Emotional Sobriety: Shame

       "With Step 4 we embark upon a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves. Again, the emphasis on moral is key, whatever the subject of our inventory. Our focus is on moral wrong, on moral harm. This emphasis is doubly important when it comes to shame. For, as we have endeavored to show, shame is based on two divergent sets of concerns and takes two distinctly different forms: moral and non-moral. In doing an inventory of this emotion, it is crucial that we distinguish between the two. 

EXAMINING MORAL SHAME 

       Since we are doing a moral inventory, our main focus is going to be on the moral experience of the emotion, on the kind of shame aroused by moral wrong and harm on our part. We are going to look at our conduct insofar as it is unworthy and blameworthy. We begin by making a list of the people we are guilty of harming in ways that induced shame in us and possibly in them (because of the inherently shaming nature of the harm, or because we intentionally or unintentionally shamed or humiliated them). Where we are ashamed of our behavior but cannot identify a particular individual we have hurt, we still need to examine the behavior if we are going to deal constructively with the emotion. We may be able to make that identification later on in the course of our examination. Or we may conclude that we have only harmed ourselves, in which case we need to examine the ways we have done that, beyond the harm involved in experiencing the emotion. 

      Where our inventory leads us to conclude that our shame is rightly based, that we are in fact guilty of harm which ought to induce shame in us, the Steps we take are largely the same as those involving any other kind of harm. We examine the emotion and the conduct that aroused it, identifying the disordered concerns and perceptions and the defects of character and emotion involved in what we did. Having thus discerned the exact nature of our wrongs, we admit them and ask God’s forgiveness; we become entirely ready to have him remove the defects which caused us to act as we did; we humbly ask him to remove these shortcomings; we become willing to make amends to those we have harmed, and we make those amends. 

What if our inventory leads us to conclude that our shame is not rightly based and therefore is unwarranted? This may be because we have not actually caused any harm, or because the harm is not objectively of the shame-inducing variety. We are ashamed of the wrong thing. In most cases, the realizations that there is no legitimate reason to feel ashamed will help us let go of the emotion. Where it doesn’t, our shame remains defective and unhealthy. In that event, we need to inquire what we may be doing to hold on to it. How are we looking at the situation in question? What are the concerns involved? Are these spiritually grounded? What defects of character might there be at work? Are we failing to forgive ourselves? Are we making unreasonable demands (e.g., for perfection) upon ourselves? Is some other form of pride an issue? Having identified the problem, we then need to work Steps 5, 6, and 7. We keep practicing acceptance, humility, and surrender until our shame is lifted. Because shame tends to stick in ways other emotions don’t, we need to persevere in our practice of these principles."