8 Basic Emotions – Shame and Pride – Part IV of IV

There’s a psychological conceptualisation that places shame and pride along a horizontal axis, pride spanning the right end and shame spanning the left end.  The shame-pride axis is an excellent depiction of the balance between these two emotions that one wants to aim for.  When we treat a person with kindness and we recognise their appreciation, when we achieve a goal that has been with us for some time, and when we overcome a significant struggle or even perform at a particular level, the overriding emotion that we want people to acknowledge and feel is pride!  In a similar vein, when one behaves in a manner that is not in line with their principles, or the principles of those they spend time with, such as being disrespectful, stealing from another or harming another person, when those behaviours are in force, the resultant emotion that people are meant to feel is shame.  That is, the purpose of shame, is to tell us when we have been behaving in a manner that is untoward and it provides us with an indicator of the changes we might wish to make.  The power of the shame-pride axis concept is that it is a great indicator of a person’s self esteem as it provides insight into one’s perspective of themselves.  We are meant to feel both ends of the axis, both emotions.  It is unrealistic to expect yourself not to act in ways that conjure the feeling of shame, we are by definition, not perfect.  Similarly, on a daily basis, I would hope that people are able to find something, any small thing, that they can be proud of and in turn experience the warming emotion of pride.

The beguiling feature of these two emotions is that the avoidance of deep seeded shame often leads someone down the path of excess pride or grandiosity.  Do you sometimes act or react from a place of ego or indignation?  “How dare they speak to me like that!”, “Who do they think they are, criticising my work”, “I am so much better than these people”.  If you look underneath those statements, the trigger for each is shame and a lot of people step up into grandiosity in order to avoid the less appealing opposite.  Some only do this when their shame is touched upon or triggered but others are immersed in it in a more permanent way such as those with the features of narcissistic personality disorder.  With that said, lets get to know the two emotions as they exist in their own right.

Shame.  The dreaded and silent emotion that lies underneath the surface.  It is murky, unwanted and avoided, and for most is almost intolerable.  Shame is defined by a sense of disgrace and regret and in many circumstances there is humiliation associated with it.  This can be imparted by others or completely derived from one’s own assessment of themselves in relation to events that have occurred.  Shame is characterised by a heavy and sharp knotting in the stomach which spans the heart region, across the torso and up into the head.  It also finds its way down the length of our legs and out to our feet.  It is extremely uncomfortable.  Therein lies one of the drivers associated with shame avoidance, people’s tolerance for this emotion is low.  The reason it is low is that when we are growing up, for the most part, we haven’t been taught that you can experience shame but still have confidence that your primary relationships won’t suddenly disappear or become untenable.  You can experience shame but it doesn’t mean that all the other parts to your personality are suddenly null and void.  Unfortunately our experience of shame has meant a cold and hard rejection either from our primary care givers or from our friendship group or wider peer group in the school or vocational setting.  For some, the rejection comes from within.  Those that have been subject to the devastation of sexual abuse, the experience of shame can be associated with a blaming of themselves, a rejection of themselves.  This has far reaching consequences on a person’s relationship with their self and their connection to the world around them.   

We all have events in our lives that conjure the feeling of shame.  What are those events for you?   What is your level of tolerance for shame?  Can you be with the discomfort for a short period as you go over memories or do you avoid it at all costs? 

John Bradshaw’s vital book, for everyone that has a thwarted relationship with shame, titled “Healing the shame that binds us”, explores the emotion and the self concept in great detail.  In it he delineates between healthy shame and toxic shame, and referring back to the shame pride axis, this is the point where we go from feeling a ‘healthy’ amount of shame for something we have done that does not align with our principles versus seeing ourselves as fundamentally flawed or wrong, toxic shame.  Typical beliefs that people have that are directly linked to toxic shame are “I am not enough as I am”, “I am not loveable”, “It was my fault that that happened”, “I should have stopped it, there’s something wrong with me”.  The development of toxic shame occurs primarily in childhood and teen years but is exacerbated by repeated negative thoughts about ourselves which occur well into our adult lives.  Shame is passed down from one generation to the next.  Parents pass their shame to children when they place very high expectations on them or they take on a victim persona stating that society owes them.  And their parents passed down their shame to them, often without knowing.  When a primary caregiver dismisses a child’s needs the child starts to tell themselves “I am wrong” or “I don’t matter”.  Alternatively, when a parent conveys to a child that they are better than the rest of the class, they are instilling narcissistic qualities in the child and also passing down the parents’ own shame, which requires them to be better than others in order to feel good about themselves.   

Eye Movement Desensitisation and Reprocessing (EMDR) is one of the more effective methods in assisting someone to improve their relationship with shame, and this comes about primarily through moving from harsh old beliefs to more realistic and functional or positive beliefs about themselves.  Other ways to overcome toxic shame are to do things that improve your self esteem, help others where you can, find your purpose and try to do it as much as you can.  And, look at what you can be proud of in your life, what you have managed to achieve or overcome through the course of events that have occurred.  This type of reflection starts to balance out the overriding sense of not being enough.  Come to understand your beliefs about yourself and how they are linked to shame.  What beliefs do you have that are shame based?  How do you think those beliefs were passed down to you?  What are some alternative beliefs to these, some based more on reality as opposed to being tarnished by negativity? 

We want to aim for the ability to process shame, and to teach our children ways to tolerate it.  The best way to achieve this is to look at a problem behaviour, call it out for being just that but tell ourselves and our children that we/they are still loved.  Having greater connection to our bodies through time in nature, breath work, sensory grounding,  meditation and yoga also helps our capacity to be with shame.  We want to be able to feel it but move through it and be ok.  Most importantly, we want to move towards a world in which shame doesn’t govern our mental, emotional and behavioural lives.

Pride.  This warm, dignified and self esteeming emotion is one in which we can absolutely have a daily relationship with!  I like to look to the older generation’s expression and ownership of this emotion.  The grace with which people that have lived their lives and come to accept the various parts of themselves, that are able to observe the younger members of their family through the lens of pride, shows us the way to this wonderful emotion!   Parents reflect to their children what they are doing well or what they can be proud of, strangely a lot of kids don’t take this in until later in life.  Despite this, it is still vital as a means of helping children build their esteem and their connection with this emotion.  My father once told me in one of our telephone calls; “the thing we are most proud of you in your life Ben, is that you got sober”!  That comment, as short as it is, brought tears of pride. 

We can be proud of almost any little thing.  Not reacting to someone that has been rude to us, finishing a project, appreciating the day that we have had and the way we navigated through it, reaching a milestone, a car we love, our partner’s wit, the plants in our garden, the art on our walls, the try or goal we scored, the slowing down of our mind, our connection with people, our connection with our environment, the quality of the job that we do, the group of chords that we put together, the collection of words that we write, our children’s personality, the place where we live, overcoming a struggle.  The list is almost endless.  The point here is that our connection to pride can be made common place if we take on a perspective of appreciation of what we bring to the world and what we are surrounded by day to day. 

Thoughts associated with the feeling of pride include; “My humour is something I like about myself”, “I am proud of my creative side”, “I am loveable”, “I got through a really difficult time”, “I loved scoring that goal”, “I like the way this dress looks on me”, “I like the way I feel when I dance”.   Again, the list is almost endless.  We can consciously choose to be more in touch with pride and if we associate with it in a way that doesn’t put us above others, we are on the path to a very healthy sense of pride and self worth. 

With society’s underlying driver for people to achieve ‘success’ in their lives, it isn’t a wonder that we have a certain portion of the population who feel the need to put themselves above others in order to matter.  Grandiosity, arrogance, narcissism, indignation; they all have people stepping off the right end of the shame pride axis and into unhealthy pride.  It is vital that we are able to feel good about ourselves but when the attachment to this comes at the cost of empathy, connection with others and humility, then we have missed the mark in defining our self worth.  I do find that this is a protection mechanism for a lot of people that struggle with excess pride, so patience is in order when dealing with it.  But a healthy exploration of ourselves, and those we spend time with, involves enquiry into this version of pride.  We all do it.  And that’s ok.  But it is important to address it by being closer to humility and understand that we are but a small fragment of what is on offer in the beautiful world in which we live. 

Surely one of the greatest achievements we can attain in this life is to feel a sense of pride in relation to who we are and of the life that we live, accepting the dark and the light in us all, recognising that with the highs come the lows, with joy comes sorrow.  Embracing all of the things that we are surrounded by, taking them in, even our lesser appealing traits, this process conjures a greater sense of pride in the person that we are.  Once we remove the conditioned version of pride, the one in which we tell ourselves we must succeed, and we focus on what we have right in front of us, then a great ease and sense of acceptance and appreciation comes into our being.  This is pride in its true form.  Get to know it!

This concludes the 8 basic emotions exploration.  The purpose of these writings has been to assist people to be more in touch with their emotions, and to do that, I encourage you to understand them, gain awareness of where you feel them in your bodies, map the thoughts or beliefs about yourself that are associated with them, explore the triggers for each emotion and start to define the ways in which you can process them.  Emotions can be seen as an experience that we cycle through.  To help process them, I encourage the practice of zooming out.  When we zoom out we gain perspective and view the emotion with greater clarity and it increases our ability to be with our emotions, to process them more effectively.  Unexpressed emotion leads to a myriad of mental and physical health concerns.  Expressed emotion gives us greater connection with our day to day experience, it allows us to be more in touch with what our needs are and when they are or are not being met.  And expressed emotion brings us closer to the reality we are meant to be living in, and that reality is our truth!