Dr. Jameca Cooper, a psychologist, explains how shame manifests as emotion suppression, reduced self-worth, and self-sabotage. She uses examples from survivors of sexual assault and offers healing strategies centered on telling your story and practicing gratitude.
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Hi, I'm Dr. Jameca Cooper. Thanks so much for tuning in today to watch this video and to join me on my channel. I hope you enjoy the content and have so far, therefore please like the video and subscribe to the channel. I'd also like to hear from you in comments about what more of, what type of issues or information you'd like to see on the channel. I would appreciate that. So today we are still in the midst of our 30-day Days of Radical Healing. This is our program that we started in 2022 to make sure people were ending the year right and starting off this new year in a much, much better place. Today we're focusing on shame and radical healing. So why did I think this was an important topic to discuss in a video? It's because You all know I'm a psychologist. I've said this over and over again. I've been a psychologist for 20 years, done a lot of things, seen a lot of things, but a bulk of who I see in therapy, my clients, especially women, deal with a lot of shame in their lives. And what I found that over the years is that the shame becomes this block that really keeps them from moving forward. So Let's talk about how shame shows up in people's lives. What are some behaviors that you could see that other people are engaging in that could let you know that what they're feeling and thinking, um, has to do with shame in their lives? So one way that shame shows up is that people begin to suppress their emotions. So first of all, let me go back a little bit and talk about what shame is. Shame is really this feeling of embarrassment or humiliation. Sometimes it can be partially guilt feelings, feeling embarrassed about something you've done, something you're not proud of. And lots of times the shame is rooted in being very, very focused on what other people think. So the shame comes because I did something bad and other people would see me as a bad person or would think I'm bad and judge me based on that thing or those things. So that's what shame is. So many times, one of the ways you see shame show up is that people suppress their emotions. So let's say a woman, and I've seen this many, many times in therapy, a woman that has been sexually assaulted or raped after having been at, at a club and having a few drinks, she could feel shame about that situation. And as a result of how badly and how much shame she carries around with her about that situation, she could get in a relationship with a person that is abusive, both physically and emotionally, and that person would then suppress their emotions. So they would be afraid of this person, want to say something, but they would suppress all of that because they feel so much shame at the things that they'd done in the past, which in this case, been a victim of sexual assault. So the shame really kind of carries over into other situations. So, and then it, again, it makes you suppress emotions. Another thing that shame does is it makes you question your self-worth. In other words, I go with the same example, um, sometimes women who've been sexually assaulted, in their own eyes, now they see themselves as being less worthy, less worthy, less valuable, um, less everything. They feel like having been sexually assaulted means that they're not as valuable, not as good. So they feel like their quality has gone down and they blame themselves many times for this. So shame shows up in that way. Of self-worth. Lots of times I see it a lot with my clients in therapy. Another way that you'll see shame show up in people's lives, and I think this one is a very, very interesting way, it would be self-sabotage. So you see people that, let's say they're in a relationship with someone and the relationship is going really, really well. Like the person likes this person, other person likes them, they're happy, everything's going well. You could see the person who carries the shame, they'll go in and try to sabotage the relationship. In other words, they might tell the person, oh, I know, I know you're going to break up with me anyway, so I'm I'm going to break up with you first. Or I know that somebody's going to tell you at some point that you shouldn't be with this person. Like, why are you with her? Why are you with him? And then you're going to break up with me. So I'm going to make sure I'm going to beat you to that. I'm just going to break up with you first. I'm going to start acting out so that I'll make you break up with me. This whole self-sabotage comes from this whole mindset that they have as though I did or experienced this thing that is so bad, so horrible that it makes me feel so bad about myself. I'm so embarrassed. Humiliated that I know that one day you're going to find that out and you're going to end it anyway. So they just try to beat you to the punch by sabotaging the situations because in their mind it's too good to be true anyway. Once you find out what I've done or who I am, you're going to end it anyway. That is a direct result of shame. When people carry shame, they do those type of things. They sabotage good relationships, they sabotage good friendships, they do all of that. So these are things you can look for if you're looking for evidence of if a person is experiencing shame in their relationships or just in general. Now let's switch gears a little bit to talk about what you can do about it. The biggest thing that you can do to combat shame and to heal from shame that you feel in your life is to— it's usually the one thing that people who have shame hate to do or refuse to do or run away from doing. That one thing that you can do to overcome shame is to tell your story. Testify. Testimony. You've seen me talk about it in my other videos. In fact, at the end of December, I did a video on testimony and I told you specifically about my own personal journey with health. And it all starts with someone sharing their information with me in a colonoscopy. Please go watch that video on testimony. But so giving your story, Saying it out loud, this is what happened to me. This is my story. This is what I lived through. This is what I experienced. Telling your story, sharing it, saying it out loud is the most powerful thing you can do. That's what gets you out of that whole stuck place of feeling the shame. Because once you've told the story out loud, you own it. You say what parts are yours, or if any parts are yours, If you're a victim of sexual assault, you did nothing. So once you say that, you own the situation, and you say, yes, this in fact happened to me, I will no longer allow this thing to control me and weigh over me. Because shame type of— shame usually sits over a person's head like a dark cloud, but it keeps them from doing anything because they're so afraid of the judgment and so afraid of how people will look at them. Once you tell your story, you say it out loud, you own it, and you are no longer haunted by it, no one else can make you feel bad for any damn thing. If you don't feel bad about it, nobody else can make you feel bad about it. The problem with shame is that you still continue to feel bad about it. You feel humiliated, embarrassed. You feel like that thing that happened to you is a reflection of who you are. You have to always remember, like, you are not your experiences. You are not, right? You're not. You are totally separate from them. You get to change the trajectory of your life, your story, your journey, all day, every day. I've done it many, many times. I wish I had enough time to talk about how many times I've done it because it might just help somebody, like they say in church. Um, so yeah, that's what you have to— you have to tell your story. You have to give your testimony. You have to say what it is that you feel shame about. That's one of the biggest steps you can do to overcome it. The second thing that you can do is to practice gratitude all day, every day. What are you thankful for? If you lived through a sexual assault or a rape, the one thing that you can practice gratitude about is, I survived this. I'm able to tell my story. That person was punished. You can have gratitude for that. That person went to jail because of that. That person was no longer able to hurt other people. That is something to be thankful for. If you can focus more on the pieces of those events that make you feel shame, then you can start the healing process, and the healing process can be a lot more effective, a lot more effective. So today we've talked a lot about shame and radical healing. I've told you about what it looks like and how to get over it. I hope you learned something. I can't tell you how many times I deal with women in therapy who experience shame. My goal is to help clear it out of your psyche, out of your space, out of your energy. It's not helpful. We have to heal from the shame to claim our story and to move forward. I'm Dr. Jameca Cooper. Thanks so much for tuning in. Please make sure you like this video, this channel, and subscribe for more. Thank you.
