Spencer, Swetha, and guest host Nic talk about shame – what it is, how we feel it, how we used to deal with it, and how we deal with it in recovery. We start by looking at the difference between shame and guilt. When we do something wrong, we feel guilt, and we can deal with it by making amends. When we feel shame, the message we are hearing is “I am a bad person”. We react to shame by hiding it and internalizing it and stuffing it down. We feel that we are not worthy, and that we will lose our friends, be ostracized if we reveal the thing that caused us to feel shameful.

Spencer refers to a TED talk (“Listening to Shame”) by Brené Brown, where she says that shame “plays two tapes”. The first is “you’re not good enough”. The second is “who do you think you are?” We all identify with these messages. Swetha reflects that when she gets a compliment, she thinks “Oh! I fooled them! If they only knew the real me, they wouldn’t say that.” Nic hears “you’re never good enough”, that she could never live up to expectations.

One source of our shame is self-judgement, where we judge ourselves more stringently than we judge the people around us. A big part of that is comparing our insides to other people’s outsides. Spencer reflects on a new role he’s taken on at work, where he continually hears the “who do you think you are?” message, because he is still learning the new skills he needs to do that job up to his own expectations of himself. Nic’s core shame issue is perfectionism. She has felt that “competence equals perfection”, and is trying to learn that “competence equals competence”. Swetha recalls an episode from her childhood, where she came home with a 99.36 grade in her class, with a highly complimentary note from the teacher. Her mother’s first reaction was “where’s the other 0.64%?” Ever after, if she didn’t make 100%, she felt that she was underachieving and not being who she should be.

Being honest and open is something we learn by example in the program. Swetha’s first reaction to hearing people talking in meetings was “they are so brave!” Her fear, before the first time she did a meeting lead, was “what if I’m too sick and they tell me not to come back?” Her sponsor assured her that the worst that could happen was that we would say “wow, you are really sick, please keep coming back!” She has come to realize that feeling vulnerable, sharing in meetings, doing the podcast, is really a source of strength for her. When others reveal their struggles, their failures, and their fears, it means that we can identify with them, because we have those same struggles, failures, and fears. And that means that maybe we can also identify with their victories and believe that they could come true for us, too.

How do we move out of shame? By opening ourselves up, by being vulnerable, and by sharing our shameful moments and actions. Because, as Nic notes, shame needs secrecy, silence and judgement to thrive. By breaking through the silence and secrecy in a safe place, one without judgement, we can start to destroy the shame itself. Swetha reflects back to the Al-Anon closing, where we say “you will come to love us in a very special way, the same way we already love you”. She didn’t understand this at first, but now really finds it to be true. As Brené Brown says, “the two most powerful words when we’re in struggle are ‘me too’”.