SHAME, STAGNATION, AND RELAPSE

I talked last week about how emotions like anger, fear, and grief serve a function. Shame, too, serves a function. When we do something that violates our own values, we feel shame. Shame is a particularly excruciating emotion, and it lets us know that whatever it is that we did that we’re ashamed of is something that we never, ever want to do again.

But once the event that causes us to feel a particular emotion has passed, and we have changed our behavior to cope with the situation effectively, it’s important to let that feeling dissipate. Shame is no different.

If somebody has caused you harm, and you feel angry and stopped them, or got yourself out of that situation, and you have reflected on what happened, learned from it, and prepared yourself to avoid or pre-empt such harm in the future, then you don’t need to feel angry, hurt, or afraid about that event anymore. Your emotions have done their job. You can feel those things, of course. Any time you like, you can direct your thoughts to that event, imagine that you’re in that situation again before its resolution, and you will easily be able to feel angry, hurt, or afraid through your memory.

If it was serious enough, or if it was never resolved well, you probably will do this from time to time anyway in the natural course of thoughts, feelings, and impressions flowing along over time; but our imaginations allow us to feel like we are still there, even if we could easily have let it go – especially if we practice going back into the feelings.

For decades, much of the focus of psychotherapy has encouraged people to do just that: practice going back to the past, finding the most painful events of the past, and reliving them. The idea was that by doing so we are somehow able to resolve those issues and heal from them.

But this is not how feelings work. If you feel angry about something that happened, and you practice getting angry about it, you will get very good at getting angry about it, and you will become a person who becomes more angry – not less. Along with that anger comes all of the negative effects of that anger, including relationship problems and the increased likelihood of heart disease. For the "type A" personality, it is the active hostility and expression of anger that is the link to heart disease, not the suppression of anger, or the other factors such as competitiveness and time urgency (see Martin Seligman, Authentic Happiness, page 69).

To actively, purposefully swim around in negative feelings is more than an indulgence, or a bad habit; it can actually be dangerous. With shame, this has been shown to lead to a greater likelihood of repeating the shameful behavior itself.

In a study by Daniel Randles and Jessica Tracy of the University of British Columbia, they found that recovering alcoholics who showed signs of being ashamed of their past behavior were more likely to relapse over the next 3-11 months, that those relapses were more severe, and that their health declined significantly, in relation to those who did not express shame about their past.

Now, as I’ve said, shame serves a function, and it’s a common scold that you should be ashamed of yourself for your past transgressions; but here is a great example of how once an emotion has served its purpose, it should not be held onto. There are no benefits to overtime work from your emotions. In fact they just end up loitering and causing trouble, since they are serving no purpose at that point.

If you’ve done something shameful, you should feel ashamed; but there’s no benefit to walking around afterward feeling ashamed all the time. You should face the shame, feel it, acknowledge your behavior that caused it, express remorse and make amends to those you may have hurt, and learn from your experience so that you never, ever do that again.

Once you take care of the mess you’ve made, then, like any other emotion, the best thing to do is to get on with life; get on with living a better life, now that you have changed the behavior that you felt ashamed about.

Of course, to do this, you have to change the behavior, or else you’ll keep feeling ashamed anew – as you should, because your shame will be serving its function, which is to say to you, "Hey, stop doing that! It’s hurting you, and hurting other people, and your acting against your values!"

Trying to let go of the shame without changing your behavior is like trying to let go of physical pain while continuing to hold your hand on a hot stove. If you continue to burn your hand, you will continue to feel pain, and that pain and the damage from your actions will intensify. If you continue to behave in ways that are shameful, you will continue to feel ashamed, and the damage from your shameful actions will intensify.

But holding onto the shame after you have learned from your mistakes (we all make them) is like holding a match to your formerly stove-burned hand to remind yourself of how much it hurt.

Paradoxically, when dealing with alcohol abuse at least, continuing to feel ashamed once you’ve learned from your mistakes and changed your behavior makes it more likely that you will fall back into that behavior, and give yourself something to, once again, be ashamed about.

Life is not a static thing. Feelings, behavior, thoughts, are continually in motion. Our lives are about creating order out of disorder, creating direction and taking action toward goals, meeting and connecting with and deepening our connections with others, seeking to engage and triumph over the challenges of life.

When you have an experience, feel it, and choose as well as you can how to deal with it. Once you have an experience, learn from it, grow from it, seek to understand what happened and your role in it so that you improve your competence in dealing with similar situations in the future.

But once you learn from an experience, and change your behavior accordingly, your feelings have done their job. Let them go so they can be ready to work for you effectively the next time they’re needed.

Joel F. Wade, Ph.D. Author of Mastering Happiness, and a Marriage and Family Therapist, Life Coach and teacher of over 30 years, is offering his next Mastering Happiness Teleclass, coming up on April 30^th. If you want to discover how to set fresh and inspiring goals, make the best of your relationships, and approach life with more joy and resilience, this special teleclass is for you. [Just click here for all the details.]

"As a result of taking your class I have gained deeper insight into the complexities of ordinary experiences and how my approach to them can lead to a more satisfying and fulfilling life."

"I found Dr. Joel Wade’s Mastering Happiness teleclass very informative and enlightening.  He weaves together both explanations of behaviors & tools that can be used to change those behaviors.  When understood, they can eventually enhance our relationships. Goal setting & understanding the inner process one must address in order to achieve that goal was another area that has impacted my life.  If you want better direction and contentment; take his class!"