// The Positive Side of Shame
The Positive Side of Shame
Recently, shame has gotten a bad rap. It’s been branded as toxic and destructive. But shame can be used as a tool to effect positive change.
***
Yesterday was an odd day. I met with our new VioScore partner at the Citizen M hotel in the Amsterdam airport. An ordinary hotel located at an airport. This is a very unique location for me, and I never expected it to be both so encouraging and challenging at the same time.
Since it's always simple to focus on successes and ignore mistakes, putting them in a binto box, this is not what leads to growth.
I went through a really dark time in my life that I brought about when my business failed ten years ago. While it was the simplest and "best" option for me at the moment to put everything in a box and forget about it, this is not a practical option.
I'm truly embarrassed.
I feel ashamed of what transpired because I mistreated the workers who were not paid by the business. And I apologize to them for what occurred.
I've realized that it's not the right way to live to be a "good guy, a person who does things to please to avoid displaying the "dark background" they have."
It's difficult to say, but it's even more difficult to bring it up in public and do it.
I joined a community of people who share my experience in order to achieve this, and although it is terrible, it is also liberating. I took some very precise measurements of this with my own hands because I needed assistance. Even though this is private,
Even while growing can be incredibly difficult, especially if you lose something that is really important to you, it is the road that will ultimately make you happy.
Why then is the final outcome of this suffering, heartache, and sense of loss positive?
Let's examine the state of society.
Significant privacy-violating security holes are found by a PhD candidate in computer science, who subsequently discloses them to the media in an effort to generate unfavorable press. Unencrypted websites start to receive a red cross in the URL bar from Google, indicating that they are hazardous. The neighborhood council gets involved after a nine-year-old girl blogs about the appalling lunches at her school.
What are the similarities between the aforementioned tales? Each one of them is an illustration of how shame may be used to promote structural changes.
Shame, like all other emotions, is a product of our ancestors' need for a significant survival advantage. Everyone has had it at some point. Cross-culturally, people display the body language of shame, including bent heads, pursed lips, inverted shoulders, and averted eyes. The same body language is displayed by blind persons as well, suggesting that it is innate rather than learned. If shame was not essential to our survival, we would not waste our time and effort on it.
__
The seven habits of effective shaming
What have I learned from this..
How can you make shame a power in your life instead of a lost an an excuse to hind behind ?
Jacquet ( Jennifer Jacquet's book, Is Shame Necessary ) explains that “shame’s performance is optimized when people reform their behavior in response to its threat and remain part of the group. . . . Ideally, shaming creates some friction but ultimately heals without leaving a scar.”
This is ultimately extremely difficult and requires the ultimate level of trust between people. Make them aware of something they should be shaved of and don’t hurt them to the level it leaves a scare..
To summarize, Jacquet writes: “When shame works without destroying anyone’s life, when it leads to reform and reintegration rather than fight or flight, or, even better, when it acts as a deterrent against bad behavior, shaming is performing optimally.”
But “shaming, like any tool, is on its own amoral and can be used to any end, good or evil.” The way we use it is what matters.
It’s important the shaming be proportional and done intentionally, not as a means of vindication.
Shame has given me the extra edge to move on.
The let go of limited beliefs I had and it has brought me to a new partnership with VioScore and it has given me the power to finally move to the sun..
Next time I write about something more light.. the benefit of a nomad life style company
Be strong .