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How to Let Go of Your Shame, Solved — Transcript

by Mark Manson · 44,246 words · 2,412 segments · language en · Watch on YouTube

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0:00Chances are, if you're listening to this or watching this, there's an area of your life
0:03that you feel so terrible about that you just try to pretend that it's not there,
0:09that you hide it from others, that you just you you avoid it at at all costs. And that
0:15avoidance and that hiding leads to more problems in your life. It causes you to isolate yourself.
0:21It causes you to withdraw yourself. It causes you to numb and distract yourself. It probably
0:27causes problems in your relationships. yet you're probably not addressing it. Shame is
0:32it it is the in many ways the ultimate topic that we all need to address, but by definition
0:39it is the last topic we ever want to address. And so this episode is going to probably have
0:46a weird tension throughout for most people. I I actually imagine that we will lose some people
0:52in this episode just for the simple reason that it will become too uncomfortable and they don't
0:56want to ask these questions of themselves as we go through all the topics. But fundamentally,
1:02as we will see, alleviating shame or healing shame or coming to terms with your shame,
1:08whatever language you want to use around shame, it is one of the most important and core aspects
1:15of developing yourself or improving yourself. A lot of what people go to therapy for is to heal
1:21or overcome their shame. A lot of what people go to seminars and meditation retreats and self-help
1:28conferences is to help heal and alleviate their shame. The reason people go to AA meetings that
1:34they go to check themselves into mental hospitals, a lot of it is around alleviating their shame.
1:40And so this is it is such a fundamental aspect of our relationship with ourselves,
1:47our relationship with the world, our relationship with our loved ones. And it is the topic that we
1:52hate touching more than any other. So all irony aside, we are about to spend the next four to
1:59five hours touching this topic. Touching it in the most shameful of ways or the most shameless
2:07of ways perhaps. So with that, welcome back to the solve podcast everybody. I am number one New
2:13York Times bestselling author Mark Manson and this is my intrepid producer associate former academic
2:20Drew Bernie and in this episode we are going deep on shame. Now, for anybody who's new here,
2:27the whole point of the Solve Podcast is to give you a podcast episode that is so well researched,
2:34so deep, so thorough that you will never have to listen to another podcast episode about this
2:39topic ever again, ever your entire life. Don't be ashamed of that. There's going to be a lot of
2:46bad shame jokes throughout this episode. I can already tell. Hear them already. Yeah. Now to
2:52set the agenda or the road map a little bit for the listener. This is a long podcast. It is very
2:57thorough. You don't have to listen to it all in one shot. You you can break it up over multiple
3:01sessions. But just to orient you on like how we're going to go about this. Generally speaking,
3:06the first half of the episode, Drew and I get into the theory and understanding the concept
3:12as deeply as possible. We look at everything from a a scientific lens, a cultural lens, a historical
3:18lens, and a philosophical lens. uh as well as a psychological lens. And then the back half of
3:23the episode is where all of the actionable advice is, the practical takeaways, the things that you
3:28could do today or this week or this month uh to help solve this problem in your life. So prepare
3:33yourself accordingly. And because it is such a large podcast with so much information, we provide
3:39free PDF guides to go along with the episode. So if you want to download the free PDF guide,
3:44it's over 100 pages. It has all of our citations and notes. It has all of the research, all the
3:49theories, all of the book recommendations. You can go to solvepodcast.com/shame and you can download
3:55it for free. And finally, if you are a fan of the show or you get a lot out of this episode,
4:00please, please, please subscribe or follow us on the platform that you're listening to us on
4:06and leave a review if you can. podcasting is very weird and that there is not really a way to get a
4:13show out into the world or or promote it without doing a bunch of [ __ ] social media stuff that
4:18we don't really like doing. So, if you love the show and you wish more people were exposed to it,
4:22the best thing you can do to help us is to subscribe and leave that review.
4:34All right, so to begin, I want to go back. I want to go all the way back. I want to I want us to
4:40imagine that we are in a prehistoric tribe. This is like 30,000 years ago, 50,000 years ago. Now,
4:48what is life like? Well, we probably live in a small band of anywhere from a couple dozen to
4:56a hundred people. It's probably really just half a dozen extended families that roam the savannah
5:03together uh eating a bunch of grub and worms and uh trying not to die of dysentery. Life expectancy
5:10was extremely short. You know, Thomas Hobbes had this great famous quote from Leviathan where he
5:16said that the pre-ivilization man his life was solitary, poor, nasty, brutish and short. And
5:22for a couple centuries there was a lot of debate around that. But uh we uh we know for a fact now
5:27that yeah, being a caveman [ __ ] sucked. It was not a good time. Your life expectancy was about
5:3430 years. Most of your waking hours were spent sourcing food. And if anything went wrong that
5:40day, you didn't eat. You spent roughly as much time sick as you did healthy. Disease was rampant.
5:48you. There were tapeworms, lice, parasites, diarrhea, constant food poisoning, malaria,
5:55gum disease. It was a tough time. People were not frolicking through the savannah. Let's just put it
6:00that way. And then on top of all of that, violence was rife, not only within the tribe, but between
6:07tribes. There was a lot of uh territorialism and um you know, raiding and pillaging of of
6:13neighboring tribes. In the prehistoric age, it is estimated that anywhere from 10 to 20% of the
6:20population died from murder. So being a caveman sucked. We've established that. I think it's
6:27important to really spend a moment thinking about this because it's important to understand how high
6:31the stakes were. Let's say you and I go out on a hunt together and you are screwing around and
6:38not paying attention and you step on a branch and the g the wild game like hears us and runs away.
6:45Like that's our food for the next week. You just like completely screwed the entire tribe for the
6:51next week, right? There should be repercussions for that. It would make sense that we evolved
6:57consequences for certain behaviors or infractions or the violation of of expectations between human
7:04beings. Lying or stealing could really result in somebody's death. You know, today we see it, you
7:11know, you go to a drugstore and you see somebody shoplifting and it's just like it's annoying,
7:16it's disrespectful, like maybe you like make a an angry comment or whatever, but like nobody's
7:22dying. In the caveman days, if you stole food from somebody else, like somebody could die, like that
7:28they could starve to death from the fact that they don't have that food anymore. Um, starting drama
7:35with people, disobedience to your elders or to superiors, like all of these things could result
7:41in people's death. So like the the point here is that the stakes were extremely high and living up
7:46to social norms and expectations, it was a life or death matter. And back then, you didn't have
7:51an option. Like today in this day and age, you know, it's like it's very cool and fashionable
7:55to sit back and be like, "Yeah, man. Societyy's not going to define who I am. I'm my own man. I'm
8:04going to I'm going to turn my hat backwards and put my watch on my right hand cuz I'm my own man."
8:11There was none of that. Like if you back in the prehistoric days, if you didn't have the tribe,
8:17you died. You'd be eaten by a predator. you'd be killed by somebody else. You would starve
8:23to death. You'd freeze to death. You would die of a disease alone. It it was you had no choice. You
8:29had to live up to the social expectations of the tribe. And not living up to those expectations
8:34meant you died. It was that simple. And so we have 80 to 90% of our biological lineage is built off
8:43of this software of like if you don't live up to social norms, you're dead. And so it makes sense
8:50that we would evolve a mechanism in our brains to be highly sensitive to the possibility that we are
8:57violating social norms and social expectations. To be incredibly anxious around the idea that
9:04other people might not like us that that we would obsess over our reputation or how other people see
9:10us because again for 90% of human history if you had a bad reputation that could get you killed. So
9:18it is it is fundamentally a survival mechanism. So as a result we all we kind of have this internal
9:23radar inside our heads that's going on at all times and this radar is always paying attention to
9:31how the things that we say or do might affect the people around us and what they might think of us.
9:37And this radar is exhausting. I'm sure most people listening to this are have are are very human and
9:43and that they can share in that experience and that it is [ __ ] exhausting constantly worrying
9:47what other people are thinking about you. But it is completely natural and human and and very
9:52fundamental to our to our evolutionary survival. And part of this radar is that when we detect
9:59that there might be something that might turn the people around us against us, we shut the [ __ ]
10:05up. We don't we close our mouths. We don't say a thing. We sit quietly. Just don't rock the boat.
10:13That's kind of like the default reaction to this radar when it detects something. And on top of
10:19that, not only do we shut the [ __ ] up and not rock the boat, but we also have this tendency to
10:26internalize that this impulse or this thought or this behavior says that there is something
10:33wrong about us. It's not a purely transactional calculation of like, oh, if I say this thing,
10:38then uh, you know, John and Mary might not like me, so I'm not going to say that. It's like, wow,
10:44the fact that I want to say this thing that is going to make John and Mary hate me, like, I must
10:49be a bad person for wanting to say it. And that feeling that I must be a bad person for wanting
10:54to say these things or I I must be a bad person for wanting to violate these norms, that is shame.
11:00That is essentially what shame is. And all of this is important because it's important to understand
11:07the context of how important shame is for our survival as a species. Like this is the message
11:14that doesn't get communicated in this industry or this space. You know, it's shame is is universally
11:21like, oh, you should feel good about yourself and you shouldn't keep yourself down and you should be
11:26open and share everything all the time. And it's like yeah in our modern world for people who are
11:32suffering a lot or have been through a lot like that's a good message in the broader context of
11:37human history it's not only is shame inevitable but it's like it evolved for a very important
11:42purpose. Yeah. Shame it doesn't it doesn't make a whole lot of sense in the modern world but
11:47when you understand it from this evolutionary perspective then it does. And I think that's
11:50a like just a grounding self-awareness around shame is kind of like step one in addressing it.
11:55What we're going to see is that this is this evolutionary story of shame is going to come
11:59back over and over and over again. So like when we come back to talking about therapy, it's going to
12:06be really apparent. When we talk about culture, it's going to be really apparent. When we talk
12:09about family, it's going to be really apparent. When we talk about technology and social media
12:14and cancel culture, it's like all of this stuff is going to be extremely relevant and it and it's
12:18going to inform everything that comes after this in this episode. So, and also to your point, it's
12:24just knowing how fundamental and universal it is. Uh, it is it is somewhat healing in and of itself,
12:32I think. You know, learning all this stuff, it just it's just good to know that you're not weird,
12:36right? Like, it's a it's a feature. It's not a bug. It's not there's nothing wrong with you.
12:40Yes. It's it's it's part of your DNA. Deep deep deep in the DNA. Yes. Absolutely. The fundamental
12:46paradox of shame is that the more you try to hide it, the more power it ends up having over
12:51you. And so what you see with shame is uh people will will become ashamed of of an impulse or a
12:58desire that they have that doesn't conform to the the group or the society around them. That will
13:03cause them to isolate. It will cause them to try to hide themselves to to become dishonest or to
13:08portray themselves differently than they actually are. This is the key to understand is that this
13:13generates a series of downward spirals, right? So the more you isolate yourself, the more unworthy
13:20you feel of the affection and and validation of others. The more shame you experience,
13:25the more you isolate yourself, the more unworthy of validation and affection you feel of others
13:29and so on and so forth. Similarly, there's another downward spiral with uh compulsions and
13:34addictions. Um, you know, the more shame you feel, the more you will try to numb yourself or distract
13:40yourself from that feeling of shame. So, the more you will indulge in uh sex, drugs, and rock and
13:46roll, and which will then cause you to feel only more ashamed of yourself because you'll wreck your
13:51life even more. And then that causes you to want to numb yourself more. And then it just
13:55goes on and on and so forth. And then finally, there's a there's a a self-sabotage aspect of
14:01this that starts to emerge or show up for a lot of people. and that when they've felt shame for
14:07to such an extent for such a long period of time, they really internalize a belief of like I don't
14:12deserve good things. And so when a good thing does show up, they will find a reason to [ __ ] it up.
14:18I imagine everybody listening to this has either if you haven't done this yourself, you've seen it
14:22and a friend or a family member and is like one of the most heartbreaking things to see is to see
14:27somebody literally just look a good thing in the face and [ __ ] it up. But it comes up with people
14:33who experience a lot of shame consistently and it's a very difficult thing to break them out of.
14:40[Music] you know, before we we get deeper into how shame affects our lives, I think
14:47it's probably useful to really go through a series of definitions and try to understand
14:53uh on on a on a detailed level um what shame is, how it's experienced and and how it's
14:59different than a lot of similar experiences or emotions, things like guilt or humiliation or
15:06um or what's the difference between like say healthy shame and and a harmful version of shame,
15:11right? So you're right, shame, it's not just a feeling. It's kind of like this. It's a system
15:16uh a kind of a a behaval and a behavioral system that's really deeply hardwired into us,
15:21right? Like you've already mentioned, not all shame is bad. Okay. There is healthy shame. And
15:27what does that healthy shame look like? Well, a healthy shame is it's kind of like your moral
15:32compass. Let's go back to like our values episode that we did. You know, you have your your values
15:36and the ones that you define. Shame helps you stick to those values. When you get off course,
15:42when you when you it helps you course correct onto those values. If you've done something that's
15:46against your values in a healthy shame system, you'll have this kind of like internal voice
15:50saying, "Hey, some you need to pay attention here because you're veering off track, right? That's a
15:55healthy form of shame. When it gets toxic though, that becomes when it's it goes from, you know,
16:00I did something bad to I am a bad person, right? Toxic shame is when you start internalizing that
16:05and it becomes part of your identity. you're like you said with that spiral, you know, oh,
16:09I'm a bad person and so I if I identify as a bad person, then I don't deserve good things
16:13and so when they do come along, I'm just going to ignore them and I'm going to keep doing all these
16:17other bad things and I'm just I'm not worthy of anything. That's the type of toxic shame we want
16:21to avoid. And hopefully throughout this episode, we're going to like find ways to get away from
16:25that type of shame because that is typically when people think of shame, they think of the toxic
16:29version. They don't think of the health healthy version. Yeah. So uh those are kind of like the
16:34two big categories where you have the healthy versus toxic shame. Okay. Right. Okay. So to bring
16:39this home with like an example like let's say my value is helping other people. I believe very
16:45deeply in it. Right. And then somebody in my life needs help and I ignore them or I just I'm like
16:51distracted. I don't care. I'm being selfish in that moment and then I feel awful the next day and
16:57I'm like wow I am such a piece of [ __ ] I really should have helped out this person in my life.
17:01that feeling then inspires me to say reach out to them and apologize or uh make amends or maybe you
17:09know make up for it in some way. So like I think that that sounds like that's an example of healthy
17:14shame. It's a healthier version. It's like it's a corrective measure against like uh when when
17:20we don't live up to our own expectations or or the things that we care about. Similarly, it's like I
17:25would say like if I don't know like let's say I uh uh I I I got drunk one night. I I went on a bender
17:32and I like wrecked my wife's car. I would feel an intense amount of shame the next day even though
17:38that's not necessarily like me failing to live up to my value. It's like I I broke her trust and
17:43I've harmed that relationship. And so it's there's a corrective feeling of shame of like oh my god I
17:49really can't do this again. Right? So where that turns toxic I guess is when you internalize the
17:55message of of like this is just who I am. I never help people. I'm selfish. I can't control myself.
18:01And you start believing those things which then makes them more likely to come true. Is is that
18:06Would you say that's accurate? Yeah. And not only that, it it doesn't motivate corrective behavior
18:10when when it gets to that point, too. You're just you just stop. You withdraw. You're not
18:15you're not attempting to live out your values. you're not attempting to correct any any sort of
18:20injustice that you might have caused or anything like that. That's where the toxic shame uh gets
18:24gets toxic really is that it doesn't motivate kind of that pro-social behavior to to correct whatever
18:31uh whatever wrong you did. Okay. So, what what's the difference then between like shame and guilt,
18:37right? Because I I associate guilt with the healthier version, I guess. Yeah. So, you need
18:42to learn the difference between guilt and shame or you're just going to end up drowning in both.
18:46Well, that that is a big part of actually the research. I spoke with June Tangney who's one
18:51of the world's leading experts on shame and and the social emotions. And um she she walked me
18:58through to what the big difference is. Basically what it comes down to though is that guilt says I
19:03did something wrong. Shame says I am something wrong. Something wrong. Right? Guilt is I did
19:09something bad. Shame is I am bad. Okay. Right. Um now she still believed that there is some like
19:15there is some utility to shame but she was more of a fan of like guilt is actually even though
19:19it feels bad is usually a healthier response and it's usually around your actions. It's not about
19:25identity at all. Okay. And a lot of times we use them interchangeably. And actually I think
19:30especially like in in western societies we use we talk about guilt more when we actually might be
19:35feeling shame just because guilt is a little bit more you know oh I feel guilty about that now let
19:40me do something about it that which is a healthy response typically whereas shame is yeah like I'm
19:45a bad person for this even within the self-defin like there have probably been a hand not many but
19:51there have been a handful of moments in my life where I've had that realization of like I am this
19:56type of person and I don't like it. Yes. And and that has actually that realization has motivated
20:02me to change very deeply. And so like that feels like a healthy version of shame of of like a
20:08very like get your [ __ ] together, Mark. Right. What kind of person do you want to be? Yes. And
20:12and then and then if you follow up with that and you start living in alignment with those values,
20:17then yeah, that probably is a healthy form of shame. June Tangney, she brought up an example
20:21like this in her own life too and and I've had these as well. Um those seem to be kind of few and
20:26far between though, you know. So if you're if you have chronic shame, it's usually not around that.
20:31It's usually around every little thing that you screw up and it's like, "Oh, I'm a I'm a terrible
20:34person. I'm a horrible person. I screwed this up. I screwed that up." When it's usually like pretty
20:38benign stuff and nobody else really notices, you know? So that's that's where the toxicity can come
20:44in is when it starts to become, like I said, more part of your identity. Yeah. And that's what we we
20:50aim to avoid. For sure. We we are definitely get we're getting like very nitpicky here. But like
20:54I do think it's interesting because like when I do think of the healthy shame. Yeah. There's some
20:58sort of like repeated action over a long period of time followed by this revelation of like I I am
21:06this type of person. I didn't think I I don't want to be this type of person or I didn't think I was
21:10this type of person, but I am this type of person and I feel really bad for being this type of
21:14person. How do I change this? Right. I think maybe what you're getting at a little bit here too is uh
21:19there's state shame and there's trait shame. Okay. Yeah. I would argue that state shame, which I'll
21:24define here in a second, is healthier than traits shame. Okay. What do I mean by this? That state
21:28shame is just that you have this feeling like you said, oh, I I'm this kind of person and I don't
21:33like this. But it's and you set out to fix it. It's temporary. You think it's temporary. You you
21:38you imagine that it's temporary and that you can fix it. Yes. Trait shame over time though builds
21:45up into I am a bad person. There's nothing I can do about it. Shame needs to be also distinguished
21:50between things like humiliation and embarrassment. Um you know embarrassment especially to usually
21:56it's awkward. It's an awkward feeling but it's also kind of funny and you can talk to people
22:00about it like like I remember like when I was in high school I think I was at a basketball
22:04game. I went to the bathroom and I came back out walked across the the court. No, not across the
22:09court. No, no, no. I walked walked down this like the sideline there, you know, back to my
22:12seat in front of the whole audience or whatever. I had a piece of toilet paper stuck to my shoe
22:16the whole time like and I go and sat down. Well, I can tell you that and we can laugh about it,
22:20right? Like that was embarrassing. Like, you know, and like all my friends made fun of me and I was
22:24embarrassed and you know, I'm sure I was blushing and everything when that happened, but we can
22:28talk about that and find some shared humanity. It wasn't my fault obviously, just a piece of paper,
22:33toilet paper was on the floor probably happens with things that are like low stakes. Low stakes,
22:38not within your control. doesn't really have a whole lot to say about your character, right?
22:42Whereas if I, you know, tried to like play off the fact that I cheated on my girlfriend in college,
22:49you know, you're not going to sit here and laugh about that with me probably if you have a healthy
22:52shame system anyway. You're like, "Ah, okay, not cool, dude. You might be forgiving of it
22:55or whatever, but it's not like you can it's not something you laugh, right?" Right. So,
23:00that's kind of a one of the key differences or one of the key ways to think about shame
23:03versus embarrassment. Okay. Okay. That makes sense. Yeah. Then you have humiliation though,
23:08too. And that is generally coming from like an external source. Someone's trying to humiliate you
23:13or people around you are trying to humiliate you and and have you suffer the consequences of that.
23:18There's not so much of that internal feeling of of of the shame that you have of of worthlessness
23:23or of of of unworthiness of some kind. Okay. So, you know, someone tries to whatever they're trying
23:30to do just humiliate you, make fun of you, you know, like you probably had these Sure. As a kid,
23:35you know, people would try to make fun of you for something and humiliate you in front of other
23:39people. I do think you you could see h humiliation as um whether conscious or not, it's an attempt of
23:44somebody else to inflict shame upon you, right? And devalue you. Yes. It is it is an attack on
23:50your status and your integrity as a person. And um and the goal is to maybe not directly
23:57to make you feel shame about yourself, but um to make you feel worse about yourself and then
24:01shame happens as a byproduct. M yeah definitely I think another thing worth bringing up is that
24:07uh is is there's a distinction between shame and trauma. I think those two things especially kind
24:13of in the therapy world or self-help space like those two things get conflated quite
24:16a bit because they they tend to occur together. Like I think an intense amount of shame can feel
24:25traumatic and also having a traumatic experience will often result in in a great degree of shame.
24:32Um but they are not the same thing like the the trauma is the event or the experience or
24:38the occurrence may have been in your control may not have um but it is it is a harrowing terrible
24:45event that that is extremely painful and then shame tends to be the byproduct of that and and
24:51the shame is the result of all of the narratives that emerge from the trauma. So, I guess one way
24:56to think about it is that trauma almost always causes a great deal of shame, but shame does
25:00not always is not always a result of trauma. Shame is often a result of just a bunch of stuff. Well,
25:06we'll see. Shame can be about anything. Anything. And we'll get into that. Yeah. Yeah.
25:13[Music] Um Okay. So, that could bring us to maybe some of the neurobiology of shame and kind
25:20of what's going on in your body as well. You want to get into that? Yes. My body. Let's get into my
25:24body. Okay. I have no shame in my body. Oh, yes. Well, I don't know. You're not as shamerone as me,
25:30I guess. So, maybe you haven't noticed this. We're going to talk. We will definitely talk
25:34about this my shamelessness later. That's right. That's right. Um, but you know, most of us,
25:39we know that it's not shame isn't just like this psychic torture that goes on. It's actually kind
25:43of a whole body experience, right? Um, it hurts physically. Actually, it hurts because your brain
25:49treats it as an injury. A social injury is much is treated much the same as a physical injury.
25:54So again like your brain is in this black box. It doesn't know what's going on. Uh it's only
25:59it's taking in information from all around and it processes this pain in a similar way to physical
26:04pain. I wonder if that maybe that expla explains the linkage between trauma and shame as well,
26:09right? Cuz it's like and in the case of trauma you experience this physical injury let's say and you
26:14start experiencing it as a social injury, right? Yeah. Why why did I deserve this? Oh what's so
26:19terri I must be a terrible person if they chose me to treat this way or whatever. Yeah. Right.
26:23And so I won't get into the weeds too much of this, but we'll talk about a couple of the brain
26:26regions here that are involved with that. And and part of that that that noticing the pain and kind
26:31of treating it as a form of physical pain in a way that's done by your anterior singulate
26:37cortex. Um it's it's like your brain can't quite tell the difference between social rejection and
26:43like a broken arm even. Wow. In in certain ways, I mean you can you can think about this too. When
26:48you have felt any sort of deep sense of shame, it hurts. It physically hurts. you get like a
26:53knot in your stomach or at least I do. Um there is kind of just this kind of ambient pain throughout
26:58your body that you feel even too and that kind of starts in your anterior singulate cortex then
27:03moves your insula what's called your insula. Um this is kind of what uh this is the part of your
27:11brain that uh links the like the rest of your body to sensations. So like the the flushing
27:17in your face or uh the the the nausea you might even feel for like deep shame that starts there.
27:24There's a cascade that follows from the insula that starts there. Uh and then your default mode
27:29network takes over. And I think this is part of like the trauma response as well. So your
27:33default mode network that's when that's the part of your brain when you're thinking about yourself,
27:38when you're thinking about uh yourself in social situations as well or maybe using somebody else's
27:43uh perspective to view yourself. This is where the rumination comes in too around shame. And and
27:48so you put kind of those three together and you get this shame response um that we feel. And it's
27:54really not about the fear either. It's not like a fear response. Your your amygdala in this case,
27:58which is usually associated with a fear response or danger of some kind, it's really not as active
28:04as you would maybe predict it to be, right? It's these parts of your brain that are more tuned to
28:10uh social interaction and social rejection. Okay? So it kind of bypasses that fear response to to
28:17some degree at least and it's really focused on the social consequences and yet it's it's also
28:23coupling those with uh the pain system that we feel that emotional pain and physical pain are
28:27are tightly linked which makes sense based on like the evolutionary stuff that we just talked about.
28:32So evolution what often times what evolution does is it takes an old system and it adapts it for a
28:37new purpose. And in this case what appears to have happened was like that physical pain that
28:42you know it's signaling to you your brain and your body that hey something's wrong something there's
28:47damage being done here uh physical damage that needs to be addressed. Evolution seems to have
28:53co-opted that same system and applied it to social pain as well. social danger, social harm that
29:01could be done. And this is so interesting because later when we get into the therapy modalities that
29:09specifically address shame, what we're going to see is we're going to see both of those things
29:12pop up is that one is it's a social problem with the social solution that you you can't really
29:17solve shame by yourself. You have to share it with others, right? The second thing is that there is
29:24a deep part of the pain or dysfunction that is involved with shame. It's like your conceptual
29:30identity, the default mode network or what a lot of people would call your ego, right? It's like
29:34the way you think of yourself or who you are uh is being attacked and damaged and and and hurt the
29:41same way that your physical body would be hurt. And so your brain sees those two things as it's
29:45basically responding in the exact same way. And so a lot of the therapeutic modalities that we're
29:49going to get into are all about like repairing that conceptual self and like integrating it
29:55back into social norms in society. 100%. Yeah. If you've ever mentally spiraled after a mistake,
30:01too. Here's what's actually happening in your brain. So, it's this shame spiral that happens.
30:05And it goes from kind of like this silent alarm that starts to like a full body reaction in the
30:10matter of just a few seconds. But they've actually figured out what this is. Um, so you start out
30:15with like within about a half a second, say a shameful event or something that would cause you
30:20shame occurs in your environment and within a half a second your brain that that anterior singular
30:25cortex is already online and it's it's fired up. Okay? And it's detected this social threat
30:32of some kind. That's within a half a second. You don't even know this at this point. That's that's
30:36subconception. You're not consciously aware. Not aware of this at all. Okay? It's subtle. It's
30:40fast. It's unconscious. Okay? Then within about two seconds from there to your like higher order
30:45cognitive functioning is already shutting down and it's like just focus on this thing and react in
30:51the and damage control. That's where we're at at this point. Okay. Well, that's within two seconds.
30:56Uh your working memory, it's kind of gone at that point. Your like I said, logical reasoning,
31:02emotional regulation, those are all starting to be shut down because it it's like a five alarm fire
31:06that your your brain's like, "Okay, there's social threat here." You're it's like you're describing
31:11being triggered. Yes. 100%. 100% like that. Yeah. Within just a few seconds. Then after that too,
31:16there's body hijack. Like I've already talked about this body response that you get. You get the
31:20the the blushing, maybe the flushing of the face, uh withdrawal, you sink bad. You maybe want to
31:25hide even at that point. That's within just a few seconds. Your posture changes. Um I think anyway,
31:31this is really a signaling to everybody else that you're aware. I I did something shameful.
31:35I'm aware of it. And it's kind of a signal to everybody else that you're aware of it.
31:39within 10 seconds and then leading out to a few minutes, then you start to have this
31:44mental kind of meltdown that we all are familiar with with the shame, right? You completely forget
31:50about all your past successes that would maybe mitigate some of this shame that you're feeling,
31:54right? You can't imagine that this is ever going to end. Like you can't imagine a better future at
31:59this point. Yeah, it your present shame is just eternal at this point. You're like, "Oh my god,
32:04I just want to be swallowed up into a hole and die." You know that's where this within a few
32:07seconds you start feeling that and this is kind of where that default mode network kicks into your
32:13inner criticism. The rumination will start within just a few seconds and then within even you know
32:1930 seconds to a few minutes to even a few hours is when you get those reactions uh to shame. And
32:24so far what we've talked about is kind of the more the withdrawal that typically happens from shame
32:29uh and the avoidance. But there's other reactions too that they found, you know, lashing out that
32:36can happen as a shame response as well. You externalize the shame. Something outside of
32:40you is to blame and so you lash out at it and you get aggressive with it. Okay, that's one. Uh going
32:45invisible. That's more what we talked about. You freeze, you withdraw, you hide. Uh you don't look
32:50people in the eye. Uh and then there's another one, too. Hiding the evidence or destroying the
32:55evidence, too. Okay, that's another thing. It's more just like you lie about it. You try to cover
32:58it up. You pass it off. Oh, it's not a big deal, but you still feel a lot of shame about it. So,
33:03those are kind of like the three three typical responses you get from a shame uh a shameful event
33:09occurring. Um, and that's within minutes through even a few hours. If if it isn't resolved and
33:14isn't, you know, we talked about that state versus trait shame. If it isn't resolved, uh, and it it
33:19starts to lead bleed more into that trait shame, you start to get lasting damage for this because
33:24your stress system has been activated. stress hormones are are flooding your body and that
33:29starts to have actual physical uh consequences on your brain and body as well. At this point too,
33:35this is when your shame system starts to be more hypersensitized too. Yeah. Because these these
33:40this cascade of chemicals going through your body is going to prime you for the next shameful event
33:45and it's going to be a lot easier to um get you into that shameful state. Yeah. Um and you
33:51can vividly recall these moments especially too later about that and relive the experience too.
33:57Uh which is very common. Yeah. I mean this again this is where this starts to bleed over a little
34:02bit into the the body keeps the score stuff you know where you know Vanderol talks a lot about how
34:08trauma is not simply experienced in the mind it's experienced through the whole nervous system in
34:12the body and it creates a chain reaction within the nervous system that makes you more prone to
34:16being triggered in the future. um which then make just makes it more likely that you suffer even
34:21greater consequences and it just you know it turns into another [ __ ] spiral. It's interesting that
34:26like you see a a similar a similar process take place around shame. You know the more shame you
34:33harbor the more sensitive you are going to be to being shamed further the more acute and aware of
34:39the stress response. Um the more you will pick up cues in your environment that make you feel bad,
34:45the more easily you'll be triggered in the future. And so it really it's another one of these cases
34:49in psychology of just bad things lead to bad things, right? Yeah. The the the vicious cycles
34:54that we see. Yeah, for sure. There there's even another level of that. So, okay. Just when you
34:59think it couldn't get any worse, but wait, there's more. Yeah. Welcome to shame about shame. Shame,
35:05right? Yeah. And this especially if you get into that kind of like trait shame and chronic shame,
35:11this happens a lot. You feel bad about your shame. You're like, why am I ashamed about
35:15this? Now you're now you're shamed about being ashamed, right? And um they call that shame
35:20stacking. Uh researchers do. Yeah. And this is when when shame starts to feel endless and more
35:26of like a part of your identity. That's what happens is it's like this meta shame about oh
35:31I I feel shame about this stupid thing I shouldn't feel shame about. Why am I such a worthless piece
35:36of [ __ ] Right? Like so it's it is really just that vicious cycle that you're talking about too.
35:40It would seem obvious to me that before you can actually do any of the work on the shame itself,
35:45you have to like cut that cycle off at the bud, right? Like you have to you have to at least
35:50eliminate the meta shame before you can start dealing with the shame. Uh you know, so it's
35:56it's like if you if you're still feeling bad about the fact that you're feeling bad, you can't deal
36:01with the fact that you feel bad. Right. Right. So yeah, so awareness really is that base layer of
36:05addressing the shame for sure. You know, but there there's also though too there's this other kind of
36:10interesting thing I found. It's they call it the learning paradox of shame. When a shameful event
36:14happens, it kind of locks in the details of what's going on. So you do get hyperfocused on the social
36:19aspects of the shameful event. Who was there? What the the looks they gave you, the the feelings you
36:24had around the looks they gave you. All the social information contained within that event is like
36:31highlighted and blown up. It's like a flashbulb memory. It's like you I can I can think back of
36:36shameful things that happened to me when I was a kid and it's like yeah I remember everybody
36:38was there the faces and everything like that right the crazy kind of thing though I talked about the
36:43stress response that happens too uh immediately after that once the that that shame hits and these
36:48stress hormones kind of take over your ability to think clearly to absorb new information your
36:56brain just kind of can't do that. Yeah. It it's kind of weird. So in a way it's like it creates
37:02this flashbulb memory and that kind of helps you down the line and say okay when another situation
37:07like this starts to happen that flashbulb memory can come right on or at least the feelings of it
37:11can come right online and prevent you from doing that again. But you don't really learn from the
37:18experience. You don't gain the wisdom from the experience around taking the time to address.
37:23Okay, this is what happened. Walk through it. Why did it happen this way? Your brain kind of
37:26just shuts that down. And that seems weird, but from an evolutionary perspective, again,
37:32it it kind of makes sense. I I would say you can't learn from the experience if you're trying to
37:37avoid it. Like Exactly. Right. Like a fundamental part of shame is that you just don't want to
37:42revisit this. Exactly. Yeah. So the evolutionary adaptation to that though was in smaller groups it
37:46was like just get the hell out. Withdraw. Get the hell out. Just move on. Move on. Get out of there.
37:51It prioritized withdrawal over rejection. And it was kind of like this is it's a it's a safer bet
37:55if you just get the hell out and let's not worry about the interpretation or the wisdom or anything
38:00like that because if you hung around and you kept being annoying to people you're just going to get
38:04ostracized further right now in a modern context that's not as adaptive. That's what ends up kind
38:11of keeping us stuck instead. Right. We avoid all that shame. We we push it down. This is this is
38:16what I do for the most part. if ever I feel shame about something, I find a way to avoid it. Yeah.
38:20And instead of addressing it and and the stakes are different now as you've kind of mentioned
38:25because again in modern life the the downside of being ostracized socially is is pretty minimal.
38:31Like it's it's a nuisance. It sucks to lose friends or it sucks to lose touch with people,
38:36but like it's so easy in the modern day and age to just go somewhere else or log onto a
38:42different website or like change your account name or whatever. So like the the downsides are
38:46pretty minimized. Whereas the upside of addressing whatever you feel shame about like the growth,
38:52the knowledge, the wisdom, um the new information that comes from that is extremely valuable because
38:57we we now live in a society that is moving and evolving so quickly that like you have to be able
39:03to grow and evolve just to keep up with it. That that the incentives have changed. So we now live
39:08in a world where you were actually incentivized to deal with this stuff and learn from it. Whereas in
39:12the prehistoric days, uh there was not really any growth to be done. Like right, you know,
39:17if you learn from your mistake, like you're still going to be hungry and being chased by a tiger
39:22the next day. So, who cares? Uh whereas being ostracized from the group is is immediate death,
39:28so you might as well just shut the [ __ ] up and pretend like that was a priority. Just avoid that
39:32at all cost. Pretend like it never happened. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. There there are a couple, too. There's
39:36a few, let's, you know, sprinkle in a few of the strategies to do this that neuroscience has kind
39:41of figured out. Um, one is, we've talked about this already, mindfulness a little bit. Train,
39:46train your brain to act without judgment when the shame does pop up. That's really,
39:50really hard to do. Like we just said, your first reaction is to avoid it. Uh, but instead,
39:53maybe try to sit with it instead and be like, okay, uh, engage engage your brain and slow
39:59that spiral down. Okay, that's probably one of the first steps anyways to just be like, okay,
40:04I'm in a shame spiral and then recognizing it, right? Psychological distancing is probably the
40:09next step. And I don't mean avoiding it. I mean stepping outside of yourself and trying to see
40:13yourself from the outside view when actually I mean shame is kind of like it's a way of viewing
40:17yourself from the outside a lot of times, right? You're trying to view you're just saying, "Oh,
40:21all these people are hate me want nothing to do with me." Yes. Um, but actually is step outside
40:27of it. And we've talked about this before, too. Kind of take a more self-compassionate
40:31like see the situation for what it is. Like this. Okay, you messed up. That's fine. But,
40:39um, it's probably you're not going to die, right? Like the shame system is is designed to help you
40:45survive. And it you're probably misusing it at this point. It dramaticizes things quite a bit and
40:52uh and kind of deludes you into thinking things are much larger or uh worse than they actually
40:58are. Um I think the huge thing with shame is that like a lot of people don't even know they have it.
41:04Like yes, like it's so pushed down inside of them and it's so repressed and it and they they are so
41:12distracted from these feelings that like they don't even know it's there. And so I would say,
41:16you know, a big piece of the mindfulness is just to like gain an awareness of like I feel weird
41:21around this person or around this situation and I never realized that before. Go back to those
41:27those three responses I had, right? Do you do you lash out? Do you do you get angry when or do you
41:34go invisible? Do you try to deflect or like hide the evidence like I was talking about?
41:40Look for situations in your life where that happens and see if there's some shame underlying
41:44that cuz I think you're right. You don't even realize that that's shame. I think a lot of
41:47people who do have like anger issues, especially men, and we'll get to this later, it's because of
41:51the sh unresolved shame and they're just lashing out because they they feel uncomfortable about
41:55it. Yeah. But what's interesting is that shame is one of these things that it's a little bit of a
41:59Goldilocks situation. Like here's the thing about shame. If you have too little of it,
42:04you're probably a sociopath. But if you have too much of it, you're a depressed wreck. And so the
42:10proper amount of shame is actually not no shame. It's a healthy amount of shame. And I think this
42:16is something that gets lost in our industry all the time is that every self-help seminar and and
42:21affirmation book and journal or whatever is like constantly telling you like, "Oh, you're beautiful
42:26and perfect as you are. Like just release it and let it go and accept yourself." And I actually
42:31think that's a little bit dangerous because you probably should be ashamed of some things like
42:36like if I made out with my best friend's wife, like I probably should be ashamed of that. Or if I
42:43uh if I stole my brother's car, like I should probably be ashamed of that. I don't think it's a
42:48coincidence that a lot of that touchyfey self-help stuff results in a kind of spiritual narcissism
42:54because like literally what they're training to do is become shameless individuals. And a shameless
42:58individual is essentially just a narcissist. So you don't want to be shameless. You want to have
43:04some moral standard that you hold yourself to. But you also don't want to be shameful because when
43:10you're shameful, you hold yourself back. You think less of yourself. You imagine that you're not good
43:17enough to have all the nice things that you want to have in this life. And so I just I think it's a
43:23it's a tricky balance for people to to walk. They either I think naturally we tend to either want
43:28to just go all in on our shame and wallow in it or we want to become shameless and just indulge every
43:35impulse and desire that we might have and not worry about the consequences. If you're shameless,
43:40you you're waiting into like psychopath territory, right? Like you hear people say, "Have you no
43:45shame?" Yes. When there's times where you should actually feel that shame, again, it's not the goal
43:50is not to get rid of the shame. It's to develop a more healthy relationship with your shame and
43:55to apply it in situations where it needs to be applied where it's directing you to your values.
43:59Yeah. Where it's guiding you along the path that you want want to be on. I I think evolution has
44:04actually kind of tuned us to that. And in the modern environment though, our shame triggers are
44:09going off all the time. So, I think it's it's a lot easier to be full of shame uh than it ever has
44:13been before. And then, yeah, the advice to just get rid of it all, that's no no work. No bueno.
44:24Well, I I had I had this mark to bring up later, but we might as well get into it now. Um, which is
44:28Donald Nathan's shame compass. So, Donald Nathan was a a researcher who studied effect theory,
44:34which was big in the ' 80s and '90s. And in 1992, he wrote a book uh which had a foundational model
44:40for understanding how people respond to shame. And he basically he put together a compass with
44:44four points and it's like kind of two dimensions. And um you know the first one is withdrawal which
44:51we've talked about plenty already. It's just like get small, hide, don't talk about it,
44:55pretend like it's not there. Uh the second one is uh attack self. Um so that is punish yourself,
45:02judge yourself, criticize yourself. I think there's this is perfectionism is a result of
45:07this. It's like people who feel like nothing they do is ever good enough. That uh nothing that they
45:13try is is goes right. um that everything they do is they're going to screw up in some way. Um the
45:19next one is avoidance, which I don't like. To me, this is a misnomer. Avoidance to me feels very
45:25similar to withdrawal. Um but when you dig into avoidance, that's where all the compulsivity is.
45:29It's I think a more a more accurate description would be distraction. Distraction. Yeah. Or
45:34numbing. Mhm. Um so this is you know people who develop an alcohol problem or they start
45:40partying every night or uh they spend all their money uh shopping or gambling uh or people who
45:46become addicted to porn or or or sex or whatever it is. Uh and then finally there's attack others
45:52and that is lash out at the world. Blame the world for your problems. Blame a a group of other people
45:58for your problems. And generally speaking, Nathansson found that like these four things,
46:03everybody kind of has their own style. So like the way the compass is laid out is that it's there's
46:09two there's an x-axis and a y-axis. So um on the x-axis there's attack self and attack others. And
46:15then on the y- axis there is the withdrawal and the avoidance. Withdrawal would just be like check
46:20out and like hide. Uh avoidance would be probably more like numb and distract. And everybody kind of
46:25falls in a different place around this compass. Everybody kind of has a different composition
46:30of how they deal with their shame. Um but it's these are like generally the four ways that that
46:36it gets expressed. And um ultimately Nathansson argued that like shame is unavoidable. Like the
46:43goal isn't to get rid of the shame in your life. His point is you're going to feel shame at some
46:48point. You're going to have things in your life that like you feel really bad about. So how do
46:54you become aware of how you're managing them or approaching those things and how do you implement
46:59better strategies and healthier strategies to make sure that you're not falling into these? So yeah,
47:04we have these four points on the compass and you know each of us kind of slots in in different
47:08places. Uh and also we can move throughout our life like you know maybe when you're young you're
47:13very withdrawn and uh angry at yourself but then you grow up and you become very angry at others.
47:18And so it's like these things move and shift. And Nathansson's point all along was was really like
47:24you don't get rid of shame per se, but you can a turn it from toxic to healthy and then b channel
47:32the healthy shame in like a more constructive and and sustainable way. But I'm actually curious. So
47:38which of those four points on the compass would you say you primarily inhabit in terms of your
47:44shame? I I do more of the kind of internalizing blaming myself. I think you're a perfectionist.
47:51You're hard on yourself. And I think most people who are perfectionists are like that. I I've used
47:55all four of those definitely through uh throughout my life in different I think in different
47:59settings. I used different ones sometimes. I've went away from the more externalizing and the
48:04distracting um things, you know, not numbing and and not uh lashing out. I've I've went away from
48:10that as I've gotten older. wanted to just see that that just damages both relationships and
48:15your own personal health. But yeah, I think the more more internalizing and avoiding those are
48:20definitely mine. Yeah. Yeah. I would say as an adult my my preferred method of coping with my
48:27shame has definitely been distraction and numbing though. So like drugs, alcohol, partying, sex,
48:34just all the things, all the fun, the stimulation. It was interesting when I was reading Nathansson's
48:40work, he actually on the list of uh ways to avoid or distract your from your shame,
48:47he included intellectualizing. Okay, I was going to ask about that, which I was like guilty as
48:52charged. Uh and humor, which also is is like makes sense once you hear it. You're like, you know,
48:58if you think about comedians, you know, um or there's like a the sad clown effect, right? where
49:04it's like often comedians are some of the saddest people, right? And it the humor is is really
49:09actually a coping mechanism to u to help them just get through the day. A lot a lot of comedians
49:15through like traumatic events in their lives or or you know hard upbrings or whatever it is and the
49:19way they've done that is to externalize through humor. Yeah. Like was to deal with that shame.
49:23Yeah. So so okay, you said alcohol and drugs. Do you think so you don't drink anymore? You don't
49:29do drugs anymore. What about like workcoholism? Is that part of it too? Because because damn it,
49:36Drew, you you gave up alcohol and then now you just work your ass off all the time. Not that
49:40you weren't working really hard before, too, but Yeah. totally. So, okay. Guilty is charged. I I
49:46But I would say for me, I think the shift has been I think this is probably a good example
49:51of like maybe unhealthy shame transmuting into healthy shame. So, I look at when I was younger
49:58and I was partying a lot and I was drunk all the time. I I think a lot of that was motivated by
50:03like kind of an unhealthy compulsivity. One of the things that happened when I stopped drinking
50:08is that I became aware of how compulsive I am. Like I think I was in denial of my compulsive
50:14nature for most of my life. And it was funny cuz it wasn't that it was hard for me to stop
50:18drinking. It was hard for me to not be addicted to other things. And and I started to realize like,
50:24oh, I just I I'm very compulsive. Like it when I when I'm into something, I'm like allin. So part
50:31of I guess being sober means that like I've had to come to terms with that and really understand
50:37that about myself and like be okay with that. I'm definitely a workaholic, but I also think it's
50:44much better to be a workaholic than an alcoholic or a drug addict, you know, and and at least
50:49now I'm aware of it and and and I have people around me who can like pull me back, you know,
50:54and say like, "Hey, you're going too hard." uh or or like check in with me and like make
50:58sure I'm like okay or whatever. So I I would say I'm in a place where it's much healthier and I'm
51:03not ashamed about it. Like I think if you would asked me 10 years ago if I had an alcohol problem,
51:08I would probably would have been very defensive and very offended. Whereas like now if you like
51:15when you call like you bring up workcoholism I'm like yeah dude guilty is charged and I'm
51:20okay with it. Which like to me that's that's the sign that shame isn't there. Like that's one of
51:25the things that Nathansson talks about as well is that um part of the attack others is a very
51:31intense defensiveness around whatever the shameful behavior is or the shameful aspect is um as well
51:38as as lashing out you know becoming offended and like seeing it as like a moral affront that like
51:45oh my god I can't believe you would even suggest such a thing that I I have a problem you know.
51:50Yeah. Yeah. You don't seem to get very defensive about that kind of stuff anymore anymore. I as
51:53far as I know. Yeah. I don't think I do. Yeah. Um Yeah. But that's an interesting like going from
51:57like you said is transmuting from a toxic form of shame to a healthier form of shame happens over
52:03time after you get more aware of it. I don't know. Like I've experienced something similar to that
52:08too where you I grew up in a very working-class family and this we'll talk about this a little
52:12bit later too but you know shame around money is a very common one. That's a big one for a
52:16lot of people. A really big one. A really big one. Especially like in a place like the United States
52:19where so much of your identity and selfworth is based on your net worth, right? Like okay,
52:25growing up though, I was very aware of it. Now, you know, we weren't the poorest people in town,
52:29but we weren't definitely not the richest, right? And I didn't even want to talk about it for the
52:33longest time, right? Like I didn't even want people to know at all. Like, so I just wouldn't
52:37talk about it. Yeah. And it wasn't really until I got to college that I started opening up about it
52:43a little bit more and being like, you know what? it it just kind of is what it is and
52:46I can talk about it at least. Let's just see what happens. Yeah. You know, when it came up, I would
52:51bring it up and the thing was is people didn't really care. They were just like, "Oh, that's
52:54okay. Interesting. Move on." And it wasn't that big of a deal. So, it made me realize that, oh,
53:00okay, this is doesn't have to be something that's so shameful and I can address it that way. Yeah.
53:05And then how would you say you feel about it now? You know, I probably took it too far at one point,
53:08too. Like, like it's kind of like a badge of honor, you know? Um, and I started like, oh, like
53:14this is I'm very proud of this and oh, you didn't grow up poor well. You suck then. You didn't,
53:18you know, that started doing that. Now I feel like it's a lot healthier though where it's like this
53:22is something that happened. It was no one's fault. Sure. It it it just is what it is. Um,
53:27lots of people have dealt with it before. I'm not unique in my suffering like we've talked about and
53:32I I feel like I just have a better relationship with that part of my life anyway. Yeah. It's
53:36interesting because it's like this is something that comes up a lot and and there's there's like
53:42this weird kind of spectrum between like shameful and shameless and I feel like sometimes to maybe
53:50part of the process of healing the shame is to jump from one extreme to the other, you know? So,
53:54it's like you take the thing that you're so like so ashamed of and you wish nobody would know about
53:59you. And so then you compensate by being like, you know what, I'm actually I'm like all in on
54:03this thing I'm ashamed of. Not only do you own it, but it's like something that you like shame other
54:08people for not having. But then ultimately like really the healthy version of of any of this is
54:13to just like land back at acceptance really. And I think you see this a lot like I mean there's
54:18like a I know I've I've like read studies where there's like a like a shocking amount of uh like
54:23sex workers are like sexual abuse victims and um you know a lot of people who you know experience
54:30abuse when they're young like go into like you know uh the military or combat sports like there's
54:36just kind of this like okay well if I can't hide it from the world then I might as well just double
54:41down and make it my entire identity as another way of like kind protecting myself. Uh so yeah,
54:48it's it is interesting how that happens. That's a form of externalization. Yeah, to some extent. For
54:54sure. I think it's a version of of Nathansson's like attack others, right? It's like, you know,
54:59[ __ ] you for telling me I should be ashamed of this. Yeah. But it's funny because it's I don't
55:03know like there is there's a little bit of an irony here in that like generally speaking the
55:08things that we're ashamed of are also the things that make us unique and and also like because
55:16they're the things that make us the most unique that they like define us in a in a lot of ways. So
55:22so it's you know you know I have this old theory that like the the the worst thing about somebody
55:26is also the best thing about them. Like it's you get this flip side thing like I imagine that that
55:31that you there's some of a lot of the good things about you are a result of how you grew up and and
55:39having to go through that hardship and having to deal with like maybe some of the things that
55:43weren't fair about your upbringing or whatever. And like I definitely feel that about some of
55:48the things I was ashamed of when I was young as well. So it's just funny. It's just like it's
55:52like kind of funny how that works. Actually fun story. I've never told this publicly before, but
55:57uh so when I was hiring you uh and this was ages ago, like over 10 years ago, I remember it was
56:04you and it was two other uh PhD candidates. And on paper, like all three of you were pretty much the
56:10same. You had like graduate degrees in psychology. You were studying neuroscience. I I forget what
56:15the other two were studying, but like you all like had similar credentials, uh similar applications,
56:20like similar backgrounds. And I was like really having trouble differentiating between you three.
56:27And so when I did the la final interview with you guys, I asked each of you, I said,
56:33you know, you're very similar to the other two candidates I'm talking to, like what makes you
56:38unique? What's different about you? And I talked to you last. So I talked to the other two first,
56:42and both of them really struggled with that that question. like they really kind of stuttered and
56:49they're like well and all of you were academics so it's like all of you had just been in school your
56:53whole life right yeah you know so I remember one of them was like well I read this really cool book
56:58and I'm like okay so yeah all right that's not really really working and then I remember I got
57:04on the call with you and I asked you that question and you immediately were just like Mark I grew up
57:09in a trailer park and I was like done you're hired say no more calls over there's like there's some
57:17weird thing where like sometimes the thing you're ashamed of like actually becomes your superpower,
57:22right? Yeah. And um and that's just it's a really interesting dichotomy, I think. Yeah. Yeah. And
57:28what it what it showed me too was like you again anything can be shameful, you know, anything um
57:33can be like we've already said, you can you can shame yourself or whatever, but that like that
57:38doesn't in the modern context that doesn't ma like that that story of mine that doesn't matter. It's
57:44not it's not gerine to my survival. I'm not going to die because of it or anything like that. You
57:48know, our our shame systems were tuned to survival and and ostracism from the group and all of that.
57:54That doesn't matter now, but my shame system latches on to that. And so, that's just another uh
57:58example of how it can keep you stuck if you don't address that. So, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I just had a
58:02random thought. I was not planning to talk about this, but I feel like one indication of an area
58:07you might you pro probably have shame is anywhere you have a chip on your shoulder. Oh, yeah. like
58:12anywhere you just kind of like that's a good one. Okay. Yeah. You feel like you have something to
58:16prove over and over again, right? Yeah. We were just talking like I I did sports when I grow up. I
58:20I I actually did sports. It was small town stuff. So, everybody kind of did sports. I was always the
58:24smallest guy and I had a huge chip on my shoulder there. I Yeah. I was like, I'll show you. But
58:29really what it was is I was ashamed of being so like small and you know, so yeah. Yeah. Agree.
58:34Yeah. No, see I was I was like I was the the geeky artsy kid who was like pushed into lockers
58:40in school. So, I don't consciously feel this, but I feel like it has to be true that like a certain
58:44amount of my career, a certain amount of like the desire to have an audience and be known in the
58:50world and put my stuff out in the world is still that that high school kid, that dorky high school
58:55kid who's like, "I'm cool, guys. I I swear I'm cool. Tell me I'm cool. Like me. Please like me."
59:01Yeah. Yeah. We all have some something like that. Some degree of that. For sure. For sure. I don't
59:07even remember who said it, but there's a great quote. says that uh everybody spends their entire
59:10lives trying to either prove or disprove who they were in high school. Yeah, you've told me that
59:15one before. It's so true. It's so good. What's interesting though is that I think we're very
59:20drawn to people who are shameless. Like there's a certain Yeah. envy. There's a certain freedom that
59:26they experience. And like don't get me wrong, I wouldn't trade places because I I do think
59:30shameless people are probably extremely vapid and feel very lost. But like from the outside
59:37there's something seductive about it. And I don't I don't want to get too much into politics, but
59:41like I think a lot of the allure of Trump is how shameless he is. And I think a lot of the people
59:48who support him or admire him, that's actually what they admire. You know, there's this there was
59:53a famous article in the Atlantic maybe 10 years ago uh about Trump and it was called cruelty is
59:58the point. And you sometimes hear that repeated on the left when people are really upset with
1:00:03Trump's policies. you know, they'll repeat like cru the cruelty is the point. I would actually
1:00:07amend that. I would say the shamelessness is the point. And I think what the left hates about Trump
1:00:12is that he does all these things with no shame. He doesn't really care about the consequences. He
1:00:18doesn't let other people's opinions like hold him back from what he wants. But I also think
1:00:22that's what the the people who vote for him love about him is that they feel like they've had all
1:00:27this like shame inflicted on them, right? Forced upon them. Yeah. Yeah. and they look at him and
1:00:32they there's like a certain amount of like relief or liberation that comes from his shamelessness.
1:00:39Right. All right. As we wrap up the theory section of this podcast, I want to remind listeners and
1:00:45viewers that there is a PDF guide to this show. We talk about a lot of stuff. There's a lot going
1:00:50on here. Um and so we have a free book that we accompanies every episode. It's over 100 pages
1:00:56long. It has all of our references, citations. It summarizes every section of the show. Um,
1:01:02you can get book recommendations there and it is absolutely free. So, go to solvepodcast.com/shame.
1:01:08And if you want to start implementing some of the stuff that we're going to talk about in
1:01:12this episode, you can also check out the solve community. More on that in a second, though.
1:01:19[Music] So, we've talked about kind of the evolutionary history of shame,
1:01:25where it comes from, why we have it. We've talked about how it manifests in ourselves individually,
1:01:30how we experience it, how we feel it, and how we cope with it. I suppose I think what's probably
1:01:38the best way to do this is that because shame is a social construction and it is very socially based.
1:01:45I think the way to cover the interaction that we have with the world around our shame is to kind
1:01:52of take it in like a fractal format. I I think it's probably useful to just like let's start at
1:01:58the individual, let's break that down, and then we'll like slowly move out, talk about family,
1:02:02slowly move out, talk about community, and then and finally talk about just broader
1:02:06culture and society at large. Researchers have actually found that there's kind of consistent
1:02:11categories across cultures that people generally always feel shame around or that it's like super
1:02:17common that to to feel shame around. So those categories are physical and mental health,
1:02:22appearance and body image, money and work, parenting and family, sex and sexuality,
1:02:28religion, trauma, and then the last one I just I called standing out or being different. It there's
1:02:33kind of a cluster of a few things that show up, but to me it's just really like being individual,
1:02:38being like going against the grain. I think it's very it's a natural human tendency to feel that
1:02:43like if you're very different than the people around you that there must be something wrong
1:02:47with you, right? You know, you've already talked about how money was like definitely
1:02:52um a source of shame previously in your life. I I look at this list and like a I used to be fat,
1:02:59so like there's definitely some body image stuff in there for me. And I grew up in a very religious
1:03:05environment and I was not I thought it was all [ __ ] So, I struggled with that quite a bit for
1:03:11a number of years as well is just like feeling completely out of place. I'm wondering if if any
1:03:16of of the other things on this list like ring true for you. I mean, yeah, I I I definitely I
1:03:21grew up in a religious area as well. Um I wasn't like when I was younger, I was actually more in
1:03:26line with that. I kind of fell into line uh with the religion. So I I I felt more shame around
1:03:31like when I wasn't being pious or religious, you know, that was that was a thing for me. But yeah,
1:03:35the standing out too um where I came from like a smaller area and there was a lot of pressure to
1:03:40conform to a very narrow image. I think that was a that was a big one for a long time too for me
1:03:45as well. One thing that's interesting is that like that's not on here is uh emotions. So if we zoom
1:03:51out one level and talk about family, I definitely grew up in a family where like negative emotions
1:03:57wasn't they weren't really I don't want to say tolerated, but like I don't know the house I
1:04:05grew up in it was like you weren't supposed to get angry, you weren't supposed to get upset,
1:04:08everything like everything's okay all the time. And so it was there was I I never felt free to
1:04:16express like a lot of negative emotions. Like everybody in my family just kind of bottles
1:04:20things up and like pretends everything's okay. And it really wasn't until I was an adult that
1:04:25I realized that like anger in particular, like I I internalized that anger is not okay, that it's not
1:04:32okay to be angry and to to get upset about stuff. And I would say that I probably didn't let myself
1:04:40get angry or like feel okay about getting angry until like maybe 30. Wow. Okay. Yeah. It's um See,
1:04:50because a lot of times men like anger is their default emotion, too. So that's that's
1:04:55interesting. I don't know. I feel like that was one of the only things I could express, I guess,
1:04:59growing up, too, was was getting angry. Yeah. um one of the few emotions, especially negative
1:05:04emotions, I was okay to express. So, yeah, that's interesting. I think I felt a lot of shame around
1:05:09that. Like it just wasn't it wasn't acceptable. I think that's the word I'm looking it's not that
1:05:14it wasn't tolerated. It wasn't acceptable to be we did talk about that in the emotions uh
1:05:17episode that there is a push to conform. There's a pressure to conform to your emotional whatever
1:05:22the emotional kind of uh culture is around you. And it can be a shameful thing if you're not like
1:05:27if you know if you're in the United States and you're not happy all the time like that can be
1:05:30a shameful thing. Yeah, right. For sure. And I think the interesting point about family,
1:05:35you know, family is kind of the closest linkage to you. It's where most of your emotional investment
1:05:42is and especially as a child, it's it's who you're surrounded by as a child as well. So, so generally
1:05:48speaking, like if you have parents who harbor a lot of shame, then they will either intentionally
1:05:55or unintentionally inflict that on their children, right? So like it took me a long time and a lot of
1:06:00therapy to realize that my parents also feel a lot of shame around being angry and upset. And
1:06:08so that's why they suppress it and like bury it and they never felt okay. And it's actually one
1:06:13of the reasons why their marriage fell apart is because they never felt at liberty to actually get
1:06:17angry or upset with each other. So they just kept like burying things over and over and over again.
1:06:23Uh and I think you know my brother and I got that from them or we learned that from them.
1:06:28But to to do a more tangible example, you know, I had a I had a I dated a girl growing up who again
1:06:34grew up in a very religious area. So like her her family was very very Christian, very conservative,
1:06:40and her mom in particular had this like I mean it was like borderline like Amish attitude towards
1:06:48appearance. So basically this this girlfriend of mine like if she if she left the house with
1:06:56her knees showing like her mom would basically tell her she was a [ __ ] and shame her deeply
1:07:02for dressing in such a way and would tell her like really [ __ ] up [ __ ] like you know you're going
1:07:07to you're going to get raped and you're going to deserve it cuz you went out dressed like that.
1:07:10You know it was like you know and imagine being like a 15-year-old girl and like your yeah your
1:07:15mom's telling you this right. So shocker, she had a lot of shame and issues around her dress,
1:07:22her appearance, what she like felt comfortable wearing, what she didn't feel comfortable wearing.
1:07:27Um, which is totally understandable. So it's like we, you know, we talked earlier about how
1:07:33shame is, shame is not the pain itself, it's the narrative around the pain. Like you can inherit
1:07:40those narratives from the your family while you're growing up. Like if your if your dad
1:07:45has all sorts of weird shame issues around money or work or something, um chances are you're going
1:07:52to inherit those narratives around money and work. Um you know, my my the story my stepmother tells
1:07:58me is that, you know, her her parents kind of had this psychotic relationship with work. They
1:08:04were just like just very very like uptight around work and money and everything. And so she grew up
1:08:11being told that taking a nap meant you were lazy and that you were never going to make anything
1:08:15of yourself. And so like she's [ __ ] 65 and still won't take naps. Can't take a nap. Yeah. You know,
1:08:21cuz it's like she grew up being told she was a lazy piece of [ __ ] if she took a nap. So it's
1:08:26it is pretty wild like how this stuff gets handed down and sticks with us without us even realizing
1:08:33it. Yeah. And um I mean like family duty too. I I think that that varies a lot by between families,
1:08:41you know, like the expectation that you contribute to the family or help take care of the family or
1:08:46whatever it is. So like in my family every it's pretty we like independence was kind of a a main
1:08:52uh kind of uh value that we had in my family, right? And so you know if you're leaning too much
1:08:57on the family then it's like ah you're you're you're now a burden. Whereas in a lot of other
1:09:01cultures it's kind of the opposite where you're if you're not leaning on the family enough what's
1:09:04wrong with you? Right? that that can be a shameful a shameful act. And I'm kind of navigating that
1:09:09right now. You know, like my parents are getting older. They're having health problems. And they
1:09:14will not ask for help. You know what I mean? Um and like I've I've been feeling some shame around
1:09:20it. Like, oh, I haven't been helping as much. They don't ask for it. They they act like they
1:09:24don't necessarily want it. Well, the irony is that they probably feel ashamed of asking for
1:09:29it. That's what I realized too that as recently I realized that is that they feel ashamed for having
1:09:33to ask their children for help. Exactly. and and and and I feel ashamed for not helping them. So,
1:09:37it's like again, this goes back to we need to talk about the shame because if we just would talk
1:09:42about it, we would all be like, "Oh, we're all on the same page here. It's okay." I I I've seen that
1:09:46actually come up a you know, you and I are both at that age where our parents are getting old and
1:09:50and you know, most of my friends, their parents are getting old and like I' I'm seeing that come
1:09:55up a lot. A I think a lot of elderly parents like they feel like if they have to ask their children
1:10:00for help that they failed as a parent, right? like they they shouldn't burden you. Um because it's it
1:10:06was their job to set you up for as much success as possible, right? And it's I mean that's it's a
1:10:11lovely thought, but like at the end of the day, it's your family. I would say that's a pretty
1:10:16that's a fairly western American or at least Western thought too, right? Cuz like in East Asia,
1:10:21it's like no, you're very much expected to take care of and Latin America as well. Latin America,
1:10:25Latin America as well, you're like you're supposed to go home and take care of them as they get old.
1:10:29So that's going, you know, that's again the levels going out like culture affecting the family view,
1:10:33affecting the individual. Absolutely. And what's interesting too is like I I think you know if you
1:10:39think about immigrants um I think you could you could really get a sense of these kind of these
1:10:44concentric circles of like let's say you immigrate with your family to another country you could feel
1:10:48very loved and supported within your family but then your family's values are completely
1:10:54contradictory to the the the country that you're now living in. And so your family feels ostracized
1:10:59and your family feels a little bit shame ashamed and and and like a bunch of oddballs and and so
1:11:05there like again that dynamic can play out at that level as well. Uh zooming out a little bit more I
1:11:12think you can talk about community. Um I do think you and I have both talked a little bit about the
1:11:18places we grew up and kind of the ethos and and standards and morals. Again I I had an interesting
1:11:26ju just the position in that like I grew up in a very very uh conservative exerb of a very
1:11:34progressive and liberal city. And so it it was I feel weird telling people I'm from Austin because
1:11:39it's just like my childhood like I know how people what people associate with Austin, you know? It's
1:11:44like everybody associates Austin with like cool hip tech. Keep Austin weird. And yeah, it's like
1:11:49South by Southwest and all this stuff and I'm like yeah but dude like where I grew up it was like
1:11:54[ __ ] it was more Texas than Austin. a lot more Texas than Austin for sure. And uh there's like
1:12:00it feels like a little bit of a mismatch there. Um but like I think Austin itself like has a lot
1:12:07of pride in being the oddball of Texas, right? You just said right that it's like the slogan of the
1:12:13city is keep Austin weird. And like the reason that slogan emerged is because everybody else
1:12:17in Texas was like man Austin's full of a bunch of [ __ ] weirdos. Like don't go to Austin. It's
1:12:23a bunch of hippies and uh you know, libertines and godless folk down there. It's interesting that you
1:12:29can see this play out on that level as well. And um you know, we'll we'll get into again,
1:12:36we'll get into this a little bit later with the technology section, but um I think there's
1:12:40an interesting interplay that happens around this like say politically, right? like there
1:12:43are certain parts of each country that feel like forgotten or left behind and they get very bitter
1:12:49and and resentful for it or they feel ashamed for it or whatever. I I think we probably attach less
1:12:56identity to our community or like the specific town or region that we grew up than say our family
1:13:01um or ourselves. But again, I think there there is something there and um it is possible to like
1:13:08feel some degree of shame for where you come from geographically, right? Yeah. And then finally,
1:13:13you have broader culture in society. And and it's, you know, I don't want to hang on it too much,
1:13:18but it is it is incredibly important and impactful. Like our broader our culture is the
1:13:23water we swim in. In our values episode, we spent quite a bit of time talking about cultural values
1:13:28and the importance how much they affect us. There is something about cultural values that um I don't
1:13:34think you ever completely lose them. Like even if you move to a bunch of places and even if you move
1:13:40to another country and even if you spend a bunch of time with a different group of people like just
1:13:45the like the water you swam in when you grew up like it it sticks with you to a certain extent
1:13:51no matter where you go, right? Uh, and it's it's interesting too because I think you could almost
1:13:58look at like culture as like operating systems for groups of people. And I think uh you know each of
1:14:04those operating systems, they're very similar in a lot of ways, but they are like programmed
1:14:09or weighted in different different ways. And so it's like again we talked about this in the
1:14:14values episode, but like you know it's like Japan versus the United States. like the Japanese like
1:14:20they care about the same things Americans do, but they just weight them and prioritize them in in a
1:14:24different order. And because those prioritizations are different or show up in a different order,
1:14:29that affects the behavior of the people and and the the emphasis or the priorities of the
1:14:35people there and so the the behavior will follow suit. Right. Right. Yeah. And one of those big
1:14:41divides is like the the individualist versus collectivist Yes. uh culture and and so the
1:14:46sources of shame differ between those. So like in the more collectivist cultures like East Asia,
1:14:51you know, it's it's all about uh group harmony, uh respect for your family, honoring your family,
1:14:57and if you don't do that, you bring shame upon your society or your family or your group,
1:15:01right? Whereas like in in more individualist cultures, Western Europe, United States,
1:15:05North America, it's more about like are you a personal failure is more of a source of shame.
1:15:10And it the group harmony isn't so much emphasized, right? It's like if if I do something shameful,
1:15:16it's my brother's not going to walk around feeling terrible about it probably. Whereas like in if we
1:15:22were Chinese or Japanese, maybe he would. Right. Right. Like in the United States, you never hear
1:15:28like you have brought shame upon your household, right? Like that's not that's not really something
1:15:31we think about. It's more like you failed in some way. You failed to live up to your values or your
1:15:37goals or whatever it was. And it's a personal failure. And it's personal shame. It's not so much
1:15:41shared with the group. So, and and your shame is yours to deal with, too. Don't put it on anybody
1:15:45else. Yeah. Right. That's a big one, too. That's true. Yeah. Because I guess in those collectivist
1:15:50cultures, you can rely on the people around you to kind of like shoulder some of that that burden,
1:15:54some of that. It's it's a collective shame. It's a collective effort. Yeah. Whereas and
1:15:58so your parents can like dig you out of it or your siblings can dig you out of it. Whereas in the US,
1:16:03you're you're [ __ ] out of luck, right? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. No system is right or wrong
1:16:08and they just serve different functions, right? So, yeah. Yeah. Totally. Yeah. Well, I'm curious
1:16:13actually. So, uh we're sitting here, we're like talking, we have this whole episode about shame
1:16:17and and culture and life experience, and here we are, two boring white dudes from middle America
1:16:23when we have like two amazing case studies in the room with us, right? Sitting behind the
1:16:28cameras. If they're willing to come on and talk for a minute, Massa, you want to come on? Come
1:16:33here. Take my seat. Take my seat. Get out of here, Drew. Don't be shy. Don't be shy. I'm so shy. No,
1:16:42you're not shy at all. Don't even pretend. Didn't even have time to do her makeup or Yeah. Oh,
1:16:50you must be so ashamed right now. I'm so ashamed. See, it's the appearance and Yeah, the body image
1:16:56thing. No, I I wanted to bring you on because you have an interesting life story. You're an
1:17:00immigrant. You're Persian, so you grew up in a different culture. I'm I'm just curious like what
1:17:07what sort of shame have you had to struggle with or deal with throughout your life? What have been
1:17:12some of the obstacles you faced? Well, I think one of the biggest ones growing up was being in ESL in
1:17:18like elementary school and middle school. And like I remember I would be in class and the ESL teacher
1:17:24would come and like grab me and like three other students and we'd have to go do ESL. And like I
1:17:31remember walking out of the class and just feeling so much shame that my English wasn't as good as
1:17:35the rest of the kids. Even though I didn't really have like an accent, but it still wasn't like on
1:17:40par with everyone else. So I felt a lot of shame around that. And then when it would come to,
1:17:46you know, parent teacher nights and my parents had to come and they didn't understand fully what the
1:17:51teacher was like explaining to them or they were talking back with broken English. I remember just
1:17:56being like, "Oh my god, like someone take me away. I can't deal with this. But, you know,
1:18:02now um I'm so proud of my Persian heritage and I'm so proud of my parents for like, you know, moving
1:18:09from Iran here and starting a new life. And they had to actually do this twice because we went back
1:18:14to Iran when I was nine and had to do this whole process again. So, I had to go to ESL twice. I was
1:18:22like, "Not this again." when we came back in um from high school, I had to go back and I'm like,
1:18:27"Oh, here we are back in ESL." But, you know, um I got to learn about my culture when I went
1:18:33back. So, it was all a great learning experience. Did you ever was there ever like friction between
1:18:41growing up here and your Iranian parents and like what their expectations for you? Was there like
1:18:46shame that happened there? Yeah, lots. So, um I remember I wasn't allowed to wear a bikini for
1:18:53the longest time because they were just so trained to like we I mean my parents didn't even get to go
1:19:00to the beach growing up in Iran because of the revolution and everything that happened. So when
1:19:05they came here they were trying to still enforce those kinds of um perspectives raising me. So they
1:19:13wouldn't allow me to wear bikinis or like short skirts or anything like that. And like that's all
1:19:19I wanted to do. I was the biggest girly girl. I just wanted to look cute. So I remember when
1:19:26uh in school when they took us to the pool for like a field trip, I had to wear this like really
1:19:32ugly bathing suit and I remember I cut it and I made it into a bikini so that that I was like the
1:19:40rest of the kids. And I had so much shame around like, you know, what my parents wanted me to wear
1:19:45or like um they they would just, you know, be very restrictive. Um and uh I wasn't allowed to go to
1:19:53parties. So I would lie to them about doing graveyard shifts at McDonald's because that
1:19:58was my first job. And then I would go to the bus stop and like go to a party and then come
1:20:04back at 3:00 a.m. and tell them to come pick me up. So yeah, um there was a lot of shame around
1:20:11the rules and regulations that my parents would put on me raising me and um how I wasn't allowed
1:20:18to do the things that the rest of the like North American kids were allowed to do. Yeah. And when
1:20:23the when did the the shame flip in the pride like when when would you say that happened? I
1:20:28would say in university. Okay. Um, that's when I really realized how, you know, special my culture
1:20:36is and that my parents were just trying to do the best that they could, raising me with like,
1:20:41you know, limited knowledge about, you know, what it's like to live in a free society that you can,
1:20:49you know, do whatever. It's not dangerous to be wearing a bikini or it's not dangerous to
1:20:54um go to a party with guys and girls like as long as you know there's a chaperon or something. Um
1:21:01so you know they had to learn that and it was a lot easier for my sister. But as I got older
1:21:07I just I just understood where they were coming from. Gotcha. Yeah. Cool. Thank you. Thank you.
1:21:15Jess. Oh boy. Get over here, Jess. Mark, this is weird. It's not weird,
1:21:22Jess. I'm I'm so comfortable being behind the camera. That's why this is weird. Jess Choy,
1:21:29our our intrepid director of photography. Always behind the camera, now in front of the camera.
1:21:35Wow. I must have done something good in my past life. You No, you're a wonderful person
1:21:40to talk to for this episode because you have a very interesting history. Yes, Shame and I
1:21:48are very familiar with each other. Why is that? Well, I was born in the United States, but um I
1:21:54I was born to South Korean immigrant parents. And so I think just growing up like it was
1:22:01tough because I had a lot of these expectations placed on me, you know, growing up um in a Korean
1:22:07household. And for example, like being obedient was so important. So anytime like I spoke out,
1:22:14I felt shame and my parents would say like no, you can't do that. You have to just say nay, which
1:22:19in Korean means like yes. So no matter what you thought, even if you like disagreed with what an
1:22:24elder was saying, just say nay over and over. And so I felt a lot of shame about like speaking out,
1:22:30but then I would go to school and I would want to like speak my mind and like speak up and then it
1:22:34would there would be this weird like contradictory feeling inside of me. So that was hard growing up.
1:22:40And then to add another layer to that, my dad is a Christian minister. So there was a lot of shame
1:22:46with that because he put a lot of pressure on me to, you know, live up to these Christian values
1:22:51and standards and always be an example to all the other kids in the church. And I always felt like
1:22:56I wasn't good enough, like I could never be holy enough or, you know, pious enough. And so there
1:23:02was a lot of shame with that. And then I think it had this like really weird pendulum effect
1:23:07on me where I wanted to like rebel and like do the opposite of things and then I felt shame
1:23:11with that. So yeah, it's shame and I are very familiar with each other. It's hot in here. God
1:23:20unnecessarily. She's like I'm suddenly sweating the same people. I'm suddenly sweating very
1:23:26intensely. Um I don't know how you do this. Mark, are you comfortable talking about your sexuality?
1:23:32Yeah, I can talk about that. Yeah. So, um I identify as a gay woman. Um that has been quite a
1:23:40journey because on one hand I feel very fortunate because I grew up in the United States which you
1:23:46know in the US for the most part at least the areas that I grew up in like were very like you
1:23:52know people didn't care if you were gay or not. However, like growing up in a Korean household,
1:23:56like sexual orientation or like sexuality is not something that was talked about. And so, this is
1:24:03something recent that has happened. So, like my parents and I are not on speaking terms. And so,
1:24:08and and it's because I chose to marry a woman. And I I came to this point in my life where I
1:24:14had to decide between like do I want to live my authentic life and choose my own happiness or
1:24:21do I want to dance around and be someone that I'm not for the rest of my life just to make
1:24:26my parents happy and you know just my extended family happy to live up to the image that they
1:24:31have of me and that was really really hard. Um I cried a lot and I don't typically cry like I
1:24:39think my wife is the only one who has seen me cry. Yeah, I can't let Mark see me cry. So,
1:24:46that that's been my recent journey. And I I feel a little like some shame around that
1:24:51because obviously like I grew up being told from my parents, hey, like family is everything. Um,
1:24:58you know, you have to obey your parents. You have to make your parents proud. It's like others don't
1:25:03matter in the world. Family is everything. And I basically did the opposite. And that's been
1:25:08really hard. Yeah. Yeah, it takes an incredible amount of courage to do that as well. It doesn't
1:25:15feel like it does and at this that's why it's so polarizing the feeling like I'm proud of myself
1:25:21but I also feel so so much guilt around what I have done, right? And I think that's natural. It's
1:25:27um we haven't gotten yet to kind of the process of working through shame, but it's you know,
1:25:32Drew mentioned early in the episode that shame has this weird thing of kind of warping your
1:25:36perception of yourself and and and like not allowing you to see the full context of what's
1:25:42going on. And so it it it creates this weird kind of funhouse mirror effect where it's like
1:25:48internally everything looks like dark and terrible and wrong, but externally people are like, "Wow,
1:25:56that must have been really hard. Like good for her." You know, and it's kind of sick and [ __ ]
1:25:59up how like that plays out in all of our heads. Um, but it's it is it's part of it. But thank
1:26:06you for coming on and sharing. I appreciate it. Thank you, Jess Troy, everybody. That was hard.
1:26:19All right, welcome back, Drew. Before we move on to the actual advice, I do think there is
1:26:23one quick topic that we can't really do an episode on shame without touching or covering to a certain
1:26:30extent, and that is how technology has [ __ ] everything up. Yeah. Yeah. So like if we return
1:26:37to this idea that shame is a moral mechanism that evolved within a tribal society to keep people in
1:26:46line and and obedient and uh working together. If we if we accept this idea that of Durkheim's
1:26:53he called it the collective conscience uh of the moral standards and and norms that are enforced on
1:26:59everybody. Well, what happens when technology basically turns the entire planet into your
1:27:05tribe? It basically scales shame to infinity and beyond. Now, here's the thing. Everybody
1:27:11kind of understands this uh implicitly, but yet we don't change our behaviors, our actions around it.
1:27:17Social media is not real life. It's basically a shame machine that is on 24/7. And part of this is
1:27:24because when we are online, when we are scrolling through our our Instagram or Tik Tok or whatever,
1:27:30our brain doesn't understand that these are strangers. Our brain doesn't understand that
1:27:34these people have no relation to us, that their lives have no implication on ours. That the things
1:27:39that they say or do uh will affect us in no way, shape or form. when we see a human face talking to
1:27:46us like it is our primal wiring just understands that this person is part of our collective or our
1:27:52group. So those moral mechanisms inside our brain that are that that radar that is constantly trying
1:27:58to detect social infractions and that causes us to feel ashamed about ourselves it is on overdrive
1:28:04all the time every day 24/7. Now what makes us even worse is that the things that live online
1:28:12are permanent. So there's all these statistics about how young people they're going out less,
1:28:17they're drinking less, they are dating less, they are doing drugs less, they're partying
1:28:22less. I think a huge part of that is is there's just this intense risk aversion that happens in
1:28:28the real world when you understand that even the slightest mistake might be filmed and recorded on
1:28:35a phone and it might live online forever. And this is not a madeup exaggerated thing. There is this
1:28:43concept of cancel culture that has uh taken over over the last 10 years and it's a very real thing.
1:28:50A couple examples here. There's a story of in 2010 a college student at Ruckers named Tyler Clemente
1:28:56uh his roommate decided that it would be funny to secretly film him with a webcam uh while without
1:29:04him knowing. And so his roommate would leave the room, he'd leave the webcam on and then he'd go,
1:29:09you know, down the hall to his friends rooms or whatever. And then they would sit and watch what
1:29:14Tyler would do when he thought nobody was looking. Well, it turned out one day Tyler brought in a boy
1:29:19and started hooking up with him on camera. And he was in the closet at the time. Nobody knew he
1:29:24was gay. And so suddenly this is being broadcast to the entire school. It's being put online. It
1:29:37Um, and a man came over and started harassing her and her dog uh and threatening her and threatening
1:29:43to uh hit her dog. And so she pulled out her phone and started calling the police. And then he pulled
1:29:51out his phone and started recording her. Well, it turned out that the same day that this happened,
1:29:57George Floyd was murdered. And everything was going crazy on social media about George Floyd
1:30:03and violence against African-Americans. And it turned out that the man recording the video was
1:30:08African-American filming a white woman calling the police on him for for threatening her dog.
1:30:14And sure enough, she went viral. She she became the Central Park Karen was was what she she
1:30:20became labeled. And it went to such an extent she lost her job. Uh she lost her friends. She lost
1:30:27her apartment. Um she had to move to Canada because she was getting she got doxed. Um,
1:30:33she had people showing up at at her place. Um, she got death threats. Uh, she had to like delete
1:30:40all of her accounts online. She had to move to another [ __ ] country. So, like this [ __ ] is
1:30:47it's shame on steroids. Any potential infraction, social infraction, any violation of the group norm
1:30:54or the social norm uh that triggers that that shame response in us. It can happen at any time.
1:31:01it can happen anywhere and it can scale across thousands or millions of people. And so I think
1:31:07this is an interesting angle to understand um I guess kind of the relationship between technology
1:31:14and anxiety that we've been seeing over the the last 10 or 20 years. Uh I think it's an angle
1:31:20that you know you and I have covered this topic to death and back. But it it was interesting prepping
1:31:26for this episode because I think this is an angle that I never thought of it in these terms,
1:31:31right? You know, it's like we we have this biological machinery to like be sensitive to
1:31:36what our peers and our tribe thinks about us. And so if you technologically scale that tribe to the
1:31:41entire planet, then it makes sense that you're just going to live your entire life absolutely
1:31:46paranoid uh of anything and everything you do. I think when you live in an envi in an environment
1:31:52like this that that with with stakes that high I think there are two things there are two kind of
1:31:59logical reactions to that reaction number one is if you can't beat them join them which that
1:32:05is basically become part of the shaming mob right become one of the enforcers online like
1:32:12join in with the outing of people and uh you know take part with glee the harassing of the
1:32:20people that you think are are morally corrupt or or ruining society or whatever. And then option
1:32:26number two is to just stop giving a [ __ ] is to essentially become shameless. And we kind of re
1:32:31this returns us to that point that we talked about earlier how being full of shame is not healthy,
1:32:38but being completely shameless is also not healthy. When you're full of shame,
1:32:42your life is just this miserable constantly judgmental morass of like anger, violation,
1:32:54threat, paranoia. And then when you're shameless, you're you're basically just you're like a selfish
1:33:00nihilist. And I kind of see these two polls uh have like they define internet culture. You know,
1:33:09one poll is the cancel culture poll and then the other poll is the I would call the troll poll. The
1:33:14troll poll. The troll poll. Like I think a lot of different angles we could talk about this,
1:33:19but the left in many countries has kind of adopted the the sanctimony position of like join the mob,
1:33:28join the self-righteous mob, right? Pile on. Pile on. Yeah. And and then the right in many countries
1:33:34has taken up the troll side, which is like, you know what, kind of the point is to kind of just
1:33:40be an ass, right? Is to kind of like stick your finger up, middle finger up in in the left's
1:33:46face. Uh and this isn't really a functional way to like run a culture or run a society. Yeah. Yeah.
1:33:53Or interact with any other human being really. Yeah. Yes. So what can we do about this? Um,
1:33:59basically I think the the most important thing is to understand that when you go online and
1:34:05when you choose what content to engage with and who to follow and who to subscribe to and who to
1:34:12listen to, you have to understand that you're not this is not simply entertainment. You are
1:34:17choosing your your new tribe. The information and the personalities that you choose to let into
1:34:23your life, you are essentially constructing your own tribe from the people in the world. And when
1:34:28you construct that tribe, you have to understand that you are going to start adapting and uh living
1:34:35by the values and norms of those people that you follow. It's just it's just human nature. And so
1:34:43be very very careful and conscious of the people that you choose to follow, the people you choose
1:34:48to subscribe to, the content you choose to engage with, because each each time you do that, you are
1:34:54voting not only for the information that's going to live in your brain, but you're also voting for
1:35:01the morals and values that you're going going to slowly adopt over time. And if you follow shitty
1:35:09people with bad bad values, then you will slowly morph yourself into a person with bad values.
1:35:18Right. What what about the Okay, so I've taken kind of the extreme position on this and just
1:35:23kind of I don't really do social media uh anymore because what I found was it's actually very hard
1:35:29to uh kind of curate and choose your tribe online because the algorithms and the billions of dollars
1:35:35and the super smart people that are behind them figure out ways to put that [ __ ] in front of you
1:35:39still. You know what I mean? Yeah. So what what do you say like most people aren't going to be like
1:35:43me and kind of just be a you know a lite here and get off social media? Yeah. I I mean, yes,
1:35:50get offline as much as possible because when you get offline, you you you you revert back to the
1:35:56social mechanisms in your brain that your brain was actually evolved and built for, right? So,
1:36:00that's what I found happen. Yeah. So, it's like when Yeah. When you're in person with a group of
1:36:03people, you have a a healthy shame radar. You have a healthy sense of like norm violation and and
1:36:10understanding the the consequences in a reasonable way. When you're online, all those things get
1:36:15distorted and messed up. So the more time you can spend offline, the better. At the same time,
1:36:19I understand that, you know, it's it's not reasonable to ask everybody to get offline
1:36:24all the time. And you're right about the the social media companies like it's it's the for you
1:36:29algorithms are are designed to uh are optimized to to play to many of your worst instincts. So
1:36:36you have to be very assertive and conscious with the way that you use the technology.
1:36:42You have to kind of enforce you have to have an understanding of what who you are and what you
1:36:47care about and the people you care about and then actively enforce that onto the apps and algorithms
1:36:52that you use. Right. Yeah. Well, one thing about the the digital stuff, the online stuff, I think
1:36:58um you know, you mentioned the permanence piece where you know, something you do online,
1:37:02it can come back to haunt you um you know, years later, decades later even at this point.
1:37:07um that I think you know when we when social media first kind of came on scene for us anyway like the
1:37:13mid200s to late 2000s Facebook was kind of the only game in town right and you remember this it
1:37:17was all a bunch of college kids and um it was just it was like this is where you learned where the
1:37:23parties were you put part pictures of you partying with people and like it was fun because it was all
1:37:27just a bunch of college kids at the time when it started to change was when you started to hear oh
1:37:32employers are now looking at Facebook right this is what they call um audience audience collapse,
1:37:38right? And so, uh, that's one thing that our shame systems are actually tuned to different audiences.
1:37:45Yeah. And they can only really handle one audience at a time, but when you're online and especially
1:37:50like a a platform like Facebook where there's people from all ages, um, and other platforms,
1:37:55too. I don't want to sound like too much of an old person just talking about Facebook. He's such a
1:37:59boomer. I know. Um, but you're you're you're now you now have an audience that's composed of like
1:38:06Yeah. You have your friends, but then you have co-workers and even bosses. Maybe your grandma or
1:38:10you know your parents are on there, whatever it is. And those audiences get collapsed into one.
1:38:14And your shame system is not attuned to that. Your shame system is very attuned to different
1:38:18audiences. You know, we talked about the different concentric circles that go from individual to
1:38:22family to community, society, right? Your shame system is tuned to that. Online, all of that is
1:38:28collapsed down into just one audience. Yeah. And so there again, that's just like a you you staring
1:38:34back at it's something that your brain Yeah. Paleolithic brain is not it doesn't know what to
1:38:39do with it. And I would add on top of that, right? Like we talked about how again the concentric
1:38:44circles we kind of ended on society and culture, you know, it's American culture or if you're from
1:38:51China, Chinese culture, German if you're German culture if you're German. When you're online,
1:38:57you're being exposed to every culture everywhere. And so there's just contradictory norms all over
1:39:03the place and that's so you start seeing this weird bleeding over of different norms into
1:39:08different into different areas that like don't make sense and it it you have to be very you
1:39:15have to be careful about that. Like it it just adds another layer of confusion to everything.
1:39:21[Music] All right, so that wraps up kind of the theoretical portion of the episode.
1:39:29Um, now we're going to dive into application takeaways, advice, exercises that the listeners
1:39:38as we get into the application portion of this, I think probably the the best place to start is
1:39:44to help people get an understanding of of where their shame comes from. And one of the biggest
1:39:49determinants of where our shame comes from is what age we were when certain things happened to us.
1:39:56So, I think just to set the stage for everything else that we're going to go through over the
1:40:01next hour or two, it's probably worthwhile to kind of talk through the developmental stages
1:40:06uh of a of a young human being and like where they're susceptible, what sort of problems emerge
1:40:12at at different ages and then from there we can start moving into therapeutic modalities and and
1:40:18things that people can actually do, right? Yeah. Yeah. So, understanding that how shame develops
1:40:22from an early age is going to help you pinpoint some of those sources like you said, right? So
1:40:26um it's important to go through this. So it might seem a little theoretical, but there's actually
1:40:29a very practical implication to this. So as I'm going through this and kind of describing these
1:40:34different stages, just think about think back to maybe you can pinpoint some of these things or
1:40:38how you were uh raised and and how that influences what kind of shame you feel now. Okay. So to start
1:40:44it off, so this a lot of this comes from uh a book by Michael Lewis, not the guy who wrote The Big
1:40:49Short, right? Different Michael Lewis. He's a a pediatric psychologist uh psychiatrist actually.
1:40:55Uh it's called shame the exposed self. And then Jun Tangni also has a book called shame and guilt.
1:41:00And a lot of this comes from that. So if you if you're nerdy enough to want to go look up those
1:41:03you can. Um but shame shame really it starts early obviously. Uh but even before we have words for
1:41:12it. So about a year and a half to two years. Um this is when a an infant or a toddler will develop
1:41:20um kind of like a self-recognition. So they can look into a mirror and they and they know that,
1:41:24oh that's me. Okay? So they have the self-concept already. And that's kind of a precursor,
1:41:28a prerequisite to shame, right? You have to be self-aware and and and know that you're
1:41:33a person in the world, right, before you can develop shame. But even at that stage,
1:41:38even though they're not probably, as far as we can tell, not feeling shame, they're still treating
1:41:44emotional disconnect from the people around them, their their caregivers, their parents,
1:41:48they're still treating that disconnect as a threat. So any sort of like um uh neglect or
1:41:54or anything that happens at that stage is still like it's salient to to an 18 to an 18month to a
1:42:0024-month old toddler. Right? So that's kind of that's the baseline. That's where it can kind
1:42:05of all start even too now. By the ages of about 2 to three, between two and three you start to
1:42:10see shame behavior. So you see see a toddler that does something wrong, right? They they'll they'll
1:42:14immediately like shrink. They'll sh they'll they'll throw their head down. They'll pout a
1:42:18little bit. Maybe they'll try to hide. they cover their eyes. This is where all the shame behaviors
1:42:22start to uh come out. And this is also where they think that like parenting really plays a big
1:42:29role in shame at this point. Okay. So if at this stage between two and three you're getting these
1:42:38uh like negative evaluations on yourself like oh no you're you're bad. Don't do that. You are bad.
1:42:44Right? That's that toxic shame we've talked about before. This can start to take root there. Okay.
1:42:49as opposed to if you have parents who are a little bit more like you did a bad thing, hey, don't do
1:42:53that. It that's a bad thing to do. Just let's not do that. Yeah. Okay. You can there's that's where
1:42:59the uh internalizing starts to happen. Um a an infant even as or a toddler from two to three
1:43:06can start to internalize at that point. This is also usually when like toilet training um
1:43:10starts. It's usually around this time. Yeah. And depending on how kind of well that goes and how
1:43:16good of a teacher that the the toddler has, that teaches them how to feel about their mistakes,
1:43:22right? If they they have an accident, uh, you know, on the floor in their pants or whatever,
1:43:26and do they get scolded for it? It's funny because I I remember being in Psych 101 in school and
1:43:32like of learning about Freud and of course Freud talked about the anal fixation and like obsession
1:43:38with poop and everything and I remember just thinking like that's so weird like who would
1:43:43h who would come up with that. I know right but you're actually connecting the dots right now
1:43:48which is like out of context that is weird. Yeah. Yeah. It does. It does actually like especially
1:43:54from a developmental point of view and especially once you understand things like attachment theory
1:43:57like that age that that age of like 2 to 3 years old is like such a such a critical period in the
1:44:03child's life of like their self-standing and and feeling worthy and and feeling secure and then
1:44:09it's like yeah one of the biggest challenges that they face during that time is managing their own
1:44:14poop. So yeah, go on as as some I have a lot of friends who have either just went through
1:44:20that 2 to three year period or are going through it right now. And you watch this and these kids,
1:44:25they are they're growing so fast. They're learning so fast. So you can really see and and the toilet
1:44:30training is like a big part of their life. They'll talk about it with you. They'll tell you, "Hey,
1:44:34I pooped. It was awesome. You want to come see it? Like come look at it." You know,
1:44:38so they don't have shame around that. I still do that. Yeah, I know. Yeah. Yeah. He makes me
1:44:44he makes me look at it. Um this is such a critical period. If you've ever spent any time around some
1:44:50like a kid who's this age, you know how critical of a period this is. They their personality is
1:44:54starting to come really come through at this point. They're you can tell just like how upset
1:45:00they get when they do mess up and the way that their parents and people around them respond to
1:45:04those mistakes makes a huge huge impression at this stage. Okay. the the the shame it can be
1:45:10hardwired in at this point though too uh to like to a point that where it's like being imperfect
1:45:17is unacceptable like that that can even register for a 2 to threeyear-old at this point. So you can
1:45:21see that like this stuff like yes there are these critical periods there there's some good news at
1:45:25the end of this too. It's not all, you know, there there's some ways you can mitigate this as well,
1:45:29but um it is a very critical period for the shame. And by the time you get to like 3 to 5 years old,
1:45:36this is when you start to internalize the shame. So, it's not just coming from the
1:45:41outside at this point, you you hear the voices of your caregivers or your parents in your head,
1:45:45right? Even when they're not around. And this is where you're starting to kind of self uh police
1:45:52with shame internally. And I think just to kind of contextualize this for the listeners, you know,
1:45:57they they have a sense of self, but they don't have a sense of like of people or experiences
1:46:03persisting while they're not there. Right. Right. So they think they can cover their eyes and Yeah.
1:46:07They they think they can cover their eyes and you can't see them. Right. So they don't understand
1:46:10that you have different perceptions than they do. Um and and interestingly as a result like
1:46:17any trauma or neglect that happens around this this stage it's very um it's very like corporeal
1:46:24like it's very like people people who children who suffer a lot at this age they they tend to
1:46:30be the ones who grow up with like issues around disassociation um you know numbness loss of of of
1:46:37sense of different parts of their bodies uh like just a fundamental inability to connect to their
1:46:42own emotions recogn recognize their own emotions or recognize emotions in others. Um, so it's like
1:46:46a very it it I guess one principle to keep in mind through this whole section is just that like the
1:46:51earlier you go the more fundamental the damage is. Um, and and and like everything else gets kind of
1:46:58built on top of it. Um, and so at this stage it is it is like it's almost it's not even unconscious,
1:47:04it's like preconcious. It's just like it's just like a basic ability to like recognize your own
1:47:10sensations and feelings in your body. um and understand and even know that you're feeling
1:47:15bad much less like understand why. Right. Right. Yeah. And then by the time three to five you start
1:47:21to internalize a lot of that like I was saying you get you get some of that narrative of like oh
1:47:25I feel bad I must be a bad person. Right. Right. That's kind of where the seeds of the narrative
1:47:29start at least anyway. And interestingly too at this point too children can start to distinguish
1:47:34between shame and guilt. like they they can I mean it's they don't have a concept of it necessarily
1:47:39but they um I they've found that there's actually like the feeling is is different for them at that
1:47:44point. So a lot of people a lot of psychologists will say it's probably healthier at this point to
1:47:50to push them towards a more healthy guilt than it is to shame at this point. Right. Right. And that
1:47:54that's where the you did a bad thing not you are a bad boy or you are a bad girl comes in.
1:48:00Exactly. There's also around this time, you know, children are really testing out their boundaries
1:48:05for independence. Yeah. At this point, too. And so that again, that's kind of a foundational layer
1:48:11that gets built upon as well. If you can build like kind of a healthy sense of independence and
1:48:16trust, like you you show that you trust the kid to manage their own uh self in whatever capacity
1:48:23that they can at that point, that starts to build a little bit of self-confidence in them at that
1:48:27point, and they can kind of build on top of that. But if they're too controlling and criticized too
1:48:32much, then that can internal again that internal shame really does get identified with the self at
1:48:39that point. That's where that really starts at that point. Um and and children at that point
1:48:44too will look to other people to take the lead because they're so ashamed of of their own thought
1:48:50processes, their own decisions that they make. Okay. So that was 3 to five. By about 5 to 7,
1:48:57this is when the narratives really start to take hold. So they took seed back at like 3 to 5 years
1:49:01old. The seed starts saying, "Okay, I'm a bad person. Is that right?" By 5 to 7, they're they've
1:49:06got a full story about who they are. And if it's a shameful experience or if they've experienced
1:49:11a lot of shame up to that point, then they have this like self-identified shame that they have.
1:49:15Okay. Um so again, the whole I made a mistake even when mistakes happen come to I am a bad person. So
1:49:21that's when they start to internalize shame if they've had a lot of those types of experiences.
1:49:26This is also when children get to be more curious about bodies, right? You know, these like five to
1:49:31seven year olds, um sometime especially around, you know, four to five, they might still be kind
1:49:35of interested in or they're okay with being naked, right? Like you go to somebody's house and they're
1:49:39like four or five year olds like running around naked. By the time they get to five, six, seven,
1:49:43they start to kind of like, "Oh, I'm naked." And they're a little bit more self-conscious about it,
1:49:48right? Or they start to explore um they'll ask you kind of embarrassing questions. you know,
1:49:53be at a grocery store and you hear some kid, you know, talk to their mom like,
1:49:56"Mom, like why is my butt hurt?" You know, or whatever it is, like or what, you know,
1:50:01what's why do your boobs so big right now? Or, you know, whatever it is. They'll say weird
1:50:05things like that. And um how caregivers react to that can really set up um whether or not you
1:50:14you are shameful of your body or someone else's body or bodies in general or touch or you know,
1:50:19physical intimacy. That can really start at this stage too. Interesting. Yeah. And like
1:50:24harsh reactions to that will will be makes it more likely that somebody's more ashamed of
1:50:30their own body or, you know, sexuality, whatever it is. And that really starts in about the 5 to
1:50:34sevenyear-old range. Yeah. And then we get to adolescence mark. The best. The best, right?
1:50:40Remember this? So much fun. Oh my god. If only I could be 13 again. Oh god. Can you imagine? Oh,
1:50:47I I imagine you feel the same way. That was just such an intense period of your life, right? It's
1:50:53so intense. Yeah. Very emotional. Super emotional. Lots of ups and downs. Very insecure. Your brain
1:50:58is reorganizing itself during adolescence. And a big part of that reorganization causes you to
1:51:06obsess over the judgments and perceptions of other people at this point. That's why you're that's why
1:51:11teens are so self-conscious and so hyper aware of any sort of social uh rejection or social
1:51:18phauxa they might make whatever it is. This is the stage where like your brain is like it's quickly
1:51:25quickly re rewiring and it's trying to figure out where they stand in the social hierarchy their
1:51:30social value. Again shame is attuned to social devaluations and so the shame system during this
1:51:36period is hyper hyper online at this point. It even gets to the point too, the shame system
1:51:42is so sensitive at this point that um teenagers, you know, adolescence and teenagers will start to
1:51:48detect threats that aren't even there. So every little look, every little word, every little,
1:51:54you know, somebody didn't like something on their social media, whatever it is, they perceive that
1:51:58as a social threat at this point. So everything is just it's turned up to 11 at this point. Any
1:52:02of those embarrassing moments, I I know some of the most like shameful and embarrassing
1:52:05things I can think of happen during this time. And it's just because your your brain is wired
1:52:10to remember those and not repeat those mistakes at this point. That's kind of the the trajectory
1:52:16through uh childhood anyway in adolescence. Yeah. And I I think a really important thing
1:52:21for for people to understand with these different stages is that we talked earlier about how when
1:52:28you feel deeply ashamed of something or you have like a very shameful or traumatic experience,
1:52:32your brain kind of gets stuck in that moment and you don't flash bulb memory of it. Yeah. Yeah.
1:52:38And you don't really evolve or grow out of it. And and so that applies to all of these as well.
1:52:44So if you if you have a very intensely shameful moment, say when you're between five and seven,
1:52:52you'll kind of like from an emotional maturity point of view, you will kind of get lodged in
1:52:56that 5 to seven range. Yes. Until you go back and fix whatever that is that that really [ __ ] you
1:53:02up back there. Same thing at, you know, 3 to four years old. Same thing at at adolescence. And so,
1:53:08you know, I think we all know certain adults who uh will act like children when they're they're
1:53:14they get emotionally triggered. And this is really why. It's because when you trigger somebody,
1:53:18you are basically kind of throwing their brain back to that moment where they were traumatized
1:53:23or or violated or or ashamed in some intense way and they are like replaying or reacting that
1:53:30moment in time at that same level of of cognitive development, that same level of self-standing.
1:53:36And so, you know, just think of that in terms of like whatever you're struggling with, um,
1:53:43the the deeper it is, the further back it goes. If it is on like a fundamental visceral level, like
1:53:50that probably goes back very early in childhood. If it's just kind of this like deep sense of of
1:53:56failure and and uh uh inadequacy that like you don't really have any sort of logical or rational
1:54:03explanation around. you know, that probably goes back to that that toddler era. And then if you
1:54:08have like very specific insecurities around specific uh experiences or groups of people or
1:54:14whatever, you know, social anxiety, codependence, avoidance issues, like that probably goes back to
1:54:19like bad adolescent experiences. Um because that's that's much more it's much much more about your
1:54:25social identity than like your relationship with yourself. Yeah. And this all I mean it makes sense
1:54:31from an evolutionary perspective, right? Like it it seems kind of cruel, right? Like it's like,
1:54:37"Oh my god, I'm stuck in when I'm was 5 years old and this thing happened and I can't get out
1:54:41of it." Like why would why would our brains be be uh designed that way, right? But what it is is,
1:54:47you know, your brain is trying to figure out what kind of environment it's in and what it has
1:54:51to prepare for, right? And and so it uses those early experiences as a template. Now, that makes a
1:54:58lot of sense in like a especially in like a small tribal um society. That was our evolutionary kind
1:55:04of past. That's where we evolved these things. But in a more modern society, it's what the good
1:55:08news is is that you don't have to stay stuck back there, right? You can that like your environment
1:55:13can change and you have a lot of control over that. And so, I just want to emphasize that it's
1:55:18not like you're not doomed based on this stuff, okay? And not only that, like if you're a parent,
1:55:22you're listening to this too and you're like, "Oh my god, I've screwed my kid up so much." Well,
1:55:26yeah, you probably have, but let's just let's just be honest. News flash, every parent screws
1:55:30up their kid in some, shape, or form. Yeah. The good news, though, is that um repair goes a long
1:55:36ways. So, even if you have like kind of, you know, probably shamed your kid at some point,
1:55:40um going back to them at some point and either, you know, you apologize for that or you just
1:55:44change how you treat them in these situations and you push them more to, hey, that's a bad thing.
1:55:49Don't do that. Rather than you're a bad kid. Uh that goes a long ways for kids, too. Kids
1:55:54are very resilient and still very flexible. So these things don't just you're not set set in
1:55:58stone if they do happen this way. It could take some work to get out of it though, too. Yeah.
1:56:06All right. So there there's a kind of a a history or lineage of therapeutic modalities that address
1:56:11shame directly. And uh I think it's worthwhile to kind of go through them, understand what the
1:56:17originators were were thinking at the time, like what what led to to their decisions, what those
1:56:22practices are, um and where they help and and where they come up short. Uh and so, of course,
1:56:29every episode, what is a solved episode without a section on Freud? Uh I believe we're now like five
1:56:35for five or six for six or something with him. like I think he is the one person who has showed
1:56:39up in every single uh uh solved episode, but you can't really have a psychology podcast without
1:56:45talking about Freud. So, it's it's very hard to to avoid him. So, Freud, of course, uh was the
1:56:52originator of talk therapy and his school thought was called psychoanalysis. And his whole thing was
1:56:58about digging into people's unconscious thoughts and fears and emotions and motivations and then
1:57:04just bringing them conscious. He he noticed that there was a healing effect when people
1:57:09uh became more aware of all of the the impulses and emotions that were going on inside them
1:57:15inside of themselves. Once they were aware of them and they were able to put language around them,
1:57:20it seemed to liberate them in a lot of different ways. And at the time Freud was working in uh 19th
1:57:27century Europe. The cultural norms at the time were extremely rigid that you were you were really
1:57:32not supposed to show emotion. uh sexuality was extremely taboo. Um everybody was very buttoned
1:57:38up, very conformist. Uh there was a lot of judgment and shame everywhere. And so most of sha
1:57:44most of Freud's early patients you would classify as highly shamed adult women. Mhm. As a result,
1:57:51I think, you know, a lot of his discoveries or a lot of his ideas, I think, were very much
1:57:57uh biased based on that that self- selection bias of just like most of the people coming
1:58:02to him were were like wealthy or middle- class women uh who are very repressed. And so he like
1:58:09like many scientists do erroneously extrapolated from this small segment of the population that he
1:58:15was working with and then and then made all these kind of grand proclamations about human nature and
1:58:19whatnot. But one of the things that he noticed is that most of these patients that came in were like
1:58:23they they had deeply repressed emotions. Deeply repressed. Many of them were very sexual. Many
1:58:29of them were anger, sadness, uh, guilt, and things that they had not talked about ever with anybody,
1:58:38things that they had buried for decades. And what he noticed is that when you find when
1:58:45you got these people to open up and finally start talking about it, um, there was kind of this this
1:58:51sense or feeling of liberation that happened. Now, what's interesting about psychoanalysis is that it
1:58:57he never really came up with any game plan of like how to deal with these emotions. And sure enough,
1:59:03by like the 1910s, even Freud himself started to notice this as a problem. He he even wrote
1:59:09uh he he wrote in one of his books at the time that he noticed that that a lot of his
1:59:13patients who experienced the uh the release of repressed emotions, it actually caused them to
1:59:20leave psychoanalysis because the emotion that came up was just so uncomfortable and so messy and ugly
1:59:27and and like that they didn't know what to do with it and they were just like, you know what, I think
1:59:33I'm going to be fine. I don't need to I don't need to do all this stuff. Uh and and so Freud
1:59:38kind of lamented the fact that like most people wouldn't actually stick with it long enough to
1:59:43like sort through all of the the baggage that they had been carrying around and he never really got
1:59:49around to like game planning like what to do with that baggage. So one of the acolytes of Freud, a
1:59:54psychoanalyst in the 1920s and 30s was a man named Carl Rogers. And Carl saw this as like the central
2:00:00problem of psychoanalysis. He's like, "It's great that you can dig up all these buried emotions and
2:00:06all these repressed feelings uh and all this shame and guilt that you've been carrying around your
2:00:11entire life, but what are you going to do with it? You have to find some like there has to be some
2:00:17sort of like solution waiting for you when all that junk comes up." So, Rogers created what what
2:00:23is known as person- centered therapy, although today some people just call it Rogerian therapy.
2:00:28Uh and it's built on this radical idea that that people are are naturally driven towards growth
2:00:32and healing. Uh but they just need to be provided the right context and emotional environment. And
2:00:38so Roger's goal was actually not to uh solve dig into everybody's psyches and like excavate
2:00:48all these unconscious feelings or emotions. his goal, the the goal of person- centered therapy
2:00:53was simply to create the emotional environment that was full of enough trust and safety that
2:00:59people would start kind of unloading their stuff on their own naturally. And so he actually took
2:01:05kind of a radical approach to therapy, which is that the therapist is actually not supposed to ask
2:01:09questions. The the therapist is it's it's actually patientdirected. So the therapist is simply there
2:01:15to support, to make observations, to maybe make suggestions of like, well, have you considered
2:01:21this or what do you think about that? And and then let the patient really direct the narrative and
2:01:27and direct where everything goes. And for Rogers, by far the most important thing above all else was
2:01:33that there was radical unconditional acceptance. Everything is fair game. Every horrible thought,
2:01:41feeling, ugly experience, trauma, neglect, everything is okay. There's no such thing as
2:01:48a bad thought or feeling. Just get it out and and and let's let's work with it. Let's talk about it.
2:01:55Rogers actually found a lot of good success with this. He he's got a fantastic quote that I believe
2:02:01we've we've mentioned on the show before. Um he said the curious paradox is that when I accept
2:02:05myself as I am it only then can I change and Rogers from all of his work with his clients
2:02:11and patients he developed this this concept called inongruence and because he what he noticed is that
2:02:18generally speaking a person's level of suffering is proportional to the mismatch between their
2:02:25self-concept and how others see them. And gen so if somebody comes in and they see themselves as
2:02:31like I'm a loser, I suck at everything. Nobody's gonna like me, but they're actually like a very
2:02:38successful, well-liked, popular person. He argued that it's it's the inongruence between the two
2:02:44that is the problem. Uh, and it's not, you know, specifically how the person sees or feels about
2:02:49themsel because, and I like this because it it also addresses the fact that sometimes people
2:02:54who who harbor a lot of shame, they compensate by overestimating themselves, right? You get
2:02:59kind of like the narcissistic defense mechanism or response to feeling a lot of internal shame. So,
2:03:05he also noticed that people would come in and say, "Oh, I'm I'm the best. Everybody
2:03:09wants to be like me. Everybody's jealous of me." And meanwhile, it's like, you know,
2:03:13it's it's this loser who like, you know, has nothing going on in his life, has no friends,
2:03:19whatever. So, for Rogers, it was really just trying to get people's self-concept back to
2:03:27uh to reality, to match that reality. And and um and he really believed that that ultimately just
2:03:34came came down to people having the time and space to work through all these questions and problems
2:03:39themselves. Now the problem with that is that you need patients who are willing to put in the work.
2:03:45Yeah. Yeah. And the fact of the matter is is that the majority of people uh either are not willing
2:03:51to put in the work or even if they're willing, they don't know the right questions to ask.
2:03:56They haven't thought about these topics deeply for long periods of time. So they don't they
2:04:02don't notice the the paradoxes and uh you know the contradictions and and and like the the the faulty
2:04:09assumptions that they're they're walking around with. You it reminded me when you were talking
2:04:13about the self-led or the the patient uh part. It reminds me of Goodwill Hunting. Yes. You know when
2:04:19he goes into the first session and Robin Williams just sits there and and he just sits there and
2:04:24they don't do anything. It's very a whole hour of just sitting there staring at each other and they
2:04:29leave. That that's actually a great example that that's very Rogerian like he that whole I forget
2:04:35the the name of the therapist in that in Goodwill Hunting but Robin Williams whole character is
2:04:39like very Rogerian and what's interesting is that you know kind of coming back to the
2:04:46uh the different stages of development right like each of these therapies kind of properly
2:04:51addresses one stage and misses the mark on the others. psychoanalysis and and like a Freudian
2:04:57approach is probably very good for people who are just like completely unaware of why they feel bad,
2:05:01right? It's like you just get them on the couch talking and like eventually stuff's going to
2:05:05start to come up. you're 90% of the way there. And and and we can like we can start digging it out,
2:05:10you know, and and I think for people who maybe experience a lot of shame at a very young age,
2:05:15you know, before they have an ego identity, before they have any sense of like social standing,
2:05:20before they've spun up any narratives about themselves, uh you know, a a Freudian approach
2:05:24can probably be very useful because it's like it's really designed to deal with a lot of that
2:05:29messy unconscious kind of irrational aspect of ourselves. Rogerian therapy I think is is probably
2:05:35more appropriate for uh you know people in those like the toddler phase or like the young childhood
2:05:40phase where they they have a sense of self but it's like they don't have a clear understanding of
2:05:46the world or their relationship with the world and so anything any any sort of trauma or pain that
2:05:51happens in that stage of their life they just they internalize it. They're just like I'm worthless.
2:05:56I'm [ __ ] Nobody loves me. I'm going to be alone forever. And it's and so interestingly, I think
2:06:04Matt Damon's character is very much that like he has this this deep wound inside of him from being
2:06:11an orphan uh that nobody nobody has ever really addressed and everybody's tried to approach him
2:06:16intellectually and he's just too smart. He can deflect them. But it's like when Robin Williams
2:06:21character shows up and he just he has the Rogerian approach of just like you know what I'm just going
2:06:26to sit here till you start talking. uh that's the thing that eventually breaks through to them.
2:06:32Yeah. But unfortunately, most of us are not will hunting. So, uh we're not math prodigies. And and
2:06:39most people like they they don't have the time, patience or energy to sit and do that that level
2:06:44of work for that that period of time. Uh and so this started to frustrate a number of people and
2:06:51along came Albert Ellis and he came around in the 50s and 60s. I think he was aware of the Rogerian
2:06:57approach, but he actually decided to take the completely opposite tack, which is he he decided,
2:07:04let's intentionally get patients to experience their shame and their insecurities because then
2:07:10once they experience it, they're going to realize that it's not nearly as bad as they thought it was
2:07:13going to be. And so he it's here with Ellis that you start to uh get some of the the the early
2:07:22uh progressive desensitization that later on ended up in CBT. Um you know so he he would do things
2:07:28he would he would take patients who say had like intense social anxiety and he would make them go
2:07:33out in public and embarrass themselves and and then they would embarrass themselves and he'd
2:07:37be like see nothing happened. You're fine. Your face is like lighting up. You love this. love this
2:07:43[ __ ] I [ __ ] love this [ __ ] I mean, I even made YouTube videos doing this with people. So,
2:07:48like, it's like so liberating when it works because it's it's, you know, as we've talked
2:07:53about, like shame has this funhouse mirror effect of like amplifying or exaggerating um
2:08:00the negatives uh in our perception and and like downplaying the positives in our perception. So,
2:08:06Ellis was just like, "You know what, man? You got to feel some pain. we got to we we got to make you
2:08:12suffer a little bit. Ultimately, Ellis believed that uh you know most shame is is just it's
2:08:17really rooted in unrealistic or or contradictory expectations of the world. So if you take somebody
2:08:23who like believes that they are always supposed to do the right thing no matter what they're supposed
2:08:27to like get a 100 on every test and succeed in everything they try. His approach was a much
2:08:32more intellectual approach of like, well, let's let's let's find the the contradiction in that,
2:08:38you know, like what like what makes you successful at something? Oh, well, you learn you learn from
2:08:43mistakes. Well, what how do you make mistakes? Well, you fail at something. Oh, okay. Well,
2:08:47interesting. So, it sounds like you can't actually be successful at something until you fail at it.
2:08:52So, it sounds like this idea that you should do everything correctly all the time is just faulty.
2:08:58Like, it's built off of faulty assumptions. So, he would approach everything from a very intellectual
2:09:03angle. And I'm going to throw out a a shout out, a very obscure book um that I read maybe
2:09:0910 or 15 years ago. I I I I read it in my 20s and I loved it. Uh it's by a clinical therapist named
2:09:15Peter Spinagotti or I believe that's correct. Spinotti. It's called Explaining Unhappiness.
2:09:20And it was such an interesting book because the author was very much like a Albert Ellis type
2:09:26person and he he believed that all unhappiness was rooted in an unresolved contradiction. And so,
2:09:33and the whole book is just examples from his his sessions with his patients of like them coming
2:09:39in with like very kind of complicated what seems like complicated, messy life situations and then
2:09:47him simply like digging and digging and digging and then finding a contradiction and being like,
2:09:52"Oh, well that doesn't make sense." And then the patient realizes it doesn't make sense and it like
2:09:56completely changes the perception of everything that came before it. What's like an example of
2:10:01that that Can you think of one? Take somebody who like thinks that they should be making making
2:10:05their partner happy all the time, right? And it's like and they feel like they're overextended and
2:10:10they're doing so much and they're unappreciated and all this stuff. And it's an Ellis approach
2:10:15um a alleian approach, an Albert Ellis approach to it would be like to sit there and be like, "Well,
2:10:23uh what are the things that make your partner happy?" And you know, maybe the person lists them
2:10:27off and it's like, okay, what about those things makes makes them happy? Okay. Um, what are the
2:10:32things that make your partner unhappy? Okay. Well, how much control do you have of those things that
2:10:38make them unhappy? Okay. Let's imagine a perfect world where you're able to make them happy at all
2:10:42times. Like what are what are the preconditions to that world? Like, oh, oh, you have literally
2:10:46no life of your own and you are unhappy all the time. So, okay, there seems to be a contradiction
2:10:51going on here, right? So it's like it's just kind of like working with it's a very intellectual
2:10:56approach uh to issues. In many ways it was kind of a precursor to CBT. You know CBT was like very
2:11:01much a therapy that um uh you know saw challenging people's thoughts as like the easiest entry point
2:11:10into breaking their their spiral of behaviors. What's interesting with both Carl Rogers and
2:11:15Albert Ellis uh like I think there's a lot of profound truth in both of them. Um, and they're
2:11:20both incredibly influential on future modalities. What's interesting is that they're not scalable or
2:11:26repeatable, right? So, it's like in both cases, you're you're essentially completely reliant on
2:11:32an exceptionally talented therapist to make it work, right? So, it's like in Rogerian therapy,
2:11:37you need a Robin Williams from Goodwill Hunting to like really move the needle for people. like
2:11:43you need an exceptionally emotionally attuned and non-judgmental and thoughtful therapist to like
2:11:51make that space and like keep you keep nudging you forward. And similarly with with Albert Ellis's
2:11:58uh method of of therapy, you need an incredibly intellectually sharp therapist who's like
2:12:05excellent at catching paradox and contradictions and like challenging assumptions and noticing
2:12:10blind spots. kind of a brilliant person sitting across from you challenging everything you say,
2:12:15you're it's gonna be hard to get mileage. And I think really the reason that CBT took off the way
2:12:20it did is that the brilliance of Aaron Beck is that he saw that you need something you need a
2:12:25framework that's easily repeatable that you can hand off to any therapist and they can apply it
2:12:30just as well as the person who invented it. That you're not relying on the skill or talent of the
2:12:35therapist that you're simply you're relying on the framework. And I think because of that,
2:12:40that's why it's become so popular and so prevalent. And also, it's it's allowed people
2:12:44to iterate on the framework and make it better over time. So when we get to the 1980s, you know,
2:12:49Freud Freud made a little bit of a comeback in the 70s and ' 80s. Sometimes it's called neorudianism.
2:12:55You know, there was a hot moment for maybe about 10 years where where therapists like really got
2:12:59back into psychoanalysis and they they got really into like repressed memory and like helping people
2:13:04like discover things they forgot as children because of their trauma and all this stuff.
2:13:08They drag the couches back into their offices. Exactly. Exactly. It's like get back on the couch,
2:13:13[ __ ] And and around the same time too there this concept of reparing emerged. So, and again,
2:13:20this is kind of a response uh to the the original Freud's original problem of like, okay,
2:13:24what now? Like, we dug up all the shame. We dug up all the the the ugly mess and the emotions. Like,
2:13:31what do we do with it? Uh, and this concept of reparing is it it it kind of comes back to this
2:13:37this this realization that like let's say you get you somebody comes in, they're harboring a bunch
2:13:43of shame and self-loathing. It originates from, I don't know, say when they were five, their their
2:13:48dad walked out on them or something like we talked about earlier. It's like when when that that that
2:13:53that shame gets triggered, they kind of revert somewhat to that 5-year-old emotionally and they
2:13:59they maybe they have outbursts, maybe they are uh like super insecure, maybe they need tons of
2:14:06reassurance uh and validation from the people around them, much like a 5-year-old would. Uh
2:14:12so the the neorudians looked at this and they said well when that when that patient is in that moment
2:14:18when they are kind of inhabiting the 5-year-old that's when you go in and you like reparent them
2:14:24that's when you like as an adult you you can help them you can you know bring a family member in or
2:14:29or maybe like somebody trusted in and you can like actually start treating them uh in a way
2:14:35that they needed to be treated in that moment or maybe even train the patient themselves to
2:14:39to parent themselves in that moment. So around the same time in the 1980s, uh there was a really
2:14:44popular self-help book called uh Heal the Shame That Binds You. It was written by a man by the
2:14:48name of John Bradshaw. And Bradshaw really pushed this this idea of like healing your inner child.
2:14:54It's like going in going in tapping into that that ashamed, traumatized 5-year-old. See the world the
2:15:01way they see it. Feel the world the way they feel it. Go back to that moment right before the last
2:15:06time you saw your father. Think about how you're feeling in that moment. Now imagine like what you
2:15:11wish how how you wish your mother reacted, what you wish your father said to you before he left.
2:15:15Like replay all those things in your head and like really get people back to that moment so that they
2:15:21can then use their present day adult knowledge and self-acceptance uh to kind of reconfigure the
2:15:28experience in their head like really rewrite that story in a lot of ways. And this sort of practice
2:15:34is still extremely prevalent in the personal de development space today. I mean, there's like
2:15:40literally thousands of life coaches that like still do stuff like this and and I I still run
2:15:46into people all the time who are like, "Oh, I I did like inner child work at a retreat last year
2:15:50and it was life-changing and blah blah blah." Um, Bradshaw also had this cool framework which I I
2:15:57don't know where he got it. you know, he wasn't a a a therapist or a psychologist, but he he had
2:16:03this like really cool framework around like family systems and um and how, you know, when you live
2:16:10in a dysfunctional family, like people take on different roles and there's kind of a balance that
2:16:15has to happen. And this is where the the classic concept of like the golden child comes comes out
2:16:21or like the rebellious child shows up. And um and you he was like very clever at spotting like
2:16:28different patterns and dynamics that often emerge in people with like really [ __ ] up childhoods
2:16:33and family life. And eventually this all kind of got rolled into I guess a more codified framework
2:16:39by a man named Richard Schwarz. He created a modality called internal family systems and and it
2:16:46is blowing up right now. Uh it's relatively new. It's like uh you know, I'd say it's really only
2:16:52been around for a couple decades. Well, he started in the 80s, but he was laughed off stage until the
2:16:58like late 2000s. Yeah. But Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So, it's coming to vogue in the last 15 years. Yeah.
2:17:03Yeah. So, yeah, it's it's he it sounds like he started around the same time with the Neoridians,
2:17:07but yeah, it's like nobody took it seriously until until uh recently, but um it's it's really
2:17:13becoming a thing. And and IFS is super interesting because it it it's similar to the reparing thing.
2:17:18It it like it asks you to roleplay as different aspects of yourself. Yeah. Different parts,
2:17:22right? Yeah. So, it's like let me speak to ashamed Drew, right? Or let let me speak to let me speak
2:17:29to alcoholic Mark, right? That'd be a great podcast, by the way. Uh uh you know, and then
2:17:35it's like have different the therapist will have different conversations with the different aspects
2:17:40of the patient. And it's really fascinating. The human brain is just so [ __ ] fascinating. It's
2:17:45really fascinating that like by role playing you you actually kind of do trick your brain
2:17:51and your unconscious into like resolving a lot of emotional baggage. Uh and you can achieve a
2:17:57lot of that self-acceptance and a lot of the uh you know resolving different paradoxes and stuff
2:18:02that Albert Ellis and Carl Rogers were trying to do. So yeah, with IFS yeah I'm a big fan of this.
2:18:06You know this um I'm a big fan of this. I've never actually done it with a therapist, but just using
2:18:10it kind of I've read the books, you know, and used it in my own life kind of. And I think that this
2:18:14is really useful like you said, it's you can you can have a conversation with different parts of
2:18:18yourself. And for me anyway, especially if you're really like I'm a shamer person and if you do
2:18:24identify with your shame, I think something like IFS where you're talking in this parts work where
2:18:29you're talking to different parts of yourself and figuring out how the different parts of yourself
2:18:33fit together and work together with you or against you, however it is. If you find that shameful part
2:18:38of you, for me anyway, it really helps me uh kind of like look at it from an outsers's perspective
2:18:45and not identify with it so much so you can deal with it. Then you can start asking it questions.
2:18:49This sounds crazy if you've never done this. Okay, I I understand how crazy this sounds, but like you
2:18:53said, the human brain is just fascinating. And you can do this. You can have a conversation with that
2:18:57part of you. What What are you trying to protect here? Why are you what are you so afraid of that
2:19:03you're using shame to keep me from keep me stuck, right? You can have that and it really detaches
2:19:08you from the shame long enough so you can address it. So that's that's been my experience with it.
2:19:13Yeah, it's it is super fascinating and it and it's like there are just recently the last few
2:19:18years there's some like like clinical studies are coming out about it, you know, like we're finally
2:19:23getting some like e efficacy scores on it and it's actually great. like it's it turns out it's really
2:19:29good especially for people who suffer from like PTSD uh and and shame. Like it is super effective.
2:19:35So it's um yeah, it's kind of the the exciting cutting edge of of all this stuff. All right,
2:19:41last one I want to talk about. It would be impossible to do this episode if we didn't talk
2:19:44about Bnee Brown. Uh I wish we had had a chance to talk to her. She does not talk to anybody anymore.
2:19:49So she doesn't have to. She doesn't have to. When you when you've sold as many books as she has, you
2:19:53don't have to talk to [ __ ] anybody. So good for her. Uh, but it was actually really interesting
2:19:57cuz like I've read all of I've read all of her books. Um, and obviously I've read about her
2:20:03research in her books, but it it was interesting prepping for this episode because it was the first
2:20:07time I actually went and looked at her papers and I never actually looked at her research and it was
2:20:11it was like it was actually super fascinating. First, the first thing I didn't I didn't know
2:20:15um is that uh she got her PhD in social work. She was she's like not a psychologist. I always
2:20:19thought it was weird when she talked about her research. She talked about interviewing
2:20:22people and I was like what psychologist still interviews people like like social workers
2:20:27do. Yeah. I'm like oh yeah social work. So Bnee Brown was a a PhD in social work and she she was
2:20:34um she was doing a bunch of work down in Texas and she just made a really simple observation in the
2:20:40early 2000s which is one of those things that it's like it's so obvious in hindsight that you kind of
2:20:45just like slap your forehead and you're like well no duh. like what the hell is that she realized
2:20:50that like through her research and her work doing social work like she was meeting and speaking to
2:20:57literally hundreds and hundreds of very troubled people like and and not troubled people is like
2:21:01therapy patients troubled people is in like I just got out of jail or uh I just tried to kill myself
2:21:07or like you know my wife just died you know like it's it's like really rough situations and she
2:21:15couldn't help but notice that like these these there was just so much shame in these people.
2:21:20Like every single person she talked to there was just like was just rife with shame like had deep
2:21:27deep pain and and trauma in their background that they were like very very very ashamed of talking
2:21:32about. And she looked around she she looked at a lot of the psychological literature and she's
2:21:37like wow there's like no good research on this. Like nobody's actually studied this in depth. And
2:21:43so she decided to be the one to study it. And it makes sense that somebody who comes from a social
2:21:48work background is the one who kind of stumbled into all the stuff that she stumbled into because
2:21:54shame is a social problem. It's it's a problem of social acceptance uh of familial acceptance and
2:22:01therefore it requires social solutions. Like you can't just sit by yourself and resolve your shame.
2:22:06Like you have to go live it. You have to surround yourself by people who accept accept you for who
2:22:12you are or accept the new version of you. uh you can't you can't just like intellectualize your way
2:22:17out of shame and and so I think her understanding of um of how this actually gets resolved and
2:22:24improved uh is really key and it makes sense that psychologists would miss it. Um so the the key
2:22:30tenants of of Bnee Brown's work and by the way if you haven't read her books go read all of them.
2:22:34They're they're excellent. They're fantastic. She talks about the importance of vulnerability and
2:22:38just sharing everything openly. It's like it it really is it's cliche, but sunlight is the best
2:22:43disinfectant. And when it comes to shame, it's it is like the best thing you can do for whatever you
2:22:48feel ashamed of is to talk about it with somebody be because it's it just it relieves the burden
2:22:54even though that's the opposite of what you want to do. It is. Yes. It's what you need to do. Yeah.
2:22:58Exactly. The other thing she found is is owning and taking responsibility for it. Um you know,
2:23:03most people's tendency with the thing that they're ashamed of is to blame somebody else. It's like
2:23:08it's not my fault. It's like I I was a victim. I this horrible thing happened to me. Like these
2:23:14people are awful. Um and that all might be true, by the way. Like this is this is I talk about this
2:23:19in my book. There's a the fault responsibility fallacy. Like all of those things can be true.
2:23:24You could totally be a victim. You could be surrounded by horrible, horrible people. But
2:23:27you still have to own your experience. You still have to say this is who I am and this is what I've
2:23:32lived through and I'm going to take responsibility for it and move forward. And then of course her uh
2:23:39uh the the other tenant is just ask for support. Find support. Find other people who have suffered
2:23:45in the same way that you've suffered, who are ashamed of the same thing that you're ashamed of,
2:23:48who understand what you're going through. And find people who who can sympathize with you. You want
2:23:54to hear something really funny. So I was returning to Bnee's work. I read all of her stuff, you know,
2:24:00back in the early 2010s when it came out and um was a big fan of it and but returning to her work
2:24:07and kind of going through her tenets and like revisiting a lot of her advice, I realized that
2:24:14there is actually a framework that encapsulates everything that she recommends and it's been
2:24:20around for over a hundred years. Do you want to guess what that is? I'm blanking. Alcoholics
2:24:26Anonymous. Oh. Oh, sure. which oh [ __ ] yeah when you think about it you're like oh yeah
2:24:33duh that totally makes sense that totally makes sense especially when you come back to the fact
2:24:38that like addiction and compulsivity is like very much rooted in shame very shame based yes so when
2:24:44you look at the 12 steps what's step number one it's the share problem share it and own it right
2:24:51it's like own the [ __ ] problem my name's Mark I'm an alcoholic right step number two is like be
2:24:57vulnerable share share your experience, talk about your story, talk about all the [ __ ] up stuff you
2:25:01did. As you go through the steps, it's like you basically see uh Bnee Brown's recommendations
2:25:07like repeated over and over and over again. And in fact, the entire framework around AA is basically
2:25:13just it is one giant shame alleviation machine. It is like let's get all of the people who are shamed
2:25:19who have the same problem and have similar shame in the same room. Let's create an environment.
2:25:26Carl Rogers, right? Let's create an environment of of radical acceptance. Uh let's get everybody to
2:25:33be vulnerable and share their stories. Let's get people to make amends with the people that they've
2:25:37wronged and take responsibility for the the actions that they've done. And then let's let's
2:25:42keep each other accountable. Let's let's challenge each other's [ __ ] and faulty assumptions,
2:25:48rationalizations for their bad behavior, which is the Albert Ellis method, right?
2:25:52And and by the way, you're here for life. like you it's there's no exit, there's no off-ramp,
2:25:58there's like you're in it till the end together and um yeah, I I I I like that epiphany hit me
2:26:06when I was uh revisiting her stuff the other night and I was just like, "Oh my god." Yeah,
2:26:10cuz what what is addiction if it's not like trying to escape who you are, right? Which is
2:26:13ob like completely shame based. You're so ashamed of and you hate yourself so much that you're just
2:26:18trying to escape that through addiction through through using. So yeah, I didn't I don't think
2:26:22that and AA is really Yeah, it's just it's a it's a giant shame alleviation framework. Yeah.
2:26:29Essentially. Wow. I didn't think of that. That's a good one. Yeah. All right. So, those are kind
2:26:35of the four or five modalities that I wanted to touch on. Um, you know, as we get into we're going
2:26:40to we're we're going to talk about uh different tools and exercises people can use to to work on
2:26:45their own shame. And then uh and then we'll wrap up with kind of like a a framework or a process
2:26:52of shame alleviation kind of like the steps or the stages that that people go through and then
2:26:58we'll contextualize all of this stuff in those steps and phases. Uh but I I I think all all of
2:27:05these modalities are useful in their in their own context and I think they're useful for different
2:27:10aspects of the problem. Uh, and yeah, we'll we'll we'll keep revisiting them as we move forward.
2:27:18[Music] All right, Mr. Bernie, what can we do? Give us some actual like tips and exercises,
2:27:27takeaways that we can do. What are the questions we should be asking ourselves?
2:27:31Absolutely. Yeah. So, as we've covered so far, we do often just avoid shame at all costs,
2:27:36right? Like we just find ways to not feel it, to distract ourselves, to numb ourselves,
2:27:40whatever it is. Um, but the first step in addressing shame is being aware of it and and
2:27:46uh gaining a better awareness around your shame triggers your sources of shame and how you react
2:27:51to shame and all of that. Okay. So, I'm going to go through uh a couple of ways it's going to
2:27:55bring up some awareness and then we'll go through a few ways that you can deal with your shame. So,
2:27:59we just talked about the therapeutic modalities and that's if you need that obviously get to that
2:28:04stage too. This these are some things you can do just now in your own life and on your own. Um,
2:28:09so while I'm going through these, you know, write them down, just listen, whatever it is,
2:28:12or download the PDF guide at solpodcast.comame. You beat me to it. solpodcast.com/shame. You can
2:28:20figure this out, too. Okay, so the first kind of step here in understanding the programming,
2:28:26your shame programming, right? What are your shame triggers? So, the first question there
2:28:30is like what consistently triggers your shame? Now, is it is it failure? Now, that's a big one
2:28:36for me. Yeah. um conflict. There's a lot of people who like when they get into conflict,
2:28:41they feel shame around the conflict because they think they've done something wrong when it's just
2:28:45a a miscommunication. Maybe maybe at work you weren't chosen to be on this team or whatever
2:28:50it is because now you think you're a horrible person and you're not good at your job. All
2:28:53of that not being perfect. That's another one too. Big one for me too. Perfectionism, right?
2:28:59Go through what is it that consistently triggers your shame response. Again, if you're not really
2:29:04aware of your your shame though, if you if you avoid it a lot, this might be a a kind of a tough
2:29:09step. But really pay attention. Yeah. I I would say the things to look out for if you're you're
2:29:14unsure where where your shame is. I would look at uh where do you have a chip on your shoulder?
2:29:20Like where where do you what what triggers your anger? What makes you feel like you need to prove
2:29:24something to people? Uh what makes you feel sad irrationally? Um what makes you mopey and
2:29:31maybe a little bit depressed? withdrawal. Yeah. Where do you find yourself constantly needing
2:29:35validation from others? What are you constantly looking for approval for? And then finally,
2:29:41look at what are the things that really really make you want to check out and numb or distract
2:29:47yourself. Like so what are the moments like that make you want to go drink or go play video games
2:29:53or scrolling doom scroll on your phone for three hours? Like what what are the triggers for that
2:29:58as well? So it is just looking at where those behaviors will crop up consistently like that
2:30:06will probably be like an arrow pointing towards something you're shame shameful about. Yeah.
2:30:11And then I once you do kind of identify those triggers like to to start addressing them are
2:30:17they signaling like real harm or is it just like a cultural expectation or an expectation put on you
2:30:22by someone else that's not really serving you? Because I think again there's so like our shame
2:30:27systems are are highly tuned to social rejection within small groups because that meant death at
2:30:32one point. Today our shame systems seem to be like again they can be anything haywire. Okay. So just
2:30:39like does it make sense? And you know you're probably not going to resolve it right there
2:30:42but at least you're kind of planting the seed to say okay maybe this isn't serving me so well,
2:30:45right? Like who taught you that that that mistakes in that area mean that you are less than. Right?
2:30:52Like usually you can come up with a an explanation for okay this isn't really serving me here um even
2:30:59though this is triggering my shame a lot. Okay so that's the first step is the is noticing your
2:31:04shame triggers. Okay the next is like the shame intensity. This is like the volume knob. How how
2:31:09intensely do you feel shame? Um again if you try to avoid it a lot you probably don't feel it a lot
2:31:14but if you sit with it for a second it probably like it'll ramp up really quick. So like you know
2:31:18how loud is that shame? Um or or the other thing too is like do little things like you know missing
2:31:24a deadline or saying something kind of stupid in a social situation do those cause like a huge amount
2:31:31of shame or a huge shame response to you? Is it disproportional to like what's actually like the
2:31:36actual threat that's being uh levied upon you? So just a a quick small thing on that. Yeah. The
2:31:43funny thing is is that a person who has a lot of shame around something they would argue with you.
2:31:47They're like but it's not a small thing. It is. Oh, yeah. If you miss a deadline, that's that's
2:31:52huge. That's your reputation. That's that's people depending on you, you know. So, it's it's you have
2:31:56to and I I think we're going to talk about this in a minute, but it's like this ability to kind
2:32:00of zoom out and like see proportionality of like, okay, yes, missing a deadline. It's a bad thing,
2:32:07but like how bad is it? Like on a scale like is anybody dying? Is any is like is the world
2:32:13ending or or is it just like oh yeah, that's really annoying or you you let somebody down,
2:32:18you know? Right. Yeah. And we will we'll we will talk about how you kind of zoom out and we can
2:32:22address that a little bit more. Um the other thing on the intensity side is like how long
2:32:26does it last? So now you're getting an idea of your shame response, right? Does it does it stay
2:32:32around just for a few minutes, hours, days, weeks, years. You know, I go back sometimes, like I said,
2:32:39there's things I'm ashamed of that happened when I was in fifth grade or whatever it was. That's
2:32:43part of my shame response and that's something I I I have to be aware of. And do you confuse
2:32:48shame with guilt a lot too? So we've talked a lot about the difference between shame and guilt. And
2:32:53part of that is it comes into the intensity part because you know one of those again guilt is I did
2:32:58something wrong. Shame is I am a bad person. Which one do you kind of go towards? Because uh if you
2:33:03go more towards the shame I am a bad person. It's usually a lot more intense than that guilt feeling
2:33:07that you feel like you can actually address. Um knowing your shame patterns too. This really helps
2:33:12if you if you notice the physical sensations uh that you get around shame. So drop into your body.
2:33:18What is your shame response like? What is your shame pattern like? I know for me like I get the
2:33:22I get the blushing. I get like if I'm shameful, I get like red face. I remember when I was in
2:33:26I think it was like sixth or seventh grade. I was in a home class. They had just painted the
2:33:30uh the desks. They were like these desks where two people would sit at these tables basically is
2:33:34what they were. They just painted them this nice new paint and I carve my name into it, you know,
2:33:38like a real dumbass. Like who else would it be? It's the guy who wrote his name there. And I got
2:33:43like called out right in the middle of class, Mrs. Deetsz. She was so pissed off and I remember I I
2:33:48got really ashamed of it. My my uh friend turned to me and goes, "You are beat red right now."
2:33:53Really? Yeah. Yeah. So like noticing those kind of things, a tightness in your chest or numbness.
2:33:58I know I get like tingly. I get I get very my stomach just I feel like stomach issues are a
2:34:03common one too. I feel like nauseous like when I Yeah. And then from that like what what thoughts
2:34:08follow that too though, right? So this is part of your shame pattern as well like oh god I'm such
2:34:13an idiot. I'm worthless. I'm a piece of [ __ ] uh these people are going to leave, these people are
2:34:17going to hate me, I'm never going to I'm going to die alone. All of those things that follow from
2:34:21that. And then what is your behavioral sp response to that too, right? Do you like we talked about do
2:34:27you do you hide? Do you over apologize, overexlain things? Do you lash out in anger? Like um so
2:34:33understanding that what your shame pattern is can help you at any of those points too to kind of
2:34:39either stop it or step back and examine it, which we'll again we'll get here to there in a second.
2:34:44Okay. I make jokes. Oh yeah. Deflection. That's another one too. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. You try you try
2:34:49to minimize the shame by by making jokes about it or making light of it, saying it doesn't matter,
2:34:53dismissing it. Yeah. Yeah. That's a big one, too. Y. And then the last part of this awareness kind
2:34:59of uh uh menu we're going through here is the sources of your shame. Try to identify. So,
2:35:04we went through, you know, the development of shame. Maybe it was something early uh in your
2:35:08life where you got stuck in that. Um who can still trigger your shame now too? And can you tie that
2:35:15back to an earlier stage in your life? Like your parents maybe like just a look. Yeah, maybe. Yeah,
2:35:19maybe something like that. A comment that a spouse your spouse makes. Maybe um silence like people
2:35:25just like they're silent in a situation and that makes you like what's going on? Am I a
2:35:29bad person? Because they're not responding. Your parents, your bosses, your partners,
2:35:34some version of yourself from the past even too that might be kind of attacking you. Where where
2:35:39do where's your shame? Where's the big sources of shame in your life? Identify those. So again,
2:35:45this is a the first step in addressing those as well. Yeah, it's I want to add to that that like
2:35:52again your unconscious mind does not differentiate rationally between individuals. So like or time
2:35:59or time, right? So it's like let's say let's say you have a you had like a horrible experience with
2:36:04uh a boss when you were young and like extremely like just toxic workplace or something. You will
2:36:10probably have triggers around your shame with every boss that you have after that. And you will
2:36:15make assumptions and associations with every boss you. You could have the nicest boss in the world,
2:36:19but because of that piece of [ __ ] that you had when you were 15 or 18 or whatever, you will still
2:36:25make assumptions and associations. This also plays into effect uh in in marriages. Let's say
2:36:31one person in a marriage uh has like a deep trauma or a lot of shame like around their father. Well,
2:36:38to their unconscious mind, a father is a father. It doesn't It's not just their dad. It's like
2:36:43everybody's dad is just as awful and just as much of a piece of [ __ ] And so, they will get
2:36:47triggered around their father-in-law. They'll get triggered around uh you know, their their
2:36:52brother's father-in-law. They'll get triggered around their best friend's father. You know,
2:36:56it's like it's just this like class or category that lives in your unconscious mind that that can
2:37:01like, you know, set the trip wire at any moment, right? Yeah. and and kind of along with that. So
2:37:07these these sources and these people um that might trigger some of your shame uh in your life start
2:37:13to plant the seed here. Like do these people actually do they live by the values you want to
2:37:18be you want to live by that you respect that you want reflected back in your life? Like do they do
2:37:24they want your are they interested in your growth? Are they invested in your growth or they just want
2:37:28obedience from you too? Right? And so that starts to kind of plant the seed that we'll see later too
2:37:34about kind of tuning your own shame system to your own values. Okay. And that that starts with the
2:37:40sources of shame. Like have they actually earned the right to have that much emotional control
2:37:44over you? Start to ask those questions at this stage. Like why are you trying to prove something
2:37:48to them? Exactly. If you don't even respect their perspective exactly. Yeah. And you'll find that a
2:37:52a lot of times it's either people you don't know very well, so why bother? or they're people you
2:37:57don't really like too, so why bother at the same time? Just kind of planting the seed there. Okay.
2:38:03I mean, sorry to No, go ahead. Uh, again, that shows up with family stuff, too. Like, family
2:38:09stuff is huge ever around this world. Like, you you you see I see, and I did this for years, too.
2:38:14Like I see so many people spend so much energy and effort like trying to prove something to one of
2:38:20their parents or a sibling or whatever and it's like they've done it for so many years and it's
2:38:25so automatic to them and then if you actually sit down and talk to them it's like they don't respect
2:38:29that that family member's perspective at all. They don't like they don't identify with their values
2:38:35yet they're still trying to prove that they're right all these years later. I guess it was kind
2:38:39of a source of shame for me for a little while. But, you know, I'm a 40-year-old single guy,
2:38:42no kids, you know, never been married, all of that. And I there I actually haven't had
2:38:48a whole lot of like pressure from my family. Not my parents. My parents are like, you know,
2:38:51you do you. That's fine. We either way we accept that. But there's like people in my extended
2:38:56family who I know like I've heard comments either behind my back or to my face. And for a while, it
2:39:01kind of got at me. And then I realized I was like, "Oh god, you're in a horrible marriage yourself.
2:39:05Why would I care what you think about me? You know, that's so that was a small source of shame
2:39:10that I had for a little while. I'm completely over that now. I I don't care who thinks what
2:39:14about that about me. I think women get that really hard. Yeah. Yeah. Way more difficult for women.
2:39:19Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Both the marriage and the kid thing. It's like there's just so much pressure
2:39:23and shame that's like pushed on them around that. Yeah. You know, they've given up on me. So, yeah.
2:39:29Yep. I get it. You're You're just the eternal uncle Drew. That's right. I'm okay with that.
2:39:36Um, okay. So, those those four areas kind of like that's your your shame programming, right? The
2:39:41the triggers that you have, the intensity that you feel the shame, the patterns that you go through,
2:39:46and then the sources those those sources that you can identify. Okay. So, again, we're usually so
2:39:52often just trying to avoid shame that just this level of awareness, like getting this
2:39:57uh a grasp on this, that's going to take you a long long way in addressing your shame. And just
2:40:01being able to kind of like step outside of it and look at it. um a little bit detached, which
2:40:05is kind of what I want to talk about next. Okay, there's this kind of old stoic practice and they
2:40:12call it the view from above, right? So, if you would imagine yourself kind of leaving your body,
2:40:17we're going to get a little little out there. Are we getting woo woo woo? No, it's stoicism
2:40:22is not okay. This isn't woo woo if it's stoicism. Right. But they they had this practice of like you
2:40:29imagine you're leaving your body. You're you're viewing your body from above. Okay, you go through
2:40:33the ceiling. Oh, okay. Go out into the sky. Okay. Out into outer space. This is the woo woo part.
2:40:38Okay. But then you become one with the cosmos. Become one with the cosmos. But then turn around
2:40:44and look back. Look back at the planet. Look back. But before you become one with the universe,
2:40:49just look back at your physical body. One last look back to that little blue dot you see and
2:40:53and imagine yourself you're sitting back on the on Earth with your shame on this tiny little speck
2:40:58in the in the infinite universe. Right? This is what the Stoics called this this view from above.
2:41:03Okay. Uh Marcus Aurelius, the the famous Roman emperor, he used this technique. He he journaled
2:41:09about it in meditations, his his book, uh especially when shame hit. Now, you can
2:41:13he was at the time one of the most powerful men in the world. Um and he still felt shame around
2:41:18things. Now, the things he felt shame around were like what emperors felt shame about, right? But he
2:41:24would remind himself of this. He would do this and he would zoom way out and and just imagine that he
2:41:28was this tiny speck of dust, right? Mhm. And he realized that, you know, empires rise and empires
2:41:34fall. What seems to be a catastrophe in his life today would just turn into a footnote at best
2:41:41tomorrow most of the time. When you zoom out far enough, the lesson was all of these things that we
2:41:47tend to just obsess over just kind of disappear. And I know again this sounds a little like woo
2:41:53woo whatever but really when you do zoom out and if you can detach yourself from these like deep
2:41:59feelings of shame you start to realize just how trivial most of it is. Most of us are not of shame
2:42:03because we've murdered someone or you know caused really irreparable harm. It's usually over a
2:42:09stupid I said something stupid or I wore something weird or nobody nobody picked me for kickball when
2:42:16I was eight. Right. Zoom out a little bit. Yeah, it's it's okay. Well, you know what's cool? There
2:42:21there is not woo woo at all. There's a there's a thing with astronauts called the overview effect,
2:42:26which is that they find astronauts report that when they first get out into space and they see
2:42:32Earth from space, they have this feeling. They have this feeling of like, oh my god, like none
2:42:39of that [ __ ] matters. None of this stupid stuff. None of this stuff matters. Oh my god.
2:42:42Right. And it was actually really interesting on on our old podcast. I I had a chance to interview
2:42:47Katie Coleman and I asked her, I was like, "Is the overview effect the real thing?" And she was like,
2:42:50"Absolutely thing." Yeah. Yeah. You don't see You don't see all the shameful thing. You just see,
2:42:55oh my god, we're just this tiny little speck. Yeah. Just floating. And the universe really
2:43:01doesn't care if you you had this like terrible presentation at work. It doesn't care if you said
2:43:07that stupid thing in fifth grade that I obsess over still, right? It doesn't care if somebody
2:43:12didn't like your social media post or they posted some nasty comment on it. The universe might care
2:43:18though about whether you did the right thing, whether you lied or whether you were honest,
2:43:23whether you were cruel to someone or whether you were kind to them. If you betrayed the principles
2:43:28that you live by, that actually matters, right? Okay. Not that all that other little stuff. So,
2:43:34the zoom out kind of helps you with that. Yeah. Um, this is this is what the the Stoics they
2:43:39called it the gift of perspective. Yeah. Right. It doesn't mean your shame is meaningless. It doesn't
2:43:44mean it doesn't carry any weight. It doesn't mean it's not important. It doesn't mean you shouldn't
2:43:47pay attention to it. It just means that you need to have a stronger noise to signal ratio or signal
2:43:54to noise ratio is what it is. Feel shame when it's when you are deviating from your principles,
2:44:01from your values, from who you want to be. Yes. Sure. Forget the rest. Yeah. And that's really
2:44:06the biggest uh that the biggest takeaway from that that view from above. This takes some practice. It
2:44:12um if you do it repeatedly, you start to see it more and more. Um in the little thing,
2:44:16especially in the little things that that cause you shame. Um you know, like I talk
2:44:21about when growing up poor and that was shameful like that. It just doesn't matter now and it and
2:44:25it shouldn't. And I don't know, I've gained a lot of perspective from that anyway. Yeah. Yeah.
2:44:30Yeah. It's it's interesting. I think you can do this both from like kind of a physical zoom
2:44:35out and I think there's like a temporal zoom out as well. This reminds me of a story that
2:44:40uh uh like Will Smith told me once. He was talking about his divorce with his first wife and
2:44:46uh he was like devastated by it. She she filed for divorce from him and he was just absolutely
2:44:51devastated. like he his world was collapsing and um he became like really really depressed and and
2:44:58and like bummed out about it and like didn't know what to do and he started to like hire all these
2:45:03lawyers and she was hiring all these lawyers and like and they had a son and he was like well I'm
2:45:09going to fight her for for for my son and like I'm not giving her custody and she's not getting
2:45:15all my money and like all this stuff and it was it was about to get like really contentious and
2:45:18I remember he told me he was still doing Fresh Prince of Belair at the time and Quincy Jones
2:45:22who's the executive producer and Quincy Jones was divorced like five times and uh he was like having
2:45:28a really like you know panic attacks and all this stuff and so he was like having a really bad night
2:45:33one night and he like called up Quincy Jones and he was like man Quincy I'm getting divorced like
2:45:37I don't know what to do I'm like I'm a total wreck and and he's like what did what did you do Q like
2:45:43tell me what you did and Quincy's like oh man give her half your [ __ ] and just move down the street
2:45:49like he's like you're going to be best friends in 5 years. And he is now, right? Yeah. Yeah. Oh,
2:45:56they're really good friends now. And yeah, it's like Quincy was like he was like, "Yeah,
2:45:59man. Like half my ex-wives live on my street. Like I see them all the time." What was like Oh. Oh,
2:46:06okay. That's a lesson in perspective. Totally. You can you can make it horrible if you want to. If
2:46:12you want to. Yeah. You you can take the smallest thing and make it as big as you want, but you can
2:46:16also take a big thing and make it as small as you want. Right. Right. Yeah. Yeah. So that is again
2:46:21the gift of perspective. Now there's there are some other tools too I want to go over. I have
2:46:27like three or four of them here we can go through um that also really they're perspective shifting
2:46:33as well. So uh one of them is like the timeline technique and we've already kind of touched
2:46:38on this but you know when you are experiencing a shameful event ask just stop and ask yourself okay
2:46:44is this going to matter in 10 minutes 10 days 10 years. Yeah almost always at least two if not all
2:46:53three of those answers are going to be no to that. And so like it's it's not that your shame again
2:46:58it's not your shame isn't real in that moment. It's just that it's probably not worth your whole
2:47:02nervous system being dedicated to it and uh for an extended period of time. Right? This is actually
2:47:08this is similar to another stoic practice which is uh negative visualization. Yes. Which is like
2:47:13really sit and imagine the worst case scenario and then ask yourself how bad is the worst case scenar
2:47:21heard about it a long time ago but when I started using it I'm like oh that's not so bad. I I just
2:47:25imagine the worst absolute worst case scenario and almost always it's like oh that's not so
2:47:29bad. I can deal with that. Yeah. Yeah. I I think about this uh when I do public speaking,
2:47:34I've had like one nightmare public speaking gig. Oh yeah. In my career. We can go on. What was
2:47:38this? So like early when my first book took off, you know, all these like speaking gigs started
2:47:45coming in and like at the time like I you don't you don't know anything, right? So you I just
2:47:50started saying yes to everything. I was like, "Oh, wow. Okay, cool. Yeah, I'll take I'll take some
2:47:53money." Like give a talk for all this money. I'll talk for 30 minutes and take some money. And so
2:47:57I just started saying yes to everything. I didn't think about it. I didn't think about where it was,
2:48:01who who the audience was, like what who it was to. And so I I came up with like this like really kind
2:48:07of quirky, clever, funny talk based on my book uh that dropped fbombs everywhere and was making
2:48:13like all these silly jokes and you know, all this stuff. It was basically it was a talk made for my
2:48:17audience not understanding that most of the people who were going to be hiring me to come speak were
2:48:23going to be like corporations uh you know like of industry groups conferences you know all sorts of
2:48:31different different people that like I had no awareness of. So anyway, it was like there was
2:48:37kind of this learning period early on where I had done understand of like oh okay when like uh you
2:48:42know some industry conference brings you in like you should probably ask like figure out who they
2:48:48are and then like adjust your speech or your talk based on who they are. I I hadn't figured that out
2:48:53yet. And so I remember I got invited to uh uh like it was like the insurance broker convent like the
2:49:02Tennessee insurance broker convention or something like that. Like it was just like the most most
2:49:07mundane corporate [ __ ] Let's bring the guy with the [ __ ] book in Exactly. They're asking for it
2:49:13at that point. Seriously. Well, and this is the funny thing like another thing I didn't understand
2:49:17at the time is that people who book speakers uh often have nothing to do with the event. So
2:49:23like a lot of times what the event will do is that they will just go hire an agency and they
2:49:27will say go get us five speakers and the agency won't know [ __ ] about the organization either.
2:49:32So the the agency is like well I love that Mark Manson guy. He's really funny like let's go get
2:49:37him. Some guy read your book and he like didn't know. Exactly. That's exactly what happened. So
2:49:42uh so the the you know the insurance broker the insurance broker association of Tennessee like
2:49:47also didn't know what I that I was coming or what I was about. So anyway, uh as you can imagine,
2:49:55I get I get there. It's it's in like Knoxville, Tennessee or something. And uh as you can imagine,
2:50:00insurance brokers in Tennessee do not have the same perspective on life that I do. And they
2:50:05do not speak the same way that I do. And they do not find the same things funny that I do. And so I
2:50:11proceeded to go up there and give this talk just like laden with f-bombs, disappointment panda.
2:50:19Like I was I was like ripping on Trump. Like I was doing all this stuff and just like the
2:50:24room is dead silent the entire time. It's like wallto-wall dudes in business suits like twiddling
2:50:32their thumbs looking at me like how long how much longer do I have to sit through this before this
2:50:37guy gets off the stage. It was awful. You could hear a pin drop. And uh and I survived. It was
2:50:43fine. Yeah. Now you know what like comedians who bomb feel like, right? And they they carry
2:50:48on. And they're like, "This isn't going to matter in 10 days. I'm on to my next one." As mortifying
2:50:52as it went, like I could not wait to get out of that building. Like as soon as I came off stage,
2:50:56like be it. I was like, "I'm getting I'm going straight to the airport, right?" You know,
2:51:00and I I don't ever want to see these people again. But it's funny cuz it's like ever since then,
2:51:04anytime I have to like get up on stage or give a big talk or like go to a big event or something,
2:51:09I just remind myself of the insurance brokers in Tennessee. Like it can't be that bad. There's
2:51:16It's impossible to be worse than that. Okay. Okay. Well, okay. So, so somewhat related to
2:51:23this one then too is actually what they call the deathbed test. Okay. Okay. So, Oh, I like this.
2:51:28Yeah. Imagine yourself at 90 looking back. What do you wish you would have done more of? Like,
2:51:34um most people this age are going to say like, "Oh, I'm I'm so glad I never looked awkward."
2:51:39You know, like you can't imagine that. When I I talked to June Tangnney, she's done some work
2:51:43with the elderly, too. And she's like, I'm went into nursing homes with a bunch of 90-year-olds,
2:51:48you know, to 100 year olds, and I asked them about shame and guilt and stuff like that. I was like,
2:51:52you know, what do you what do you still feel shame about or whatever. And she's like,
2:51:55the vast vast majority of them will say shame. I I don't have time for that. Yeah. Who gives a
2:52:00[ __ ] Like, I don't care that, you know, that stupid thing I did, whatever. Like,
2:52:03I care that I had a good family life or that I tried this thing or that thing or whatever it was.
2:52:09They don't regret, you know, you they don't regret loving somebody deeply and and being hurt by it.
2:52:15They don't regret that. They don't feel ashamed by that at all. Um they don't feel shame about
2:52:20speaking up when they should have. They don't feel shame about taking big risks, you know, or making
2:52:25a mess of something and then having it turn out okay. Like they don't feel shame about the things
2:52:29that you think they would. It just doesn't happen. So if you can kind of imagine that, and I've done
2:52:35this before, too. You imagine, okay, I'm old. I'm on my deathbed. Shame is not going through my head
2:52:40at all. It's just not. Yeah. And and and hopefully you you can get to the point where you're not you
2:52:45feel that same too. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I'm reminded of another story. Yeah. Just the elderly thing
2:52:49because I I do think this come kind of comes back to like the temporal zooming out, right? It's like
2:52:54I think I think in a lot of ways what wisdom is is just like being around long enough to know what
2:52:59actually matters and what doesn't. Yes. And uh it reminds me of like I remember uh in college so I
2:53:04wrote about in subtle art how like my my college my first girlfriend like left me and cheated on me
2:53:09and then left me and it was yeah my my 20-year-old heart was absolutely devastated. It was funny. I
2:53:15remember I went and visited my grandmother. Uh it was either at Thanksgiving or Christmas
2:53:20that next Thanksgiving or Christmas. And um my my grandmother like lived a pretty wild life. Like
2:53:24she was a she was a wild woman. And and I remember I hadn't seen her in a while. And so she was like
2:53:30asking me, she's like, "How's college?" And you know, "Do you have a girlfriend?" or whatever. And
2:53:34I like I was like, "Oh, I had a girlfriend, but it ended horribly." And she was like, "Oh, no, honey.
2:53:38Like, tell me about it." And I like told her the whole story, like this whole heart-wrenching like,
2:53:43"Oh, I thought we were going to be together forever." And I we were long distance and I was
2:53:48driving hours to go see her and all this stuff. And then it's like, and then she was cheating on
2:53:53me and then she left me and I now I'm devastated and I'm never going to love anybody again.
2:53:58And I remember I was like at the time I was shocked because she like she just looked at me and
2:54:02she smiled and she was like that's wonderful. And like she really meant it. Like she actually meant
2:54:09it. Like she was like she's like I know you're hurt but like it's wonderful you're going through
2:54:13this. Like that was kind of her attitude towards it. And uh now that I'm older like I get it. It's
2:54:19it's like yeah, you're living like you're you're you're getting to the both the joy of your first
2:54:26love and the incredible disappointment of losing it. Like that is May you be so lucky. Exactly.
2:54:32Exactly. Exactly. So, we're going to wrap up with kind of like what the process of alleviating shame
2:54:39looks like. And I I do think that is kind of the end point is almost this like gratitude for living
2:54:46through it. We talked earlier a little bit about pride. I think it's kind of adjacent to that,
2:54:50but it's it's kind of like a uh it's like you said, you know, or or Jun Tangi said with with
2:54:56the elderly people, it's like it's just this like satisfaction of like, yeah, I got to live
2:54:59through that. Like that's that's part of who I am. That was part of it. Yeah. Yeah. No,
2:55:04for sure. Related to that then too is this next one, the the what I'm going to call the universal
2:55:09human test. Okay. We've we've already mentioned this to some extent. Shame is not a signal that
2:55:16you're broken, that you're there's something wrong with you. It's a signal that you're a human being.
2:55:20It's a very ingrained part of our nature. Uh it shows you care and and I know it's like,
2:55:27oh caring about what other people think, but you should care about what some people think at least.
2:55:32And the the point is to fine-tune that system. But the whole point is is that this is part of being
2:55:37human is that you make mistakes that you know maybe you do I don't know fall apart in public
2:55:42and cry or or you whatever you forget somebody's name at a party you say something stupid you wear
2:55:48something stupid you have you have this ugly body that you know farts and poops and pukes
2:55:55and breaks out and all that right I definitely do let me tell you about it best part of being human
2:56:04though that just that makes you human. It doesn't make you broken. It doesn't make you some alien
2:56:08species. I mean, I would go further. Having a dysfunctional family is there human. Having
2:56:13health problems is human. Um having your heart broken is human. You know, suffering trauma is
2:56:19human. Like nobody gets through life without suffering trauma at some point, you know. So,
2:56:23it it's it is Yeah. The the the common humanity piece is is extremely important, right? Yeah.
2:56:30The last one and maybe maybe the most important though too is the growth question. Okay. Um is
2:56:37the shame that you're experiencing is it helping you grow or is it keeping you stuck? So we've
2:56:42talked about the difference between that healthy shame and the toxic shame. Right? Healthy shame is
2:56:47um you know I did something that doesn't reflect who I am. Now how can I do better in the future?
2:56:52That's a healthy form of shame. Yeah. Um toxic shame just says I'm a piece of [ __ ] and I'm not
2:56:57even going to try. So one leads to like repair, the other one leads to paralysis. So being able
2:57:04to kind of nudge yourself one way or the other. Try not to get stuck in that. We just talked
2:57:08about the developmental stages you might get stuck in. Be aware of that. Know the difference
2:57:13um there between the healthy shame and the and the toxic shame. And try to if you can just
2:57:18start nudging yourself more and more towards that healthy shame. Is it helping you or not? Because
2:57:22if it's not helping you, then this is something you need to address, right? Yeah. So, those are
2:57:26kind of the the four other techniques techniques on top of the view from above that we talked
2:57:31about that can really help you start to address your shame in in lots of different contexts too,
2:57:37in lots of different situations that you might be finding yourself in. Yeah. Cool. Yeah.
2:57:45So, the way I'd like to wrap this up is, you know, usually we do like an 8020
2:57:50uh at the end of episodes where we talk about the the 20% of the advice or or content that will
2:57:55get you 80% of the the result. That doesn't feel completely appropriate for this one just because
2:58:00probably because it's not talked about a whole lot. It's not like procrastination where there's
2:58:04like literally a million pieces of advice to sift through. Shame is pretty much like there's kind
2:58:10of just one track you're on and it points in one direction and everybody kind of goes through it.
2:58:14And so I I would like to wrap up with just kind of walking through what the process of alleviating
2:58:21shame looks like, what the experience is like at each stage. Um, and kind of relate it back
2:58:27to a lot of the different things that we've talked about throughout the episode. And I also want to,
2:58:32I guess, just preface this by saying that like this process, it this is like this is not
2:58:37something you solve in a month or a year. Uh, this is a multi-year process. I think if you talk to
2:58:44anybody about like a a significant shame in their life that they've overcome or worked through,
2:58:49it is something that it has taken them many many many years if not a decade or more. Definitely.
2:58:56Yeah. When I was looking at like okay what is a kind of coherent framework to we've talked about
2:59:03all these different modalities we've got all these different exercises and toolkits different kind of
2:59:07stoic practices. Um we've got the developmental angle, we have uh you know all the evolutionary
2:59:15understanding like what is a framework that uh can house everything in kind of a coherent way that
2:59:20people can kind of move through. So just like full disclosure, this is a framework I made up myself.
2:59:26Um but I think it's pretty cool. So there's this framework of of skill acquisition which is like
2:59:32whenever you're trying to pick up a new skill or learn something, you start at unconscious
2:59:36incompetence. So basically you suck at it and you don't realize how much you suck. And from
2:59:40there the first step is to move into uh conscious incompetence which is basically you understand how
2:59:46bad you are at it and what you need to do to get better. And then from there you move to conscious
2:59:50competence which is like you understand how to do it well but you still have to think about it and
2:59:55focus on it. And then from there you move into unconscious competence which is that you're good
3:00:00at it and you don't have to think about it. It's automatic. You've built all the right habits and
3:00:04uh and skills. So, I'd like to apply that to shame, which is that it kind of this four-step
3:00:09process of unconscious shame to conscious shame to conscious acceptance to unconscious acceptance.
3:00:18Like that's the path that we want to get through. So, the first stage would be unconscious shame.
3:00:22And this is what we've talked about quite a bit where it's like you have these these wounds,
3:00:28these traumas, this pain, this shame that you're harboring and carrying around with you and you're
3:00:35not even aware of it. And basically, this is kind of your default state of feeling ashamed
3:00:39of yourself. And your triggers are automatic. Your identity is completely tied to it. You don't see
3:00:47any of the contradictions or faulty assumptions that you're operating off of. It's like this is
3:00:51just the water you're swimming in. Life sucks in this certain way and that's the way it's going to
3:00:57be. And the goal with the first stage is to simply get you to be aware. And I think a lot of the
3:01:02tools that you just talked through um are a useful way to do that. Um asking yourself questions about
3:01:10where do you what situations do you find yourself lashing out in? Where do you feel like you have
3:01:14a chip on your shoulder? Who are you constantly seeking validation from? Who do you feel insecure
3:01:19around? Um what situations or contexts trigger a lot of negative selft talk? Um when are you
3:01:27like very hard on yourself or judging of yourself? And just like make note of those things. I think
3:01:33there are different methods to do this. I think journaling can be a really useful method uh to
3:01:38to try to find these things. Obviously therapy is very good for this. Um, if you're like really a
3:01:44blank slate and just have no idea, you just feel bad all the time, you have no idea why, you know,
3:01:49it's you probably something more like a Freudian or Rogerian therapy is going to be useful. If
3:01:54you have a little bit of an idea of where your shame is or where your wounds are, then probably
3:01:58something more modern like an IFS or a CBT might be a little bit more helpful. But basically,
3:02:05it's it's the goal in stage one is to just get the conversation started with yourself. Where are
3:02:11my weak points? Where are my triggers? What sets me off? Where do I feel inadequate all the time?
3:02:17What situations make me bad? What people make me feel bad? And and just start ask, you know,
3:02:22trying to look at why. Also look at compulsive behaviors. Uh if you're drinking a lot, if you're
3:02:28partying a lot, if you're doing drugs a lot, like what are you avoiding? What are you avoiding? Like
3:02:34what what contexts are you like inspire you to feel that way? Um there are an infinite number of
3:02:41ways to avoid yourself in your life. Um and there are in this day and age it's it's easier than ever
3:02:47to indulge in compulsive behaviors. So one of the most useful things you can actually do is
3:02:52like if you feel like you might be doing something compulsively just remove it from your life for a
3:02:56few weeks and see what happens. A see if you can first of all just see if you can't like that's a
3:03:03[ __ ] problem. And then B, see what emotions come up, right? Like, you know, put the PlayStation
3:03:09away for a month and see what happens when you like sit by yourself and try to read a book or
3:03:16uh give up alcohol for 30 days and see if you can actually do it. A, it might be harder than
3:03:20you think and then and then B, it's it's stuff will probably come up. This is something that
3:03:25I noticed without expecting it. Uh when I was trying to lose weight, I had a real hard on. We
3:03:31did a full episode on the old podcast on my weight loss journey. I hit a point in that journey where
3:03:36there were like certain foods that like I just really had a hard time not compulsively eating
3:03:41or like I I would kind of get these like frantic triggers of like no no, I have to have I have to
3:03:46have this or like I have to have I can't go to bed hungry or I have to have a snack. I have to have
3:03:51this much protein or whatever. Uh, and I would get like actually like very anxious and worked
3:03:55up about it. And um, and I remember talking to my coach at the time and he was just he just started
3:04:01asking me. He's like, "What like what are the emotions behind that?" And uh, and I was like,
3:04:07"Honestly, it's like panic." He was like, "That's really interesting actually. Like where do you
3:04:11think that comes from?" And he and I, like he's not a therapist or anything, but like he and I
3:04:14like we had a good 20 30 minute conversation where we realized that like when I was a kid
3:04:19and my home life was falling apart, my parents stopped cooking and there were like there were
3:04:24like literally days where like it'd be 7:30 and there's no food anywhere and I'm like, you know,
3:04:31I'm like 11 years old and I'm hungry and I have no idea like I I don't know how to feed myself.
3:04:37I I would like start digging through the fridge and like start looking for things to eat. And
3:04:41and so like I I think I I developed like a pretty [ __ ] up relationship with food. Um just because
3:04:48of like the unpredictability it ended up having in my childhood. And um and of course food is
3:04:56another way to numb and distract yourself and um and and and indulle pain and everything. And I I
3:05:02think there was a lot of that involved in it as well. But it like that's that's just an example
3:05:06just from like the last few years of my life of realizing like wow yeah I do actually I'm
3:05:10I am a I'm like very compulsive around certain foods and then b like there's emotion tied up
3:05:16in that like there's like baggage there. Yeah. Yeah. So once you start figuring these sorts of
3:05:21things out this will lead you in stage two which is the conscious shame. So it's basically it's
3:05:25like you have the shame you know there's something [ __ ] up going on. You still haven't really done
3:05:31anything about it and you don't know what to do. don't know what to do with it. You you feel it,
3:05:35you know it's there, it's holding you back, messing up your life, but like, oh my god,
3:05:40what do I do? This is where I think uh Bnee Brown's framework really like shines. So,
3:05:45she has this like four-part process that she recommends that people go through. The first
3:05:49one is name it. Uh, we did a whole episode on emotions a few months ago and we we had a whole
3:05:55section about like the power of naming emotions and how it like lessens their power over you and
3:06:02it helps you like manage manage them and deal with them and this like crazy intersection that
3:06:06happens between like linguistic understanding and emotional experience. Naming your emotions
3:06:10is just across the board one of the most useful things you can do, you know, and whether that's
3:06:15through journaling or therapy or talking to a friend or whatever. It's just like knowing how
3:06:19to describe what you're feeling is just one of the most helpful things for any problem.
3:06:25So step one in her framework is name it. Second one is claim it, which is this is the ownership,
3:06:30right? This is the let's say I feel awful around my dad. I feel like he makes me miserable. Um we
3:06:37have a horrible relationship. Whatever. uh just owning that like it it there's such a especially
3:06:43when you're ashamed there's like there's just this tendency to want to be like it's his fault it's
3:06:47his fault he he sucked as a father uh I deserve better blah blah blah you know turn that around
3:06:55and say well this is the this is the father I have so like what am I going to do with it like
3:07:00this is I need to own this because part of this relationship is mine and I can't just sit around
3:07:07forever hoping and waiting for him to change. Right? So claim it, decide that it's yours,
3:07:14decide that you're responsible for it, that you you are empowered to do something about it. And
3:07:18then the next step in a framework is reframe it. So this is anything from the classic like,
3:07:23you know, saying, "Oh, I I I'm an anxious mess." Say, "No, I'm a person who has a lot of anxiety."
3:07:30Um, you know, not labeling your identity with things. Not fusing your identity with it. Yeah.
3:07:36Yeah. like really drawing that separation between what you experience and who you are. Um, you're
3:07:41not a failure. You are just somebody who failed at a thing. Um, you're not unlovable. You're just
3:07:47somebody who is not in a relationship right now. Um, and and like find the healthier versions of
3:07:55stating the same thing. I think this is really where the Albert Ellis stuff kind of shines.
3:08:00um really examining uh some of your assumptions uh or or questioning some of the the beliefs that
3:08:07you're carrying around, some of the stories that you're carrying around. Um CBT also has
3:08:12um a list of cognitive distortions that tend to show up uh around people who are struggling
3:08:17with anxiety or depression. I would say that those cognitive distortions probably show up a lot with
3:08:21pe with people with shame as well. Uh one of them is uh catastrophization. Uh one of them is black
3:08:28and white thinking. You know, these are things that people tend to buy into without realizing it,
3:08:34without questioning. U whereas if you zoom out and start asking yourself, well, wait a second,
3:08:39is this really is is bombing this talk really is bad? Like, is this really going to [ __ ] up my
3:08:44career? No, it's not. Um, is breaking up with my partner like really going to ruin my love life
3:08:50for the rest of my life? No, it's not. I'm not always gonna feel this way. Like, yeah. Exactly.
3:08:55Exactly. And then finally, the the last step in her framework is reach out. Reach out to people
3:09:00uh in in your support network. Re reach out to people who understand what you're going through,
3:09:04who can empathize or sympathize, who care, um who are who are willing to listen. Basically,
3:09:09get that emotional and social support. You know, in our emotion episode,
3:09:13we talked about how important relationships are for emotional regulation. I think with shame,
3:09:18it's doubly so because uh not only is shame like experienced emotionally as something that's like
3:09:23very unpleasant and difficult to deal with, but shame originates in social experience.
3:09:29So having that social support is like a double whammy of benefit. Like not only are you getting
3:09:34emotionally supported in the moment, but you're also getting validated by somebody that like, hey,
3:09:39you're not [ __ ] up, you're not a bad person, you still do, you deserve love and affection.
3:09:45Um, so yeah, definitely like reach out, look for people who will be supportive. Yeah, shame is a
3:09:49social problem, so it needs a social solution to it, too. Like just like an emotional problem needs
3:09:53an emotional solution, not an intellectual one. Correct. You have to have that social side to it
3:09:57at the end of the day. Yeah. The goal with this stage is really just, you know, now that you're
3:10:02aware of the irrationality and the compulsivity in your life um is recognizing how unsustainable it
3:10:09is that like you you can't continue this way. it's ultimately just going to be self-destructive. Um,
3:10:15and and there are all sorts of different ways that this can show up for people, right? Like,
3:10:19you know, so I mean, for somebody who's an addict, obviously like addiction is unsustainable. But for
3:10:25somebody who is a codependent and trying to people please everybody, make everybody happy
3:10:29all the time, that's unsustainable. You can't maintain that for the rest of your life. Somebody
3:10:33who's a perfectionist, wants to do everything right and correct and never fail at anything,
3:10:37that's unsustainable. So like however the shame is showing up for you like I think the big
3:10:43understanding and realization of stage two is like is really getting that like this cannot continue.
3:10:51I have to act differently. I have to do something different in my life and I have to find different
3:10:56people. And then that leads us into stage three which is the conscious acceptance. I think
3:11:02conscious acceptance is probably like the hardest stage of this whole process. This is the work.
3:11:07Yeah. This is the work. This is like This is like the thankless clocking the hours in in the coal
3:11:14mine to like dig yourself out of a bunch of [ __ ] It's It's kind of easy to get stuck in stage two
3:11:19actually. I think. Yeah, you're right. Because stage three is so hard. It is the work. Yeah,
3:11:22it is the work. I also think I mean and this isn't just with shame. I think this is just
3:11:28personal growth in general. Like there's a sense of accomplishment that comes with awareness and
3:11:33a lot of people get satisfied with that. It's a false sense of accomplishment, right? It's it's
3:11:37you know it's it's like the person who goes to a 5day seminar and like learns all these things
3:11:42about themselves and then goes home and does the exact same [ __ ] they did before they left. It's
3:11:47uh awareness isn't really worth anything until it like changes behavior. Um and stage three
3:11:53is where the behavioral change comes in. I think this is the hardest stage for two reasons. One is
3:11:58uh a it takes courage. The nature of shame is that it causes you to think that something is wrong
3:12:05when it's not. And so to act despite that requires a lot of a lot of courage. It it requires like a
3:12:13certain amount of faith that like this is going to make things better. It doesn't feel like it. It
3:12:18doesn't feel like anything's going to get better. It feels like things are going to get worse,
3:12:21but like I have to do this uh otherwise nothing is is going to change or get better. And then
3:12:29the problem is is that even once you've done it, it still doesn't really feel better. Like like
3:12:33I think a lot of people uh and I think this is wishful thinking but I think a lot of people like
3:12:38there there's this desire for this like kind of joyous epiphany of like oh my god I struggled for
3:12:44years with drugs and alcohol and then one day I decided I need to be different and I've been happy
3:12:49ever since and it's like no it doesn't work that way like it's still in fact in many cases because
3:12:56you're removing yourself from uh an environment or certain behaviors like it it gets even harder
3:13:02because It's it's now you're in new territory. Now you're like dealing with feelings and thoughts
3:13:08that you've never dealt with before. Maybe you've removed yourself from people uh that you're used
3:13:13to being around and so you don't know how to to cope without having them there. Um and so you kind
3:13:20of end up with this like intellectual emotional schism. And uh you know, we talked to Jess earlier
3:13:25in the episode and and I she described this really well of like intellectually she knows she's doing
3:13:31the right thing, but it's like emotionally it's still hard and it's still like there's this lag
3:13:36time that persists for for years uh before it's like your new sense of self kind of catches up
3:13:43with uh the choices that you've made. Right. The progress doesn't feel like progress at this point,
3:13:48right? Because again, like you said, it's these are things you've never felt before.
3:13:51So you don't it doesn't feel like progress, right? And it's and and it's like, you know,
3:13:56ultimately shame is it's tied to the self-concept and self-concept doesn't change quickly or easily.
3:14:02Like it's there's a there's an inertia to it, right? So it's like if you've if you've seen
3:14:06yourself as a worthless piece of [ __ ] for for 25 years, that's not going to change in a week or or
3:14:14or even a year, right? like you there's going to be residue of that for many years and it's
3:14:19going to be like a very slow gradual process to come out of it. Uh I think the the other reason
3:14:25this this part is so hard is that it forces very difficult trade-offs in your life. Um you're often
3:14:31forced to give up friendships, relationships, uh careers, hobbies, interests. It can suck. It's
3:14:40like there's a lot of collateral damage that can often happen. I know like when I quit drinking,
3:14:46the hardest thing for me wasn't actually giving up drinking. It was being bored. Like feeling like I
3:14:53had nothing to do. Like I I I hadn't realized or appreciated the the extent that like my entire
3:15:00social life revolved around drinking. Like pretty much everything I did for fun, I drank while I did
3:15:05it. And then when I stopped drinking, like 80% of that [ __ ] stopped being fun, right? So I'm like,
3:15:11"Oh, what do I do now? So, I was just bored. I was like intensely bored for like 12 or 18 months.
3:15:18And it was it was like very difficult to deal with. And it was and again to the self-concept
3:15:23piece like it was very disorienting and trying to understand who I was without alcohol. Like
3:15:31wow. Like a lot of the things I enjoyed doing I don't enjoy doing anymore. A lot of the people I
3:15:35enjoyed hanging out with I don't enjoy hanging out with anymore. So like who the [ __ ] am I? like
3:15:41you you need that time to like rediscover who the new version of yourself is and that's very hard.
3:15:47Uh there is a framework that we haven't totally we haven't talked about yet. It's almost like the the
3:15:53modern version of Carl Rogers uh person- centered therapy and that's Kristen Nef's self-compassion
3:15:58framework which I know you're a huge fan of. Um so basically uh you know like the super quick version
3:16:05of this is that for decades psychologists have talked about self-esteem um which is basically
3:16:10you know having high self-regard believing good things about yourself and I think psychologists
3:16:17you know they saw that they looked at people who suffered a lot were very depressed high anxiety
3:16:23um and they saw that they had very low self-regard I think in many ways shame is very similar to low
3:16:29self-esteem like they there's like a pretty big overlap there. Um the problem is is that there
3:16:34are plenty of people with high self-regard who are uh miserable pieces of [ __ ] So it's self-esteem
3:16:40like the the outcomes of high self-esteem are like not what they were thought to be initially. Uh,
3:16:47and so in the late 2000s, uh, Kristen Nef came out with her work around self-compassion, which,
3:16:52um, she proposes like probably a better measure of like how somebody really feels about themsel,
3:16:58which is essentially it's not looking at, uh, how how good you feel about yourself. Uh, it's it's
3:17:04like how compassionate are you with yourself, especially when things are not going well,
3:17:09right? Because what you find is that a lot of people with high self-esteem, when things don't go
3:17:13well, they get very upset and they they like blame themselves, blame others, like lash out at people.
3:17:19Whereas like somebody high in self-compassion, they'll be like relatively steady and stable
3:17:25during hard times. Uh and so there are three parts of self-compassion. First one is mindfulness,
3:17:30which is just the self-awareness piece. Second one is kind self-t talk. Um she talks a lot about how
3:17:35like talk to yourself the way you talk to your best friend. Like most people talk to themselves
3:17:40horribly. Uh they're like insanely critical and judgmental. But if you think about like
3:17:45imagine your best friend was going through the same problem like what would you say to them to
3:17:49encourage them and support them? Okay, now say that to yourself. And then the third one is we
3:17:54talked about the common humanity piece. It's just like understanding that like there is
3:17:57no such thing as a personal problem. Like every single problem that exists is being experienced
3:18:03by thousands if not millions of people uh on the planet. And like there's nothing special or unique
3:18:09about what you're going through. And that's a good thing because it it means that there's
3:18:13nothing uniquely wrong with you or or or broken with you or whatever. So yeah, the conscious
3:18:19acceptance piece is really it's about stepping into that new life, finding the social support,
3:18:25people who will validate that new life, and then really just letting time take its course and like
3:18:29practicing that self-acceptance, the self the self-compassion, you know, not falling back
3:18:35into the compulsive behaviors and the avoidance behaviors and the, you know, the lashing out. Um,
3:18:42and really really trying to stay on the straight and narrow um over the long haul. And that
3:18:47eventually ideally gets you to stage four, which is just the unconscious acceptance. And I think
3:18:53really, you know, we when Masa was on here, we talked a little bit about the the pride of like,
3:18:58you know, the thing that she was ashamed of early in her life, now she's very proud of. And I think,
3:19:03you know, when I when I look at some of the things that I was ashamed of in my life, I I don't know
3:19:10if pride like some of them I there is some pride, but I'll give you an example of something I don't
3:19:15I'm not proud of, but I'm still like I'm happy I went through. Yeah. Um you've accepted it. Yeah.
3:19:23Yeah. So, I had a lot of shame around sex and women when I was young. A lot. And a lot of that
3:19:30has to do I mean probably dysfunctional family life. Um you know I spent my whole adolescence
3:19:37with a single mom and then first love cheated on me left me. So it was just like a series of like
3:19:44very kind of unhealthy dynamics in my early life particularly around women. Um, and it's, you know,
3:19:52I came out of that breakup, uh, extremely hurt, lots of shame, lots of feelings of inadequacy,
3:19:59failure, um, lots of anger, lots of lashing out, like lots of like, women are the problem, you
3:20:08know, all women are like, oh, they're such they're so selfish, they're such [ __ ] all this stuff.
3:20:12And I went through like a very ugly period of um I guess like it's interesting like it was both
3:20:21womanizing but also like intense uh resentment and avoidance. Like it it was a very weird thing.
3:20:31And I think shame causes this dichotomy in a lot of people, right? where it's like you're kind of
3:20:35obsessed about something and and your whole life revolves around it, but you're also like resentful
3:20:41of that obsession and and like kind of hate the fact that you love this thing so much. And
3:20:47I definitely felt that way around like women and sex and dating. Like I just I I had an unhealthy
3:20:55relationship with romantic relationships. Like I was obsessed with them. I was constantly dating
3:21:03tons of women. I was cheating on most of them. Um, anytime any of them wanted to get close to me,
3:21:10I like just bailed. I was very selfish. I was not compassionate. I was I was a awful boyfriend. Uh,
3:21:18and and at the time I kind of didn't care. It was just like it's like this hole in it was
3:21:23like trying to put water in a bucket with a hole in the bottom. Like it just I had I just had to
3:21:27keep pouring, you know? I couldn't stop to like look at what was going on cuz I had to go find
3:21:31more water to pour in my bucket eventually like that obviously like I I just kind of like left
3:21:38this war path of failed and and and dissatisfied relationships behind me and after enough years
3:21:48passed you know you basically when it comes to relationships especially romantic relationships
3:21:53like there's this there's this realization that I think hits most dysfunctional people at some point
3:21:57where it's like you it's it you reach a point where it's impossible to deny that like you're the
3:22:03problem, you know, like at at a certain point it's like all of your [ __ ] up exes, they only have
3:22:10one thing in common and that's you. And wow, like how what are the chances that every single person
3:22:17that you happen to like get with is like [ __ ] up in the exact same way for every woman on the
3:22:22planet. Yeah. Like it's like you know coming back to challenging you know Albert Ellis challenging
3:22:28faulty assumptions pointing out contradictions like uh pointing out where like beliefs are
3:22:33not realistic. Um you know I I I definitely had some like hard and sobering moments around that.
3:22:40And I also just realized like how unsatisfying it was. Like I think I eventually, you know, through
3:22:45quite a bit of therapy and working on myself and I mean it was to the point where like my career
3:22:50I became a dating coach because I was so obsessed with this and uh and through my work as a dating
3:22:55coach and like reading and studying everything around relationships and understanding it and
3:23:00like going to therapy and then also like just the track like the horrible track record of uh failed
3:23:06commitments. I finally kind of came into stage three of realizing like uh I can't keep doing
3:23:13this like I have to do something differently. And um I had like very intense attachment issues,
3:23:22lots of avoidance. And uh I remember, you know, I was 27, 28, and I I realized I'm like, "Okay,
3:23:30I think I need a relationship." And whoever it is, like I'm going to do it right this time.
3:23:37Like I'm not going to not going to be a selfish piece of [ __ ] Not going to cheat. I'm not going
3:23:42to like just bail whenever I feel like it. I'm gonna stick around and it's gonna suck, but like
3:23:48I'm gonna stick with it as as long as like I I like her and you know there's not a problem. I'm
3:23:54not going to create one. That was the agreement I made with myself is like if there's not a problem,
3:23:58don't create one. If there's a problem, okay, cool. You can bail, you can do, you know,
3:24:02you can break up. You can do whatever you you need to do, but if there's not a problem, don't don't
3:24:06make one. And it was funny cuz the next couple women I dated, like it was really really hard.
3:24:13Like it was very unsatisfying. Like it like fighting those urges and proclivity like it would
3:24:18just like uh this sucks. This is this is boring. I kind of want to go but I wouldn't let myself. And
3:24:27then uh you know and then finally I you know shortly after that I met my wife and and you
3:24:32know through the early period of our dating like I worked through a lot of that stuff but eventually
3:24:38you know you you come out the other side and as you talked about early in the episode like I think
3:24:43the healthy place that you land is like you don't you don't feel a need to avoid it but you also
3:24:49don't need to indulge it. you know, if like peak shame is both obsession mixed with resentment,
3:24:56like peak health is just like acknowledging without needing to to indulge. And um you know,
3:25:03I look at that period of my life. I I think I do have a healthy amount of shame around a lot of my
3:25:07behavior when I was young. Um there's definitely some regrets in there, but I also like I don't
3:25:15know. I don't revel in it. I don't obsess over it. It doesn't eat me up. Yeah. It's not it's not
3:25:21uh it's not avoiding it. It's not indulging it. It's accepting it at a certain degree. And that's
3:25:26kind of the goal the self-compassion, right? The goal of self-compassion is self-acceptance around
3:25:31these things. And that's Yeah. That's where you land. I think that's where you want to end up.
3:25:35And it's interesting too cuz it's like when I was kind of working through stage three, there
3:25:39was a period I I actually remember it distinctly. So when my wife and I got engaged, I went through
3:25:43there was like a year or two I felt like deep regret around a lot of my behavior when I was
3:25:50younger previously. Yeah. Yeah. Like deep regret to like the point where I'm like a lot of shame,
3:25:55a lot of like I can't believe I was that person. Like what was what was I thinking? Um so yeah,
3:26:03if you're listening, you dated me in my 20s. I'm sorry. I'm just going to put that out there. you
3:26:10know who you are. Do you ever Okay. Do you ever have these like really weird I guess you would
3:26:14call them anti-fantasies where all your exes show up in one room and they're like they're like let's
3:26:20do this cuz I have those. I have shame around that too. So anyway, we won't we don't need to get into
3:26:25that. But yeah. Do you want to share your force stage process? Do you have anything that you're
3:26:29willing to I could. Yeah. Yeah. This has happened. So I already brought this up and one of the big
3:26:32sources of shame in my life was that growing up without much money, growing up a working-class
3:26:37kind of poorer family for the longest time. Like I said, I just avoided it. And that was like like
3:26:41that stage one where I just wasn't even really if I was aware of it, I would tamp it down as soon
3:26:46as I could. Like we're just not going to think about I'm going to act like it doesn't exist.
3:26:50So when you say avoid like you mean like not not just emotionally, but like would you have friends
3:26:55over? Would you like Oh no. No. I wouldn't want my friends to come over. No. I always want to go to
3:27:00their house. Yeah. That's what I always wanted to do. So I would do that kind of stuff. But but that
3:27:05would bubble up, you know, cuz then you you know, you'd say, "Oh my god, they got like four bags of
3:27:08chips and we don't even have any chips at home." And like that kind of stuff would pop up. So when
3:27:13it would bubble up to the surface, I would just, you know, deflect or act like it didn't wasn't an
3:27:18actual issue or act like there wasn't a problem at all. That was for a very very long time.
3:27:24That's kind of how I addressed it. Um there just wasn't a there wasn't awareness around my shame
3:27:31about it. I I didn't know I was ashamed of it. I just I just blocked it out. That's what I did for
3:27:36the longest time. When I kind of woke up to it though, I would say late teens, early college,
3:27:43um early university, I kind of woke up to, okay, I I have a lot of issues around this. This is
3:27:49causing me um a lot of shame for one. I'm shameful around it and it's causing me to um it's hurting
3:27:57my relationships at a certain point, too, because I just wouldn't I wouldn't engage with people if
3:28:02I was like, "Oh, they won't understand this, so I'm just not even gonna Yeah. I I I don't I didn't
3:28:06know what to do with it. I was aware of it like at stage two." I was aware of it. I didn't know
3:28:10what to do with it for the longest time. I started opening up about it uh a little bit later. I think
3:28:15part of that was is that I kind of ran around with a crew who grew up fairly similar to me, pretty
3:28:20working class u in college and we started kind of talking about it. We started talking about that
3:28:26kind the weird [ __ ] you do when you're when you when you grow up like that and it became a little
3:28:31bit more like oh okay this is there's a common humanity here that I can find with other people.
3:28:36Um, it's still it just sucked though still too like it's that stage three where it's just like
3:28:41God I like I'll talk about it but this is I don't know what to do with it. I'm I'm not I'm still
3:28:47not comfortable with it. Yeah. I still get very ashamed about it. Uh I didn't know I especially
3:28:53didn't know and this still comes up too. I don't know how to act around people with money
3:28:57sometimes. Like I just like like I get very hyper aware like oh I didn't grow up like these people.
3:29:01Yeah. I was going to say like have you noticed any change like as you've become successful throughout
3:29:06your your life and your career like in it has has that changed your relationship with it at all like
3:29:13um yes. Yeah, it has. Um because I think at one point anyway I did go it went from it went from
3:29:20a source of shame to being that badge of honor and I and that was I I would say that I was indulging
3:29:25it at that point like I kind of went a little too far with it and I was like well screw all
3:29:30of you because you know you had a leg up above me and look where I got so screw you. I'm haha
3:29:36look at me, right? Not that I'm like filthy rich by any means or anything like that, but
3:29:40like now that I'm comfortable there, there is a new relationship around it where it's like, yeah,
3:29:45that was a part of my life that I got over. That's and that's great. Now sometimes I experience shame
3:29:49around like, well, I was one of the lucky ones that got out of that, right? Like, so there's
3:29:53a new source of shame around that where it's like because there were there's a number of things that
3:29:56have happened in my life that were just fortunate. I I can look back and like that was just a lucky
3:30:01break that I got. Yeah. And somebody else who was in a very similar position that I had didn't get
3:30:05that. So now I have some guilt and shame around that too. That's kind of a weird layer to it, you
3:30:10know. But I think eventually, you know, it just instead of indulging it and going into that whole,
3:30:16you know, I I take this like kind of I don't know, unwarranted pride around it sometimes. Uh now it's
3:30:21just like that was just that was a part of my life that was nobody's fault, right? there was
3:30:26nothing that um nothing that I necessarily did to deserve it. Um but at the same time too, it's just
3:30:34like it is what it is. Some people that's just the luck of the draw, right? And it could have been a
3:30:39lot worse. I I feel that too. Like it I you know, it wasn't that I it we weren't like necessarily
3:30:46going hungry. There was definitely times where we thought this might not work out so well,
3:30:50but you know, at the end of the day it was okay. So now it's just like yeah, that's just something
3:30:54I went through. That's That's what it was. It was just I got to that acceptance part of it,
3:30:58right? I think. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Takeaways. Yeah. What are your biggest takeaways from the from
3:31:02doing this episode? Yeah. So, I was I was thinking about this um making this podcast, not just this
3:31:08episode, but this this podcast in general, doing the podcast, doing the old podcast we did, too,
3:31:11doing the subtle art podcast, doing this podcast has kind of been a one big exercise in shame for
3:31:15me, I think. Right. So, so much of my shame was wrapped up in uh like perfectionism, you know,
3:31:23we've talked about that. Um, and we we've talked, you and I have talked about this a little bit
3:31:28before where, you know, you've been practicing this for 15 years and I kind of just I was in the
3:31:33background and I understood these things from an intellectual standpoint. Yeah. It's probably worth
3:31:38it to point out to the audience that like you and I never planned for you to do this podcast. We
3:31:43were going to do a podcast and we were Yeah. Yeah. Like the whole reason Mark and Drew even happened
3:31:48is when we were like preparing pilot episodes of the subtle art podcast, you know, because we were
3:31:53thinking maybe I'll do some solo episodes and I was like, well, why don't you ask me questions
3:31:57and then like you and I just had this chemistry and it went really well and we were like, well,
3:32:01maybe we should just do that. So, yeah. So, like for just to set up set context for the audience,
3:32:08like Drew had no aspirations to like be on camera, behind the scenes guy. We never had the
3:32:13conversation around it. It kind of accidentally happened like of all the pilot episodes we did,
3:32:17the one you and I did was like by far the best. And then the team was just like, "Well,
3:32:21[ __ ] Drew should be your co-host." And and we were like, "Okay." Yeah. Yeah. And I was like,
3:32:26"Okay, you want me to do it? I'll do it." And and what I didn't realize just though was Yeah.
3:32:31I have that that shame around perfectionism and being perfect and all of that. And then to see
3:32:36yourself screw up. Not only that, but like early on too, I don't know anybody out there who's ever
3:32:41tried to be like on camera or listen to even just a microphone. It's awful. At first, it is jarring.
3:32:48It's so bad. I'm I'm pretty used to it now and I'm just I'm more forgiving of myself now. But God,
3:32:53at first I was just like, you look at yourself and you're like, that's how I behave. That's how
3:32:57I look. That's how I sound. People see this every day. people see this or like when I you know I I'm
3:33:03not the best public speaker when that comes about like I make mistakes when I talk and I feel oh my
3:33:08god I'm stupid it's not perfect and there's a lot of shame around that you know I was sitting
3:33:13there last night doing some last minute prep for this and I kind of caught myself in one of
3:33:18those moments where I was like I love my job right now like I was just like I love my job I'm doing
3:33:23something awesome I'm doing something I really I was coming up with like cool stuff and creative
3:33:26ways to think about things and talk about things and I was like I really love this about my job.
3:33:31And I realized at that moment I was like, I had to sit with all of that shame. I had to go through
3:33:37that. You had to dig through all of that [ __ ] to get to those nuggets. It's almost almost anything
3:33:42worth doing in life. It's on the other side of all that shame that you've put up in front of you.
3:33:48Yeah. And you there's there's just no other way around that. There's just you have to sit with it.
3:33:53You have to work through it. There's no way around it. You're going to sit here and think about,
3:33:56okay, how can I maybe do an end around here? and and bypass the sitting with the shame and going
3:34:02going through those and going through these four steps that we've talked about, right? This four
3:34:07phase process. There's no way around it. Yeah, you can't. There's no shortcut. You have to sit with
3:34:11this [ __ ] and you have to deal with that shame. You have to put up with all the stupid comments of
3:34:17people who have never filmed themselves and never tried to do anything and realize that that oh,
3:34:22those aren't the people I care about. Going back to your shame radar, those aren't the
3:34:24people that I care about. And you but it sucks going through that. It's very very hard. Um,
3:34:30and so this whole podcast for me has been one big lesson in shame where to in order to get to those
3:34:37little nuggets, like I said, those little nuggets of, oh, I'm doing something that I really enjoy,
3:34:41that's all on the other side of the shitty shame that you have to sit with. So, that's
3:34:46been my biggest takeaway anyway. Very cool. Yeah. How the [ __ ] am I going to follow that up? That
3:34:53was so much better than what I was going to say. Okay. Well, what do you got? [Music] Um, take us
3:34:59home on a strong note here, Mark. One thing I've noticed the last few years, so you know this, but
3:35:04I'm going to describe it for the audience, which is that, you know, 2015 to probably 2022 was the
3:35:11book phase. And it was pretty much all my focus was on my books and tours and a movie and doing
3:35:18the stuff with Will and um, I wasn't really paying attention to the internet stuff. And then in 2022,
3:35:25I kind of came back to the internet business and I looked around and I realized like, wow, things
3:35:29have changed and grown a lot. Uh, and I like this seems really cool. I'd love to to kind of update
3:35:37my internet business and launch a podcast and do a YouTube channel and get on social media and like
3:35:43really like do it do it the right way. like you know start marketing myself well and uh you know
3:35:48build audience on different platforms and and like ultimately that that it's basically what
3:35:53I did in the blog phase just scaled out across a bunch of different platforms and and like I
3:35:57love that I love this I love doing I actually like doing this much more than I do writing books um a
3:36:06side effect of that that I didn't realize is that I to do that I started spending a lot more time on
3:36:14YouTube, listening to podcasts, and on social media than I ever was before. I was never a big
3:36:19social media user, uh, personally, but the last two or three years, I've been using I've been on
3:36:25it all the time, and I have noticed it affecting my brain. It's initially I noticed it in in mostly
3:36:33like attention span stuff. Um, it was harder to get through books or stick with books than
3:36:40it used to be. um felt a little bit more ADD than you know I mean I have ADD but it was definitely
3:36:47like it was kind of agitating my ADD in a little bit uh in in a few different ways and when we were
3:36:54so when we were prepping for this episode you know we had this this section marked for technology and
3:37:00um and you and I we've done a million podcasts and segments on social media and mental health
3:37:05and technology and interviewed Jonathan height and so I wasn't expecting a a lot. I was like, "Oh,
3:37:11cool. It's the technology social media thing." But coming at it from the shame angle and like really
3:37:17understanding it from that like shame as like a tribal mechanism to uh create order and stability
3:37:23within the group and then seeing how social media and technology like scramles that and then like
3:37:30also just from my own experience the past two or three years where like I've noticed my brain and
3:37:36attitudes changing around certain things um and mindsets changing around certain things uh and
3:37:42and the the the thing that I said in here of like when you're getting on social media platforms,
3:37:48you're choosing your own tribe without realizing it. You're you're essentially choosing what what
3:37:53you define as shameful and and shameless without noticing it. That's really stuck with me like as
3:38:00we've prepped with the episode. It's like made me think um because it's like I've been giving
3:38:05the advice forever of like curate your feeds, be conscious of who you follow. Like don't you
3:38:11know like do more stuff in real but like to your point so much of your social media experience is
3:38:16outside of your control and so much of what gets syndicated is also outside of your control. Um and
3:38:23so you're really like only following and seeing the content that's presented to you. you're not
3:38:29seeing the minds and people that are not presented to you. You're not seeing the ideas that are not
3:38:34presented to you. Um and so, you know, it might not be enough that advice like I think maybe a
3:38:42little bit more real life time is uh is in order. Yeah. So, yeah, like use your shame system as it
3:38:48was intended, you know, bring it bring it down to earth and in real life and then it functions in a
3:38:54much more healthy way associated with that, right? like it's because I've been spending because my
3:38:59focus on the business has been so much on this side of the business. I've noticed too that like
3:39:04my standards and norms are getting like skewed and [ __ ] up, right? It's like I I'll like I'll see
3:39:11somebody with like, you know, 3 million followers post something similar to like something I posted
3:39:18and I'm like, well, why does he have so many f like like all those stupid [ __ ] narratives start
3:39:24showing up? It's like, well, why does he have all those followers and I don't? And I'm like, dude,
3:39:29what what gamer? Like, are you a child? Like, how old are you? Like, how how long are you going to
3:39:35keep doing this? It never ends. I think actually doing this episode, if there's any takeaway for
3:39:41me personally at the moment. Um, I I think I might I might get a little bit more conscious with like
3:39:49tighten the information diet, right, as it were. And um and yeah, really like focus on on on real
3:39:56real life tribe over uh digital tribe for sure. All right. Well, that's it for this episode. Thank
3:40:09show on whatever platform you're listening on, uh, and leave us a review, it is hard to get a
3:40:15podcast out there, especially a podcast, a 5-hour podcast about shame. It's not the sort of thing
3:40:21that just gets goes viral randomly. So, um, the best thing you can do to support us if if you're
3:40:27not interested in the community, um, is to simply follow the show on your favorite platform and
3:40:32leave a review for us. I am Mark Manson. This is Drew Bernie. We will be back next month. [Music]

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