Shame on me, Shame on you
In a pub up several flights of stairs, so steep I wasn’t sure I would make it, a group of soul searchers gathered to discuss the theme of shame. Pretty heavy stuff for a Sunday afternoon when most people were downstairs getting ready to watch the rugby, or thinking about splashing out on a city centre roast dinner for lunch.
What I discovered was that we could universally agree that shame is an engrained concept we’ve carried with us since Adam and Eve (or the dinosaurs, whichever you prefer). Intrinsically linked to society regulation, a way to control, protect and punish the masses and more effective than guilt, shame destroys us from the inside- a self-hating mechanism. In regards to restorative justice, it could be argued that guilt is something once we have made reparations can be moved on from, but can we ever move on from shame?
Reading Girl by Jamaica Kincaid, a poem consisting of essentially a list of dos and don’ts passed on from mothers to daughters, it seems we can’t, shame is inherited. I dread to think what shame and trauma I will pass on to the next generation unwillingly. Unavoidably, it will be the shame of all women perpetuated by the patriarchy for women to wave as a banner. Shamed for what we wear, for wanting more, for being mothers, for not being mothers, for how much we weigh, to shave or not to shave, for how to be a feminist (if we choose to be feminists), for simply existing. But it’s not as simple as blaming the patriarchy for the concept of shame, these rules apply to everyone.
And some rules are not as obvious as others. As a neurodivergent person, I have had to learn other rules that other people seem to just know in order to avoid shame. I used to think if I followed those rules, rules about talking enough, not talking too much, making eye contact, using white lies and compliments even when their but DID look big, that I could fit in. It seems at every stage of life there are new rules to learn, and a new shame to absorb.
Currently, my life is governed by the rules of a single parent; “My children must have homecooked meals, they must be nutritious, they must go to bed at the right time, they must go to some clubs to develop themselves, but not too many clubs that it looks like I don’t want them around, the house must be clean, I must be grateful, I must set a good example. Get a job, don’t get a job. Get a boyfriend, don’t get a boyfriend. You can’t wear that as a mother. Your children must come first. They must come first, they must come first.
Yep, it’s pretty noisy in there and that is only a VERY brief glimpse into my mind. So, how can we get rid of these rules and shame that make our minds so busy and weigh so heavily on us?
The answer it seems is love. Empathy is the antidote to shame.
By having compassion for ourselves for others and ourselves we would no longer need the concept of shame to regulate our behaviour. Shame would be once and for all redundant. So let’s evolve people! Let’s use love to transcend shame, and practice a little more compassion until one day, we can finally achieve peace (hopefully while our planet still exists and there is more than one person left alive).
