Discomfortable

Narcissism   Contrary to popular belief, narcissism isn’t really just about self-obsession. Nor is narcissism synonymous with sociopathy. Narcissism is a specific strategy to battle chronic shame and deep feelings of unworthiness. And it’s a strategy that we’ve all employed at times. But when it becomes persistent, you get labelled as a “narcissist” or a “toxic person”.  I should know, I am a narcissist (more or less). Which means, I adopted this shame avoidance strategy early in life and it is still often my default reaction to feelings of unworthiness. But at my core, I am and always was a normal, caring human being. My natural empathy just got obscured at times by the overwhelming urgency of this narcissistic need.  Narcissism is essentially an endless PR campaign. I used it to try to convince myself and everyone around me that I was the opposite of how I often felt. Shame was telling me I was innately flawed, so narcissism countered that by advertising that I was actually innately talented! The shame-induced feeling of being worse than others created this fictional hierarchy in my mind that said some humans must have more inherent value than others. So it became my goal to prove that I was one of those innately valuable humans. That I was at the top of the hierarchy. I did this by pursuing fame, success, attractiveness, talent, popularity, attention, etc. I did this by constantly elevating myself and even cutting others down in subtle ways.  Much like the very first episode of this podcast on Vanity, narcissism appears like self-obsession, but only because you are always looking at yourself as if through the eyes of others. You focus on appreciating whatever it is about yourself that you think and hope others are also appreciating. You get this reassuring hit of worthiness every time you admire your own superficial wins, but it’s only temporary. So like an addiction, you need to constantly admire yourself in order to buoy your self-esteem above the void of shame beneath. You do this because shame makes it feel like you need to be “worthy” to survive. So it’s like you’re constantly fighting for your life, and it leaves no time or energy leftover to think about others beyond what they think about you.

Sex Addiction   As promised in the last episode, this week I look at the way many of us conflate sex and attraction with connection and belonging. I think this explains why sex can be so addictive, because it appears to meet so many of our basic needs around human connection, but it only does so in a temporary way. Sex can meet our need for sex, of course, as well as our need for intimacy, pleasure, touch, relaxation, comfort, excitement, connection, belonging, even community to some degree. But sex alone isn’t enough to actually completely satisfy all of those needs in a profound way. It’s kinda like going to the gym to meet your need for running a marathon. It accomplishes something similar, but in a limited way that doesn’t actually add up to the full meal deal. Belonging and community are larger experiences, and while sex can be a healthy and important part of meeting those needs, if it becomes your main or only strategy, it can be a problem. This episode also looks at the way we conceptualize “addiction” in general, and how that label can be shaming in and of itself. Interestingly though, some people find the label of addiction less shaming, like my friend Katie who I interviewed for the episode on Sobriety. It all comes down the distinction between shame and guilt. Lastly, this episode explores how shame can actually be a sexual turn on! In the right dosage or with the right distance, shame can be part of what makes sex so “dirty” and “hot”. Shame adds the sense of transgression to sex that either excites us or repels us. Some people get off on leaning into that transgression, while others get off on avoiding it. So figuring out your relationship to sex and shame can be a surprisingly powerful tool for you and your partner(s) to maximize mutual sexual enjoyment. 

Proto-Friends   Inspired by another recent Twitter conversation, this episode looks at the concept of a “proto-friend”, someone you feel certain you would really connect with if only you had the chance. The Twitter discussion reminded me of a special proto-friend I made at World Domination Summit over the last two years and the surprising impact that non-friendship had on me. I met Craig when he hosted an LGBTQ+ mixer meet-up at my first WDS in 2018, but I got a weird vibe from him that he didn’t really like me. He seemed aloof and disinterested, even though I fancied myself a cute, new gay on the scene. Feeling implicitly rejected, I created an enemy image of Craig and kept my distance. But in 2019, at the very same mixer, I discovered that Craig was actually this really sweet guy and I slowly realized that I had allowed myself to spiral down a shame rabbit hole the year before and had therefore completely misjudged the situation and him! And though I barely knew him, I felt like we actually had a potential connection and I saw him as a good candidate for the elusive holy grail of platonic gay friendship.  Perhaps as a penance for my mistake, I made it my conscious intention to attempt to befriend Craig at the next WDS this summer…

Crying   If you’ve been listening to the podcast regularly, you’ll probably know that learning to cry has been one of my goals over the last year. I had some luck crying at the Nonviolent Communication retreat I did last year, but it still seemed like I had more to learn. So when I noticed the hashtag #sobsquad making the rounds on Twitter over the last few months, I started to get curious.  This new sobbing trend was sparked by the work of Dr. Douglas Tataryn, a clinical psychologist from the University of Manitoba. He led a 2-day workshop here in Toronto this past weekend and I was lucky enough to attend (it was sold out when I first heard about it). Doug has developed what he calls the Bio-Emotive Framework, including a process for emotional release under the acronym NEDERA (Notice, Experience, Differentiate, Express, Resonate, Act). The heart of it is a series of 9 “core feelings” (NVC would argue they are beliefs, but that’s another discussion altogether) which are essentially phrases that help stimulate emotional release, aka sobbing. You’ll notice that many of the phrases relate to shame (which isn’t surprising): “I feel lost” “I feel alone” “I feel bad” “I feel inadequate” “I feel empty” “I feel helpless” “I feel hopeless” “I feel insignificant” “I feel worthless” Though it sounds simplistic, I was surprised by how rapidly and effectively just auditioning these key phrases was at stimulating emotion, not to mention the power of being in a safe space where uninhibited sobbing was encouraged. It was a revolutionary experience for me and I was amazed and impressed that on the second day of the workshop I actually sobbed in front of a total stranger in a room full of people! The whole experience upended my notions of how emotions and thoughts work. As I said on Twitter afterwards: I used to think: changing my thoughts changed my feelings. It worked to a degree. But after (re)learning how to cry at @DougTataryn’s workshop this weekend, I started to see that it might work even better the other way around, processing my feelings changes my thoughts. #sobsquad — Discomfortable (@discomfrtble) January 21, 2020 I even made my own meme out of it: Corrections: Doug’s wife and co-facilitator is Darlene Tataryn, not Debra (my apologies Darlene!) and the meditation group that organized the workshop is the Consciousness Explorers Club (not “Conscious Explorers Club”).

Boundaries   When I first encountered the term “boundaries” a few years ago, I had no idea what it meant. Most of the references to “boundaries” in the self-help books I was reading at the time seemed to assume that the reader would already know what they were. Not only that, but it seemed like these boundary things were really important — that they were something I “should” already have. But I didn’t even know what they were! So it wasn’t surprising that once I started to understand what “boundaries” meant, it became clear that they weren’t something I actively employed in my life. Brené Brown defines boundaries in her book Rising Strong as, “…simply our lists of what’s okay and what’s not okay.” I think this definition is a bit simplistic, but it’s a good start. I see boundaries as the no-go zones we must consciously enforce to protect our needs and integrity. A good measure of where to draw your boundaries is around anything that will stimulate resentment in you (or other unpleasant feelings, like unwanted pain, shame, trauma, etc).  To take it even further, I see having boundaries as being aware of and respecting the literal and psychological separation between ourselves and others. So much of what leads to our boundaries being violated, I think, is the illusion that we “have to” allow or engage in something that we don’t really want to. This often stems from the mistaken belief that we are responsible for the feelings and actions of others. As in, “If I don’t do this, I’ll make my boyfriend upset”. Setting strong boundaries is about recognizing and honouring that each person is responsible for their own feelings, actions, and reactions. This episode looks at what boundaries are, why they are so important, and how best to defend them in a non-shaming way. I also discuss how the principle of boundaries is neatly encapsulated in psychologist Alfred Adler‘s concept of the separation of tasks. And I look at how boundaries might have even more utility when expressed as needs, as demonstrated by Nonviolent Communication. 

Liv Larsson   Last summer, I attended a 9-day International Intensive Training in Nonviolent Communication on an island off of Stockholm, and to my lucky surprise, one of the trainers at the retreat happened to be Swedish shame expert Liv Larsson.  Liv is an author, educator, mediator, and certified NVC trainer who has written over 20 books. During the IIT in Sweden she led us in several shame related workshops and I was so impressed that I immediately bought and read her insightful book Anger, Guilt and Shame. And when I learned that Liv would be doing a 3-day course dedicated to the topic of shame, guilt, and anger in Bucharest, Romania this November, I made sure I was there! Liv looks at shame and what she calls the “compass of needs” (a map of the 4 most common shame reactions) through the lens of NVC, providing practical advice not only on how to deal with shame personally, but how to deal with other people when they are in the reactions described by the compass. Her extensive experience using NVC in mediation work shows what a powerful tool understanding shame can be in resolving conflict and creating connection. Liv joins me from Sweden for this fascinating interview in which we explore how shame works, how to transform shame, how to deal with others when they are in shame, and much, much more. Not only did I have several epiphanies while conducting the interview itself, but every time I’ve listened to the interview since, I’ve come away with some powerful new insights! You can find out about Liv’s workshops and join her mailing list here: www.friareliv.com And you can read more about her work and her books here: www.livlarsson.com Note: this interview was edited for clarity.

The Interpersonal Bridge   While studying shame over the last few years, I kept coming across clinical psychologist and shame pioneer Gershen Kaufman’s definition of shame, “The breaking of the interpersonal bridge”. But I never understood what it meant. What is the “interpersonal bridge”? And how does it get broken? It wasn’t until I started doing my certification courses at the Center for Healing Shame in Berkely that this definition of shame started to make sense to me. I think the key is understanding the therapeutic concept of “attunement”, which in this case refers to the state of interconnectedness between two (or more) people where there is a sense of appropriate emotional give and take. We are attuned when we really see the other person, understand and empathize with what they are feeling, react appropriately, and vice versa. It’s a kind of moment by moment interplay that creates the sense of mutual connection, care, and respect that we long for as social animals.  So when we come into attunement with another person, we create an intersubjective interpersonal bridge between us, which feels great. But as soon as that attunement stops, as soon as someone reacts in an unexpected way that thwarts the pleasure we were experiencing and expecting, it breaks that interpersonal bridge. And that break is shame. In this way, attunement is one of the basic units of connection. It is the building block of the interpersonal bridge. And without it, there is always bound to be shame.

Call-Outs A few months ago I attended a symposium called The Problem of Shame put on by the Menninger Clinic in Houston, Texas. With speakers like Brené Brown and Harriet Lerner, it was an illuminating and amusing conference. But perhaps the most interesting thing that occurred was when another participant stood up in the middle of one of the presentations and called-out another table of participants for being on their phones and not paying attention. The talk in question was titled, “I Thought People Like That Shot Themselves”: The Insidiousness of LGBTQ Shame presented by clinical psychologist Michael R. Kauth, Director of the LGBT Health Program at the Veterans Health Administration in Vermont. It was an intense lecture that was of course very personal for me and clearly for the man who stood up to complain as well. I can completely relate to the shame this man must have felt when he looked over and saw other people seemingly ignoring this important talk about the very trauma and struggles that he and I and many other LGBTQ+ people have faced in our lives. Given that the whole symposium was about “the problem of shame” and this specific talk was about the problem of LGBTQ+ shame in particular (and that was exactly what he was experiencing at the time), it must have made sense in his mind to stand up and call-out what he saw as the very issue in question. But the problem is, he made the classic mistake of using shame to fight shame. And what I found fascinating, was that no one at this shame conference even acknowledged that this was an example of shame in action. What could have been a teachable moment and realtime example of the way shame works was more or less brushed off as an awkward hiccup. The speaker just proceeded with his talk, and though the host of the event later acknowledged the interruption by placating both sides, no one noted that it was actually shame or explored its very relevant significance to the whole event. Earlier in the day, Brené Brown had spoken specifically about the need to acknowledge shame, to talk about it. And I don’t think talking about it just in theory is enough. We need to acknowledge and address shame as it happens because that’s the best way to make it clear what shame actually is! It’s hard for people to connect the theory with the elusive feeling of shame because shame is specifically designed to confound us and hide itself. This could have been a perfect moment to connect the theory with reality. Brené had also asserted that there was no place for shame in social justice work. I think this is such an important message that so many well-meaning activists are missing, including the man who stood up. If you are combatting injustice with shame, you may actually be making the problem worse because shame triggers our threat response which makes people more resistant to logic, reason, compassion, and healthy change. Our threat response is connected to the oldest part of our brain, our amygdala, and its activation obscures our more human — and humane — neocortex. So it’s just bad strategy. Of course, the man’s behaviour made perfect sense when you recognized that he was also in shame at the time, so his own neocortex was likely offline. He was being misdirected by his primitive threat response system too! This is all the more reason why it would have been so powerful and insightful to help him, and everyone else, see exactly what was happening in the moment and how it could have been successfully dealt with right then and there! This episode looks at how the issue could have been handled differently, and also how it could have been discussed at the time in the least shaming way possible for everyone involved. This episode also references my podcast on clarity.

Non-Monogamy   I met Emma (not her real name) at World Domination Summit this year and as usual, I brought up the topic of shame and it led into a discussion about the shame she has had to navigate around her non-monogamous marriage. Emma and her husband Fin opened their relationship over a decade ago when they were dating in college, and through trial and error have successfully learned how to incorporate the “adventure” of non-monogamy into their relationship and now marriage. They even do a podcast of their own, Normalizing Non-Monogamy, in which they interview other people and couples about their experiences, both positive and negative, with this “alternative” lifestyle.  Our interview charts the beginning of their non-monogamous experiment and how they learned to deal with instances of jealousy, betrayal, and rejection. We also explore themes of trust, safety, and the cornerstone of communication that seems to lie at the heart of a successful non-monogamous relationship, and in turn, any relationship. It’s clear that even just exploring the idea of non-monogamy can be a catalyst for the kind of healthy and challenging conversations that strengthen the authenticity, connection, and clarity of any relationship.  The interview also touches on some of Emma and Fin’s hard-won lessons into the best practices necessary to make a non-monogamous relationship work, how many different types of non-monogamy there are, as well as some fascinating new concepts like “compersion“, “NRE“, and “Relationship Anarchy“. And of course, all of this leads into a look at the shame that stops many of us from even thinking “alternative” lifestyles are a legitimate option for us or pressures us to keep them hidden from the rest of the world.

Microaggressions   This episode looks at the concept of Microaggression and how this phenomenon has shown up in my life in both big and small ways. Given that most microaggressions seem to be largely unintentional, I think the term “micro-stress” might actually be a more appropriate and less shaming way to frame it. It’s important to own that the way we interpret any given situation is the actual cause of most of the psychological unpleasantness we experience around it. But by the same token, once someone or some group has made it clear that certain words or behaviours trigger stress or unpleasantness for them, I see no reason not to try to accommodate those groups and help alleviate their stress, within reason. I suspect that when people stubbornly refuse to acknowledge the concept of microaggression, it is often coming from a place of shame. As social animals, I think we are programmed to naturally care about the feelings of other people, so long as we don’t feel blamed for causing those feelings (or even responsible for “fixing” them). Blame triggers shame and defensiveness, which stimulates our ancient threat response. This puts our brains into a kind of emergency martial law lockdown. When we are operating out of our threat response we prioritize our needs above all others. This means that our need to appear “right” trumps our otherwise innate desire to help people. So while I think the concept of microaggressions is very real and useful, it will backfire if it isn’t communicated in an empathetic way.  That being said, for me personally, just understanding that situations of micro-stress existed at all was a big help in confronting and conceptualizing something that had been negatively affecting my life. Hesitating to talk about my personal life with coworkers. Avoiding showing affection to my boyfriend in public. Being nervous to see a new doctor at a walk-in clinic. These tiny moments of seemingly insignificant stress were actually building up over time and undermining my health and well-being in ways that were hard to pinpoint. It wasn’t one big trauma, but a lifetime of identical nicks and scrapes. Once I had a name for it though, I was able to recognize it and try to deal with it in a more healthy and proactive way. I hope we can help others do the same.