Brene Brown (2008) I Thought It Was Just Me [But It Isn’t]

Brene Brown is a Licensed Master Social Worker. She gained her Ph.D working with women and researching Shame. We’ve all got our own ideas of what shame is and what is shameful. The most toxic kind is when we identify with the shameful labels others give us.

Brown suggests her lightbulb moment came when was working in residential care. A clinical director said: ‘You cannot shame or belittle people into changing their behaviour’.

Bree’s working definition:

‘Shame is the intensely painful feeling or experiences of believing we are flawed and therefore unworthy of acceptance and belonging.’  

Listening to two six-year-old girls argue often makes me smile.

Robin: ‘You’ve hurt my feelings.’

Tilly: ‘I don’t care. I hate you!’

‘Shame, The Silent Epidemic’ begins when we begin, with learning from others. Shame is related to fear and exclusion. The blame game. If this sounds a bit like politics, you’d be right. Politics is about power. Those that have power have leverage to make their views the norm. We used to frame it in terms of class. Think of terms like the deserving and undeserving poor. Having an outsized hegemonic influence.

Victorian polymath, Francis Galton, who coined the term eugenics, for example, believed the upper-class Englishman, in terms of mental and physical acuity, was the peak of civilisation. He meant white, of course, and male. That was taken as a given. Colonial rule was the white man’s burden.  

We view much of contemporary American politics through this same prism. Substitute, American for English and add a quick Nazi salute. Do not mention Untermenschen, or life unworthy of life. Substitute words here, ‘immigrant’ or ‘swarm’.

Fat is a feminist issue crops up again and again in Brown’s studies. Almost as much as poverty and ageing.

‘In one American survey, eighty-one percent of ten-year-old girls had already dieted at least once.’

‘About eighty-million Americans are obese.’

‘Approximately seven million women suffer from an eating disorder.’

In a recent meeting between one of the richest men in the world and one of the most toxic, the moron’s moron and 45^th American President found time to compliment the next and 47^th American President. Despite clocking up an impressive 165 lies per hour, (the alleged) rapist recently found out by accident that Kamala Harris was black. The geriatric and racist draft-dodger compared Kamala Harris’s photo in Time to his latest wife. Sometimes there is no end to shame or the rekindling of eugenics in different ways. Even in an alleged compliment.    

Brown’s Shame Resilience Model suggests empathy and compassion as ways of circumventing such non-shame. I can’t be bothered wittering on any more. No shame in that. Read on.     

https://bit.ly/bannkie

Notes.

Shame Resilience Model (Fear, Blame,  Disconnection)…Shame silence… Empathy (Courage, Compassion, Connection).

Using Shame Screen…Recognising Shame and Triggers…Awareness, Understanding.

Reinforcing, Individualizing, Pathlogizing…Practicing Critical Awareness…Demystafying, Contextualizing, Normalizing.

Separating, Insulating…Reaching Out…Sharing Our Story, Create Change.

Shutting Down, Acting Out…Speaking Shame…Express How We Feel, Ask For What We Need.