Dr. Jameca CooperForensic Psychology Consultant, Emergence Psychological Services · Board Certified Counseling Psychologist and Forensic Psychology Consultant

Shame hijacks your brain and here’s what to do #traumarecovery #mentalhealthmatters #selfcaretips

17 Jun 2025 · 2 min

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1:56

In this spoken monologue, Dr. Jameca Cooper explains how shame functions in the brain as a perceived threat that activates survival mode, impairing rational thinking, safety, and nervous‑system regulation. She describes the range of symptoms that can arise—anger, anxiety, numbness, or feeling on autopilot—and emphasizes that chronic, repeated shame does not simply fade; it settles in the body, creating a persistent sense of failure and self‑judgment. Cooper reframes shame, stating it is not a true reflection of personal worth but a signal that an emotional wound remains unhealed. Using a computer‑update analogy, she illustrates that the brain regions holding shame are operating on outdated “software,” but because of neuroplasticity, these pathways can be rewired and updated, offering a path toward healing and healthier self‑perception.

Chapters

Let's talk about how shame hijacks your brain. When your brain feels shame, or when you feel shame, your brain perceives shame as a threat. And when the brain perceives anything as a threat, it launches into survival mode. When you're in survival mode, you lose access to clear and rational thinking, feeling safe, and of course, a regulated nervous system. So when this happens, it's common for people to experience symptoms or feelings like anger, anxiety, numbness even, or it could be just the feeling that you're on autopilot doing the same thing, same thing, same thing. Any of those things could be possible. Also, what happens is chronic shame, meaning you feel shame at many, many points in your life consistently over and over, it doesn't leave your body. It actually settles into your body like it's taking up shot, taking up residence there basically. Once it accumulates, it makes a person feel like they failed. It makes a person feel like they're bad. Makes them feel like they've done something wrong. So remember this: shame is not a reflection of you and/or that you are bad. But what the shame is telling you is that there is a part of you somewhere that's carrying some emotional wound that needs healing or it needs to be addressed. And another way to look at it is like computers. When we think about computer updates, it's like the part of your brain that's holding on to this shame hasn't received the update, the latest update. So it's still working on old systems, right? However, what we know about life and change is that all the parts of you, including the part that holds on to the shame, can be rewired and can be updated.