If you are a man who needs to know how to improve your relationships, you have to watch this. If you are a man who needs to know how to challenge yourself and achieve that next career goal, you need to watch this. And if you have children, you need to watch this.

I love the work of Dr. Brené Brown! She is changing the way I look at masculinity, and how closely shame is tied to everything we have been taught about being men.

Why? Because for you, me, and a lot of other men, shame prevents us from being better men and achieving our goals. Shame is the emotion you experience when you feel defective, exposed, defenseless, or helpless. Many of us have huge dreams and aspirations. Many want awesome relationships that are motivating and safe, supportive, and yes, exciting! But shame is causing us problems. Every time we hold back, don’t speak up, don’t ask for that next raise, pass on an opportunity to ask out the girl, or stay home to play video games instead of going to the gym, I can show you how shame has impacted your decisions.

Guilt vs. Shame

Guilt and shame are very similar, but they are differentiated by their perceived cause or blame. Shame is an internalized and permanent sense that “I am bad.” It’s kind of this global sense that all of my failures are evidence of my inherent inadequacy. On the other hand, guilt is more transient, situation-dependent and flexible. It’s the feeling of, “I did something bad, but maybe next time I can do better.”

So where are these feelings of shame coming from? Drum roll please… enter traditional masculinity stage right. Traditional masculinity gives us a very narrow window to look through and live out our lives as men in this world. It’s easy really, right? Just don’t be weak. Don’t cry! Don’t fail! Do it alone, and never ask for help! The result: plain, unadulterated shame. We learn this from our families, classmates, teammates, and especially from Hollywood. When they want to mix things up in the movies, Ironman might have a brief malfunction of his armor or lose power, but you never see him actually lose. In real life, we lose all the time! WE FAIL, and we fail hard! What the heck are we supposed to do when we finally realize that?

Don’t get me wrong! I’m all about helping men become the epic heroes they aspire to be! I just wrote all about it, and I’m building my whole practice around this idea. But there has to be a way to make our goals realistic and attainable. We have been set up to fail. Let’s face it, men cry, we hurt, and we get offended the same way that women do. There is no monopoly on strength that we as men possess.  

Check out this excerpt from Brené Brown’s 2012 TED talk.

For men, shame is not a bunch of competing, conflicting expectations. Shame is one, do not be perceived as what? Weak. I did not interview men for the first four years of my study. And it wasn't until a man looked at me one day after a book signing, said, "I love what you have to say about shame, I'm curious why you didn't mention men." And I said, "I don't study men." And he said, "That's convenient." (Laughter) And I said, "Why?" And he said, "Because you say to reach out, tell our story, be vulnerable. But you see those books you just signed for my wife and my three daughters?" I said, "Yeah." "They'd rather me die on top of my white horse than watch me fall down. When we reach out and be vulnerable we get the shit beat out of us. And don't tell me it's from the guys and the coaches and the dads, because the women in my life are harder on me than anyone else."

Shame is an epidemic in our culture. And to get out from underneath it, to find our way back to each other, we have to understand how it affects us and how it affects the way we're parenting, the way we're working, the way we're looking at each other. Very quickly, some research by Mahalik at Boston College. He asked, what do women need to do to conform to female norms? The top answers in this country: nice, thin, modest and use all available resources for appearance. When he asked about men, what do men in this country need to do to conform with male norms, the answers were: always show emotional control, work is first, pursue status and violence.

If we're going to find our way back to each other, we have to understand and know empathy, because empathy's the antidote to shame. If you put shame in a Petri dish, it needs three things to grow exponentially: secrecy, silence and judgment. If you put the same amount of shame in a Petri dish and douse it with empathy, it can't survive. The two most powerful words when we're in struggle: me too.

Side Note

I love the details of life. In the last week or so I’ve cut down a dead fir tree in our yard, and I’m planning to make some office furniture, at least a small end table, but probably a coffee table too. If you follow me on Instagram you’ve already seen some of this project. I am diving deep into hand tools, timber framing, and joinery. It’s embarrassing to admit how nutty I am about this stuff and pretty much anything that captures my attention. Another example is pizza. I like to make pizza. I’m not talking about buying a pre-made crust, and slapping some cheese and pepperoni on top. My favorite part is making my own pizza crust recipe, tossing the dough in the air, and covering it with a home made white sauce, chicken, bacon, tomato and feta cheese. I do pepperoni, pineapple and vegetables too, but that white sauce chicken pizza is the best! It’s not that I just love pizza. For me, it’s all about the details and process. I could talk about wheat and cheese and meat enough to bore most people. So don’t get me started. But I would also get a kick out of adding more details to the process. For instance, if I had a field for a cow I would make my own cheese. I would even figure out what it took to raise wheat in this rainy western Washington soil and grind my own flour. 

When you read this you might say, “Holy crap this guy has ADHD! What was his point? Or “What is he like in the therapy room,” or, “Wow, OK, so Jay is a wannabe lumberjack-chef-farmer, who spent how many years in school?” or you might just start to say, “Yeah I would totally be into that, where do I sign up?”

Going Deep

So here is my point, a ton of people are like me and they love getting into the details of their favorite topic or hobby, but many people don’t know the details that make up their spouse, girlfriend, boyfriend, sibling, or friend. Why not? Why don’t you know the ins and outs of her favorite book, hobby, or life dream? It’s because you have not gone deep enough in your relationship. Depth requires vulnerability and empathy. Brené says that empathy is the antidote to shame, because when you are vulnerable and share like I have above, you give the other person an opportunity to know you, to say, “Oh, me too,” and sooth the fear that is raging in your gut.

Empathy is the antidote because it is the opposite of those “screw you!” moments. Instead, it’s understanding, and as John Gottman would say, “turning towards.” How can we be more connected to each other without a basic understanding of each others’ fears and weaknesses? This is not “Oh, I know exactly what she sucks at!” That’s your experience. What I am talking about here is knowing where she feels the weakest. When she feels threatened the most, and why.

When you do go deep in your relationship, you will begin to understand what these are for her. Then the next step would be showing empathy for her which I’ll cover in another post.

Summing Up

So to review. Shame effects many of our decisions and it can keep us from succeeding in life, love, and work. To overcome shame we need to begin to buck traditional male roles and develop empathy for those around us.