Shame and Our Ethical Responsibility

Maybe you’ve had one of those moments when a client or someone in your life shares that you’ve impacted them. Negatively. 

It’s possible (perhaps even likely) that some part of you immediately goes into a panic. You might get defensive, pushing back, explaining, even blaming. Or, perhaps you collapse into a puddle of self-loathing and regret. Sometimes these reactions occur quietly, almost imperceptibly impacting how we show up. Other times they are loud. Front and center. Taking over an interaction. 

It is a natural nervous system reaction to experience a protective defensiveness when we are accused of harming or in any way behaving ‘negatively’. We often find ourselves somewhere along the spectrum of flight, fight, or freeze. Simply knowing the inevitability of this can be helpful as we work with our reactions. With the endowment of this information, we can find resources and lean into the important work of curiosity, listening, and repair. 

When we fall into shame, we are no longer available to engage, nor are we capable of acknowledging the impact we’ve had or the harm we’ve caused. If we can’t do these things, then we cannot take responsibility for our actions or their impact. This makes it impossible to listen, make amends, or repair the rupture. It makes it impossible to learn and evolve. 

We do not make our way out of shame in isolation. In order to be ethical practitioners, we must surround ourselves with communities of diversity and fierce support. Communities that will stay with us when we have fallen into shame. And we must work to cultivate communities that do not cancel each other, exile or call each other out.  

Join us for Embodied Ethics, starting in just two weeks. In this 12-week course for practitioners and others – all those in positions of power and responsibility – we will explore the roots of our shame, how and where it lives in us, and some of the ways to make ourselves less hospitable to its damaging effects.