03/07/2025
Yesterday, sitting down with friends in a small coffee shop, over a cup of chai, I listened as they described what shame felt like in their bodies as men. I was instantly captivated by how they described the heaviness on their back and how they work through that shame as men. I have never felt what they were describing. I find that women tend to experience regret more often than shame. Shame is just kind of always there for us, so it seems to be forgotten until unspoken expectations place a new standard over our existence. I think women tend to experience regret more actively than shame.
Regret is cousins with shame but operates completely differently. Shame says you are the mistake or unworhty. Regret says you made a mistake, and you cannot go back and fix that mistake. As I have moved through the shame of choices and I made as a mother not to protect my children sooner than I did, I initially only felt shame. Deep shame that brought me to my knees daily. For almost a year, that was all I could feel after I fully discovered who my husband was to his children.
It was tough to allow myself to work through releasing the shame that I carried on my back from years of verbal and emotional abuse. That shame was so blindingly heavy that I couldn’t see what was happening to my children. Shame is placed on us by others. Sometimes, from individuals and sometimes from groups. Shame is a tool used to control how others move in their reality.
For me, the feeling of shame is an indicator that I need to address some part of me that feels unloved or unseen. Shame is a convincing liar, convincing people daily that they are not worth anything. If you have people in your life or institutions that you associate with, that use shame as a way to communicate, walk away. Shame is a weapon that only seeks to destroy self-worth... (cont'd in comments)