The "rules" of shame

Shame is a particularly complicated emotion, in part because we seem to have established rules about when we should feel it, when we should admit to feeling it, and how quickly we should try to move beyond it. These rules even extend to what we’re supposed to do when someone else confesses to feeling ashamed about something. Our instinct is often to offer immediate reassurance. We remind them that everyone makes mistakes, encourage them to be kinder to themselves, and suggest that continuing to dwell on the matter will accomplish very little.

That can often be wise advice. There is little value in carrying the full weight of an old failure simply because it happened. We can’t alter the past; we can only examine the choices that led us at the time and decide what we will do differently when another opportunity arises.

The two aspects of shame

All the same, I wonder whether our understandable concern about the destructive effects of shame has made us reluctant to consider whether it might sometimes contain something worth acknowledging and facing head-on. When we feel ashamed, are we always responding to the judgment of others, or can the feeling occasionally arise from an honest recognition that our own conduct has fallen short of what we believe it should have been?

Answering that question can be difficult because shame encompasses several different kinds of experiences. It can range from public missteps to personal failures and the heavier feeling that comes when we realize that we’ve hurt someone else or done emotional damage to ourselves. While these experiences share a painful emotional impact, their underlying circumstances are certainly not the same.

Taking an honest internal inventory

Looking back, I can think of conversations in which impatience replaced curiosity before I realized it. There have been occasions when I spoke too quickly or too harshly, convinced that I understood more than I did—and times when I knew the just thing to do but chose differently, because it was uncomfortable. I wouldn’t say I’m haunted by those memories, but taking an honest internal inventory allows me to work toward not repeating them.

Internal work and external appearances

This internal work differs fundamentally from the discomfort tied strictly to external appearances. When shame arises from imagining how we must look through someone else’s eyes, we’re actually worrying about something firmly outside the boundaries of our own control. The real work, in that case, lies less in repairing our public image than in examining the judgments that gave other people's opinions such authority over our peace of mind.

For instance, when Epictetus writes

Men are disturbed, not by things, but by their opinions about things. — Enchiridion 5

The goal is not simply to spare us from uncomfortable emotions. The Stoic concern is rightly placed on whether our judgments are sound. To a Stoic, the initial flare of shame could be just an impression, or phantasia. However, if we have acted without wisdom, justice, courage, or temperance, we shouldn't rush to dismiss that discomfort—it may be precisely what we need to interrupt the comfortable stories we often tell ourselves about our own character.

Seneca's habit of nightly self-examination offers a practical model for this practice. He didn’t engage in this consistent action to punish himself for his mistakes; he asked what fault he had resisted that day and how he might improve tomorrow. He looked at his failures clearly enough to learn from them, without rehearsing them indefinitely. Stoic practice assumes character is always being formed, and never finished. So, regret, in this view, is less about punishing ourselves for the past and simply feeling shame than noticing where our conduct falls short of our aspirations and planning to do better.

Examining our failures more closely

I don't know that a Stoic should aspire never to feel shame. That seems far too simple an answer. But so is the decision to carry it as a permanent burden. Our failures deserve to be examined more carefully than preserved.

Perhaps what matters most, then, is what we allow shame to become. If it fixes our attention on others' opinions, it’s unlikely to lead anywhere worth going. But if it quietly reminds us where we have wandered from the person we are trying to become—and if we’re willing to look at it honestly—there is genuine value in that, no matter how uncomfortable the process may be in the moment.

Andi Sciacca is a writer, mentor, and educator. She is also Co-Founder of The Stoic Heart ® .

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