The Problem of Shame

And the importance of healthy boundaries...

This powerful video covers The Problem of Shame and its esoteric nature. I love that guilt is highlighted as something specific we hold onto, but shame can be slippery. Shame is built on a fundamental belief of brokenness, which I recently wrote about. Shame defies equanimity as we're “clearly” inferior to others and use our intellect to keep ourselves down relative to others.

Yeah, maybe there were specific reasons for this in childhood or whatever, but knowing why may not help, as the goal is to release the belief that others are perfect and, as a result, we are “flawed and broken.” The work here is to get to know people for who they actually are outside of our distortions of them. This first requires knowing that what we’re seeing is a distortion to begin with, which means identifying the shame.

The video proposes a quick test, which can be revealing if you're unsure about your relationship to shame. I consider myself to be confident, so I was surprised at my instinctual answers to these self-worth-defining questions. But if I probe a little deeper, I can see how my confidence is often relative to others.

I mean, this is a silly example, but I’m a 5’4” male, and I intentionally try not to stand around tall people. If you see me at a party I’m either wandering by myself and avoiding the conversation circles where I’ll stand out as smaller than everyone else. This is a simple trick I discovered when I was dating to not directly compete with those clearly taller, more attractive, or more successful than me. I used all sorts of relativity-related manipulation tactics for my own social engineering and relationships, which I wrote about in my book. But clearly, as stated by my answers to the brief questionnaire, this shame remains and I won’t deny it.

Photo by @felipepelaquim on Unsplash

Boundaries have been the work of life lately, particularly when it comes to emotional boundaries and relationships. I had many bouts of emotional infidelity throughout my years because that excitement and enmeshed feeling was quite addicting. I believe a term I’ve heard used recently is Emophilia, a tendency to fall in love easily and often, lovers of loving love. It’s a lovely word and I’ve fallen in love many times and have had many fall for me but I question how healthy any of that is or has been. Ruining lives with boundless longings doesn’t exactly ring the bell of respect for each other and the partners involved.

And that’s where I landed on all of this, respect. I discovered an algorithm for respect: Admiration + Boundaries = Respect. Simple but powerful. It’s my E=MC² if I ever claim to want to have a discovery with my name etched in stone.

Shame, I think, is a manifestation of not having proper boundaries within an inferiority complex.

At some point, we develop this inferiority complex, and from then on, whether it is parents, partners, bosses, or mentors…everyone we come across is transformed into someone we admire regardless of any objective 3rd party observation of the relationship or situation.

Without a proper boundary, we end up producing envy. Envy is the want or longing to have what someone else has. And so since we feel like we’re inferior we perpetually feel like we’re missing something. Envy says, "They're clearly better (or worse) than me," with the scale always being a better than or worse than in this binary childlike way. This comparison creates the illusion of separateness, but actually, our value is always measured by how we perceive their value, which creates an intrinsic enmeshed link or co-dependency.

In my case, it was often my relationship to women that I was wrestling with and again, is a big part of what I wrote about in my neurotic memoir. And to be clear, that has nothing to do with actual women but my perception, desires, and envy of what I feel or assume women possess that I feel I don’t have. I wouldn’t say I’m 100% clear on what those things are, so maybe I’ll return to this and break it down further someday when I get some clarity and if it’s helpful to share.

Photo by Tiago Felipe Ferreira on Unsplash

But anyway, boundaries as a concept become scary because we think setting a boundary means creating a distance, being abandoned, or being let go of. Or we believe setting a boundary is reserved for people we don’t like. It turns out I'm learning that boundaries allow for intimacy to occur because consenting individuals agree to participate and connect with each other. What a wild notion he says sarcastically.

In my case there was some intimacy missing because I felt I was manipulating people into having relationships with me even if they were consenting. Some part of me always believed they couldn’t possibly agree to any of this. I’d play confident on the outside but shame was always pulling the strings.

And shame is usually linked to the past, so naturally I looked backward to see what was going. This led some obsession with developmental models to find out where things possibly went wrong. In some of that developmental research I came across a PDF from Kim Barta in which he talked about boundaries being important to creating the distinctions that allow for us to move forward, experience the pressure to grow, and see ourselves as healthily separate from others.

These are the types of boundaries he refers to:

Physical—I have my own physical space. Touch me without permission, and there will be a consequence. Respect that, and we can connect.

Emotional—I have my own emotional experience and limits on how I want to use my energy. Trauma dump or expect a specific emotion from me, and there will be consequences. Respect that, and we can connect.

Social—We have behaviors in the group or amongst friends that are acceptable or unacceptable to each other or publicly. Violate those, and there will be consequences. Respect that, and we can connect.

Intellectual—I have my own thoughts, ideas, use of time, and beliefs. If you try to change my mind, there will be consequences. Respect that, and we can connect.

We can also have too many boundaries, which usually manifests as chronic anger since our tight boundaries and unrealistic or uncommunicated expectations are constantly being violated.

It’s been powerful to know these distinctions and how easy they are to violate or realize have been violated. As stated earlier, it turns out emotional boundaries weren’t much of a thing, so that’s been new territory.

I’ve also had to learn that consequences for boundaries being crossed are MY responsibility, not theirs. We want people to be ethical, moral, kind, and loving but we have to have a limit of what we’ll accept and name it. And by consequence I’m not suggesting violence or shaming or any abuse is a healthy consequence. It may mean cutting off contact or no longer helping or some other follow-through on the initial warning.

You set the boundary then follow-through if the boundary is violated.

If you don’t set a boundary and just react then they’ll assume you’re being unfair and won’t get the message.

If you set the boundary then don’t follow-through they don’t believe the boundary exists and will persist.

Both ingredients need to be in place and how they react is up to them. You can’t control what they do but how you respond. You may have to keep setting the boundary.

If two separate beings can connect with respect, then that's intimacy. If you're bonded and enmeshed, and while there may be closeness, there's no boundary, no consent, and no intention. We assume intimacy is freedom from boundaries but we’re just avoiding the tough work of navigating people and the nuances of connection.

So, as the video suggests, the goal is to get to know people as they are and see flaws and imperfections as normal and to be respected as yours are also worthy of respect. Boundaries between self and other allow for seeing those imperfections.

You are you, beautifully imperfect, and I am me, beautifully imperfect but not broken.