I talked about the emotion of gratitude in the previous article (this article). Today, I will explain another emotion that often affects us. It is about shame.
How to avoid the pain of shame
Sometimes, we have trouble with our emotions. Although it hurts us many times, we don’t know how to deal with it. That sometimes makes us mentally ill.
One of them is shame. If we have an inferiority complex, we cannot avoid it, no matter what we do. We might wonder why we have such uncontrollable emotions.
Shame is emotional feedback that brings us back to our comfortable way of life, in my opinion. In other words, it is a beneficial thing for us. It is closer to love than guilt, although we usually think it is similar to guilt, which causes us only pain.
Today, I will explain the mental logic behind shame. That will tell us how to get along with it and a way to make our lives better.
The meaning of shame
Shame is an emotion to correct our way of life. If we feel it appropriately, we can feel shame with love and modify our behaviors.
A story of a student at a knight school
To explain it, I will introduce a story. It is part of a fictional, fantasy story.
The hero was a young boy who attended a knight school to become a knight. He was an empathic person. He had outstanding sword abilities, but he hid them for a reason.
He noticed that a bully was bullying some of his classmates. The hero offered the bully a duel with a sword to stop it. To make the bully accept the duel, he provoked the bully. Then they battled, the hero won, and the bully agreed to end bullying.
The teachings of the teacher
However, there was a teacher who watched all of that. After the duel, he appeared to warn the hero. He praised the hero’s motives but also told the hero that a duel was prohibited.
At that time, the teacher told the hero, “Be ashamed of your behavior in provoking your opponent.”
It was because provoking someone was not a way to help someone. It was a way for those less empathic people to rob. In other words, it was selfish behavior. Not the attitude of those who have the selflessness to help someone.
The teacher also told the hero that it would cause him confusion. It would prevent the hero from distinguishing between what was for himself and others. Then it would make the hero act selfishly in the name of helping others. That would bring him to the dark side. The teacher told the hero to use the right words and behaviors to help.
Feeling the love with shame
That is why the teacher said, “Be ashamed of your behavior.”
The hero felt shame and accepted it. Although ashamed of himself, he also felt love because that teaching brought him back to his way of life. Provoking someone to accomplish something was not his way of life. That made the hero honest and prevented him from having an inferiority complex.
That was part of such a story.
Shame and an inferiority complex
Perhaps that is the true shape of shame. Shame is an emotion that brings us back to our way of life. It is a beneficial thing. We also feel love because it allows us to correct our problems.
However, if we have an inferiority complex, shame causes us only pain. It keeps us in the wrong way of life. In addition, it causes self-denial without feeling love.
Shame is one of the emotional feedbacks
Shame is one of the emotional feedbacks. We cannot provide someone with shame.
For example, someone might say, “Shame on you!” However, we cannot make others feel ashamed. It is just insisting on their wants. It means, “It is not my way of life, so I cannot accept that way.” It could not be our fault. A difference in our way of life sometimes makes someone say so.
Some parents might have told us, “I am ashamed of you,” when we didn’t follow our parents’ values in childhood. It is the same. It is not a shame. It is the fear of being abandoned through blaming. Parents blamed us without considering our personalities, and that threatened us.
That made us misunderstand that shame is a painful thing.
True shame comes with love from the inside. It gives us a comfortable life. It is a beneficial thing.
Conclusion
The above is the mental logic behind shame.
Shame is an emotion to correct our way of life. If we feel it appropriately, we can feel shame with love and modify our behaviors.
That might tell us how to get along with it and a way to make our lives better.
Thank you for reading this article. I hope to see you in the next one.
