How to Deal With Shame

I can remember it like it happened yesterday.

6th grade. I was not in the popular group at school.

I was a gangly 11 year-old, with pimples, braces, coke-bottle glasses and feathered, layered hair that I didn’t know how to style. (I took the glasses off for pictures, naturally!)

I had enough awareness to know that some of the kids in the popular group looked just as awkward as me. I don’t think anyone is immune from acne in 6th grade.

It plagued me that they were popular and I wasn’t. Who decided that? And what could I do about it?

I became a student of “how to be popular” and picked up on their nonchalant attitudes about everything, the way they turned everything into a joke, even if it was at someone else's expense.

I finally made a bold move to change my middle-school destiny.

We had a substitute teacher that day, so I decided to spearhead a collective prank.

I wrote a note with instructions of things the whole class should do that would interrupt the class every 5 minutes. You know, stuff like “everyone drop your pencil at 1:35.” “everyone cough at 1:40.”  Real hilarious stuff.

I circulated this note around the class, trying my best to appear nonchalant (but in my peripheral vision, tracking every single move of that note from one student to the next).  I was giddy with excitement when it landed on my crush’s desk. Of course he was the most popular 6th grade boy.

To my absolute horror, he stood up and walked that note, my ticket to popularity, up to the teacher’s desk, pointing me out before returning to his desk.

I wanted to melt into my seat as the teacher read that note and Mr. Popularity chanted in a sing-song-y voice, “Jennie Derix….she wrote a note….and she shouldn’t have…”

My face felt like it was on fire. I am sure it flamed bright red. Tears stung my eyes and I willed them not to fall.  I am quite certain that I no longer appeared nonchalant.

I was ashamed.

I wish I could say my shame was because I did something wrong. I definitely knew better.

But the majority of my shame came from the fact that I got caught, in a very public way.

It was a double whammy – not only had my action failed to achieve my goal, but I was completely embarrassed in the process.

I don’t even remember if I got any official consequences for that or not. But I didn’t really need them, because the public humiliation I had brought on myself was enough.

Shame.

When shame shows up it is large and in charge.

If you are a people-pleaser or perfectionist, this emotion feels exceptionally intolerable.

It is beyond uncomfortable, it feels downright unbearable.

Shame drives us to strive to present a perfect version of ourselves so that nobody can make us feel that way again.

It motivates us to lie, to deflect from or minimize our faults.

It urges us to hide, to disappear. If I could have willed the earth to swallow me up in that classroom, desk and all, I would have.

As a counselor, I find myself working with shame all the time.

Early in the counseling relationship, women come into my office with these invisible loads weighing them down, things they have never told anyone. They can’t bring themselves to tell me at first…and this is perfectly reasonable. They need to be able to trust me with their stories, and I invite them to take as much time as they need to get there. It is my goal to never force a story out of someone.

Once they release it, though, WOW!

They see how little power shame actually has over them anymore, once it is no longer a secret.

They are usually flabbergasted when I tell them they are not alone in that experience. That others carry around stuff like that, too.  (Of course I can’t tell them the stories of other people, but I can assure them they are not the only one with a story of shame).

Sometimes saying it out loud is all someone needs to start feeling free from it.

Learning how to recognize and address shame is important to healing because it really clouds our judgement.

I can’t say that shame is always bad, because it does often prompt us to make different decisions when faced with a similar situation next time. Good can come from it, but the negative effects that come with shame tend to swallow up the good that might come from learning from our mistakes. We focus on the shame, not the lesson learned.

 I tend to differentiate shame from guilt, noting that guilt motivates us to make amends, to correct our behavior, seek forgiveness, make better choices.

As Dawn Van Beck writes, “Guilt helps us understand our actions and the impact of our actions on others, but shame – same is an inward-directed emotion which reflects how we feel about ourselves.” (1, p. 19)

Shame just accuses.

If we can step outside of the burden of shame, we can see our situations more clearly and help ourselves de-escalate the impact of shame, which helps us figure out what we need to do to address the situation.

How to Deal With Shame

I am breaking down some steps to deal with shame, but by no means is this an easy thing to do. This is why it is so helpful to work on in counseling. It is powerful to work on shame in the presence of another person. Another person who will not judge you, who sees your best qualities, and can’t tell anyone what you say.

Shame tends to shrink when it is no longer a secret.

Here are just some of the things we do to work on shame.

Learn to recognize it

Often shame pops up almost automatically. It’s that red-hot, cheeks flushed, pit-in-stomach embarrassed feeling that makes you want to crawl back in bed and hide. Or shrink into the woodwork, become invisible.

We often get so caught up in feeling that emotion that we don’t stop to name it.  Just putting a word to the feeling can help get the other parts of your brain involved. This helps you start seeing what is going a little more clearly – it’s no longer just a feeling that engulfs you, but it is a feeling that you can think about.

Take a break from the situation

If you are unexpectedly hit by a tidal wave of shame feelings while you are in a situation with other people, it can be helpful to take a break if you can.

When negative emotions wash over us, we can become emotionally flooded and disconnected from the rational function in our brains. When this happens, we may say and do things we will regret later, or we may find ourselves shutting down.

If you can get out of the immediate situation and do something to calm yourself down, then you can better process what is happening in the moment.

This might take some advance planning.

What tends to bring up feelings of shame for you? Is there something specific that is still raw that is likely to come up? What people, places, or situations tend to be most likely to stir up feelings of shame? Be aware of predictable times it might pop up.

What can I say to give myself a break if it comes up?

• “Excuse me, I need to use the restroom.” (or get a drink, or take a fake call on your cell phone)

• “This is a conversation I just can’t have right now, but would be up for talking about it later.”

• Change the subject, “So, how about the price of eggs these days, huh?”

Plan, in advance, ways you can get out of the immediate situation.

Practice saying these things so they are easy to remember.  Practicing also helps you decide if they sound like your words.  If they don’t, figure out something to say that sounds more like you.

 Figure out what you can do to actually calm down.

You might need to tell yourself, “It’s ok, it’s just a shame moment.”

When I was in grad school, I felt so inadequate speaking up in class.  I felt shame because I had this misconception that I wasn’t good enough to be there and everyone would find out (imposter syndrome much?).  I got through it by reminding myself of this quote of Nelson Mandela’s “It’s not win or lose, it’s win or learn.” 

If you have more time you can take some deep breaths, or listen to some music, or find some funny cat or dog videos to watch on your phone. Whatever works for you.

 The point is to do something to help shift yourself out of the overwhelm of the feeling. 

Be curious about it

Acknowledge that it is coming up, and force yourself to ask questions about it.

• Notice what body sensations come with this feeling for you.

• Notice what you are doing in response to this feeling. Are you isolating? Are you in the fridge looking for ice cream? Are you mindlessly scrolling your phone? Are you lashing out at other people?

• What makes sense about the fact that it is popping up now?

• Being curious helps bring you further out of being lost in the feeling.   

Being curious is not excusing the reason for the feeling.  There may be a legitimate reason that you feel shame. You might have made a huge mistake that hurt someone. But piling self-judgment on top of your shame is not going to help you start making things better. It’s only going to keep you immobilized, and keep you focusing on yourself instead of what you can do to make things better.

Identify what is yours to own

Like I said before, we are not dismissing shame or hiding from it. 

Our feelings point to something that we need to deal with. 

Once you get out of the immediate situation, you can start thinking clearly about any long-term steps you can take. This involves taking accurate responsibility for your part in it.

My people-pleasers will want to take responsibility for everyone else’s part in it, too, because they want to keep the peace and be well-liked.  That’s another blog post for another day.  For now, just know that if this is your tendency, really analyze the situation to be clear on what is yours to take responsibility for.

Take steps to make amends

Once you know what is yours to own, own it!

You may need to apologize, ask for forgiveness, or forgive.

This might include a conversation with the other person, but it might not. Sometimes the act of apologizing can hurt the other person. Maybe they won’t talk to you. Maybe they have not and will not apologize for their part in it. You can still forgive them. Forgiveness does not mean that what they did is okay. It means that you are not going to carry around bitterness for the other person anymore.

This step (apologizing, asking for forgiveness, or giving forgiveness) might happen in a letter you never send. Maybe you have a trusted friend or a counselor you can read this letter to.

You will need to forgive yourself, which is often the hardest step to take.

Be specific about what you need to forgive.

You can also identify the reasons you did it.  This doesn’t negate what you did, but it might help you see the fuller context of why you did it.

With that fuller context, you might be able to have some grace for yourself. You also might be able to see a wider perspective of changes you want to make to address that context. 

If you are a believer, you will also want to ask forgiveness from God. 

Really, for the Christian, the act of forgiving yourself is really more the act of accepting God’s forgiveness.

I quoted Dawn Van Beck earlier. Her latest book is all about how God offers forgiveness to set us free from shame. To share another quote, she writes, “Shame has a lot of power. God has more.” (1, p. 20).  Her book is a resource I would recommend if you are a Christian wrestling with shame. 

There is no situation that you feel shame about that it outside God’s ability to forgive.

Reflect

Remember that Nelson Mandela quote about winning or learning? Take some time to consider how you’ve grown through this circumstance.

• What did you learn from the situation?

• What tools and skills do you have now that you didn’t have at the time of the shameful thing?

• How would you handle that situation differently now?

• How have you grown since that happened?

• What did you actually do well in that situation?

• If you could go back in time and talk to yourself at that age, what would you tell her?

Shame feels bigger when we feel alone in it. I promise, you are not alone.

If you are a woman in Pennsylvania who needs a safe person to process your shame with, please give me a call.  Together we can figure out your specific steps to freedom from shame.

Reference

(1)   Van Beck, D. (2025). Deliver me: Ditching your shame. Embracing God’s freedom. Stone Oak Publishing.

Jennie Sheffe is a National Certified Counselor ™ who helps women find freedom from anxiety and peace in their chaos. She sees clients virtually in the state of Pennsylvania, or in her Carlisle, PA office. She offers Christian counseling and EMDR Therapy.