Shame

Shame, though never welcome, does manifest in both positive and negative ways. Most of us in this twenty-first century civilization have too little of the positive type of shame and too much of the negative.

The most important beneficial role of shame occurs when it indicates to us that we have acted wrongly. Such shame serves as a channel whereby our conscience, which represents the hidden, higher layers within us, communicates with our ordinary mind. When we feel ashamed of what we have done, and if we face that feeling, we can learn to act more in accord with human dignity, integrity, and love. This shame, if we do not turn away from it, directly feeds our personal evolution in wisdom and compassion. All too often, though, we squash such feelings of shame and continue with our wrong-headed behavior.

When we feel ashamed of something that is not a result of our own actions, it generally has a negative, debilitating effect on us. If I am ashamed or embarrassed by some aspect of my body, which I genetically inherited or which resulted from accident or illness, then I divide myself, not accepting a part of my makeup. This destroys my possibilities for wholeness. The same holds if I am ashamed of someone in my family, or of my job or lack thereof, or of my lack of wealth, genius, talent, or fame. In a civilization that perversely defines self-worth in terms of net worth and success in terms of wealth, negative shame drives us to waste too much energy in pursuit of the non-essential.

Another source of negative shame lies in the multitude of destructive, self-centered, greedy, lustful, hateful, and other unbecoming impulses that vie for control of our hearts and minds. Just seeing these in ourselves can make us ashamed. But as long as we do not act on such lower impulses, we have no cause to be ashamed, for they are part of our common human heritage, at least in its present condition. Feeling ashamed of our own harmful impulses only feeds them. We would do better to just accept their presence, not act on them, and move on.

Sometimes the positive and negative kinds of shame mix. If I feel ashamed by my lack of talent, some of it may be due to my shame at not having applied myself in a more disciplined way. From this I may learn to work harder. If instead, the shame just goes into self-loathing, I am even worse off than simply being untalented.

So to turn shame into a help on our path, we need to look into ourselves and see the causes and results of our shame.

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