Shame

According to psychiatrist, Wurmser L (1981) in “The Mask of Shame”, shame in our lives is the feeling that we are unlovable:
“In a sense, love at its peak means being as fully accepted as is humanly possible in the wish for enriching self-expression and in the desire to be gloriously and abidingly fascinating and impressed — and to have reciprocity in this on uncounted levels of communication and attentiveness. Shame is the defeat of such love — the dark side of the night compared with the shinning brilliance of this greatest and most creative powers.”
It came to my understanding, that I feel shame on different occasions and situations. When I am in the situations where I try do something for the first time, I am afraid of being shamed, therefore, instead of allowing myself organically focus on the process I jump into the end result on the possible scenario in my head (usually I imagine the worst one). It is so funny how one mind works, I know that not everyone have such experiences, however, in this blog I am writing about mine. As I discovered reading about this subject from a social worker Euncie Cabanaugh (1989) , there are parallel processes associated and connected with shame. Gult and anger can be a shame’s camouflage as a protective mechanism preventing feeling exposed, worthless and unloveable. Cabaugh argues that anger is more comfortable than shame. In my experience, anger can be served as a weapon and a distraction from self. I know personally, that I react to ones anger and rage that now i see was a mask in some life occasions. It is interesting to see how my own reactions changes from time to time toward this subject. Shame is a learned experience and it can be given as one of those unwanted gifts by a family or friend that is not comfortable to live with but strangely enough hard to get rid off as well. I recall times when I was asked to hold shame for someone, I would say it simply called a «secret» that I felt responsible for keeping no matter what. As I slowly started to grown awareness so as responsibility over my own feelings, I learned to step back, draw the line and detach. It is rather difficult but not an impossible process. The sense of emotional psychic physical professional responsibilities had to be redefined as well. Shame slowly became «a hot potato» for me, if I happen not to pay attention and get it, it was my job to discard it in order to break a the «shame»cycle.