Issue #10 Keith Swallow Newsletter

~6 minute read

Hi Reader,

Our next Men’s Circle with Breath work is on Monday, 9/14 at 7:30pm at the Zula Den. We'll start with grounding and have time to share what's on your mind. If you're looking to connect with guys who really get it, this is your chance. I’d love to see you there! Sign up here.

The Gift We Didn't Want

As I was walking my dog last week, the morning sun shining down through the trees, I was struck by how my pup doesn't have a lasting sense of shame. He has no sense of unworthiness around love. He lives his life without a thought about whether he deserves care. For us humans, shame stays as a critical voice asking if our friends will still like us if we are fully open about who we really are. It's not the same way with dogs. They might feel shame in the moment but it doesn't last.

My dog's perspective on shame is interesting because he hasn't had the best life. Traumatized as a puppy, he has a lasting fear of trucks. The rumble of a truck engine is enough to get him to tuck his tail in terror. It was a brief time in his life and has stuck with him since, yet he still knows he's worthy of love.

It's rarely one thing

Shame’s cousins, guilt and embarrassment, often show up alongside it, but they are different. (I call these types of feelings the sour emotions.) Embarrassment and guilt are temporary and about our behavior. Shame tells us that something is wrong with who we are.

Unlike a one-time trauma around a truck engine, shame can be something that builds up. It starts with a parent who doesn't show up for our big performance, then a cruel firing from our first job. Each rejection sticking with us and diminishing our self-worth.

The accumulation of shame can be subtle, and over time it can shift how we see ourselves. When we look in the mirror, we would ideally see someone who we know is worthy of being loved. Someone who has best friends to celebrate with, a caring family to lean on, and a loving partner.

What the mirror shows instead

Shame can show us a person who doesn't deserve love. Shame tricks our mind into silencing all the moments when we were celebrated just for being ourselves. We forget the birthday parties with friends, and the significance of loving partnerships (no matter how brief). Shame hides all the moments that remind us how lovable we are.

In romance, shame can make us attracted to people who dislike us. The patterns from our youth get replayed in our romantic life. As children our caregivers are the most important people in our lives. As adults that's our partner. If our caregiver during our early years was indifferent, unpredictable, or cruel we may have internalized a subtle sense of unworthiness.

I've seen how shame builds in different clients and it's usually got the same pattern. More than a thought, it's a familiar feeling. For one client it appeared when her partner pushed her away for asking to join him on a run. For another client it was his wife criticizing him for decorating their home with paintings he loved. For yet another it was being left behind when his family went on vacation. Not only do we get used to the treatment, some part of us seeks it out in the future.

When praise feels wrong

Shame also causes us to run away from people who like us. When criticism is normal, praise can feel uncomfortable and can cause us to squirm. Many people I have worked with struggle when friends tell them how cherished they are. They might brighten people's lives with their sense of humor yet dismiss praise. When someone loves us but we don't like ourselves, we see something wrong with them, not the love they offer.

The feeling of shame rarely stays contained, instead finding a way to get out into the world. In addition to telling us how unworthy of love and care we are, it can turn into criticism and contempt for the people who try to love us. Shame tells us that they are "stupid" or "have issues." Eventually the feelings of discomfort and contempt grow to a breaking point and we take space from the ones who love us in ways we aren't used to.

Shame is like an unwanted gift that we awkwardly accepted at a time before we knew better. When we become aware of it, find it in our body, and talk about it then we can start to put that burden down. Shame feels a little different for each of us but there are some similarities.

Feel it first

For me, shame is a heavy ache around the solar plexus. With embarrassment most of us feel it in our faces, heat as the blood rushes to our cheeks after we're called out on a mistake. Guilt can be a heavy sickness in the stomach, like a stone weighing us down. Some of us have spent lifetimes avoiding feeling these emotions, so it can take some time to feel them and put them into words.

From there we can see what the emotion is trying to tell us. For embarrassment it's that we want to fit in. For guilt, that we care and don't want to hurt people.

Shame works differently. It starts with the truth, that these people matter to us, then it twists it. Shame says that it's not about our behavior, that there's something wrong with us and if they knew then they wouldn't want us. Sometimes we really were unwanted. Shame takes that as proof of something broken in us, then uses it to doubt the people who care.

Getting familiar with these unpleasant feelings can help us understand what matters. The outside world impacts us, but our feelings about what happens inform us about who we are and what we care about. Of course, sometimes we misinterpret things and these sour emotions still arise. This is why we need to talk to people about these feelings.

Someone to sit with us

Processing emotions with other people is coregulation, regulating our emotions together. More than venting, it's a process of support where someone is with us through a hard feeling until we release it.

Being fired from a job can leave us questioning our competence and self-worth. I've sat with a lot of people in the weeks after a layoff. It wasn't always the people who lost the most money who were hardest hit. It was the ones who needed the affirmation of being good at their jobs. Sitting with them and accepting them and their feeling of shame allows them to release it.

A trusted friend or therapist can sit with us and hear us out. With such important conversations we want to ask if they have capacity for us with a simple, "Can I open up about something?" They can let us know if our perspective makes sense. They can comfort us through the emotion and give us some relief with a new perspective. After all, maybe the layoff was more about the company finances than our own performance.

The risk is worth the reward

Opening up to someone who can't be there for us really hurts. It can leave us not only with the original pain but the disappointment of learning that we're not as supported as we hoped. To avoid that, we must choose the people who check on us proactively, or the ones who have been there for us consistently.

It's possible that we choose poorly and get hurt. Opening up to someone is a vulnerable step and their inability to support us says nothing about us and everything about them. In that case we need to take the best care of ourselves that we can. We need to look in the mirror and say the words we needed to hear, "It's not your fault." When we're ready, we simply have to try again.

Live like a puppy

Shame is a burden that someone else gave to us. We don't have to hold on to it. It is possible to live like a puppy, deeply believing we are worthy of love despite what has happened to us. Once we name our sour emotion and feel it we can get support. In the same way someone gifted us with feelings of shame we can share them and release them. Some relationships won't survive us becoming a stronger version of ourselves but in their place will come richer and healthier relationships. If shame is haunting you, make room for it and process it with someone you trust.

Shame is a hard burden to bear. I work with it all the time. If you've been struggling with it, hit reply and share your story. I'm here to help.

Your coach,

Keith