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 the relationship we have with ourselves.
Patricia DeYoung, whose work on shame I draw on often, 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 toward a more compassionate and curious stance—especially toward our weaknesses, faults, and even the shame itself.
Without compassion and curiosity, greater self-awareness can simply give us more material for self-criticism:
You’re never going to change.
Why can’t you just be more confident?
What is wrong with you?
Self-criticism may be miserable, but it is familiar. Hiding is familiar. Perfectionism is familiar. Anticipating rejection is familiar. Attacking ourselves before somebody else has the chance is familiar.
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.
Begin by getting curious about this part of your internal world. 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 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 how you suffer and to wonder if, perhaps, there could be another way of being with yourself—one that doesn't cause so much suffering.
When we get to the point of identifying the internal voice of shame, we naturally ask, “Okay, so how do I change it?”
In short, stay on the path of curiosity. The good news is that noticing the shame has already set us on the path of change. Once we recognize the voice as a shaming voice, rather than simply the truth, other possibilities open. The further work will unfold. 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.
Get Curious About Where the Voice Came From
Our inner voice of shame has an origin story.
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.
But rather than simply trying to get rid of the inner critic, it can be helpful to become curious about how it may have been trying to help or protect us.
Perhaps criticism motivated you to work harder and avoid mistakes. Maybe punishing yourself provided some relief from guilt: If I make myself feel bad enough, perhaps I've paid for what I did.
For some of us, criticizing ourselves first was a form of protection. If I can identify everything that's wrong with me before anyone else does, maybe their criticism won't hurt quite as much.
Our critical voice can also turn outward. Criticizing other people can temporarily reassure us about ourselves: I would never do that. Why can't they get it together?
And sometimes finding fault with another person gives us a reason to keep our distance rather than risk the vulnerability of needing or relating to them.
These strategies may have served 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.
Look beneath the shame
Once we can recognize the shaming voice, we can begin asking another question:
What is underneath it?
What happened 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 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 our emotions physically, our bodies often react. 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 youself, perhaps your child or teen self, weighed down by these self-critical thoughts that stem from feelings of inadequacy, fear or loneliness? How could you care for this part of your self?
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 Voice Time
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.
