counter old stories, on my Substack (ggmoitra.substack.com).
Breathe free for a change - do I need to hear this a day after my daughter’s beautiful wedding hosted by the groom’s huge perfect family at their ocean homestead surrounded by their loving family and friends who have lived their lives there together and are rightly proud of their family dynasty- as they should be because they are amazing and accept my daughter with open arms. Shame is beating on my skull as I writhe with thoughts of everything I should have done and said and given and bought and provided and affirmed and soothed if I wasn’t such a weird scared phony awkward eccentric with family trouble so unaddressed that family is now completely estranged. My daughter now has a new perfect shiny family so I should feel only joy for her! And of course I do - except- for shame, for shame, for shame, I just feel miserable for our tiny family’s sense of loss, and terrified that she has a new improved mother who is helpful, loving, happy, social and available. My puny life was just mortifyingly on display and I’m glad to have read Polly this morning and will try to have some self-compassion.
I don’t know you or your daughter, but the way your daughter was brought up, with all its spots and imperfections, has made her into the kind of person who can attract that kind of love into her life. Congratulations to her, and to you.
Thank you I really do appreciate hearing that
I have not gone through the kid wedding situation yet, but I feel this. My family of origin is dysfunctional and my husbands family is authentic and real. They have conflict with each other, and I would not refer to them as bright and shiny, but even when things get tough or they argue, they still show up for each other. My family just retreats and stops answering their phones. It makes me endlessly sad and the shame, the shame, the shame.... My mantra for years has been that I am breaking generational trauma. Sounds like you did that too! Great job mama. PS I know it still hurts sometimes, but you did it!
I think I’ll make myself a bracelet that says “Shameless” as a constant reminder.
Love this idea!
It’s like we’re cosmically connected or something because your newsletter in my inbox today was a huge help to me. I saw a picture that an ex who brutally broke up with me nearly a year ago posted of himself looking really smug and I felt such DEEP shame.
I felt ashamed that I still feel deeply hurt and angry that he gets to live his life and I have to deal with these everyday barrage of emotions. Ashamed that I’m still not “over it”. Ashamed that I wish my life was like a rom com and I could get my chance to stick it to the man. Ashamed that I thought he looked nice and that the dress I tried on at reformation earlier in the day made me look awful and reminded me of the times my mum would make comments about my growing body.
Worries that maybe the girl he’s with now or wanting to be with is everything that I couldn’t be no matter how hard I tried but maybe I didn’t try enough? More shame.
Then I read this and nearly cried at the coffee shop but then I held that back too because of shame. Thank you for writing this because it really mirrored back to me how much I’ve let it control my life.
Reading this made me want to literally strip down, sprint through the living room shrieking, and then eat cake with my hands. Shame doesn’t stand a chance when joy gets that unruly. Thanks for the reminder that life gets way more fun when we stop auditioning and just let ourselves be the weird, wonderful mess we already are.
this made me cry for the first time in a long while
What an important and powerful essay! Thank you, Heather!
Back in elementary school, I even felt ashamed of my knowledge. When one teacher praised me to another, it was so unbearable that even today I can instantly recall the picture and the traumatic feeling, reliving it all over again. It felt like I wanted to collapse into myself, into a non-existent point, only because I couldn’t stand being the center of attention. It was a long process, but I consciously worked through it, and today I know how to accept a compliment with ease.
I don’t know how to do a good job at work without shame. My primary motivations are:
1. I should do this thing to prove I am amazing
2. I better to do this to prove I’m not a total POS
Every damn thing we do as children is evaluated and labeled in mostly innocuous seeming ways. You took a nap? Good job!! You stacked some blocks?! Wow, you’re amazing! Every damn thing we do is brought back to our selves. We can’t just do something and not have it MEAN something about ourselves, our worth, and our (as children) ability to survive. Everyone thinks I’m a cuckoo for not telling my child “good job,” but I try to celebrate his wins with him and not make them about HIM. (I hope he doesn’t think I’m withholding validation and I hope he feels my approval as unconditional but parenting is a crapshoot so who tf knows.)
ANYWAY, at work I try to focus on my sense of contributing, to the satisfaction of creating something. I try to enjoy my strengths rather than using them to prop up a sense of worth. I try not to label my weaknesses as moral failings, but just predispositions I’m doing my best to manage. But it’s hard to not overly focus on my performance and rely on shame as motivation, especially when you see your colleagues doing it and applying the good/bad framework to others.
"Every time you feel too much, care too much, long for too much, shame tells you that your pain means you’re pathetic and embarrassing and weak. Your most unique traits doom you to be isolated and rejected forever. You will always fail."
...oof. One of the most direct and impactful things I've read to date. I'd say this is especially true to those who are of a more neurodivergent persuasion, among other types of folks.
To be conditioned for feeling shame about what you love at the same time you're to feel ashamed of what you struggle with...it is a bit confusing, to put it in as benign and mild a light as I can think to. It's a fine way to help guide someone into a life in which they wake up in their mid-30s and feel no sense of accomplishment to speak of, regardless of any degrees or work accolades one may have accumulated. Everything, even straightforwardly praiseworthy things, are all too easily turned into additional monuments of shame. That doesn't really matter, that's weird to be interested in, that plaque was just given to you out of pity, et al.
Shame ensures that a sense of agency will remain completely at bay, I've noticed. Not the prettiest fate for as long as it remains in place.
Thanks for this piece.
Interesting
From the perspective of Affect Theory which seems emotion (affect) as core, shame is an innate affect and its forms include embarrassment, shyness, humiliation. I highly recommend the seminal work about shame by G. Kaufman, Shame and the Power of Caring, which was foundational in the Recovery Movement and has been widely quoted and copied. When you hear someone talk about a shame spiral (like Cher in Clueless), that’s where the term originated.
Shame has become a part of me so terribly, I find it hard to even express what its done to me. My shoulders and neck hold so much shame because my mother always wanted me to hide my body because of HER shame around me accidentally being even slightly sexually attractive. My while teenage to early 20s was just ridden with chronic pain and posture issues. This further translated into extreme hate for myself, my sexuality and a constant battle of trying to understand "how to be attractive" to the men I want. I am now 28, living in Europe (shame is a foreign concept that women here dont understand the way I do) and I;m "free-er" but still plagued with the same shame. I overcorrect my posture, I try to be open but I can never be as endlessly freely sexy as the women here and my shame perpetuates. I often wallow in how men dont approach me and Im always met with strange advice on how to be more attractive and how I need to just "own my secuality!" but what does that look to a body that feels shame in each crevice and nook? The worst thing is Im incredibly beautiful and intellegent and charming and an artist - yet whenever I hear feedback on why I dont have a booming dating life it's always "Youre beautiful and perfect as your are BUT....."
Will this shame ever end? Will I ever feel good in my body? I dont know, but this essay felt like a tight hug. Thank you Polly.
This piece lands with me in ways I didn’t expect especially the part about shame rewriting our stories so thoroughly that we sometimes forget what actually brings us joy or connection. I’ve noticed, in my own life and writing, how the quiet search for wholeness often runs parallel to reckoning with shame; it's rarely dramatic, but more like slowly carving out room for self-compassion after years of auditioning for roles I couldn’t quite fit.
I’ve been trying to capture some of these moments; the awkward grace of starting over, the ways small acts or everyday objects quietly counter old stories, on my Substack (ggmoitra.substack.com).
Oh my this resonated. I'll be digging into the previous post right now.
Right on time as usual--thank you
Thank you for this. So beautiful written, and so impactful.