HealthyGamerGG - Why Shame Is The Key To A Better Life

Episode Date: November 22, 2023

One of the biggest problems in society today is that we've forgotten the value of shame. In today's video, we explore how shame can actually help us shape personal growth. Check out HG coaching: https://bit.ly/47dF7rF Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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We heard you. years of bring back the snack wrap and you've won. But maybe you should have asked for more. Say hello to the hot honey snack wrap. Now you've really won. Go to McDonald's and get it while you can. Today we're going to talk about why you should be ashamed of yourself. I know it sounds kind of weird, but one of the biggest problems in society today is that we've forgotten the value of shame. Let's remember that our human brains have evolved to experience all of these emotions and therefore each of them serves a very important purpose. And it turns out that a lot of the problems that we struggle with today

in our technologically overcharged society have to do with actually not feeling ashamed of ourselves. Hey, just a quick note. A lot of people will ask us, what do I do next? And that's why we built Dr. Kay's Guide. It's a comprehensive resource that distills over 20 years of my experience, both as a monk and as a psychiatrist. And it's designed in a way that's tailored to fit your needs.

So if you're interested in better understanding your mind and taking control of your life, check out the link below. And so this is something that I first kind of ran into when I was playing Dark Souls. And I sucked at Dark Souls. And I sort of struggled. And then I went on the internet and I asked for help. And the answer that I got from everyone is get good. Right. I was like, hey, I'm struggling with this boss.

The boss keeps owning me. Help me, bros. Help me bros. And everyone was like, get good, dude, dude. Get good. Get good. No one gave me any support. No one gave me any help.

no one kind of queued in with me. They were just like, get good. And what I like about Dark Souls is that it's incredibly realistic, because much like Dark Souls, in real life, you suck. I suck. We all suck. And the biggest problem, though, is that even if you suck today, it's not like you wake up tomorrow and you're better. Despite the fact that we struggle in a lot of different dimensions of our lives, it's not like we can develop some kind of energy or motivation to consistently fix our problems. And today we're going to talk about precisely how to do that. Because as it turns out, we as human beings have evolved circuits to help us fix our problems. And the most important thing that helps us grow as human beings

is actually shame. So in order to understand this, we have to understand the evolutionary purpose of shame, right? Because shame like hurts. It really sucks and we really want to avoid it. If you go into a situation where you feel ashamed of yourself, chances are you will avoid feeling that shame at all costs. So yeah, one time I went to a grocery store and I accidentally said penis instead of weanus when I was checking out. So therefore, I can never go to the grocery store again. And I don't even know that doesn't make any sense, but y'all know what I mean, right? So you do something stupid and then like, you can never go back there and talk to those people ever again because of how shamed you are. And it turns out that that's not a bug. It's a feature. So if we look at the evolutionary purpose of

shame. Let's go back like 5,000 years, right? So back when everyone was using Nokia phones. And so we're a tribe of like 150 or 200 humans. And let's say that there's some kind of celebration for some kind of harvest. So I go to a party where there's someone that I'm crushing on and everyone is dancing. And then what happens is I start dancing and it turns out that I suck at dancing and I feel ashamed of myself. And in step some Chad who is good at dancing and starts dancing with my crush, and they are so graceful, and they are so awesome, and they are so sexy that, you know, I feel even worse about myself. So I feel shame. And so then the question is in that situation, when I've got 150 human beings in my tribe, what is the antidote to that shame?

How do I make that shame go away? So when we have a fixed group of people and we cannot avoid those people or those circumstances, shame actually is what drives us towards personal growth. Because six months from now, there's going to be another harvest festival. And during that harvest festival, I will have the chance to dance. And so if I don't want to be ashamed at all future harvest festivals, I actually need to learn how to dance. And this is why psychologists actually call shame the master emotion. Shame is such a powerful emotion that, according to psychologists, it actually trumps all of the other emotions. It is the most OP emotion because it can overcome things like anger and fear and love.

shame is the most powerful emotion. And you may understand that if you're frustrated with yourself for being stuck in life. You're like, you get angry with yourself and like, tomorrow I'm going to wake up and I'm going to change. I'm going to go back to that grocery store and I'm going to say weenis instead of penis. And then as soon as you walk in, that shame overwhelms you. It kind of bubbles up and it's so strong that it completely deflates the anger. So shame is sort of a very powerful emotion. It also turns out that shame is the most powerful emotion at shaping our learning and personal growth. So if we sort of think about it, if you're a kid, hopefully you're not in this situation, but we can look at kids who are emotionally abused for the first 10 years of their life.

And if you grew up in a situation where you were in an abusive household or toxic household, the way that your brain wires due to the shame that you felt will actually dictate the next 70 years of your life. Right? So the lessons that shame teaches us are the lessons that we carry with us through our whole life. And this is why it takes sometimes months or years of practices like psychotherapy or healing or something like that to reverse the damage of shame. Now here's the problem. If we grow up in a situation where we were made to feel shame or later in life, let's say teenagers, we did something ourselves that made us feel ashamed of ourselves. We sort of feel that shame and then some part of our brain wires, right? I'm a loser. I suck at dancing. I'm never going to be happy.

I'm never going to be in a romantic relationship. Whatever. We learn some kind of like neuroscientific sort of stuff. Our brain wires that way and we carry it with us. And then the problem is that if we sort of think about, okay, so if shame is what wires our brain and we wire in one way and then we avoid shame for the rest of our life, if we avoid feeling that shame, what we're actually doing is losing the capacity to rewire because shame is such a powerful instigator at sort of neuronal. firing and wiring. The problem is that it's harder to harness shame for personal growth in today's world than it was 5,000 years ago. So let's look at another example. So let's say that I'm out with my tribe and we're all hunting. And someone else uses a bow and arrow and they sort of shoot a deer and then I sort of

shoot, I take my shot, I shoot a couple of arrows and I always miss. So in that situation, I feel ashamed of myself. Or maybe what happened is I did something sneaky. Maybe I stole from someone in the tribe. And then the whole tribe starts to ostracize me and I feel ashamed of myself. So in those situations, when I feel that powerful shame, it hurts me a lot, right? And so then what my brain says is, okay, this is so painful that we never want to be in this situation again. We actually need to avoid shame. But in that society 5,000 years ago, I had certain physical restraints that made it impossible for me to retreat from the circumstances that induce shame. So if I steal from my tribe, people in my tribe, I still have to like live there because I can't survive on my own.

So in order to fix that behavior and never steal again, the shame teaches me, hey, stealing is wrong. And if we steal again, we're really going to be screwed. Or shame will teach me that, okay, if I suck it like shooting arrows, I need to go out and practice for a while. So I no longer feel ashamed. In the constraints of our old society where we couldn't actually leave our circumstances, shame forced us. to grow, right? And if you kind of think about it, that's also a form of avoidance

because what are we really doing? Even if I grow and I get better at shooting arrows or I never steal again, I'm still avoiding the shame. The shame is not happening, right? Because I've become better as a human being. And this is the really tricky thing

that we've got to understand. The more an emotion hurts you, the more important it is for your progress. This episode is brought to you by CarMax. Want to buy a car the easy way? Start at CarMax. Want to browse with confidence? Get pre-qualified with no impact on your credit score and shop within your budget.

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Sadness even helps us bond with other human beings. And the purpose of shame is to induce the right behavior. And so we sort of see this in parenting styles as well, which is like, okay, if you make a kid feel ashamed of themselves, they'll never behave that way again, or at least that's the goal. And so this is exactly what we're missing in today's world, because in today's world, we have a new way of avoiding shame, a way of avoiding shame that does not involve fixing the problem. And that is the internet, right?

Because now, if I feel ashamed about something, I never have to go back to those people, right? If I feel mortified because I said penis instead of weanus at a grocery store, I can just go to a different grocery store, or I can use grocery delivery and I never have to interact with anyone. If I do something stupid in my class, it's really easy. I can just skip class and watch the videos, or I can even drop the class. So now what's happened is our society is structured in such a way where if we feel shame in a particular situation, we don't actually have to correct the behavior to avoid the shame. We can just avoid the situation entirely. This is exactly the problem that you run into if you don't

know how to harness shame. You can start to progress in one way, but the moment that you get a set back, that shame is so painful that it causes you to abandon the endeavor altogether. So I'm going to learn how to play chess. And chess is fun. It's really cool. I really enjoy it. And I'm going to sign up for an amateur tournament. And in the first round of the amateur tournament, I get crushed by a kid who's half my age. I feel so ashamed of myself, oh my God, I'm such an idiot that I abandon chess altogether. And hey, maybe I'll learn how to play guitar. And, hey, maybe I'll learn how to play guitar. And then I go out with some friends and they say, hey, you know how to play guitar? Let's jam together. Let's have a jam session. You need to show up and they're really good. And then you feel

ashamed of yourself. Looks like guitars out the window. And so this is what happens in our life is when we start to avoid all of this shame, which by the way is kind of weird, right? Because it's wired to do that. Our brain is wired to make us never feel shame again. But in the past, we had to fix those problems instead of abandoning them. But abandoning our problems is so much easier today, which is exactly how we end up feeling stuck. So if we want to fix this problem, I know it's kind of crazy, but what you really need to do is feel more shame. Stop running away from the shame because the shame is exactly that nuclear energy that will lead to personal growth. Now, in order to do this, it's a little bit tricky, right? So I'm not saying that y'all should expose yourselves to people who chronically make you feel

ashamed, right? I'm not saying go find someone who's toxic and just have them beat you up over and over and over again. What I'm saying is that if you have a situation in which you feel ashamed, do not retreat from the situation, but still avoid the shame. Now, you may say that's kind of weird because if I'm in the situation, won't I feel ashamed of myself? No, this is exactly what shame is supposed to do. Shame is supposed to alter your behavior so that when you are in that situation, you no longer have to feel ashamed about yourself. So if I go with my friends to the beach and I am embarrassed about my beach bot and I feel ashamed of myself and I leave my shirt on and I don't go into the water and stuff like that and I just kind of sit around all day. I feel ashamed and I say

myself, well, it looks like I'm never going to go to the beach again. On the contrary, what I want y'all to do is commit to repeating whatever made you feel shame within 30 days. So 30 days, if you do something or if you are in a situation where you feel ashamed of yourself, 30 days from now, you're going to do the same damn thing. You're going to go back to the beach in 30 days. with those friends, without those friends, or whatever. Whatever the circumstances is that makes you feel ashamed, I lost in this amateur tournament, I'm going to sign up for another amateur tournament 30 days from now.

So put your brain back in the situation in which it was evolved. You need to create those artificial constraints to re-expose yourself to that same situation. And now you've done something really cool, because now you know that that shame is coming 30 days away. So this is when the fear of that shame will start to, activate different circuits of your brain. Your brain will start to say, okay, it's time to actually fix this problem so that we don't feel shame because we're going to be there anyway, right? And this is a

really powerful principle for behavioral change. And this is why we as human beings oftentimes force ourselves into bad situations. A ton of the people that I've worked with, patients, clients, even friends, who are getting married, for example, will get married a year from now, but they will commit to having a particular suit size or dress size that is one or two sizes smaller than what they're wearing right now. So they're sort of forcing themselves to have a wedding dress that may not fit them. And the shame of not being able to fit into your wedding dress actually motivates you to get into shape. And this is the key problem is that we've stopped utilizing shame. So what I want you all to do is pick whatever it is that makes you ashamed. And then try to pick a target 30 days from now

where you are going to do that thing. And then ask yourself, okay, if I'm going to do this or I'm going to do this 30 days from now, what can I do between now and then that would make me feel less ashamed about myself? What can I do between then and now that will help me get good and feel less of that shame? And harness that motivation, that fear of shame because it hurts so much to actually make progress towards your goals. And it turns out that Dark Souls had the answer all along. Because the first time that you go into a boss's arena and you get them down to 10% health and then you end up losing, you're like, oh man, I got this. And then you run back into the arena, you zone in and they two shot you.

And then you're like, wait, why did I do so well the first time? And then you go in the third time and fourth time, they three shot you, four shot you, you know, and you're getting crushed. And how is it that you actually down the boss? You have to keep on zoning in. The problem in today's world is that that feeling of shame is so powerful that we let it turn into a different kind of avoidance. Instead of avoiding the shame through growing, which is really what shame is designed for because we couldn't shape our circumstances, now we avoid shame through not growing. Now we avoid shame through retreat. And this is the problem is unless you start harnessing shame, unless you start putting yourself in situations that you may feel ashamed,

you will continue to run away from everything in your life. You will continue to run away from all kinds of difficulty. And that's no way to live life. So if you want to get good, be ashamed of yourself. Ambition comes in all shapes and sizes. At First Citizens Bank, we're fit for your ambitions, whatever shape they may take. Whether you're planning for today or tomorrow, we've got the flexibility and know-how to help you reach your goals. Because we're built for what you're building.

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