Working with Your Inner Voice of Shame
This is Part 4 in our series on Shame, From Hiding to Health, Written by: Catherine Morrill, MDiv, LMFT.
In the last blog post, we discussed how shame can begin to lose its grip as we experience deeper, more authentic relationships with others. In this post, we'll turn our attention inward—to loosening the grip of shame by changing the way we relate to ourselves when our shame is activated.
Patricia DeYoung, whose work we’ve drawn on in prior blogs, understands chronic shame as fundamentally relational. It develops in experiences of disconnection with others, and over time those experiences can become part of the way we relate to ourselves. Healing, then, involves not only experiencing different relationships with others, but gradually learning to relate differently to ourselves.
One of the most important shifts we can make is developing more compassion toward ourselves—especially toward our weaknesses, faults, and even the shame itself.
Without compassion and curiosity, our greater self-awareness can simply give us more material for self-criticism:
You know that you’re not supposed to do that. You’re never going to change.
You know you’re insecure, so why can’t you just be more confident?
What is wrong with you that you’re just getting angry again?
Self-criticism may be painful, but it is familiar. Hiding is familiar. Perfectionism is familiar. Anticipating rejection is familiar. Attacking ourselves before somebody else has the chance is familiar. And because these ways of relating to ourselves are so familiar, we may barely notice them.
Notice Your Inner Voice of Shame
You may experience it as a relentless “inner critic.” Perhaps it feels like a voice constantly telling you what's wrong with you. You might identify it as your self-hatred. Or perhaps there isn't an obvious voice at all—you simply know yourself to be unlovable, inadequate, or somehow not enough.
When we become curious about this voice rather than simply believing it, we begin to learn something about how we suffer. What does the shaming, critical voice say to you about yourself? What does it say about other people?
Notice what you feel when it appears. Are you angry? Disappointed? Sad? Afraid? What happens in your body? Does your breathing change? Do your shoulders tighten? Does your stomach hurt?
It can help to write down what you notice.
The goal of this process isn't to prove that the critical voice is wrong—or right, for that matter. In fact, sometimes the critical voice may be pointing to something true: we made a mistake, hurt someone, or have a limitation we wish we didn't have. The problem is what shame can do with that truth, turning a mistake, failure or limitation into an indictment of who we are. For now, you are simply learning to recognize what happens inside you and to wonder whether there could be another way of being with yourself—one that doesn't require turning against yourself.
Naturally, once we begin noticing this voice, we want to know how to change it. For now, stay on the path of curiosity. Noticing the voice of shame has already begun the work of change. Next, we can become curious about where it came from, why it is there, and whether there might be other voices within us that can be discovered or strengthened.
How the Inner Critic Helps Us
Once we recognize how painful the critical inner voice is, it's understandable to want to get rid of it. But it can help to recognize how this voice has served us in the past—and perhaps still serves us now. If the inner critic were simply “bad,” it would probably be much easier to dismiss. We might begin to understand it as an attempt at self-protection.
When we notice the shaming voice arise, we can become curious about what it is helping us accomplish—or what discomfort it is helping us avoid.
Perhaps the critical voice…
Motivates you to work harder...
Helps you avoid mistakes...
Provides some relief from guilt...
Offers a form of protection...
Reassures you about yourself by finding fault with another...
Gives you a reason to keep your distance from another person rather than risk the vulnerability of needing or relating to them.
These strategies may serve a purpose. But they also come at a cost. A harsh internal world limits our capacity to be flexible, curious and unself-conscious. And when our criticism spills outward, it can wound the people around us.
Notice What Happened Before You Turned Against Yourself
Our inner voice of shame has an origin story. In an earlier blog, we explored the roots of shame. Sometimes it goes back farther than our earliest memories. Sometimes we can hear traces of a parent or another family member in it. It may carry the words or attitudes of a teacher, coach, pastor, peer, or another important person.
Here, we’re considering the immediate trigger that gave rise to the inner critic or feelings of shame.
What was happening just before I turned against myself?
Perhaps there is fear beneath the criticism. Or disappointment, loneliness, embarrassment, grief or longing. Perhaps there is a need that feels dangerous to acknowledge—the need to belong, to be reassured, to rest, to be forgiven, to feel adequate, to be loved.
Rather than immediately trying to silence the critical voice, we can become curious about what it may be protecting us from feeling.
Respond with Compassion
Self-compassion doesn't mean pretending everything is okay or telling ourselves things we don't believe. It means learning to respond to our suffering without adding another layer of attack.
Sometimes it helps to begin with the body. Even when we aren't consciously aware of what we're feeling, our bodies may already be responding. Our breathing becomes shallow. Our muscles tighten. Our nervous system becomes activated.
Try slowing your breathing, perhaps breathing in for four counts and out for six. Notice where you're holding tension and gently attend to that place—a little pressure on a tight muscle, a stretch, or simply allowing your body to soften a little.
Then turn toward your inner dialogue.
You might begin very simply:
This is really hard.
It is painful to feel this again.
Then imagine how you might respond if someone you deeply loved came to you carrying this same shame. What would you say to a close friend? To a child? What might a wise and compassionate older person say to you?
Can you picture a younger version of yourself, perhaps your child or teen self, carrying this same shame? How could you care for this part of yourself?
The goal isn't to manufacture a positive voice that argues with every negative thought. It is to begin strengthening another way of relating to yourself—one that can be truthful about your limitations and failures without rejecting you because of them.
Give the New Way Time (Lots of it)
Changing a relationship that has been forming over a lifetime takes time. A lot of it.
Theologian and spiritual writer Henri Nouwen offers a beautiful image for this in The Inner Voice of Love. He describes the difficulty of leaving an “old country”—a place that may not give us what our hearts most desire, but whose ways have become deeply familiar—and learning to enter a new country.
Our relationship with shame can be something like that. Criticism, perfectionism and self-rejection may not bring us peace, but we know their terrain. Compassion can feel like a new country.
If one way of relating to yourself has had 25 years of practice and this new way has had only one, it's a little like putting a 25-year-old and a one-year-old on opposite ends of a tug-of-war rope. We shouldn't be surprised by which one initially wins.
Just because this new voice feels unfamiliar doesn't mean it is false.
Changing that relationship is often slow work because chronic shame isn't simply an idea we can reason ourselves out of. It may be deeply woven into our expectations, relationships, bodies and nervous systems. New experiences—even internal ones—need repetition too.
Once we can recognize the voice as a shaming voice, rather than simply the truth, something opens up. We can become curious about where it came from and why it is there. And we can begin strengthening another part of ourselves—one that is able to observe the shame with greater curiosity and compassion rather than being completely defined by it.
Perhaps that's one way to think about self-compassion: learning not to abandon ourselves at precisely the moments when we most need care.
