What If Shame Isn’t the Problem?

When you create a podcast called Raised on Shame, you probably expect to spend a lot of time talking about the harm shame causes.

I certainly did.

Then Dr. Judith Pilla came onto the podcast and said something that made me reconsider the way I have been talking about shame:

Shame isn’t the problem.

Dr. Pilla is a psychotherapist, writer, researcher, and author of "How Shame Runs the World."

She has spent the last decade studying shame after noticing something in her clinical work: clients were bringing deeply painful stories into therapy without necessarily recognizing the shame underneath them.

Her research eventually led her to a distinction that became central to our conversation.

Shame, she argues, is an emotion. In and of itself, it is powerless.

It is what human beings do with shame that matters.

Maybe We Have Been Asking the Wrong Question

So much of our conversation about shame focuses on getting rid of it.

We talk about healing shame. Releasing shame. Becoming shame-resilient. Refusing to allow shame to define us.

Those conversations matter, particularly when we are talking about the kind of shame that tells someone they are fundamentally defective, unworthy, inferior, unlovable, or unacceptable.

But Dr. Pilla asked me to consider something more complicated.

What if not every experience of shame is the same?

She distinguishes between prosocial shame and corrosive shame.

Prosocial shame can alert us that we have crossed a boundary or violated a value that actually matters to us. It can provide information that allows us to reflect, repair, learn, and make a different choice.

Corrosive shame does something very different.

It is shame used to hurt, control, demean, or diminish another person. It doesn't invite growth. It tells us there is something fundamentally wrong with who we are.

That distinction stopped me.

Because if those experiences are fundamentally different, then perhaps the goal cannot simply be to eradicate every experience we identify as shame.

Maybe the more useful question is:

What is this shame trying to tell me, and does that message deserve my attention?

Who Decided the Boundary?

Of course, that creates another question.

If shame can tell us that we have violated a boundary, who decided where that boundary should be?

This is where our conversation became especially relevant to this season of Raised on Shame, where we are deconstructing happily ever after and examining the stories we inherited about love, marriage, divorce, family, faith, identity, and what a "good" life is supposed to look like.

Many of us were given boundaries long before we were capable of deciding whether we agreed with them.

We inherited ideas about what makes someone a good woman, a good mother, a good partner, a good Christian, a good daughter, a successful person, or simply a good human being.

Then shame helped enforce those rules.

But inherited values are not necessarily our values.

That means part of healing requires more than asking, Why do I feel ashamed?

We may also need to ask:

Whose value am I violating?

Do I actually believe this?

Is this boundary consistent with the person I have chosen to become?

Those questions become particularly important when we are deconstructing religion, perfectionism, relationships, family expectations, and other systems that helped shape our earliest understanding of who we were supposed to be.

Being Willing to Change My Own Language

One of my favorite things about this conversation is that I did not leave it with exactly the same framework I brought into it.

At one point, as Dr. Pilla explained corrosive shame, I realized that some of the language I have used about wanting to eradicate shame might need more specificity.

Maybe what I actually want to eradicate is corrosive shame.

That distinction matters.

As a therapist, I believe words matter. As a writer, I believe words matter. And as the host of a podcast literally built around conversations about shame, I certainly believe words matter.

So when someone offers me a framework that makes me reconsider mine, I want to be willing to sit with that.

Deconstruction cannot only apply to beliefs we have already decided we want to leave behind.

Sometimes it has to include the beliefs we currently hold.

Use It, Refuse It, Then Lose It

Toward the end of our conversation, Dr. Pilla offered a simple way of thinking about the distinction:

"Prosocial shame: use it, then lose it."

If shame is pointing toward something genuinely inconsistent with your own values, learn what you need to learn. Repair what needs to be repaired. Make a different choice if one is warranted.

Then let the shame go.

"Corrosive shame: refuse it, then lose it."

If the message exists only to demean, control, or convince you that you are fundamentally less worthy, you do not have to accept it as truth.

You can refuse the message.

And then work toward releasing the shame attached to it.

I keep coming back to that distinction because it offers something more nuanced than either accepting shame as truth or treating every experience of shame as an enemy.

It asks us to become curious.

What If Shame Isn’t the Problem?

Maybe shame isn't always the thing we need to fear.

Maybe sometimes the problem is the person or system wielding it.

Maybe sometimes the problem is an inherited value we never consciously chose.

Maybe sometimes shame is information.

And maybe healing requires learning to tell the difference.

That feels especially important in a season devoted to questioning the stories we inherited.

Because rewriting our stories requires more than rejecting what we were taught.

It requires deciding, intentionally, what we believe now.

Listen to "What If Shame Isn’t the Problem?” featuring Dr. Judith Pilla on Raised on Shame: Deconstructing Happily Ever After.

Available now wherever you listen to podcasts.