One of the greatest struggles for nice-oholics (and others) is dealing with shame. Like all of our emotions, shame is a gift from God (there’s a fun thought). In its proper form, shame is meant to be a threat of repercussion to keep us from doing really dumb things. It’s like the threat of being spanked: “Don’t do that or you know what’s coming!” I guess you could say that shame is God’s way of spanking us: “You’re not going to do that again, now are you?” Unfortunately, shame can be twisted to mess with our heads and hold us down. When it’s allowed to fester and grow, shame can crush our souls. I was recently watching a documentary called, How to Rob a Bank based on Scott Scurlock who robbed 17 banks in Seattle between 1992 and 1996, and his main accomplice, Steve Meyer shared that it went from thrilling to really eating at them. Shame was telling them to stop. Unfortunately, it wasn’t strong enough to make them stop before their agreed upon last big hit to end their bank robbing days because Meyers was arrested and given 25 years in prison while Scurlock received nothing… because he was dead, which is worse than God spanking you.
The problem with shame is instead of it making us stop doing bad things we often end up turning to unhealthy coping tools since those are easier. Why change and deal with the problem when you can try ignoring the shame through drinking, smoking pot, or being overly busy? Trying to cope with shame can also cause people to become nice-oholics, which means they become overly serving and/or a pushover. I’m not saying everyone who is a nice-oholic is this way because of shame, but it can be a strong motivator, especially since it can feel like that’s what you deserve.
The one thing I would argue all nice-oholics have in common is they will struggle with shaming thoughts that haunt them. My wife is the master at this. For instance, after saying goodbye to friends we we’re visiting, her next move is to overanalyze everything she said and punish herself for anything that might have been misinterpreted as hurtful or foolish. And I’m such a genius; I ended up taking this unhealthy move on myself. Actually, I can’t give her all the credit for teaching me this because I was already doing it before her. She just role modelled how I could be better. Several years ago, however, I was fortunately put into a better mindset. After sending my typical apology text to a friend after a visit, I was told it was borderline insulting that I would think they’d be upset by what I said. If they’re a friend, I should have more trust for them to see me in a positive light. That was a great point and I’ve been working at not falling into this trap (at least as much). My wife has also been working on it, but women tend to be better at finding ways to feel guilt and shame than men, so she’s still pretty good at it. Having more guilt and shame are unfortunately the natural result of women being more thoughtful. Women typically come up with more ways to be kind, but that also means they have the propensity to come up with more ways to be mean to themselves – they go hand in hand.
The ironic thing about nice-oholics is the fact that as nice as they are to everyone else, they tend to be equally hard on themselves. It’s like they make shame their best friend: “We go everywhere together. It keeps me company when I’m lonely.” My wife is incredibly kind to others, but then falls into the nice-oholic trap of being equally mean to herself (without reason). She gave a great example the other week. We had offered to watch my sister’s friend’s dog for the weekend and at drop off time, I offered to take the dog home at the end of the weekend, but she refused. My sister’s friend insisted she would pick up the dog. I figured this was because she’s is a decent person and didn’t want to put us out since we were already doing her a favor by watching her dog. My wife? Had a different idea: (wife) “Do you think she didn’t want us dropping the dog off because she has a big house in a nicer area and she didn’t want us to see it and think we were poor?” What? How’d she miss the obvious reason – we were already doing a favor for someone we didn’t know? Guess what’s a source of shame for my wife? At least she didn’t ask, “Do you think she’s afraid I’d meet her husband…” Fortunately, my wife has learned asking me questions can be helpful for correcting mean self talk.
What’s interesting is I’ve been asked in the past how I can be so vulnerable in my posts, which is another way of saying, “Don’t you have any shame?” Yes, I do. That’s why I didn’t post a comment I thought was funny: (my four year old) “What’s a psych ward?” (me) “It’s a place for people who wear socks with sandals, who have Christmas lights up all year, and who think the Maple Leafs will actually win the Stanley Cup this year.” I didn’t post that because I was afraid of offending someone. I’m including it here because I feel safer that people who read my lessons will know my jokes comes from a good heart. As far as the content I share in my posts, I’ve never considered my lessons as being vulnerable – I’m using facts. Truth be told, there are three main reasons I write my weekly lessons. First, I enjoy writing. Second, it helps fill the requirements of my college for personal learning and development since it helps me be better at my job. Ultimately, it’s a way for me to record stories and realizations for my girls to have when they’re older. Even if I can live longer than my genetics warn, I was 43 when my youngest was born, so she’s not going to have as full a life with me. Even more, I need to write these things down because I have such a terrible memory. I’ll edit lessons I wrote a year before and be like “That happened? Oh yeah, I forgot about that. Good thing I wrote it down.”
My attempt at healthy fear of shame (i.e. I want to avoid being emotionally spanked) tries to keep me from being slanderous or political, but, of course, whether I appear controversial is ultimately up to the reader. As someone sharing, I have to put my trust in those reading my lessons to interpret them as I intended. It’s like God trusting people with the Bible, and that never turns out bad (that might be the most sarcastic comment I’ve ever made).
In my last lesson I shared an experience with my dad, and granted, since he passed away over twenty years ago, I was more liberal in my sharing than if he was alive, but it was still just facts from my perspective. It was ultimately meant to role model what we all need to be doing with conflict moments – try to see beyond the surface to understand what was really going on. My dad was a stereotypical man who suppressed his feelings as best he could, but at a certain point that emotion had to come out. The other option is you implode. Like my dad (and most men) I can explode, but I’m actually more likely to implode. My dad got more into this as he got older, but I’m better at it… not to brag (about something that’s unhealthy). Imploding is your body being angry at you. For instance, because of stress I might get a canker sore, a sty in my eye, have sleep problems, or even back pain. Imploding can also cause a compromised immune system and lead to stress problems like panic attacks and heart failure. In some ways, exploding is a gift because it reduces the risks of imploding. Either way, not dealing with our emotions is very dangerous, and nice-oholics are at high risk of both. The kicker with exploding is you might get the emotion out, but then you often carry heavy guilt and potential shame, which adds to the risk of exploding again or imploding – life is fun.
So how do we deal with shame?
- Self Acceptance: The more we can accept ourselves, the less risk we are at unhealthy shame. What helps this is seeing how our strengths give us weaknesses and our weaknesses give us strength,
- Acceptance of Others: The more we accept others as having both strengths that carry weaknesses and weaknesses that carry strengths, the better we’ll be at not judging them or ourselves.
- Acceptance of the Past: The more we can be thankful for our past and the lessons we’ve learned, even in the bad times, the less shame will hurt us. This means shame will more likely be what it’s supposed to be – a preventative tool.
- Truth vs. Lies: One of the biggest factors in unhealthy shame is believing the lies our brains tell us. If it’s a lie, stop giving that lie power by replacing it with the truth. If it’s true, either accept it or change what you’re doing – that’s it. Shame is meant to make us move: “I don’t like that I do this. I need to change.” Some people choose to wallow in their shame, but then they have shame for being ashamed. If they still don’t change, they have shame for being ashamed for being ashamed, and this will continue. This will continue until we finally accept that shame isn’t meant to keep us down; it’s meant to light a fire under our butt to change.
This week may you consider how healthy shame can help you instead of bringing you down.
Rev. Chad David, ChadDavid.ca, learning to love dumb people (like me)