How Shame can Ruin (or Save) Your Relationship

Shame is arguably our most hidden (and perhaps also most painful) emotion. When in the grips of shame, we often feel flat, numb, collapsed. We might want to isolate - dig a hole in the ground and never come out.

Shame can be so painful that we feel like we’re dying. No wonder why we say “mortified” when talking about shame!

Shame plays a big role in both depression and suicide. And our fear of shame becomes a major source of performance anxiety whether at work, in the kitchen, or in the bedroom.

Romantic relationships in which shame remains hidden can hardly be called relating, considering how much we shut down and isolate when our shame is running the show. In such moments, we become emotionally unavailable. Shame is that powerful.

Shame can show up in many ways in our relationships. A very common way that this happens is when we become defensive, unwilling to take responsibility for having been disrespectful with our partner, for example.

Another way shame shows up is when we have a disproportionately heated reaction to something our partner said or asked us. A lot of reactivity is shame being masked under heated disguise.

Shame also shows up as unworthiness. Unworthiness prevents a staggering number of people from having the amazing relationship (and life!) that is their birthright.

The internal driver of shame is our inner critic. This is the internalized bully that lives in our heads. When we believe what it says to us, we energetically shrink and lose our core self-worth and confidence.

To the degree that we are identified with our inner critic (we think it is us), we cannot free ourselves from it. Think about the shaming people of your early childhood and you can easily recognize whose voice might have been internalized in you as your very own inner critic.

Remember: The power your inner critic has on you is the power you give it. Cease empowering your inner critic by actively choosing to not believe it.

When each person’s early history with shame is out in the open and vulnerably shared in a relationship, love can deepen tremendously as well as the safety and trust we share with our partner.

So far we’ve been talking about toxic shame. To access our healthy shame, it is essential that we know our toxic shame very well. For as long as we are listening to our inner critic, we cannot hear the subtler, self-compassionate voice of our healthy shame.

Healthy shame is the voice of our conscience - it is deeply connected with our sense of integrity, our empathy, and compassion.

While toxic shame is the experience of our inner critic’s devastating critique of our character, healthy shame is the experience of genuine remorse and regret we feel after having hurt someone. Without healthy shame, there is no true accountability.

Healthy shame connects us back to our natural integrity and humanity. Even though still unpleasant to feel, healthy shame allows us to repair broken trust and connection, say “sorry” from our heart, and make amends to truly move forward together with our partner.

Without healthy shame, relationships become battlegrounds of endless conflicts and resentment or quiet spaces of fake peace where only awkward silences find a home.

Bringing our shame out of the shadows is a true labor of love. The natural self-worth we end up connecting with is our birthright along with the integrity deepening gifts of our healthy shame.

We need not look elsewhere for true self-compassion and self-acceptance, for deep healing and growth and for a life lived beautifully.

Compassionately hold the one in you who feels ashamed, the one who doesn’t think s/he is enough and you’ll find in there so much more than just shame.

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