Shame-Grandiosity-Disrespect-Violence

Every time we turn around these days there is some horrible event or comment in the news or in our world. Whether it is the ways we abuse ourselves inside of our own heads, or how we and the people we associate with are sarcastic or rude or outright mean, or the ways people talk about issues in government, or on the TV, or a young mentally ill man purchasing a gun and shooting people, there seem to be some common variables, some connections.
Over the years I've spent trying to help people feel better about themselves so they can stand up for themselves in relationships and lead joyful lives, I have heard some horror stories and seen some "shameless" behaviors right in my office. Over the years I have tried to understand this better in hopes of helping people make better choices for themselves about their own actions as well as what they will tolerate from others. I read books and watched movies, I took classes and talked to colleagues. I examined my own inner workings and motivations.
I think I have figured a few things out. At least I have found a way to make sense of it for myself and this has helped me guide myself in my relationships and find some way of having peace in my own life fully acknowledging that I cannot fix everyone nor can I stop disrespect, meanness and violence from occurring in the world. But maybe if I can change and help others to change we can get a little bit closer to living in a peaceful world. Maybe if we each work on our own change, each of us will impact others and create a chain effect and positive revolution in the world of relationships.
Over the years I have taken bits and pieces of things and put them together and I share them with my clients in therapy. I am going to attempt to put it all together in this blog and hope it all flows and makes as much sense to you as it does to me. Some people think violence comes from testosterone or is some kind of a rite of passage. I think most violence, disrespect, intolerance, judgmentalism comes from being shame based.
Most of us were raised in shame based families and went to shame based schools and listened to shame based examples on the news, TV, movies and in our communities. Most of us had peer groups who used shame to keep us in line or excluded us to make themselves feel better. We learned to not trust others or ourselves. We learned to fear any imperfection as it might lead ourselves and others to see us as unloveable and worthless.
When we behave badly it is healthy to have some remorse. When we make mistakes it is healthy to recognize it and learn from it. When we go to shame, and I'm talking about TOXIC shame, we have dropped out of a healthy response and into self hatred and feelings of such worthlessness that our self worth can be non existent, we may feel as if we are unloveable pieces of shit.
How did we learn to go there? Feeling that depth of self hatred is an uncomfortable place to be. It is scary. Will I ever be able to get out of this place? Will others notice and shun me, leaving me all alone? Will people laugh at me, make fun of me verifying my worthlessness? Can I survive my life and expose myself anymore? Is it safe? So that leaves us with a few choices: hide out and isolate so that you don't have to worry about others seeing how bad you really are, live in denial and get numb so you don't see or feel badly or you can take that "hot potato" of shame and toss it to someone else. We learn to attack others and put them down in order to deflect our own feelings of shame.
Being grandiose, better than, self righteous always feels better than shame. This is why so many people get so defensive or toss the hot potato of shame by blaming and shaming the other party or rage at others. That is until they realize what they're doing and how it is impacting the people they love or notice how people tend to avoid them.
If you decide you want to live a life in which you stick to your principles of being respectful to yourself and others, you have to conquer your own shame triggers. You have to figure out something else to do with that hot potato than foisting it onto someone else. You have to learn to soothe yourself. You begin to see that by throwing the shame to someone else you are responsible for keeping the world in a vicious circle of anger and hatred and disrespect and violence and self righteousness and intolerance. So what does this have to do with violence? With our current political rhetoric? With a shooter killing innocent people? With bullying amongst children and adults? With why batterers hit people they claim to love? Why is it so hard to admit we are wrong or have made a mistake? I think it has everything to do with it. How do we take these ideas and extrapolate them to figure out what is wreaking havoc in our world?
Religion, politics, sexuality, money, land rights....it doesn't really matter what the conflict is. Why are people so intolerant of other people having different beliefs? Why is it so important to be Number One? If people disagree why do they feel the need to belittle the other person or party or group?
I have thought a lot about why or rather how people are able to hurt, put down and kill others. In order to hurt animals or other humans one has to be in a certain frame of mind, don't they? Even people who wouldn't hurt a fly under normal circumstances can find themselves in such an emotional state that they feel like they can or have the right to hurt someone else. What does it take to get there? Sometimes it's easy to see where someone's shame has gotten triggered. Other times all we see is the grandiosity of the stance. But I have come to believe there is always some shame or fear underneath all aggression and grandiosity. I don't always know what it is but I'd bet it's there somewhere.
In order for any person, or group of people, to feel that they can hurt, maim, enslave or kill others they usually find a way to depersonalize the "other". People who would never murder "one of their own", find it easy to do horrific things to people or animals they can consider an "other". "Other" equals "shameful worthless creature". In finding others we can view that way it enables us to feel "one up", more worthy than they.
I posit, then, that people who want to aggress towards others are, indeed, feeling "less than" themselves and are needing to find someone else to put beneath them to boost their own self esteem.
Politicians, and other greedy people use this to turn people against each other, group against group, race against race, gender against gender. If they get flame the fires of fear, fear of being "less than", they can cause uprisings of group against group, individuals against groups or other individuals. They can get people fighting for the bones while they go on to reap the rewards. We are so busy trying to be "one up", to "save ourselves" that they end up walking away with the prize.
It's time for each of us to search our own souls, to determine how we can be the best person we want to be, to learn how to live with respect. Respect of ourselves first and then of all others. Not just OUR family. Not just OUR group. Everyone. We are all good and deserving of respect.
Let's start now.