Breaking the shame engine

2007-08-04T01:59:33Z

One of the worst things you can do to yourself is blame yourself for anything. It's true, just about anything. Blaming yourself takes up emotional and mental energy and, if your mind is like a computer, ties up system resources in a major way if you do it often. This isn't the same as taking responsibility for something -- however we are often taught to blame ourselves growing up mixed in the same message as being taught to take responsibility for our actions. Responsibility is an understanding of how you affect yourself and the world and your commitment to taking actions that ensure that said affectation is healthy and productive for yourself and others. Blame, on the other hand, is a societal or group reaction to wrongdoing with intent to punish the guilty in hopes of deterring future incidences of that action. Blame was invented almost solely because society cannot directly control the individuals within it, and thus cannot directly act on wrongdoing outside of reactive ways. Now whether blame, crime, and punishment are still pertinent or outdated concepts in modern society is far beyond the scope of this blog. Rather, the point being made here is that blame is a societal construct that has no use in guiding one's own personal actions, as the issue of control is not at hand .

For the most part, we have control over our own actions. Once again, there could be a philosophical argument about the issue of the existence of free will, but it is not within the scope of civilequinox. We are going to assume that individuals have control over their own actions to a large degree in normal conditions. Given that, blame is of little use to oneself. It is not useless per se, as one can examine a trend or pattern for their self blame and better locate a psychological hurdle they have not yet cleared, or a responsibility not yet answered, but the blame itself does not serve a purpose beyond draining one's own mental and emotional resources.

If I may go anecdotal, I have noticed many individuals -- including myself at the time of this writing -- have a large degree of lethargy that feeds a "shame engine" of sorts. This shame engine, if I may use the term, is fueled by self-blame and creates self-pity as a byproduct. The shame engine is fed by a striking personal failure followed by self blame. From there, it takes up a large portion of the person's emotional and mental energy as it begins "running". As the person is now essentially handicapped in spirit, they are more prone to even more failures which in turn feed the engine. Eventually failure will not even be necessary at all to fuel it -- the individual will learn to fear making any action at all (compare: Learned helplessness). At this point, the even wind up blaming themselves for making no action at all! If the phrases "I can't do anything right, I can't get a job, I can't drive..." sound at all familiar, then you understand what is unfolding here.

It begins with no longer blaming yourself for things. Do not do it. Understand your responsibility in the larger picture, yes, and try to make things right when dealing with yourself and others -- yes. But do not blame yourself. Shame is an emotion that can be indulged in, if one is willing to learn and grow from it, but it is not something to be embraced for the longterm. By stopping yourself from blame, the shame engine in turn will slow down and stop. At that point you will have a lot more energy than you would have if it continued to run. This energy will be just what you need to break the lethargy, if that is your affliction.

You will succeed.