October 2019 – Tool of the Month – Resource for “Dancing”: Finding an Ally to Cut Through Shame

In this month’s Tool, I describe something that can helpful in negotiating shame, that force in everyone’s psyche that points at us with a deep disapproval. It blocks desire and hopes, and the actions connected to them, and can be a heroic project to shift. This tool isn’t meant to take away shame, but to perhaps provide a wedge to make a bit more space between it and you.

A Resource for “Dancing”:  Finding an Ally to Cut Through Shame

Shame, as I often tell my patients and as they usually immediately recognize, is the 600 pound gorilla of emotions. It is an old, old mechanism in the human psyche, probably primarily useful to make a bunch of monkeys care how they impact each other (here’s my article about what it is, and here is one about toxic shame). However it arrived, though, it’s here, and has a tremendous impact on our lives at all different levels, telling us that we’re not OK or lovable as we are, and so had better get with the program if we want to be either of those.

Shame can be uprooted, but that’s generally a fairly long process, moving in stages and with a lot of effort, to arrive at a state where you realize deeply that there’s no such thing as “unlovable.” But until you get there, shame is pretty credible; that there is a force that stands there and looks at you, finding you lacking, is not just an idea, but is deeply and viscerally real.

So, what to do with this when you are wanting to “dance” more?

I put “dance” in quotes as a stand-in for anything you’re looking to do or be that is subjected to shame. Maybe a little shame, at the mom-raising-an-eyebrow level, or a lot, at the level of the priest shaking the Bible at you–but regardless, your desire is being blocked.

But I also use dance because of what a colleague found as a workaround when she actually wanted to dance more, but found an old voice of shame stopping her. As a Jungian psychologist, she studied the archetypes deeply, those deeply embedded images in all of our psyches, like the Wise Old Man, or the Hero, or the Mother. But when she would be moved to dance, even by herself, she’d feel a wash of shame, an echo of a dictatorial father, and not be able to proceed.

She tried various ways to combat it—arguing back, focusing just on the body sensation, talking with her partner and getting his approval—but they didn’t work very well. The shame was still there, insisting that her untutored movement was just a measure of her brokenness.

We are wired to be deeply social, and the wisdom under shame is that others do exist and do matter, that community is vital for our lives and survival, and that we need to care about what others think of us. So humans have learned to hold a model of society in our heads, and make choices according to what that “society” is saying about good, bad, lovable and unlovable. Subjectively, even alone, we are always with our tribe.

My colleague finally got some traction when, acknowledging this truism, she began imagining herself dancing in front of and for the Wise Old Woman. She stopped fighting the idea that someone was watching, or that there could be people in the world (and certainly were in her past) who were shaming and judging, and simply stepped past that to use that same imagination we use to internally envision society, to make that society have a member or one: an archetype which could do nothing but love and appreciate her.

Which may sound goofy, but the proof was in the effect: she was freed up to dance when she wanted, without the shame being forefront anymore.

And the convincing is in the trying, so I’d encourage you to take a few minutes and imagine what “dancing” is for you (maybe writing, maybe public speaking, whatnot, but to start, something not that charged). Close your eyes and imagine it as it usually is, and feel the sense of shame or judgement that typically comes along with it. Then think of someone or something that, when you bring them to mind, has nothing but love and appreciation to offer you. It could be an actual person you know or knew (say, a beloved grandfather). Or it could be some place where you only experience peacefulness (say, a grove of trees). Or it could be something you didn’t expect at all (say, the image of the Wizard of Oz), but whatever it is, the thought of it brings that sense of unconditional love and approval. Then imagine yourself doing your “dancing” in front of that all-approving person/place/thing, and see what it feels like.

Any different? It could take a bit of practice, to wedge the shame or judgement off to the side of your own imagination, but it’s worth the effort, to practice to secure the experience that regardless of the external, you can access internally that non-shame, which is the condition to truly flourish.