They Won Again: Did Healthy Shame Contribute to the Golden State Warriors’ Success?

They Won Again: Did Healthy Shame Contribute to the Golden State Warriors’ Success?

Although I must admit I was never a basketball fan until a few years ago, I did watch the Golden State Warriors win the NBA championship yesterday for the second time in three years! When my husband first told me about an amazing 3-point shooter by the name of Stephen Curry, I immediately noticed Curry’s smaller physique and graceful, dancer-like movements that allowed him to navigate his way through members of the other team in a very different kind of way. As my husband explained the game to me, I began to see the advantage of Curry’s 3-point shots from far across the court, compared to the 2-point shots that most players compete for. I was impressed by the teamwork and spirit of cooperation by the Warriors, who live up to their motto of “Strength in Numbers.”

Last year I read an article about Stephen Curry who shared about his father, a basketball star who also served as his mentor, and how he told him that because he was a smaller weight and size, he must excel at shooting baskets, otherwise, no coach would even give him a second look. Curry spent the next few years slowly developing, working and finding his own way to shoot baskets. I believe this is a good example of growth coming from healthy shame.

Unbinding Shame

Unbinding Shame

The session was not going well. I was demonstrating to the group how to work with a mother suffering because her son had been left back in school. Nothing I did seemed to work. After an excruciating 30 minutes, I gave up. “I don’t think I’m really helping you right now. I’m truly sorry.” She politely agreed that it hadn’t helped much. “It did help a little, I guess,” she said, trying to soften my embarrassment. She had calmed down a bit, benefitting from simply being able to talk about the situation. But the kind of calm and peacefulness I had hoped to help her achieve was far away.

Barking Loudly

Barking Loudly

My pleasant, meditative mood was shattered, once again, by sudden hysterical, loud barking. I live near the top of a hill in what in Berkeley qualifies as a semi-rural area—lots of trees around, near Sibley Regional Park. The hills, which seemed a drawback to me at first, have become incredibly useful in combating high blood pressure. Every day, I can step out my door and feel like I’m in the country. As I walk down my street, with fresh air and lots of green, my mind quickly goes happily blank. Then, suddenly, I am jarred out of my reverie by my neighbor’s two dogs, who fill the air with thunder as I absentmindedly pass their house. While it happens almost every day, it always startles me and throws me, for a moment, into primitive fear. Over time, I have grown to hate those dogs—two little Scotties who have a false sense of their size and ownership.

Whose Fault Is It?

Whose Fault Is It?

I come from a long line of blamers. When something was wrong, my mom said it was my dad’s fault; my dad, of course, said it was my mom’s fault. It had to be someone’s fault. That was just the way things were in the world. Somehow all along the family tree there would be stories of who was to blame for what, stories that seemed to pass beyond the generations into the long distant past. Often there would be a cut-off, as in: We don’t talk to them anymore. We just talk about them!

In watching all the blame, and sensing into the unexpressed pain under it, I determined not to be a blamer. I would do something different. But what else was there?

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Melting the Shame Freeze in Disney’s “Frozen”

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Melting the Shame Freeze in Disney’s “Frozen”

Recently, Walt Disney Productions has returned to its roots, making amazing movies for children that are powerful and profound enough to be essential viewing for adults as well. While “Inside Out” examined how emotions work in the brain in a truly brilliant way, it had one major flaw: It had no character to represent Shame, which many consider the master emotion—an emotion that affects all the others. There is no such problem with Disney’s “Frozen,” which deals with shame in such a full and precise way that the entire movie can be seen as a parable of healing shame. “Frozen” is a parable of creating and finally melting the shame freeze.

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Bound by Shame

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Bound by Shame

Brody is my psychotherapy client—and a psychotherapist himself. In one particular session, he shares with me what happens when he goes into a room full of people; the distress of it for him, the sheer physiological activation of his nervous system, the sweating, his whole body being on high alert. And as he tells me more about what occurs to him under these circumstances, I listen, with care and attention.

Empathy, Compassion and Optimal Distance

Empathy, Compassion and Optimal Distance

At the age of four, Barry* had been forced to do something very much against his nature by his father, something about which he still felt great shame, and which was affecting his current relationships. Having done years of somatic work, he was ready and eager to feel into that painful memory in order to overcome it. I kept him in the present for quite a while, drawing him out and complimenting him about his competence and strength in the present, his successful career, his love of nature. Then I suggested that he could feel into that past memory. But, I cautioned, “Go back to it as you are now—a competent, resourceful adult, keeping all of your resources with you. You can be with that child that was so hurt and shamed. You can have compassion for that child.”

How to Cope with Disappointment

How to Cope with Disappointment

How do you deal with profound disappointment? With things not going the way you wanted—or expected?

How do you deal with disruption/change/shock/disorientation/feeling like the bottom just fell out and you don’t know which end is up? Several clients have spoken lately of feeling confounded: “…Like being in the middle of deep water, so I can’t touch down anywhere, and I don’t know which way land is. There’s nothing to hold onto. I’m disoriented and don’t know what to do— but I can’t stay where I am and have to do something.”

We are living in interesting times. Recently we had an election that is likely to be affecting all of us in a big way.

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Transforming Toxic Shame into Healthy Shame

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Transforming Toxic Shame into Healthy Shame

In working with clients, it is extremely important to bring in the concept of healthy shame vs. toxic shame. While toxic shame feels horrible and produces an amazingly unpleasant state of freeze, healthy shame can actually help you function better. A humorous example of healthy shame is realizing “I can't fly. I wish I could. It would be really nice. I really envy those birds, just soaring through the air. But I can't. I'm human. I have limitations, just as all people have limitations.” This understanding is particularly healthy shame because it can keep us from jumping off cliffs—and being very surprised as we flap our arms. While this is an extreme example, healthy shame helps us to be aware of limitations, reassess our actions and act more appropriately in the future.

Shame and Countertransference

Shame and Countertransference

My work has been focused on the emotion of shame for many years. The theme of emotions is particularly interesting for me to write about because of the role that shame plays with emotions. Often shame binds with sadness and grief to cause what used to be called pathological grief, and shame binds with anger to hold a person in a state of depression or frozen rage for years. Shame can bind with fear to create social anxiety. Shame can also bind with happiness and get in the way of happiness.