Navigation for the article “How to get rid of shame on your own?”:
- How to get rid of shame - start to notice a bad attitude towards yourself
- How to get rid of shame - learn to stop yourself
- How to get rid of shame - we designate the process of humiliating ourselves in the form of critical voices
- How to get rid of shame - Exercise “identification with the child”
- Personalizing the “inner critic”
- The pitfalls of the “inner critic”
In the previous article “Is it possible to completely stop being ashamed?”
We looked at what kind of attitude a shameful person develops towards himself. He treats himself as something unworthy.
Let's consider this attitude towards ourselves as a bad habit. Then you can treat it like any harmful habit. For example, he will learn to notice its phenomena, track, stop and do something more useful instead.
I described the external physical manifestations of shame in the first part:
- a person’s voice may change, become cruel and angry, for example.
- A person may blush, shrink, look at the floor, hide his face.
- The pulse may increase, dry mouth and tinnitus may occur.
Physical phenomena are all individual for each person, but their combination in the same person when experiencing shame will be similar. You can learn to recognize them.
It will be useful to learn to compare the physical phenomena of shame and a belittling attitude towards oneself.
How to get rid of shame - start to notice a bad attitude towards yourself
First we need to study what this bad attitude consists of and how it is expressed. It can manifest itself as an inner voice or “sound” in the head as a thought. The inner blaming voice often feels like a cruel critic, offending, insulting, ridiculing and humiliating.
In 90% of cases, it is difficult for a person to notice how he insults and humiliates himself. How to get rid of shame? The easiest way to do this is with the help of a psychologist or psychotherapist. To independently learn to track this process, you need to look at what a person does to himself from the outside.
For example, a person says: “I screwed up so much, it’s just funny.” He then continues to talk about his failure in a cheerful and mocking tone.
Or he talks about his painful childhood experiences: “How could I perceive it so acutely then, how could I believe in it, it’s stupid and funny.” Laughs bitterly. He speaks about himself in a disdainful tone: “Only a fool or a madman could worry so much about such a trifle.”
Or a person comes to a psychologist and says: “How can I force myself to complete this task. Well, as soon as possible, do something with me.” It looks as if a person brought a worthless and inferior creature (himself, that is), to a psychologist. And this creature really bothered people.
Or: “Well, as much as possible. I have already tortured myself, I am tired of myself with my fear. Fool!". Here strong aggression towards oneself is already manifested.
Or hatred is expressed in an open form: “I hate myself when something doesn’t work out for me. I hate myself for these feelings.”
Or depressive: “I’m disgusted with myself. I sit for 30 minutes before calling my colleague. I'm tired. I don't want to live like this. »
Every word spoken about oneself in such a tone, every thought thought about oneself in such a context is a habitual humiliation of oneself. How to get rid of shame? Imagine if someone else said those harsh words to you? You would probably perceive this as undignified, humiliating treatment.
But when you say this about yourself, you are not always able to realize it.
Therefore, the first task is to start noticing what you are doing to yourself.
Of course, we have certain difficulties and shortcomings that we can and should work with, which can and should be corrected. But if you think about changing yourself in such a belittling tone, it turns out that you are trying to fight with yourself and against yourself.
No good changes can come from this. You will fight with yourself, the internal conflict will intensify, you will feel worse and worse, and the desired changes will not be achieved.
If you tell a psychologist, for example: “I’m such a completely worthless, boring guy, I’m already a burden to myself, let’s fix me up a little” - you don’t notice the inner critical voice. You seem to be at one with your “inner critic.” You invite others and the psychologist to also scold or ridicule yourself. But our main task in this place is to stop. Protect your dignity from yourself.
