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Are You Being Constrained by an Unrecognized Emotion?

We know it’s important to be connected to our feelings. When feelings go underground, they don’t disappear. They operate unconsciously, perhaps contributing to our anxiety or depression — or just a vague sense of discontent. Oftentimes, we can’t put our finger on what’s causing us to feel disconnected, isolated, or less alive.

There is one human emotion in particular that often hides out, living in a half-dormant state that reduces our joie de vivre (joy of living) and is prone to being activated when conditions arise that activate it. This is the human emotion of shame.

Of all our human emotions, perhaps shame is the most hidden, the most tricky, and the most difficult to work with. Workshop leaders Bret Lyon and Sheila Rubin refer to shame as “a powerful, universal, mysterious emotion” that is “incredibly painful and destructive.” Everyone is prone to experience it. And for many of us — if not most of us — it has had a debilitating effect on our lives. 

The best definition of shame that I’ve encountered comes from researcher and author Brene Brown. She defines shame as “The intensely painful feeling or experience of believing that we are flawed and therefore unworthy of love and belonging — something we’ve experienced, done, or failed to do makes us unworthy of connection.”

It is interesting that Brene Brown connects shame with relationships. Gershen Kaufman makes the same point in Shame: The Power of Caring, referring to shame as “the breaking of the interpersonal bridge.” Shame shapes and colors how we relate to people. If we believe that we’re flawed, defective, or unworthy, this gnawing sense of shame deeply affects how we relate to people — or don’t relate to them. 

Oftentimes our lives become constructed in a way to avoid having to face this intensely painful emotion of shame. Surveys have suggested that public speaking is more scary than dying for many of us. We’d rather die of cancer than die of embarrassment.  

Feeling unworthy shapes our personality in different ways. For many people, it means not showing who we really are. We don’t raise our hand in class, even when we know the answer to our teacher’s question. We hide our true feelings and needs. We don’t show up in an authentic way in our relationships. We’re terrorized by the conviction that if we were to show any vulnerability — feelings such as sadness, fear, or hurt — we’d face the dreadful fate of being laughed at, humiliated, and rejected. 

Others are quick to raise their hand in class — and later in life — quick to offer their opinion about things, even when their beliefs are erroneous and convictions misguided. Their ego and personality are infused with a bravado or arrogance quietly designed to cover up their underlying shame (certain politicians come readily to mind!). They seem supremely confident as the power of their personality is compellingly persuasive, but the overconfident bravado is concealing a deeply held, hidden shame. For those who are discerning enough to see through it, the emperor has no clothes.

Perhaps you’ve never considered the power of shame to shape who you’ve become. A friend recently told me how she remembered being a happy, confident, effusive child until she was four years old. Then one day as her mother was dressing to go to the hospital to give birth to a second child, she told her daughter she had something important to say to her: “You are a spoiled child. From now on, you must not expect so much attention from you parents.”

Not even knowing what it meant to be “spoiled,” my friend went into shock. She began to doubt and suppress her true feelings, and to ponder how she might reshape herself to meet her parents approval, Sadly, the interpersonal bridge had been broken by her mother’s shaming rejection, which squashed her spontaneity and arrested her development. 

She happily told me how it was freeing to discover how shame was the unrecognized feeling that had been holding her back. Bringing attention to the shame enabled her to release something inside herself and newly affirm herself. She realized how the background feeling of shame did not represent who she really is — it was conditioned in her from how her mother related to her — or didn’t relate to her. This insight opened a new world of possibilities — to discover and allow herself to be who she really is, including reclaiming the spontaneous, childlike part of herself.

As you pause to attend to your inner world, do you notice a background feeling of bewilderment, sorrow, lethargy, self-doubt, social anxiety, or some other uncomfortable feeling? There could be various reasons for this, whether physical, psychological, or spiritual. But consider whether the word “shame” resonates for at least some part of what you are experiencing inside — that painful sense of feeling that there’s something wrong with you. If so, it might serve you to further uncover and explore the shame that was conditioned in you and is not who you really are. This might be a step toward liberating you to more fully embrace the beauty, spontaneity, and goodness of who you really are.

Ideas for Reducing Racism

With the unconscionable death of George Floyd by four Minneapolis police officers, Americans are rightfully upset. They have taken to the streets to protest the ongoing problem of police brutality in many municipalities, as well as continued racial profiling that results in African-Americans and other minorities being targeted and harassed by police.

How do we reduce racism in America? How can we find a path where fewer Americans have racist points of view, and those who do are no longer accepted as regular members of our society?

Americans are mad. They are mad that some police officers are still using unnecessary force when making an arrest. They are mad that not a single one of the four officers involved in George Floyd’s death were concerned for his health and well-being after he was heard saying, over and over again, “I can’t breathe.” They are mad for the seeming never-ending casual racism that informs too many American’s viewpoints.

Origins of Racism in America

Racism is a form of prejudice defined by false beliefs that one group of people have racial or ethnic traits that make their group superior or better than those who have other ethnic or racial traits. Racism is most often perpetrated by those in power against people who are not.

Privilege and racism often go hand-in-hand, because the group in power enjoys certain advantages over the oppressed group. So before the Civil War, plantation owners enjoyed all the privilege of their status and wealth due to the efforts and work of their slaves. Nowadays, privilege can be best understood as the advantages afforded those who live in middle-class neighborhoods with access to better schools, daycare, jobs, and healthcare options than those who live in impoverished neighborhoods.

America has a complicated and sad history with racism. Any American who doesn’t recognize the injustice of African-Americans for the past 400 years in this country doesn’t know their own country’s history. Brought here against their will and ripped from their families and homes in Africa, they were forced to build the foundation for the United States of America — from literal building foundations to its early cotton-based economy.

It wasn’t until the country fought a bloody civil war before the racists formally lost. It took another full century before African-Americans won their civil rights. All of these efforts were fought tooth-and-nail by a significant minority of the U.S. population. As recently as 50 years ago, racism (especially in the South) was not only tolerated, it was a part of the very fabric of some components of our society. Some would argue it is still very much the default in certain communities.

How to Reduce Racism

If racism is so interwoven within American society, how do we significantly reduce it or get rid of it altogether?

Slowly, with time and enormous amounts of effort, since we’re up against 400 years of racial prejudice. Despite gains by African-Americans, such racism is still promulgated within families, generation upon generation, and amplified on social media. There is no single or easy solution to racism.

Encouraging Egalitarian Thoughts

One approach that seems to help is to encourage egalitarianism — the belief that all people are equal in worth and status, and therefore we all deserve both equal rights and opportunities. Egalitarianism is at the heart of the founding of America, in the Declaration of Independence, in the phrase “that all men are created equal.” Researchers (Zárate et al., 2014) have found:

that individuals who chronically access their egalitarian standards (i.e., those who compensate after a prejudiced behavior by responding with less prejudice) are able to avoid automatically activating […] stereotypes. Therefore, it seems that some people are able and motivated to actively bring to mind their standards for prejudice-related behavior before automatic prejudiced reactions occur.

In short, by confronting personally-held prejudices and comparing those against the universal belief that all people are equal, people begin to understand that maybe the prejudice needs to be reconsidered — or even retired (Monteith & Mark, 2005). A person feels guilty for holding a prejudicial or racist belief, because it undermines their desire to be more egalitarian.

Get to Know Someone Personally

Psychologists know that intergroup contact reduces prejudice and racism. That is, when people talk to and regularly communicate with people in their outgroup (e.g., people of a different race or ethnicity), their racism and prejudice can be reduced (Allport, 1954). This could be viewed as a potential psychological benefit connected to desegregation in the 1970s and 1980s — busing white children into intercity schools and African-American children into suburban schools. By exposing each group to the other group, friendships would form and prejudice would decrease.

While the success of busing is debatable, the idea of interacting and getting to know people of a different ethnicity or race is an important way to combat racism. You don’t find many racists with friends who are different colors than they are.

It won’t guarantee a change of heart, but it’s much harder to hate a person once you understand that person as an individual, with the same hopes, dreams, and beliefs as most of us. A person learns that the color of one’s skin doesn’t really dictate anything about the person (except, too often, their lack of access to the same quality of resources and types of opportunities).

Confront it Head-On

Sometimes racism and prejudice can be confronted head-on with positive results. This works best when the person being confronted is someone with high levels of prejudice and is being confronted by someone of their own group, or in the case of racism, race (Czopp et al., 2006; Czopp & Monteith, 2003). The message should be direct and to-the-point, and done in a public (rather than private) setting. So a direct face-to-face discussion with the person will be more effective than sending a text or email.

Appealing to egalitarianism in such a confrontation may also help. A direct, nonjudgmental message might be something like, “Did you just say that? We’re now living in the 21st century. I thought that like most, don’t you believe that all people are equal? What is it about these beliefs (‘rooted in the 1700s’ — leave out if you don’t want to put too fine a point on it) that are still so compelling or important to you?” While it may be difficult to say out loud, it may start a conversation that can help reduce the other person’s prejudice.

* * *

Racism is a difficult challenge to address. It will not just disappear overnight, but it can be reduced with conscious effort on an individual’s part to do so.

It is my hope that someday, within my lifetime, we will live in a united America. Where all people can live freely, without fear of being beaten — or even dying, like George Floyd — because they’re a different color.

 

In memory of George Floyd. Image credit: Fibonacci Blue

 

References

Allport, G. W. (1954). The nature of prejudice. Oxford, England: Addison-Wesley.

Czopp, A. M., & Monteith, M. J. (2003). Confronting prejudice (literally): Reactions to confrontations of racial and gender bias. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 29, 532–544. doi:10.1177/0146167202250923

Czopp, A. M., Monteith, M. J., & Mark, A. Y. (2006). Standing up for a change: Reducing bias through interpersonal confrontation. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 90, 784–803. doi:10.1037/0022-3514.90.5.784

Monteith, M. J., & Mark, A. Y. (2005). Changing one’s prejudiced ways: Awareness, affect, and self-regulation. European Review of Social Psychology, 16, 113–154. doi:10.1080/10463280500229882

Zárate, M. A., Quezada, S. A., Shenberger, J. M., & Lupo, A. K. (2014). Reducing racism and prejudice. In F. T. L. Leong, L. Comas-Díaz, G. C. Nagayama Hall, V. C. McLoyd, & J. E. Trimble (Eds.), APA handbooks in psychology. APA handbook of multicultural psychology, Vol. 2. Applications and training (p. 593–606). American Psychological Association. https://doi.org/10.1037/14187-033

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