The Art Of Releasing Shame: 8 Simple Habits Of Naturally Unburdened People
They let go of guilt and embrace self-acceptance.
Leszek Glasner | Shutterstock It's easy to point the finger at other people when relationships don't work out. And if blaming someone else isn't convenient, we can always blame a situation or timing — or even worse, get stuck in a shame cycle.
Sometimes getting divorced or letting go of a toxic relationship is necessary, and breaking up or ending a friendship is the healthiest choice, even if we feel a lot of shame around it. Because we know that shame is so prevalent, and people want and need to know how to deal with their shame, we asked multiple relationship experts what it is about these shame stories that makes them so powerful, and how they affect our relationships.
Here are 8 simple habits of naturally unburdened people:
1. They aren't afraid to be vulnerable
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“Most of us are more invested in protecting our stories of shame because we really don’t feel worthy of love. If you have fears and judgments about your body and yourself, you will attract love relationships that reflect those feelings. Until you see how you are not those stories of shame, it will be difficult to create a completely new story of the guilt-free love that you want and can be.
To open your heart to love, it takes courage, commitment, and compassion. Be your vulnerable, true self to begin to experience what love is. Then you will be able to create the same compassion for that special someone you want to build a loving relationship with.”
— Angela Ambrosia, Relationship Coach
2. They honor their feelings rather than bury them
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“In your head, shame is real. Hiding it and burying it will sabotage every relationship you have. The only thing worse than you knowing it’s there is the person you love not knowing it.”
Emotion suppression might have social benefits, but it also changes how you think. Trying to appear less emotional than you really are is a demanding form of self-regulation that researchers showed has cognitive consequences. Emotional suppression can impair your memory during the incident and increase cardiovascular activation.
— Brenda Descamps, Board Certified Executive, Leadership, and Life Coach
3. They make space for regret
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"Remorse can be more productive than shame because it encourages communication about what you wish you'd done and how you wish to show up better next time. But shame is silencing. It just condemns us without any direction for repair."
Social psychology can help understand the interplay of remorse, confession, and group identity. Researchers studied the impact of remorse on the expectation of future transgressions. They found that rather than trying to reduce blame, when confessors accept responsibility for the transgression, their remorse had the largest effect on forgiveness and the expectation of future negative acts. So, releasing shame requires an effective confession that must include remorse.
— Heidi Hartston, PhD, Psychologist
4. They are transparent and authentic, even when afraid
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“Shame is that heavy, winter coat we wear when we feel in any way badly about who we are as a person, unlovable, inadequate, unworthy, all the stories we’ve told ourselves which keep us from being seen, from being loved.
Shame allows us to push people away and out of our lives because why would anyone want to be with someone like me? Removing our coat feels vulnerable at first, but then the healing process begins and love finds us, love of ourselves and love from others.”
— Linda Morinello, Wellness Coach
5. They let go of unhealthy relationships
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“Shame is a toxic emotion, especially for young children, who are vulnerable to having their self-esteem devalued by their parents. Many early childhood experiences create shame: feeling unwanted, unloved, neglected, or abused; being criticized, attacked, or humiliated; or needing to hide something about yourself or your family.
Shame is the belief, 'There is something so deeply wrong with me that I am unworthy of love.' This belief isn’t true, and it never was true. The problem was with your parents, who didn’t know how to empower you with positive reflections.
When you change this core belief that you are not enough, or that there’s something bad about you, you can experience the beauty of who you are: a unique, lovable human being who gets to make mistakes and learn from them. Childhood shame can affect your choice of partners, reproducing the conditions of your childhood. Instead, find a partner who sees the real you and makes you feel cherished for who you are.”
— Carista Luminare & Lion Goodman, Marriage Counselors
6. They learn from painful experiences
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“You cannot have gone through life without feelings of shame. If you are like most of us, these memories are hidden within us, especially from our childhood. If you do not acknowledge the pain from your past, you will find it hard to find long-lasting relationships of love.
It's important to remember you're only human and imperfect, and there's no shame in admitting you have challenges. Everyone goes through difficult times. Sometimes, we need some help to get through them.”
— Roland Legge, Life Coach
7. They create a new narrative
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“With shame-filled memories about past relationships, like ‘the last one broke up with me in a text,’ comes a sneaky voice that asks: ‘What’s wrong with me?’ That shaming voice that often wins, replaying one story after another about relationship failures and makes you turn away, and in the turning away creates yet another story about something not being right with you.
Face that ‘What’s wrong with me’ shame voice and respond with: ‘The question is not what’s wrong with me, but what’s right with me.’ When you start answering that question, you can begin in small steps to counter the overwhelming shame and fear of failure and can step into the future with some hope and a little vulnerability, and more of your true self.”
— Sheila Rubin, Family Therapist
8. They practice self-love
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“Shame steals your self-esteem and keeps you in a state of fear and anxiety that nobody will ever accept you for who you are. We can never expect anybody to accept us if we don’t first accept ourselves. Learning to love ourselves is a lot harder as we are our own worst critics.
The first step to learning to love yourself is to start affirming that which is good about you. Starting with one small affirmation a day is one step closer to learning to love yourself, and when you love yourself, you become lovable.”
— Venessa Cuthbert, Life Coach
9. They let their guard down when necessary
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“We make up stories around our shame and wear it like armor when trying to find love, because we assume they will judge us the same way we judge ourselves.
Unfortunately, that keeps us from fully connecting with a potential partner. Real love is accepting of our flaws and embraces our shame. We can’t find that love if we hide ourselves behind the shame.”
— Vicky Cook, Transition Coach
Patterns of behavior in relationships can teach valuable lessons, and sometimes the past is needed to shed light on what's really going on.
There may be a painful episode of your life, a major mistake you made, or an unkind or even abusive event in your past that has lingered and become a "shame story". And sometimes shame stories act like saboteurs to our happiness. These moments can feel like they poison our chances at finding the kind of love that lasts.
Aria Gmitter is YourTango's Senior Editor of Horoscopes and Spirituality. She graduated from the Midwestern School of Astrology and has been a practical astrologer for 40 years.
