Shame and the Coping Mechanisms We Use

Shame and the Coping Mechanisms We Use

Shame and Our Coping Mechanisms… In my last post I encouraged people to make 2023 the year that they addressed the issues that they’ve been putting off… maybe for years. With that in mind, I plan to revisit and revise many of my previous posts from the last 12 years. I hope you find them helpful.

We all experience shame. Shame is such a strong word. We often don’t want to associate ourselves with it. But shame is what we feel when we fall short of our expectations or the expectations that others have for us. It’s a sense of inadequacy and failure, or, in extreme cases: feeling worthless.

Let’s take a look at shame to see if there is a way to get free from it.

“Shame alone is bad enough. But trying to prevent it or cover it up makes life that much harder. It wears you down. It’s exhausting.”

The Roots and Fruit of Shame

In my book Healing the Hurts of Your Past I imagine shame as a tree. There are roots that are comprised of painful experiences, like abuse, neglect, and trauma. These experiences often lie to us about our nature. They convince us that we are somehow less than others. Possibly disqualified from a good life.

And then there is the fruit that grows on this tree. It’s bad fruit. The fruit consists of coping mechanisms that we use to help take the edge off the pain of our shame.

Coping Mechanisms: The Right Tool for the Job

I compare these coping mechanisms to a person carrying a tool belt full of tools.  A contractor straps on a tool belt full of various tools so they don’t have to keep running to their truck. And so it is with shame. We have many tools at the ready to deal with the pain of shame when it overtakes us each day.

Changing metaphors, we are like hockey goalies desperately trying to block an onslaught of wicked shots.

We might be a perfectionist one day, trying to cover our inner sense of worthlessness. Or we might be a people-pleaser the next day hoping that we can keep everyone happy so they will like us.

Some of us play the intimidator trying to scare people away from knowing us too well so they never see how worthless we feel about ourselves. Or we take on the role of care-taker in hopes of taking the focus off of our shortcomings while drawing affirmations for our service.

In other words, we do whatever it takes to cover our shame. These are only a few of the thirty coping mechanisms that I discuss in my book..

People often see this range of behavior and it concerns them. They don't know what's wrong with them. It makes no sense. It's like they have multiple personalities. But the truth is, they don’t have several problems. Only one: shame. They just have a variety of ways of dealing with it.

Coping Mechanisms Require Heavy Lifting

Tool belts get heavy. The more tools you carry, the more weight you have, and the more weight, the harder life is day-to-day. Trying to prevent the pain of shame is a full-time job. It requires a lot of tools and a lot of skill.

Shame alone is bad enough. But trying to prevent it or cover it up makes life that much harder. It wears you down. It’s exhausting.

Confronting Your Shame

So why not deal with it? Just because you have shame doesn't mean that you are obligated to keep it. The lies of shame can be corrected. Lose your shame and the coping mechanisms are no longer necessary.

Imagine your life if you never felt the need to hide or explain away your shortcomings. What would life be like if you could accept yourself as you are and believed that God did as well?

To learn more check out other posts on this site (search “shame”) as well as my book mentioned above.

Question: What coping mechanisms do you use most often ?

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