Shame and Self-Love

When the inner critic becomes the inner shamer

The inner critic isn’t just criticism. It can be shame. And it’s been running the show for a long time.

I have been a fan of Brené Brown’s for a long time. I picked up one of her books at the suggestion of a class I was taking on organizing and planning, but it became so much more than that. The class and her books opened me up to an area I didn’t quite know existed within myself. That class first introduced me to the concept that I am whole and unbroken, and that was something that was exactly the opposite of what I was feeling at the time.

I felt anything but whole and unbroken. I remember thinking, “How is that possible? Do they really not know who I am?” It took me six years to actually start to believe it for myself, and Human Design played a huge role in that.

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Photo by Masoud Parnoon on Unsplash

Shame vs. Guilt

Recently I was listening to Brené Brown and Adam Grant’s podcast, The Curiosity Shop, and they were talking about shame and guilt. Some of the people Brené has worked with find shame such a triggering word that they call it “shamé,” which always makes me laugh.

Brené defines shame as an emotion we all feel, and it’s different from guilt. Shame is “I am bad.” Guilt is “I did something bad.”

She used two examples in the podcast. If you got a D on an exam, shame is “I am a terrible student because I got a D and I’m stupid.” Guilt is “I got a D on the exam because I didn’t study enough.”

Shame focuses on the person and labels them bad. Guilt focuses on the behavior.

She says in her book Atlas of the Heart, “we end up feeling flawed and unworthy of love, belonging, and connection. Shame is not a positive driver for change.”

With guilt, she says we “focus on the behavior.” She describes guilt as “the discomfort we feel when we evaluate what we have done or failed to do against our values. It can drive positive change and behavior.”

Shame thrives on secrecy, silence, and judgment. It’s a social emotion. She says, “Shame happens between people and it heals between people.” And where perfectionism exists, shame is lurking.

Perfectionism isn’t about being our best. It’s externally driven by the all-consuming question of what will others think. Perfectionism “tells us that our mistakes and failures are personal defects.” She describes perfectionism as self-destructive and an addictive belief system that fuels this primary thought: if I look perfect, live perfectly, work perfectly, and do everything perfectly, I can avoid or minimize painful feelings of shame, judgment, or blame.

When we are feeling shame, we often slide into people-pleasing mode.

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I don’t do guilt. I do shame.

I remember when I first learned the distinction between shame and guilt. I remember thinking, I don’t do guilt. I do shame. “I’m an unlovable, unworthy person.” I didn’t realize how much shame I was carrying.

At the time, I was working for a verbally abusive manager, and I thought, if I was a worthy human being, would I be treated this way? I slipped into more perfectionist tendencies during that time than at any other time in my life. I was so embarrassed about that situation that I didn’t want people to know I was allowing myself to be treated that way, and yet I still needed a paycheck.

My husband heard every day about the abuse and the put-downs, but my daughter was in preschool, and I had no idea where else I could work. The library world in Kansas City is a pretty small world. I’ll never forget when I broke down in front of my parents admitting how hard it was. But I was so far into self-shaming, and had been for years, that I started to not see my own worth.

As kids, we start to move into this self-shaming early. A comment from a parent or family member makes us think, if I could just do better, I’ll be more loved. It shows up in how we’re corrected.

Think about what happened when you were a teenager out past curfew. Your parents might have said one of two things: “You are such a disappointment. How could you disappoint us?” Or, “I am so disappointed in your behavior tonight.” The first is shame, and that gets internalized as “I’m a disappointment.” The second is guilt, and that gets internalized as “I did something stupid and I’m not going to do it again. “

Guilt is about behavior. Shame becomes our identity.

What’s fascinating in Brené’s work and the research she points to is that shame does not change behavior. Guilt does.

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One comment outweighs everything else

Once you see the shape of shame, you start to notice how easily it takes over, even when there is no evidence to support it.

A comment from a family member about our weight can go from “you look like you’ve lost weight” to “my body is not good enough and my body isn’t worthy of love.” We can torture ourselves trying to earn that worthiness back.

We feel that if we try hard enough, we can earn someone else’s love, and then when we’re rejected, we feel like a bad person, not like somebody who simply didn’t fit in that particular case.

I myself have earned a PhD in self-criticism. If there was a part of my body to nitpick, I would find it. My inner voice was mean and always had something to say. Even when I felt beautiful, she would find a flaw.

One of the happiest days of my life was my wedding day. When we got our photos back, I know I looked beautiful, but when I saw those photos, the first thing in my mind was, “What if people think I looked fat in my dress?”

I know I’m not alone in this. When I asked the women I interviewed for this series about their own inner critics, that same pattern showed up again and again. One piece of evidence outweighing everything else. We can receive all the wonderful compliments in the world, and yet one negative comment will show up, and that is what we cling to.

Helena Marchetti describes her experience when she started writing romance novels in her mid-thirties. She felt like her writing wasn’t strong enough, and one day she made the mistake of reading the reviews on Goodreads.

“Even though they were overwhelmingly positive, there was one negative one that felt like a gut punch. To this day, this one review has the power to crush my creativity. That single review gave validity to the thoughts in my head. See? You shouldn’t waste your time. No one wants to read your books.” — Helena Marchetti, Helena Marchetti, PharmD

That is shame logic to a T. One negative review becomes the whole story of the experience.

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Like a monster lurking in the corner

Sometimes shame doesn’t wait for someone else to say something. It starts with our own inner critic that at first may appear to be helpful, driving us to achieve, while also in the background it’s like a monster lurking in the corner.

Therese Holden describes it this way:

“It was harsh and scathing and questioning everything I did. It would nitpick at what I’d said in meetings. I would look at my reflection in the mirror in the lift, and she would tell me how frumpy I looked, how fat I was. Why would anyone take you seriously? I remember sitting in the toilets at work crying because I felt so lonely. I didn’t have a good relationship with myself at all, and it was exhausting, all the comparison and criticism.” — Therese Holden, Therese Self-Led By Design

I have an area in my Human Design chart that carries the challenge of noticing what’s wrong or what can be improved in situations or systems. My husband carries this too. But without an outlet, that challenge can turn inward, from “I notice what’s wrong with this system” to “there is something wrong with me.”

I became a master at turning it in on myself. When I would share where things could be improved at work and was told to just do my job, I turned it into ways that I was a flawed human being.

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Challenges that become shame identities

In Human Design, I have identified fifteen gates within the bodygraph that are related to self-love, self-talk, and inner trust. I want to mention that these are my own interpretations of Human Design through this lens. Traditional Human Design does not identify a specific set of self-love gates, except for Gate 10, which is the Gate of Self-Love.

But as I’ve dug deeper into this Summer of Self-Love, I’ve noticed that certain gates seem to speak directly to the way we relate to ourselves, our inner dialogue, self-acceptance, self-trust, and self-worth. So this framework is my own, but it’s inspired by Human Design, and it’s not part of traditional Human Design teachings.

In a few of the gates related to self-love, the challenges can turn into shame identities. For those of you who know Human Design, I’ll mention the gate numbers. For those who don’t, just read the challenge is versus the identity that comes up.

Gate 48: the challenge is “I don’t know enough.” The shame identity is “I am not enough” or “I’m dumb.”
Gate 46: the challenge is “I criticize my body.” The identity becomes “my body is a problem.”
Gate 22: the challenge is “I feel deeply.” The shame identity is “my emotions are too much and I am difficult.”
Gate 15: the challenge is “I am different.” The shame identity becomes “I don’t belong.”

Csilla Gergely describes the meeting of perfectionism and these shame identities showing up in real time, without needing to know anything about her Human Design chart.

“I thought I wasn’t anything special, that I was average, that I was like everybody else, and I wanted to be special. For a long time, I thought that what I had to say was not interesting. I always had excellent grades in school, and I thought I had to be the best to be loved. Then I became an adult. This turned into thinking that I had to be the best in all my roles, the best wife, the best mother, the best employee, the best daughter, and it’s not possible. These roles clash between each other.” — Csilla Gergely, Csilla 🌹 Feminine in midlife 💃

When the standard is to be the best at everything, falling short of any one role doesn’t feel like a missed expectation. It feels like further proof that there is something wrong with us. Our inner critic speaks louder and has more things to say that keep us in a shame loop and perfectionism.

As women, we get so many messages about how we should look. Those of us who grew up in the eighties and nineties grew up with it on TV and in magazines, reading articles about how we could be flawless, maybe not even realizing then that a lot of those photos were edited.

And now it’s even harder. With social media and AI, we don’t know what’s filtered, and we don’t even know what’s real.

Photo by JACQUELINE BRANDWAYN on Unsplash

Shame isn’t just the self-criticism we tell ourselves every day. It also shows up in how much we’re willing to put ourselves out there, what we’re willing to risk.

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Managing outside expectations, and playing small

Jen Ohrman shared many instances where her inner critic, or as she calls it her gremlin voice, showed up. She said in her late teens and into her thirties, it was pushy, critical, and demanding.

“The gremlin knew people looked up to us and expected us to figure things out no matter what, and if we couldn’t or if we were struggling, there was something wrong with us, and we needed to hide it. This critical voice was obsessed with making sure that we didn’t disappoint others or the illusion we felt compelled to uphold. I used to wonder why people had such constant expectations of me, friends and teachers. This critical voice defined my path for so many years, maybe still today. We can pretend we’re as great as everyone thinks they need us to be, but we won’t take the big risks that might out us as being pretty human and basic. This voice led to countless decisions to play small and protect myself from humiliating myself by disappointing them.” — Jen Ohrman, Jen O. | Next Act Navigator™

Instead of being the captain of the gymnastics team, she pushed the coach to have tri-captains with the three seniors. She didn’t feel confident enough to be the yearbook editor, so she accepted a co-editor position. In history class, when her teacher cast her as a lawyer in a mock trial, she was so afraid she would fail and disappoint the expectations her teacher had of her that she didn’t show up to school that day. She even called in sick on the day of the AP Bio exam because she was petrified of failing and disappointing others around her.

“I am in shock at how much of my life back then was spent masquerading, managing outside expectations, and playing small. It kind of breaks my heart.” — Jen Ohrman

Our shame and the stories of being failures and disappointments require us to step outside of our minds. That can feel daunting. So much so that we let shame be in control, choosing to disappear rather than risk being seen failing.

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Photo by Torsten Dederichs on Unsplash

The shame storm

The self-shaming can build and build into an internal shame storm, a storm that can be triggered by one thing, or as it did in me, it builds over time.

A shame storm is a psychological storm where your inner critic takes over, convincing you that you are not good enough, are a fraud, or have irrevocably messed up. It actually triggers a physical fight-or-flight response in your body, which can feel like a racing heart, a tight chest, or a tingling face. It’s rooted in the primal fear of social disconnection and rejection.

A shame storm “is motivated by a fear that you might be seen for who you really are: a mess, not so worthy, a screw-up, simply not good enough for anyone or anything.” ¹

And from the way Jen describes it, she had several shame storms that erupted.

Brené Brown says empathy is the antidote to shame.

Blair Nicole, a self-compassion coach and PhD candidate in psychology, takes it one step further, saying “self-love is the antidote to shame.”²

And looking at everything shame does, fueling the inner critic, making us feel isolated and unworthy of connection, creating insecurity in our closest relationships, driving us toward perfectionism just to escape the pain of self-judgment, I have to agree with both of them. Empathy for ourselves and self-love are what bring us out of that internal shame and help us start to love ourselves in a different way.

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When I learned my Human Design, so much of this finally made sense

There was nothing wrong with me. I was operating completely out of alignment with how I am naturally designed, and I was carrying shame that came through other people’s conditioning, not as anything being actually wrong with me. Shame gets passed through the generations through comments and suggestions that sometimes were and sometimes were not made out of love by the adults in our lives.

I got tears in my eyes the first time I read in my Human Design chart that I don’t have anything to prove, that I have no reason to prove my worth, that I am worthy just for being born on this planet. I had heard that before from courses, from my husband, from my therapist. But it wasn’t until I read it and recognized it as something innate that I actually started to believe it. Oh, yes, I do have worth.

This shift does not happen all at once. Sometimes it takes someone else saying it out loud before you can see it in yourself. That’s what happened for Erika Sardinha.

“When I went to India to do a yoga and meditation training, there was one day when we were split up into groups and the conversation landed on self-love. I don’t even remember exactly what I said, but one of the women in the group looked at me and said something like, ‘You are too hard on yourself. You don’t act like you love yourself.’ That was a crucial, pivotal moment in my relationship with myself because I thought I knew what self-love was. I thought I was already practicing it, but I was still being so hard on myself. It was one of those life-changing moments where I realized, oh, wait, I still need to do work on this. And from there, my relationship with myself really, really improved.” — Erika Sardinha

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The broken record

For years, I was so hypercritical of myself, and my husband would say, “You have to stop the broken record, Erica.” But it was so ingrained in me and such a part of my thinking that I didn’t know how to stop it. It took me a while to realize and to be aware of those patterns. It took that class I mentioned at the beginning of this episode for me to realize that I am a pattern maker. I was not a good pattern breaker.

This is not easy work. This is not like flipping a switch overnight, going from I’m a problem to simply this is how I experience my life. It’s not realistic for it to happen overnight. But the other women in this series and I are proof that it’s possible to start seeing yourself differently.

We spent so much time shaming ourselves. Believing our bodies were the problem. That we were too emotional and that was a problem. That we didn’t belong, and therefore we were unworthy of belonging or even great things.

For me and for others, learning our Human Designs changed that, and you’re going to hear more stories as the series goes on. Reading that I didn’t need to prove my worth freed up a lot of mental space I had been spending on criticizing and shaming myself almost all day long. It has brought me to a place I never imagined was possible for me.

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Shame doesn’t change behavior

But understanding where it comes from, how we turn it on ourselves, how we let perfectionism and self-criticism be in the driver’s seat, that acknowledgement and work to untangle those patterns, that is what gives us the power to start to love ourselves, to slow down and listen to our bodies, to start to create practices and rituals that care for our bodies.

And for those of us who are parents and aunts and significant women in kids’ lives, that work ripples out. Kids notice everything. They notice how we treat ourselves. They notice how we talk about ourselves. They notice how we talk about each other. So we have two choices: to continue the patterns of shame and humiliation thinking we don’t deserve better, or we can share the embarrassing stories and create connections.

Because at the end of the day, we are all human, and we have a reason for being on the planet at this time. I want to be a light in the world for others because we are living through times that are feeling tumultuous and sometimes very dark. Not participating in the shaming and blaming of others and ourselves helps break those patterns and in turn shows others that self-love is important and needed in the world.

Thank you to
Helena Marchetti, PharmD, Csilla 🌹 Feminine in midlife 💃 , Therese Self-Led By Design, Jen O. | Next Act Navigator™ , and Erika Sardinha for sharing their self-love journeys as part of this Summer of Self-Love Series.

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If you’ve been reading this summer and thinking, why have I been so hard on myself for so long, that’s exactly what we’re exploring in The Self-Love Code on July 30 at 12pm Central US/1pm Eastern US. We’ll look at where that inner critic came from, where it shows up in your Human Design, and start to unlock its grip, especially as we shift into a new era where trusting yourself matters more than ever. It’s a live workshop for paid subscribers.

Add to Your Calendar

Thursday, July 30 at 12pm CT US/1pm ET US/6pm BST

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Subscribe to Unfolding: Letters from the Middle of Becoming with Erica Voell

For women in midlife who are want to untangle from the life patterns of shape-shifting and keeping everyone else happy, claim how they are uniquely designed to make decisions, and understand their unique strengths.

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Meet all the women who share their self-love journeys through this series

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Footnotes:

1. What You Can Do In A Shame Storm
https://centerforbodytrust.com/what-you-can-do-in-a-shame-storm/

2. Blair Nicole
https://blairnicole.blog/how-to-learn-to-love-yourself-a-complete-guide/