Daring Greatly Part 4

EXPERIENCE SHAME DIFFERENTLY.

For the first four years of my study on shame, I focused solely on women. At that time many researchers believed, and some today still believe, that men and women's experiences of shame are different. I was concerned that if I combined the data from men and women, I'd miss some of the important nuances of their experiences. That I opted to just interview women, I confess, was partially due to my mind-set that when it came to worthiness, women were the ones struggling. At some level, I also think my resistance was based on an intuitive sense that interviewing men would be like stumbling into a new and strange world.

As it turns out, it was definitely a strange new world-a world of unspoken hurt. I got a glimpse into that world in 2005 at the end of one of my lectures. A tall, thin man who I'd guess was in his early sixties followed his wife to the front of the room. He was wearing a yellow Izod golf sweater-an image I'll never forget. I spoke with his wife for a few minutes as I signed a stack of books that she'd bought for herself and her daughters. As she started to walk away, her husband turned to her and said, "I'll be right there-give me a minute."

She clearly didn't want him to stay and talk to me. She tried coaxing him with a couple of "C'mons," but he didn't budge. I, of course, was thinking, Go with her, dude. You're scaring me. After a few unsuccessful attempts, she walked toward the back of the room, and he turned to face me at my book-signing table.

It started innocently enough. "I like what you have to say about shame," he told me. "It's interesting."

I thanked him and waited-I could tell there was more coming.

He leaned in closer and asked, "I'm curious. What about men and shame? What have you learned about us?"

I felt instant relief. This wasn't going to take long because I didn't know much. I explained, "I haven't done many interviews with men. I just study women."

He nodded and said, "Well. That's convenient."

I felt the hair on the back of my neck stand up in defense. I forced a smile and asked, "Why convenient?" in the very high voice that I use when I'm uncomfortable. He replied by asking me if I really wanted to know. I told him yes, which was a half-truth. I was on my guard.

Then his eyes welled up with tears. He said, "We have shame. Deep shame. But when we reach out and share our stories, we get the emotional s.h.i.t beat out of us." I struggled to maintain eye contact with him. His raw pain had touched me, but I was still trying to protect myself. Just as I was about to make a comment about how hard men are on each other, he said, "Before you say anything about those mean coaches, bosses, brothers, and fathers being the only ones..." He pointed toward the back of the room where his wife was standing and said, "My wife and daughters-the ones you signed all of those books for-they'd rather see me die on top of my white horse than watch me fall off. You say you want us to be vulnerable and real, but c'mon. You can't stand it. It makes you sick to see us like that."

Holding my breath, I had this very visceral reaction to what he was saying. It hit me the way only truth can. He let out a long sigh, and as quickly as he had begun, he said, "That's all I wanted to say. Thanks for listening." Then he just walked away.

I had spent years researching women and hearing their stories of struggle. In that moment, I realized that men have their own stories and that if we're going to find our way out of shame, it will be together. So, this section is about what I've learned about women, men, how we hurt each other, and how we need each other to heal.

What I've come to believe about men and women now that I've studied both is that men and women are equally affected by shame. The messages and expectations that fuel shame are most definitely organized by gender, but the experience of shame is universal and deeply human.

WOMEN AND THE SHAME WEB.

When I asked women to share their definitions or experiences of shame, here's what I heard: Look perfect. Do perfect. Be perfect. Anything less than that is shaming.

Being judged by other mothers.

Being exposed-the flawed parts of yourself that you want to hide from everyone are revealed.

No matter what I achieve or how far I've come, where I come from and what I've survived will always keep me from feeling like I'm good enough.

Even though everyone knows that there's no way to do it all, everyone still expects it. Shame is when you can't pull off looking like it's under control.

Never enough at home. Never enough at work. Never enough in bed. Never enough with my parents. Shame is never enough.

No seat at the cool table. The pretty girls are laughing.

If you recall the twelve shame categories (appearance and body image, money and work, motherhood/fatherhood, family, parenting, mental and physical health, addiction, s.e.x, aging, religion, surviving trauma, and being stereotyped or labeled), the primary trigger for women, in terms of its power and universality, is the first one: how we look. Still. After all of the consciousness-raising and critical awareness, we still feel the most shame about not being thin, young, and beautiful enough.

Interestingly, in terms of shame triggers for women, motherhood is a close second. And (bonus!) you don't have to be a mother to experience mother shame. Society views womanhood and motherhood as inextricably bound; therefore our value as women is often determined by where we are in relation to our roles as mothers or potential mothers. Women are constantly asked why they haven't married or, if they're married, why they haven't had children. Even women who are married and have one child are often asked why they haven't had a second child. You've had your kids too far apart? "What were you thinking?" Too close? "Why? That's so unfair to the kids." If you're working outside the home, the first question is "What about the children?" If you're not working, the first question is "What kind of example are you setting for your daughters?" Mother shame is ubiquitous-it's a birthright for girls and women.

But the real struggle for women-what amplifies shame regardless of the category-is that we're expected (and sometimes desire) to be perfect, yet we're not allowed to look as if we're working for it. We want it to just materialize somehow. Everything should be effortless. The expectation is to be natural beauties, natural mothers, natural leaders, and naturally good parents, and we want to belong to naturally fabulous families. Think about how much money has been made selling products that promise "the natural look." And when it comes to work, we love to hear, "She makes it look so easy," or "She's a natural."

As I found myself reading through the pages of definitions and examples provided by women I kept envisioning a web. What I saw was a sticky, complex spiderweb of layered, conflicting, and competing expectations that dictate exactly: who we should be what we should be how we should be When I think of my own efforts to be everything to everyone-something that women are socialized to do-I can see how every move I make just ensnares me even more. Every effort to twist my way out of the web just leads to becoming more stuck. That's because every choice has consequences or leads to someone being disappointed.

The web is a metaphor for the cla.s.sic double-bind situation. Writer Marilyn Frye describes a double bind as "a situation in which options are very limited and all of them expose us to penalty, censure, or deprivation." If you take competing and conflicting expectations (which are often unattainable from the get-go) you have this: Be perfect, but don't make a fuss about it and don't take time away from anything, like your family or your partner or your work, to achieve your perfection. If you're really good, perfection should be easy.

Don't upset anyone or hurt anyone's feelings, but say what's on your mind.

Dial the s.e.xuality way up (after the kids are down, the dog is walked, and the house is clean), but dial it way down at the PTO meeting. And, geez, whatever you do, don't confuse the two-you know how we talk about those PTO s.e.xpots.

Just be yourself, but not if it means being shy or unsure. There's nothing s.e.xier than self-confidence (especially if you're young and smokin' hot).

Don't make people feel uncomfortable, but be honest.

Don't get too emotional, but don't be too detached either. Too emotional and you're hysterical. Too detached and you're a coldhearted b.i.t.c.h.

In a US study on conformity to feminine norms, researchers recently listed the most important attributes a.s.sociated with "being feminine" as being nice, pursuing a thin body ideal, showing modesty by not calling attention to one's talents or abilities, being domestic, caring for children, investing in a romantic relationship, keeping s.e.xual intimacy contained within one committed relationship, and using our resources to invest in our appearance.

Basically, we have to be willing to stay as small, sweet, and quiet as possible, and use our time and talent to look pretty. Our dreams, ambitions, and gifts are unimportant. G.o.d forbid that some young girl who has the cure for cancer tucked away in her abilities finds this list and decides to follow the rules. If she does, we'll never know her genius-and I feel sure of that. Why? Because every successful woman whom I've interviewed has talked to me about the sometimes daily struggle to push past "the rules" so she can a.s.sert herself, advocate for her ideas, and feel comfortable with her power and gifts.

Even to me the issue of "stay small, sweet, quiet, and modest" sounds like an outdated problem, but the truth is that women still run into those demands whenever we find and use our voices. When the TEDxHouston video went viral, I wanted to hide. I begged my husband, Steve, to hack into the TED website and "bring the entire thing down!" I fantasized about breaking into the offices where they were keeping the video and stealing it. I was desperate. That was when I realized that I had unconsciously worked throughout my career to keep my work small. I loved writing for my community of readers, because preaching to the choir is easy and relatively safe. The quick and global spread of my work was exactly what I had always tried to avoid. I didn't want the exposure, and I was terrified of the mean-spirited criticism that's so rampant in Internet culture.

Well, the mean-spiritedness happened, and the vast majority of it was directed to reinforcing those norms that we'd love to believe are outdated. When a news outlet shared the video on their site, a heated debate erupted in the comments section of their website about (of course!) my weight. "How can she talk about worthiness when she clearly needs to lose fifteen pounds?" On another site, a debate grew about the appropriateness of mothers having breakdowns. "I feel sorry for her children. Good mothers don't fall apart." Another commenter wrote, "Less research. More Botox."

Something similar happened when I wrote an article on imperfection for CNN.com. To accompany the article, the editor used a photo I had taken of a good friend who had "I am Enough" written across the top of her chest. It's a beautiful photo that I have hanging in my study as a reminder. Well, that fueled comments like "She may believe that she's enough, but by the look of that chest, she could use some more," and "If I looked like Brene Brown, I'd embrace imperfection too."

I know that these examples are symptomatic of the cruelty culture that we live in today and that everyone is fair game, but think about how and what they chose to attack. They went after my appearance and my mothering-two kill shots taken straight from the list of feminine norms. They didn't go after my intellect or my arguments. That wouldn't hurt enough.

So, no, those societal norms aren't outdated, even if they're reductionist and squeeze the life out of us, and shame is the route to enforcing them. Which is another reminder of why shame resilience is a prerequisite for vulnerability. I believe I dared greatly in my TEDxHouston talk. Talking about my struggles was a courageous thing for me to do, given my drive to self-protect and use research as armor. And the only reason I'm still standing (and sitting here writing this book) is because I've cultivated some pretty fierce shame resilience skills and I'm crystal clear that courage is an important value to me.

I clearly saw that these comments triggered shame in me and I could quickly reality-check the messages. Yes, they still hurt. Yes, I was p.i.s.sed. Yes, I cried my eyes out. Yes, I wanted to disappear. But I gave myself permission to feel these things for a couple of hours or days, then I reached out, talked through my feelings with people I trust and love, and I moved on. I felt more courageous, more compa.s.sionate, more connected. (I also stopped reading anonymous comments. If you're not in the arena with the rest of us, fighting and getting your a.s.s kicked on occasion, I'm not interested in your feedback.) HOW MEN EXPERIENCE SHAME.

When I asked men to define shame or give me an answer, here's what I heard: Shame is failure. At work. On the football field. In your marriage. In bed. With money. With your children. It doesn't matter-shame is failure.

Shame is being wrong. Not doing it wrong, but being wrong.

Shame is a sense of being defective.

Shame happens when people think you're soft. It's degrading and shaming to be seen as anything but tough.

Revealing any weakness is shaming. Basically, shame is weakness.

Showing fear is shameful. You can't show fear. You can't be afraid-no matter what.

Shame is being seen as "the guy you can shove up against the lockers."

Our worst fear is being criticized or ridiculed-either one of these is extremely shaming.

Basically, men live under the pressure of one unrelenting message: Do not be perceived as weak.

Whenever my graduate students were going to do interviews with men, I told them to prepare for three things: high school stories, sports metaphors, and the word p.u.s.s.y. If you're thinking that you can't believe I just wrote that, I get it. It's one of my least favorite words. But as a researcher, I know it's important to be honest about what emerged, and that word came up all of the time in the interviews. It didn't matter if the man was eighteen or eighty, if I asked, "What's the shame message?" the answer was "Don't be a p.u.s.s.y."

When I first started writing about my work with men, I used the image of a box-something that looked like a shipping crate-to explain how shame traps men. Like the demands on women to be naturally beautiful, thin, and perfect at everything, especially motherhood, the box has rules that tell men what they should and shouldn't do, and who they're allowed to be. But for men, every rule comes back to the same mandate: "Don't be weak."

I'll never forget when a twenty-year-old man who was part of a small group of college students that I was interviewing said, "Let me show you the box." I knew he was a tall guy, but when he stood up, it was clear that he was at least six foot four. He said, "Imagine living like this," as he crouched down and pretended that he was stuffed inside a small box.

Still hunched over, he said, "You really only have three choices. You spend your life fighting to get out, throwing punches at the side of the box and hoping it will break. You always feel angry and you're always swinging. Or you just give up. You don't give a s.h.i.t about anything." At that point he slumped over on the ground. You could have heard a pin drop in the room.

Then he stood up, shook his head, and said, "Or you stay high so you don't really notice how unbearable it is. That's the easiest way." The students grabbed on to stay high like a life preserver and broke into nervous laughter. This happens a lot when you're talking about shame or vulnerability-anything to cut the tension.

But this brave young man wasn't laughing and neither was I. His demonstration was one of the most honest and courageous things I've ever had the privilege of seeing, and I know that the people in that room were deeply affected by it. After the group interview, he told me about his experiences growing up. He had been a pa.s.sionate artist as a child, and he winced as he described how he was sure from an early age that he'd be happy if he could spend his life painting and drawing. He said that one day he was in the kitchen with his dad and uncle. His uncle pointed to a collection of his art that was plastered on the refrigerator and said jokingly to his father, "What? You're raising a f.a.ggot artist now?"

After that, he said, his father, who had always been neutral about his art, forbade him from taking cla.s.ses. Even his mother, who had always been so proud of his talent, agreed that it was "a little too girly." He told me that he'd drawn a picture of his house the day before all of this happened, and to that day it was the last thing he'd ever drawn. That night I wept for him and for all of us who never got to see his work. I think about him all of the time and hope he has reconnected with his art. I know it's a tremendous loss for him, and I'm equally positive that the world is missing out.

PAY NO ATTENTION TO THAT MAN BEHIND THE CURTAIN.

As I've learned more about men and their experiences with shame, I still see that image of a shipping crate with a big stamp across it that reads, "CAUTION: Do Not Be Perceived as Weak." I see how boys are issued a crate when they're born. It's not too crowded when they're toddlers. They're still small and can move around a bit. They can cry and hold on to mamma, but as they grow older, there's less and less wiggle room. By the time they're grown men, it's suffocating.

But just as with women, men are caught in their own double bind. Over the past couple of years, especially since the economic downturn, what I have started to see is the box from The Wizard of Oz. I'm talking about the small, curtain-concealed box that the wizard stands in as he's controlling his mechanical "great and powerful" Oz image. As scarcity has grabbed hold of our culture, it's not just "Don't be perceived as weak," but also "You better be great and all powerful." This image first came to mind when I interviewed a man who was in deep shame about getting "downsized." He told me, "It's funny. My father knows. My two closest friends know. But my wife doesn't know. It's been six months, and every morning I still get dressed and leave the house like I'm going to work. I drive across town, sit in coffee shops, and look for a job."

I'm a skilled interviewer, but I can imagine that the look on my face conveyed something like "How on earth did you pull that off?" Without waiting for my next question, he answered, "She doesn't want to know. If she already knows, she wants me to keep pretending. Trust me, if I find another job and tell her after I'm back at work, she'll be grateful. Knowing would change the way she feels about me. She didn't sign up for this."

I was not prepared to hear over and over from men how the women-the mothers, sisters, girlfriends, wives-in their lives are constantly criticizing them for not being open and vulnerable and intimate, all the while they are standing in front of that cramped wizard closet where their men are huddled inside, adjusting the curtain and making sure no one sees in and no one gets out. There was a moment when I was driving home from an interview with a small group of men and thought, Holy s.h.i.t. I am the patriarchy.

Here's the painful pattern that emerged from my research with men: We ask them to be vulnerable, we beg them to let us in, and we plead with them to tell us when they're afraid, but the truth is that most women can't stomach it. In those moments when real vulnerability happens in men, most of us recoil with fear and that fear manifests as everything from disappointment to disgust. And men are very smart. They know the risks, and they see the look in our eyes when we're thinking, C'mon! Pull it together. Man up. As Joe Reynolds, one of my mentors and the dean at our church, once told me during a conversation about men, shame, and vulnerability, "Men know what women really want. They want us to pretend to be vulnerable. We get really good at pretending."

Covert shame hurts just as much as overt shame. Take, for example, the man who told me that he was always feeling shame with his wife around money. He said the latest instance was when his wife came home and said, "I just saw Katie's new house! It's amazing. She's so happy to finally get that dream house. On top of that, she's going to quit working next year."

He told me his immediate response was rage. So he picked a fight with his wife about her mother coming to visit, and then quickly disappeared to another part of the house. As we were talking about this conversation, he said, "It was shame. Why did she have to say that? I get it. Katie's husband makes a lot of money. He takes better care of her. I can't compete."

When I asked him if he thought that it was her intention to hurt him or shame him, he responded, "I'm not sure. Who knows? I turned down a job that paid a lot more but required traveling three weeks out of the month. She said she was supportive, and that she and the kids would miss me too much, but now she makes little comments about money all of the time. I have no idea what to think."

p.i.s.sED OFF OR SHUT DOWN.

I don't want to oversimplify something as complex as the response to shame, but I have to say that when it comes to men, there seem to be two primary responses: p.i.s.sed off or shut down. Of course, like women, as men develop shame resilience, this changes, and men learn to respond to shame with awareness, self-compa.s.sion, and empathy. But without that awareness, when men feel that rush of inadequacy and smallness, they normally respond with anger and/or by completely turning off.

Once I had collected enough interviews to start seeing strong patterns and themes, I scheduled interviews with several male therapists who specialize in men's issues. I wanted to make sure that I wasn't filtering what I heard from the men through my own experiences. When I asked one of these therapists about the concept of "p.i.s.sed off or shut down," he told me this story to ill.u.s.trate the point.

When he was a freshman in high school, he tried out and made the football team. On the first day of practice, his coach told the boys to line up on the line of scrimmage. The therapist had grown up playing a lot of football in his neighborhood, but this was his first experience on a field, in full pads, across from boys whose goal was to flatten him. He said, "I was suddenly afraid. I was thinking about how much it was going to hurt, and I guess that fear showed up on my face."

He said his coach yelled his last name and said, "Don't be a p.u.s.s.y! Get on the line." He said he immediately felt shame coursing through his body. "In that single moment, I became very clear about how the world works and what it means to be a man: "I am not allowed to be afraid.

"I am not allowed to show fear.

"I am not allowed to be vulnerable.

"Shame is being afraid, showing fear, or being vulnerable."

When I asked him what he did next, he looked me in the eye and said, "I turned my fear into rage and steamrolled over the guy in front of me. It worked so well that I spent the next twenty years turning my fear and vulnerability into rage and steamrolling anyone who was across from me. My wife. My children. My employees. There was no other way out from underneath the fear and shame."

I heard such grief and clarity in his voice as he was saying this to me. It made total sense. Fear and vulnerability are powerful emotions. You can't just wish them away. You have to do something with them. Many men, in fact, use very physiological descriptions when they talk to me about "p.i.s.sed off or shut down." It's almost as if shame, criticism, and ridicule are physically intolerable.

The therapist concluded, "I got into therapy when my rage and my drinking were no longer manageable. When it started costing me my marriage and my relationships with my children. That's why I do the work I do today."

Shame resilience-the four elements we discussed in the previous chapter-is about finding a middle path, an option that allows us to stay engaged and to find the emotional courage we need to respond in a way that aligns with our values.

I'M ONLY AS HARD ON OTHERS AS I AM ON MYSELF Just like the father coming down on his budding artist son or the coach giving his player a hard time, women can also be very hard on other women. We are hard on others because we're hard on ourselves. That's exactly how judgment works. Finding someone to put down, judge, or criticize becomes a way to get out of the web or call attention away from our box. If you're doing worse than I am at something, I think, my chances of surviving are better.

Steve and I met lifeguarding and coaching swimming. The big rule in lifeguarding is to utilize any means possible before you actually jump in and try to pull someone out of the water. Even though you're a strong swimmer and the person you're trying to help is half your size, a desperate person will do anything to save themselves-to grab a breath-including drowning you in their effort to survive. The same is true for women and the shame web. We're so desperate to get out and stay out of shame that we're constantly serving up the people around us as more deserving prey.

What's ironic (or perhaps natural) is that research tells us that we judge people in areas where we're vulnerable to shame, especially picking folks who are doing worse than we're doing. If I feel good about my parenting, I have no interest in judging other people's choices. If I feel good about my body, I don't go around making fun of other people's weight or appearance. We're hard on each other because we're using each other as a launching pad out of our own perceived shaming deficiency. It's hurtful and ineffective, and if you look at the mean-girl culture in middle schools and high schools, it's also contagious. We've handed this counterfeit survival mechanism down to our children.

In my interviews with teachers and school administrators, two patterns emerged that speak directly to this issue. The first pattern reported by faculty and princ.i.p.als was that often the children who are engaging in the bullying behaviors or vying for social ranking by putting down others have parents who engage in the same behaviors. When it came to girls, the phrase that kept emerging from the interviews was "The parents aren't upset by their daughters' behaviors; they're proud of them for being popular." One school administrator likened this behavior to the fathers who first ask, "Well, did he at least win the fight?"

The other pattern, which has only emerged in the last couple of years, is the age of the children when this starts happening. When I started this work, bullying wasn't a hot topic, but as a shame researcher, I was aware that it was a growing trend. In fact, I wrote an op-ed on bullying and reality television for the Houston Chronicle over ten years ago. Back then my focus was teenagers because the data pointed to adolescence as the prime age range for these behaviors. In the past couple of years, I'm hearing about girls and boys as young as first grade engaging in these behaviors.

How do we break this insidious pattern? Maybe by deciding (and showing our children) that the solution to being stuck in shame is not to denigrate others stuck just like us, but to join hands and pull free together. For example, if we're at the grocery store, and we push our cart past another mother whose child is screaming b.l.o.o.d.y murder and throwing Cheerios on the floor, we have a choice. If we choose to use the moment to confirm that we're better than she is, and that she's stuck in the web in ways we are not, we will roll our eyes in disapproval and walk by. Our other choice, though, is to flash that mother our best "you're not alone-I've been there, sister" smile because we know what she's feeling. Yes, empathy requires some vulnerability, and we risk getting back a "mind your own d.a.m.n business" look, but it's worth it. It doesn't just loosen up the web for her. It loosens it up for us the next time it's our child and our Cheerios-and you can bet it will be.

What gives me hope about our willingness to extend a hand back and support each other is the increasing number of men and women I encounter who are willing to risk vulnerability and share their stories of shame resilience. I see this in formal and informal mentoring programs. I see this from folks who are writing blogs and sharing their experiences with readers. I see it in schools and programs that not only are becoming increasingly less tolerant of student bullying but are holding teachers, administrators, and parents accountable for their behaviors. Adults are being asked to model the Wholeheartedness that they want to see in the children.

There is a quiet transformation happening that is moving us from "turning on each other" to "turning toward each other." Without question, that transformation will require shame resilience. If we're willing to dare greatly and risk vulnerability with each other, worthiness has the power to set us free.

IT'S NOT ABOUT THE BACK FAT:

MEN, WOMEN, s.e.x, AND BODY IMAGE.

In 2006 I met with twenty-two community college students, male and female, to talk about shame. It was my first coed large group interview. At some point, a young man in his early twenties explained how he had recently divorced his wife after coming back from serving in the military and finding out that she was having an affair. He said he wasn't surprised because he never felt "good enough for her." He explained that he constantly asked her what she needed and wanted, and that every time he got close to meeting her needs, she "moved the goalpost another ten feet."

A young woman in the cla.s.s spoke up and said, "Guys are the same way. They're never satisfied either. We're never pretty, s.e.xy, or skinny enough." Within seconds a conversation broke out about body image and s.e.x. The discussion was mostly about how it's so scary to have s.e.x with someone you care about when you're worried about how your body looks. The young women who started the conversation said, "It's not easy to have s.e.x and keep your stomach sucked in. How can we get into it when we're worried about our back fat?"

The young man who had shared the story of his divorce slammed his hand down on his desk and shouted, "It's not about the back fat! You're worried about it. We're not. We don't give a s.h.i.t!" The cla.s.s fell completely quiet. He took a couple of deep breaths and said, "Stop making up all of this stuff about what we're thinking! What we're really thinking is 'Do you love me? Do you care about me? Do you want me? Am I important to you? Am I good enough?' That's what we're thinking. When it comes to s.e.x, it feels like our life is on the line, and you're worried about that c.r.a.p?"

At that point, half of the young men in the room were so emotional that they had their faces in their hands. A few girls were in tears, and I couldn't breathe. The young woman who had brought up the body image issue said, "I don't understand. My last boyfriend was always criticizing my body."

The young vet who had just brought us all to our knees replied, "That's because he's an a.s.shole. It's not because he's a guy. Some of us are just guys. Give us a break. Please."

A middle-aged man in the group joined in, staring straight down at his desk. "It's true. When you want to be with us...in that way...it makes us feel more worthy. We stand a little taller. Believe in ourselves more. I don't know why, but it's true. And I've been married since I was eighteen. It still feels that way with my wife."