Anxiety, Guilt, and Shame walk into a bar. The bartender asks, “What can I get you?” Anxiety thinks, “what if I choose the wrong thing? Everyone will stare at me and I will feel humiliated,” Guilt thinks, “Well, if I have a drink, I am going to be violating my value of making healthy choices and I will betray my goal of committing to Dry February, then I will feel terrible,” and Shame thinks, “I can’t choose the right thing because I always do everything wrong and I have never chosen the right thing before. No matter what I choose, everyone is going to think I am a loser and they won’t want to be with me because, well, I’m just unloveable.”
Punchline: And so all three ordered a big glass of shut the hell up!
If there is one thing I have noticed about anxiety, guilt, and shame, it is that we don’t like to talk about them, like somehow acknowledging feelings of anxiety and shame means that we are guilty of being a terrible (fill in the blank) _mother_wife_professional_friend_person. So, we keep quiet, under the belief that if we vent, ask for help, or reveal our deepest frustrations, fears, and worries, we are being negative and nobody wants to listen to our negativity. Or, even worse, if we tell our stories, others will know how unworthy of love we are. We are afraid to be vulnerable and ask for help because we think that this is a sign of weakness and incompetence or that it will only lead to rejection. However, if there is one thing that anxiety loves, it’s avoidance, and if there is one thing that shame loves, it’s our silence. So, how do we avoid this punchline? How do we become brave enough to reveal our fears and worries, ask for help, and let trusted others in on our worries and shame? Truly, we need to learn how to have compassion and empathy for our own stories; to know that we are not our past or our past mistakes and that we are loveable and absolutely more than enough just as we are. If we are fortunate enough to have someone worthy of knowing our shame story (someone who has demonstrated their ability to see us for who we are and respond with love and empathy) they can help us to own our stories and love ourselves, not despite our shame, but inclusive of it. Even if the only person in your world currently who has earned this right is a therapist, that is a great place to start, because, as Brene Brown so eloquently states, “If we can share our story with someone who responds with empathy and understanding, shame can’t survive.” And what I have come to know is that when someone else can respond to our shame stories with empathy and understanding, they can help us to learn how to do the very same for ourselves.
~ Love, Me