The Surprising Benefits of Healthy Shame

By Bret Lyon, PhD, SEP

Source: Bret Lyon

What is Healthy Shame?

The idea of healthy shame is perhaps the most transformative, life-changing concept Sheila and I teach. It goes against all the conventional wisdom about shame. Most people think shame is unilaterally dangerous and destructive and that we need to transcend it or eliminate it from our lives. The problem is that shame is an essential primary emotion—everyone has it in some form—and like other emotions such as fear, anger, and sadness, it’s not going away.

Shame is wired into our nervous system for a reason. A certain kind of shame is useful for anybody who wants to have productive relationships. Shame helps us recognize that we aren’t alone in the world, that we need to obey certain rules and guidelines in order to be part of society, and that we need to acknowledge and be concerned about how other people feel. This is what we’re referring to as healthy shame, which is quite different from toxic shame.

Healthy shame leads to more rewarding relationships with ourselves and others. If enough people acquired it, healthy shame would lead to a happier, healthier society and a better world. The destructive, life-stopping force we know as toxic shame can be transformed into something healthy and useful. In toxic shame, the nervous system freezes. We lose track of what’s happening around us, and we can only focus on our flaws and lacks. In contrast, healthy shame invites us to pause, pay attention, and reassess ourselves and our environment.

#1: Shame Doesn’t Have to Be Toxic

The shame most of us are taught to avoid is toxic to our being and our relationships with others. Toxic shame has a way of blurring our perceptions and cognition, and keeping our nervous system in a freeze state. We struggle to notice what’s happening in the present moment; all we can focus on is how flawed, imperfect, or wrong we are (or have been). We review shaming events repeatedly in our heads, even those far back in our distant past. Worse, toxic shame tries to convince us that our basic feelings and needs are bad, and that we need to do whatever it takes to suppress them.

The good news is that shame isn’t toxic by nature. Shame doesn’t have to be harmful. We normally think of it as detrimental, but shame can be transformed into a healthy and powerful ally. In the throes of toxic shame, all we need to do is create enough space to calm our nervous systems, gather our resources, and begin to see our situation in a new light. Sometimes this just means pausing a little bit to create enough compassionate space from the shaming incident to bring our strengths and gifts back online.

#2: Healthy Shame Connects Us With Others

All of us say the wrong thing from time to time. We hurt each other’s feelings, even when we really don’t intend to. We break relational agreements, behave unkindly, and go back on our word. For this reason, some degree of shame is useful in our lives, because it reminds us that we aren’t isolated individuals who can do and say whatever we want. We affect other people just by interacting with them and being ourselves, and shame is one way we’re affected and informed by the truth of that.

We humans need certain guidelines in order to remain decent members of our families, friend groups, romantic relationships, and larger communities. Societal laws and regulations can only do so much in this regard. Healthy shame reminds us to pay attention to how we affect others, and that awareness allows us to appraise our speech and actions and make desired or necessary changes. In this way, healthy shame guides us to live within societal parameters and helps us fulfill our enduring need for connection.

#3: The Fantastic Gifts of Healthy Shame

Healthy shame teaches us crucial life lessons and orients us toward growth. Here are a few of the magical qualities (explored in greater detail in our book, Embracing Shame: How to Stop Resisting Shame and Transform It Into a Powerful Ally) that you can look forward to enjoying with healthy shame:

• Self-Compassion: Toxic shame usually involves an insatiable inner critic—a critic that’s often biased and cruel. By contrast, healthy shame is almost synonymous with self-compassion. When we’re reliably kind to ourselves, the sky truly is the limit.
• Humility: All of us have positive and negative aspects. Healthy shame gently reminds us of this fact, which tends to keep us humble. Just like other people, we mess up sometimes, and that’s okay. We’re also capable of apologizing and changing for the better (and that’s okay, too!).
• Humor: When we hold our imperfections lightly with compassion, we can access a kind-hearted sense of humor that reminds us not to take ourselves too seriously. It’s nearly impossible to feel stuck when we’re laughing, and humor can offer fresh new perspectives on otherwise weighty matters.
• Perspective: All of us experience ups and downs in life. Some of our downs are significant, and those that stick with us tend to happen earlier in life such that we carry them forward. Healthy shame empowers us to see the bigger picture and let go of things we no longer have any say or control over.
• Discernment: Those of us who grew up with toxic shame are often drawn to negative people and situations, particularly those that continue to shame us. Healthy shame protects us from this tendency with well-informed boundaries. With discernment, we understand that words and behaviors meant to harm us are no longer okay.

Shame Essential Reads

Shame (in Moderation) Is Good

How I Began to Confront My Own Perfectionism and Shame

Source: Bret Lyon

Your Gift to the World

Toxic shame encourages us to shut down, play small, and avoid expressing ourselves whole-heartedly. But if we can transform toxic shame, we come to realize that we all have something special to offer the world, particularly the people, places, and animals we hold most dear. The more we understand and express our gifts, the more meaning and life purpose we experience, and the more likely it is that we’ll foster the same in others.