How To Manage Shame

Dr. Brene' Brown spoke on managing shame. Her website is http://brenebrown.com/  She said, "If you are brave enough, you WILL fall."

There are three ways we handle it: 

1. We move away from it. 2. We shrink down. (People please) 3. We fight.

"When something hard happens to us, emotions get the 1st crack at how we handle it. We are emotional, thinking, believing beings."

Our brains are hard wired for a solution. When bad things happen to us... our brain just wants a solution, even if it's not the right one. The brain wants a story, beginning, middle, and end. The AHA is the chemical reward moment. The brain rewards regardless of the truth.

She told a story about how her husband came in from work and said "We don't have any lunch meat." That threw her into many wrong thoughts about herself.

She felt like she was doing a half job at life... with her business, as a wife, and as a mom. That one comment from him made her feel this way. She started telling him, "Right now, my story is because we don't have lunch meat, dinner was not on the table when you got home, I feel like I'm half way doing life. I'm not a good wife, I'm not a good mom and I'm not a good business woman."

The part of "this is my story right now" is how she describes how she feels.

Her husband said, "Look, we've been married for over 20 years and dinner has never been on the table. I help you cook supper each night. I buy the groceries, so not having lunch meat was my fault. I just wanted a sandwich while we cooked."

Vulnerability is a key to living without shame. It is an uncertain and the brain treats it as a threat. But it's required for relationship.

Dr. Brown has something she calls a "Shitty First Draft", please pardon the bad word. But I'm quoting her.

This is the fact that something hard or bad has happened to you. You don't need shame to talk during a hard time.

So, you capture the SFD. One way to deal with the fall is to write it down. If you can be honest about the SFD... .writing it down helps you look at it objectively. What's true? What more do you need to know about yourself?

Dr. Brown said, "When you own your story, you get to write the ending!! When you deny a story, you hurt yourself."

Taken from Catalyst Facebook page

Take deep breathes, be prayerful, jot down the SFD and acknowledge that this is not who you want to be.

To handle conflict and issues, use this method, "This is the story I'm telling myself... is there something we need to straighten out?"

I am thankful for her talk, because I want to take this approach in my life. I have struggled with negative self talk for years! I want to be able to think through and if someone's words or actions are what throws me into negative self talk, I want to go to them and say, "What you said has caused me to tell myself this story.... is that what you meant?" I think this will really help me in life. I hope it helps you too!