Fulfilment in life is the experience of using your unique talents and skills to meaningfully work towards a goal that you believe is of vital importance to the world.

In this article we will unpick what this means, why this is important, and what you need to do to achieve it.

But first, if you want to know how fulfilled you feel in your life right now, take our quiz:

What is fulfilment in life?

Let us look at each of the components of fulfilment in life: the experience of fulfilment, the use of personal skills and attributes, meaningful work, and a goal of vital importance.

The experience of fulfilment

Fulfilment in life is not a feeling. It can be a feeling, as in we can feel fulfilled. But the experience of fulfilment can also include many other feelings.

Let us say that I am really interested in addressing the issue of climate change.

I may have a job that is working towards this aim, I may be doing unpaid work, I may be incorporating a range of behaviours into my everyday life, all of which may help me feel fulfilled in what I am doing with my life. But I will come across things which stop me from doing what I believe is necessary.

Some days I may feel very frustrated, upset, or angry and myself, the world, and the way things are that are getting in the way of that overall aim. But these do not necessarily make me feel any less fulfilled.

The experience of fulfilment is a deep belief about the direction of your life and your efforts to do something that you think really matters.

The use of personal skills and attributes

Fulfilment in life isn’t just about doing something you care about. There is also a personal connection with the way you go about doing something you care about.

Let us say I have a talent for art and I really want to address the issue of climate change. I could go and work in a large corporate business that has a stated aim of doing just that. The fact that I may not be using my talents as an artist may start to make me question if I am wasting a big part of what I have to offer the world. I may start to feel disillusioned and out of place.

But if I get a job or work independently that uses my art talents and skills to address the issue of climate change, then the overarching goal and the method of achieving that goal become aligned for me and I am more likely to be able to weather the frustration, upset, and anger that I might feel in the course of seeking to address the issue.

Meaningful work

The experience of fulfilment in life requires you to feel like you are actively doing something to achieve the goal you think is important.

This means you have to put time and effort into it. And you have to feel that that effort is making a difference, no matter how small.

Let us say I am working as an artist to address the issue of climate change, but that I do very little that I think will address the bigger issues, or I don’t get enough time to do what I think will make a difference, then I am likely to feel that I am not meaningfully engaged in fruitful work. This will lead to frustration and disillusionment.

Meaningful work is proactive behaviour that will make a difference to the wider goal.

A goal of vital importance

For you to feel fulfilled in life, what you are seeking to achieve needs to link to something that you think is important to achieve; not just on a personal level, but on a wider social and global level.

Let us say that I think it is important to get the pot hole in the road outside my house fixed. I can lobby local politicians, contact the local authority, or even rally people in the street and get the pothole fixed. I may feel a sense of achievement and even fulfilment to a certain level, but this won’t last because the issue is not important enough.

But let us say I think it is important to address the issue of climate change and I believe that what I am doing is making a difference to that issue, then even though I may not solve it in my lifetime, I can see how my time and effort is helping. This is more likely to result in me feeling fulfilled.

In fact, many will say you need to choose a topic much larger than you would be able to achieve in your lifetime so that it doesn’t feed into your ego – which may result in you wanting to achieve it for the wrong reasons.

So fulfilment in life relates to a goal of vital importance because it is a goal that relates to higher values and principles that you have – the goal needs to be much bigger than you are and are able to actualise.

So what is the feeling of fulfilment?

The feeling of fulfilment starts with a context in which you have put a lot of time and effort into something – like climbing a mountain, working through a difficult task, addressing a complex relationship challenge.

It then moves towards a climax that you feel very satisfied with; you like the outcome that you have attained from all that time and effort. It then resolves itself into a sense of peace and calm. You might be exhausted, you might be bruised, but you feel the effort was worth it and you are at peace with yourself and the world, even if this is just for a moment.

This is fulfilment.

The more meaningful you find the outcome the more fulfilled you feel.

So we can see there is a distinction between the feeling of fulfilment and the experience of being fulfilled in life. One is a temporary feeling and the other is a more stable state based on long term aims and efforts.

Why is fulfilment in life important?

We all need meaning in our lives. Without it life is hard and can end up being depressing. Fulfilment in life is the realisation of our own personal meaning of life. By working towards something that is meaningful to us we end up feeling a sense of fulfilment.

Fulfilment in life is important because seeking to attain it gives us direction and meaning.

Of all the things you can seek to attain in your life, fulfilment is the one thing that will guide you towards doing something that will help others, make a difference, and give you hope. In the end, you may even feel happy about what you are doing!

Why happiness isn’t important

You don’t have to go far in the personal development/self-help world to see books and people making the case that happiness is the most important thing we can find in life. But fulfilment and happiness are not the same, and can often be opposite.

Happiness at its core relates to feeling good. I might say I feel happy, for example, if I really wanted an ice-cream and then got one that tasted good. I am not likely going to feel very satisfied with my life or fulfilled by eating that ice-cream!

But some people in the self-help/personal development world define happiness as being a more long term state related to a sense of satisfaction in life. If you redefine happiness as this then you may very well be talking about fulfilment and not happiness.

Fulfilment is a better term for these ideas we are talking about for some of the reasons stated above. When you are doing something you feel is meaningful and are using your own talents and skills to work towards this goal then you may not feel much pleasure or happiness while doing it but you are likely to feel a sense of fulfilment.

Happiness has little to do with making your life mean something and making a real difference in the world. Indeed, it can be a barrier.

Why success isn’t important

When someone uses the word successful, they usually mean moving up the social hierarchy, which is more often than not related to money, status, and power. But having these things is no guarantee of feeling fulfilled.

If you read Jean’s book Behind the Masks, she talks about having achieved everything she had dreamt of only to feel that she was not very fulfilled or happy about where she was and what she was doing.

If the ladder you are climbing is up against the wrong wall then it doesn’t matter how successful you are at climbing that ladder, it will never fulfil you.

Equally, you could have very little money, status, and power but be doing something you really feel is making a difference and is of vital importance. You can feel fulfilled but be seen as unsuccessful in the eyes of society.

Why don’t I feel fulfilled in life?

Most people do not feel fulfilled and do not experience fulfilment in life.

This is because we live in a society that places particular values above others. Generally, the values that are promoted are related to the discussion on happiness and success above: feeling good and being high in the social hierarchy.

These culturally defined ideals and values are served to us through our families, friends, education, popular culture and media. Without being conscious of them, or having thought much about what you want to do with your life free from these expectations, most people internalise them and seek to live by them.

The result is that people are seeking money, status, power, love, success, happiness, and other things that do not necessarily bring a sense of fulfilment.

You can have a great looking relationship. A great looking career. A great looking social life. But these can all feel empty and you can feel alone, even when surrounded by others who are saying how great you are doing. Jean gives a great account of how this was for her in this article here.

How do you find fulfilment in life?

Finding fulfilment in life has 3 essential components: Where you are going in life, how to get there, and how to keep you on the path. These elements can be broken down as follows:

Discover your purpose

We are all unique and we are all good at different things and want different things in life. But what is common between all of us is a desire to do something with our lives that is in line with what be believe is important and significant.

By finding what you think is important and significant in life will lead you close to what it is that you would find fulfilling. You just need to find something specific to do that fits into this and commit to it.

Connect to something larger than yourself

If you choose to do something that is achievable you will find that it is not very motivating and that it can even bring out the worst in you.

If you are able to achieve what you set out to achieve in your life then it feeds into personal defenses that we have developed over our lives because the achievement can make us feel good, help us move up the social hierarchy, and gain power, even if what we are seeking to achieve is admirable.

By connecting what you commit to doing with your life to something larger than yourself, something that you would not be able to achieve in your life time, you are able to by-pass your defenses and act from a place of genuine care and concern. This is more likely to bring the best out in you even if you climb the social hierarchy.

Contribute to others

We are social creatures and by linking your purpose to how you can contribute to others will increase the sense of fulfilment you get from it. It will help define the purpose and your sense of belonging in the world.

An example

As an example purpose in life, here is mine: To create a world where people and organisations use their power for the good of humanity.

I won’t achieve this in my lifetime! But working towards it gives me a huge sense of satisfaction, helps shape the direction I take in my career, and ultimately leads me to feel a sense of fulfilment where and when I feel what I do is in line with it.

Make a plan in line with your purpose

With a clear purpose in life you need to create a plan that will help you make changes in your life so that you can work towards your purpose.

It doesn’t have to be an elaborate plan. Just make a plan and commit to it.

Create time to reflect each day or week

Making time each day, or at least every week, to reflect on what you have been doing, how you have worked towards your goal, whether you have been able to live by your values, will help develop a sense of fulfilment.

It may be that you realise you do not think what you are doing is helping you to work towards your purpose. In which case this regular exercise will help inform and guide your decisions around work, relationships, and life.

It may be that this exercise helps you realise that what you are doing is very much in line with your purpose and this is where you will feel fulfilment as an emotion.

But this exercise is important because in life you will experience both of these and so you will need some way of learning from your experience and knowing how to keep you on your chosen path.

Develop a supportive network

Growth, development, and living your purpose cannot be done in a vacuum. You need to have a set of supportive people who know and understand you and your aims to be able to stay on the path.

Of course, there will be times when you can and need to do things on your own. But if you do not have a good network behind you, you will falter.

It may be that you have a good set of people you can rely on already. It may be that you need to find new people, or change the configuration of those that you see regularly. Either way, you will need be clear with them about what your plans and what you want and need from them to help you along the way.

To sum up

Fulfilment is at the heart of a live worth living.

It is a feeling that transcends others because you can feel bad, frustrated, angry, or even happy and feel fulfilled because it is a feeling tied to the important things in life – who you are and what you do with your life.

If you are able to align who you are and what you do with your life you will find fulfilment.

But you will need help and support along the way to attain it and keep on the path that will sustain it.

So the question becomes not about what can I do to reach fulfilment in life, but more about who am I? how do I express myself authentically? how do I get past my defenses? How do I know what my core values and principles are?

It is such questions that will lead you to fulfilment in life and to answer these questions you need to do the work on yourself. 

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Some people are considered overly, or very, emotional. These terms are usually used in a derogatory way. It means they think there is something wrong with you for feeling or expressing their emotions in particular ways. Such accusations can be very isolating and can lead you to serious questions about yourself. Am I overly emotional? Is there something wrong with me? Why am I very emotional? Why can’t I be more ‘normal’? 

Being overly emotional means that a person is considered by others to display emotions easily, exaggeratedly, or inappropriately. It is often associated with being considered temperamental or fragile. Sometimes the accusation of being overly emotional has more to do with their inability to cope with your emotions. But sometimes it is because you have an inability to process emotions in certain contexts. The root of addressing this, so you are able to display emotions more appropriately, is to learn about your vulnerabilities, to create a close social support network, and to develop emotional skills.

In this article, I will look at these issues in detail so you can see whether you are overly emotional and if you need to resolve your own experiences. 

Am I overly emotional?

Firstly, let’s start with whether you might be considered overly emotional or not.

Here is a short list of ways that being overly emotional shows up. See if any of these relate to you:

• You have been told by more than one person that you are ‘very emotional’ or ‘overly emotional’
• You have been told by more than one person that you are intense or ‘too much’
• You have been told by more than one person that you are dramatic
• You keep finding yourself a bit ‘all over the place’
• You cry more easily than others
• You get upset more easily than others
• You get angry more easily than others 
• You find your emotions ‘burst’ out 
• You do not feel you have control over your emotional reactions 
• You find yourself being surprised by how emotional you feel

If you can identify with a few of these then there is a good chance there is a pattern of expressing your emotions in a way that others might consider overly emotional.  

What does it mean to be overly emotional?

There are two meanings to being overly emotional. The first relates to when others have the problem and the second relates to when you have the problem. 

When others have the problem

Let’s first look at when others have the problem. When other people struggle with emotions themselves, they can find it very difficult to deal with emotions in other people. The result is a perception that someone else’s emotional reactions are somehow inappropriate, when in actual fact they can be perfectly understandable and reasonable given the circumstances. 

Some people repress or suppress their emotions (read this article for more information on that). If they cannot deal with their own emotions, displays of emotions by others can be seen as over the top. Those emotional expressions can be overwhelming and scary. 

The issue here is not that expressing emotions is inappropriate, it is that the person is misperceiving the situation and placing responsibility for how they feel on to someone else to make themselves feel better. If the problem is ‘over there’ then ‘I don’t have a problem’. It is a great defence. 

Sadly, many people live in a culture that is uncomfortable with emotions. While you may be able to talk to people close to you about how you feel, just think what it would be like to talk about how you feel to your colleagues or boss at work or to more distant friends and relatives. Culturally, it might be seen as odd.

In some of my research (see here), I have seen employees disclose upsetting experiences in team meetings and get upset, which seemed a very appropriate reaction to what they had experienced to me, only to be met with a wall of silence and no one moving an inch. It was like someone had just pulled the pin from a grenade and they didn’t want to move in case doing so made it blow up.

So saying someone is overly emotional can be a form of cultural conditioning to keep emotional expression to a minimum. The underlying statement goes something like this: “don’t overstep the boundary of sharing too much about how you feel, we can’t cope with that, so you stay uncomfortable over there so I can stay comfortable over here, thank you very much!” 

In this situation, we can reframe a perfectly normal human experience into one that is perceived to be abnormal. The person can start to feel there is something wrong with them and that how they feel should be feared. 

More sinisterly though, saying someone is overly emotional can be a form of political control. It can be a technique used by those with power and influence to discredit and undermine those who may challenge their power and influence. This can be seen in the way that some powerful men have framed women as being overly emotional or, in the extreme, histrionic. 

When I have the problem

Now let’s look at when you (the person considered overly emotional) have the problem. 

We can debate the origin of the problem – culture creates norms which are internalised by people so they think they have a problem when the issue is much wider – which is like the chicken and egg scenario. But we can hopefully all agree that however it starts, some people are more emotional than others, and some are emotional in a way that is not helpful to them and can damage their relationships. 

So what we mean by saying you have the problem is that other people consider you to be easily upset or to express your emotions in ways that are considered by others to be exaggerated or inappropriate. 

There may be some biological element. Some people are more sensitive than others and so may react in more emotional ways than others. But even if someone does have a biological predisposition to being sensitive they are still being sensitive to something! It is the social element that is significant.

We can think of being overly emotional in three ways: Trying to take money from an empty piggy bank, the straw that broke the camel’s back, and hitting a hidden iceberg. 

Taking money from an empty piggy bank

We can think of people having an emotional piggy bank. When a piggy bank is full you can take money out of it but when it is empty you cannot. When we have been drained of our emotional energy we do not have the tolerance and resilience to cope with more emotional energy being taken away from us and so we can lose it, explode, get upset, because there just isn’t anything there to take out from us. 

So we may be easily upset, overexaggerate, or express our emotions in inappropriate ways when we feel very tired, depressed or feel really drained.

The straw the broke the camel’s back

The idiom ‘the straw that broke the camel’s back’ refers to an act that seems minor or trivial that causes a large and sudden reaction because of small actions that have accumulated over time. 

From an emotional point of view, this refers to someone becoming very emotional, overexpressing their emotions, or acting their emotions out in destructive ways, not because of what someone has said or done, but because what they said or did contributed to a range of other emotional experiences that culminated into a situation that they found hard to cope with.

In other words, emotions are just under the surface and it doesn’t take much for these to surface. 

So a person may have broken up with someone they care deeply about, and then felt inadequate at work, and then one of their friends jokes with them later in the day about how they looked. They may have been holding it together until their friend joked with them but that just contributed to a building picture that there is something wrong with them (shame) and this is what comes out. 

Hitting a hidden iceberg

The analogy of hitting a hidden iceberg comes from the story of the Titanic. The ‘unsinkable’ ship hit a hidden iceberg that exposed its unseen vulnerability and it sank. 

We all have our hidden icebergs. They exist because of past experiences that have left particular vulnerabilities. We can be happily going about our daily lives when all of a sudden something happens that exposes that vulnerability and we are overwhelmed with emotion and act out of character or inappropriately. 

So a person may be having a really good day at work but in a meeting someone asks them a legitimate question and because of their experiences as a child of being shamed and humiliated this question feels shaming and they take offense and respond defensively and aggressively. 

What are the consequences of being overly emotional?

The main consequence of being overly emotional is that it takes you away from experiencing the present moment – the here and now – as your attention is on how you feel, how to cope with how you feel or how to cope with your own not coping! 

We cannot connect with others in healthy ways or stay true to ourselves if we are overrun by our emotions. 

There are a range of behaviours that we see as a result of being overly emotional: 

• Pushing people away – it may be that having other people around is just too much to handle at the time and so not having them there helps you to calm down and cope with the situation
• Holding back the tears – you can feel like crying but you do not want others to know you are and so you try to hold back the tears. This is a form of suppression. 
• Bursting into tears – this is a display of distress that signals you just cannot cope in that moment 
• Being defensive – this is a form of action that seeks to keep a particular view of yourself in tact (for example, feeling you are being seen as immoral, you argue that you are a moral person)
• Being aggressive – this is an extreme form of defensiveness but instead of trying to keep a particular image of yourself intact you seek to attack the other person to discredit what they are saying (and hence keep your own sense of self in tact)
• Over sharing – this is a form of off loading your emotional burden by telling it to someone else. With your emotions close to the surface, it doesn’t take much for these to come out and before you know it you have said so much it might be seen as inappropriate. 
• Seeking closeness to others – in attempts to manage how you feel you want to be close to others to gain a sense of acceptance or as a way to prevent being alone and the fear of what you may think or do if they are on your own. 
• Seeking to appease and please – this is a more extreme version of seeking closeness with others but only in this version you are actively seeking emotional closeness by doing things you think the other person will like, often at your own expense. 
• Self-harm – in extreme cases being overly emotional can lead to self-harm or suicide because the emotions are just too hard to deal with. 

Of course, none of this helps in the long term. It is either taking you further away from others or taking you further away from yourself. 

Taking you further away from others

A lot of the actions described above simply create emotional distance with other people. 

The actions of people who are seen as overly emotional can be difficult to understand without knowing more about the context. If someone knows what your vulnerabilities are and why, what you have said and done makes a lot more sense. If they know you have had a bad day then they might not make that joke. If they know how drained you feel, it makes it easier to give the kind of support you need. 

The problem is that being very emotional can make it very difficult to communicate in ways that help people understand. 

Taking you further away from yourself

Some of the actions described above can lead to a sense of losing yourself. 

In attempts to manage the high intensity emotions and experiences, you can end up doing things that aren’t what you would normally do or want to do. You can end up calling an ex-partner, saying things you don’t really mean, or doing things you later struggle to understand. 

These actions can be inconsistent with the values and ideals of who you want to be. By moving away from them we can end up feeling more ashamed of ourselves, only to contribute to the already emotional situation. 

How to stop being overly emotional

Everyone can learn how to express their emotions in healthy ways. There will always be times when the situation is too difficult for us to cope with but we can learn how to cope with more and more situations so these become less and less; it is just we are all human and so we cannot eliminate being overly emotional altogether. 

It is also important to be emotional and to stay emotional. As human beings it is our emotional experience that makes life exciting, joyful, fulfilling, as well as scary. But we should not let other people who are uncomfortable with their own emotions dictate how we should feel and behave. 

Having said that, we could all do with some help in learning how to cope better with the difficult times. 

There are three main areas that you need to address to develop personal and social resilience to your vulnerabilities so you can express your emotions in healthy ways during those difficult times. These are (1) understanding your own vulnerabilities, (2) creating and maintaining a small group of close trusted individuals, and (3) learning the skills to deal with your emotions.

Understanding your own vulnerabilities

If you do not do the deep work of exploring your own context, history, experiences, and what meaning you have created for yourself from those, you will forever be at risk of being confused, surprised, and ashamed when your vulnerabilities are exposed. 

By knowing yourself and accepting those parts of yourself that are hard to accept you lay the foundations for personal resilience and growth. 

By knowing yourself, you are more able to communicate with others about how you are feeling and what you need because you know you deserve as much sensitivity as others in more difficult times. You do not need to hide or pretend things are ok, only to get upset at something that seems minor because you weren’t able to tell the truth about what was really going on at the time. 

You cannot be surprised at how you feel if you really know yourself. You will not be knocked off your feet by the questions or criticisms of others because how you feel makes sense to you and you can accept it in the moment. You don’t need to be defensive, aggressive, seek to please and appease or turn on yourself as you will know who you are, know that how you feel is ok, and know that it is reasonable and understandable given your circumstances. 

But understanding your own vulnerabilities takes time and effort. Therapy and counselling can help, as can personal coaching and experiential courses. But if we do not engage in some kind of personal development work then we do not develop personally. 

Creating social support

Having a close group of friends (which can include your partner and family) that you are able to express yourself, no matter how crazy it may seem to people who do not know you, is essential to learning about yourself and getting through the tough times. 

It is one thing to have a group of friends that you see regularly, do things with, or talk about other people, and it is another thing entirely to have a group of friends who are committed to your welfare, who take the time to really know and understand you, and are there for you when things are hard. 

If you have a small group of people committed to your welfare you have a secure base from which to operate in the world. By secure base I mean a relationship(s) that you can rely on to know they will be there for you to turn to when you are upset and distressed and will receive care and understanding when you do. 

Having a secure base provides greater confidence in social situations as you are less reliant on any outcome of those social interactions. You are not dependent on attention, admiration, or praise (although these are always nice) and so you are freer to be yourself, to act in ways that are consistent with the values and ideals of who you are and want to be. 

It is easier to keep emotions that are close to the surface, or the emotions that come up after hitting an iceberg, or feeling overwhelmed when drained and down, when you have a safe haven you can go to express your feelings in ways you can and need to. 

Developing emotion skills

Emotion skills are abilities to deal with emotions in certain circumstances. Skills can be ways of thinking, ways of acting or behaving, or ways of feeling but these are not generalised ways of thinking, acting, or feeling, they are very specific, tied to specific contexts. As Aristotle said: 

Anybody can become angry – that is easy; but to be angry with the right person, and to the right degree, and at the right time, and for the right purpose, and in the right way – that is not within everybody’s power and is not easy.

It is one thing to know why you feel the way you do and have a group of trusted friends to go to when upset but it is another to be able to process your emotions, to frame them in ways which can be helpful, to be able to express them in healthy ways in difficult circumstances. This requires a range of skills.

We are not born with emotion skills. We have to learn them. But we are not taught emotion skills, so we have to work them out ourselves, learning from others who have worked them out themselves. 

I hope you can see the problem here. 

We cannot become really skilled at something unless we learn from people who have dedicated their time and put a lot of effort into mastering those skills. Life is just too short to be able to learn all the skills we need through trial and error. 

The answer is to engage in a process of personal development where you specifically focus on the skills you need to deal with the issues you face. It may be managing getting upset easily when criticised. It may be getting angry easily when tired. It may be shutting down when the focus is on you. We all have our own vulnerabilities and we all need to learn the skills to be able to navigate out of situations where they are exposed. 

To sum up

No one is really overly emotional. It is a derogatory term used by people to say they can’t understand why someone is expressing their emotions in the way they are. But all emotions are understandable if you really know the person. 

Being overly emotional really means that someone is struggling and how they are feeling and behaving is the way they are communicating that they are struggling. 

But our emotional struggles can have tangible effects on our lives and relationships. Unless we learn how to deal with our struggles we risk feeling isolated and unable to cope. 

We can learn how to cope and move from coping to thriving by engaging in a process of learning about ourselves, developing a supportive network, and mastering the skills we need to deal with our emotions. 

All of this is achievable and transforms the way you engage with the world – you can really start to live life in the moment, engaged with the world from a place of confidence, feeling satisfied with your relationships and fulfilled in life. 

Everyone feels shamed or ashamed sometimes. No one wants to talk about it though! So we don’t really know what these feelings mean and what we can do about them. I have been studying shame for over two decades now, working with people’s shame as a social worker for over 15 years, and researching shame as an academic for over a decade. In this article, I will detail what shame is, what feeling shamed and ashamed means, and what you can do about them to feel better and become a more confident and better person.

Shame is a painful feeling that there is something inherently wrong with you. Feeling shamed comes from someone else making you feel this, while feeling ashamed comes from something you have done, said, thought, or felt, which makes you feel there is something wrong with you. Both, feeling shamed and ashamed, relates to how you think and feel about yourself AND how you think and feel about your relationships. Shame is not only that you feel inadequate, bad, and wrong, but that you feel these things in relation to others. Feeling shame can erode your self-esteem and sense of worthiness. To be able to turn shame from a toxic experience into an opportunity for personal development we need self-awareness and emotional honesty, social acceptance and support, and healthy boundaries and a commitment to growth. 

What shame is

Shame is a painful emotional experience. I say an emotional experience, rather than an emotion, because it is a complex experience that includes your own bodily sensations, your thoughts about yourself and others, how you see yourself in the moment, your thoughts and feelings about your past experiences of shame, your ideas about your social position, your ideas about how others see you in that moment, your ideas about how others will see you in the future, your ideas about how you want to be seen now and in the future, your ideas about how you believe you should be perceived by others now and in the future, and so on. 

Shame is the experience of the whole range of these complex thoughts, feelings, and actions all coming together at the same time to feel that there is something wrong with you at that moment. 

When we feel ashamed we are focused on something that we have said, done, thought, or felt that has brought all of these things together to make us feel like there is something wrong with who we are. Other people may be involved but the main focus is on how stupid, foolish, and pathetic we feel because of something about ourselves. 

When we feel shamed we are focused on something that someone else has said or done that has made us feel inadequate. We may feel, in that moment, that there is something wrong with us, but it stems from the interaction with another person. 

Both feeling shamed and feeling ashamed stem from the first main component of shame: Exposure. 

Exposure and shame

We are not feeling shame all the time – thankfully! So to feel shame, either through being shamed or feeling ashamed, is to expose a flaw in who we are. 

This exposure can be unexpected, in that we hadn’t realised until just that moment that we do, in fact, have a fundamental flaw.  

But it can also be an exposure of an underlying fundamental belief about the self. If we have experienced trauma, abuse, neglect, or other significant events that left us with a sense of inadequacy or unworthiness then that belief can be exposed in almost any situation. 

Shame is most painful when we believe that that exposure of inadequacy and/or inferiority is valid and that we deserve to be looked down on and treated as less than human. 

This leads us to the second component of the experience of shame: Rejection.

Rejection and shame

Rejection is not the same as shame but it is linked. 

Rejection is a painful emotional experience of being excluded by a person or a group of other people. 

Shame can feel even worse when it is accompanied by rejection.

Feeling shamed is often accompanied by a feeling of rejection because we feel the other person treats us badly because there is something wrong with us. 

Feeling ashamed can be accompanied by a feeling of rejection because we believe there is a reason that others should or would reject us. 

There are few experiences as painful as feeling that we are flawed and that other people don’t want us because of that flaw. 

Which leads us to a third component of shame; the two types of shame: Healthy shame and toxic shame. 

Healthy shame

There is debate in the literature about whether shame can be healthy or not. 

It is undeniable though that shame plays a big role in our own evaluation of all aspects of ourselves. It is possible, and indeed there is research to support the idea, that we can use that evaluation to develop, grow and improve as a person.

You have probably experienced this yourself. We have all felt shame and we have all done things to try and not feel like that again. One of the ways of avoiding shame is to improve on our flaws and weaknesses so that they do not induce shame when exposed.  

Maybe we stole something as a child. Maybe we said mean and nasty things to our partner or children. Maybe we physically hurt someone. All of these things may make us feel ashamed and so we didn’t steal again, or we worked at being a better partner or parent, or we improved the way we deal with our anger. 

So feeling ashamed may feel bad but it is not all bad! It can in fact help us work out what kind of person we want to be. 

Toxic shame

Toxic shame is a term used mainly in self-help books to relate to that feeling that there is something inherently wrong with us and that instead of this spurring us onto improving ourselves in some way, actually erodes the very foundations of the self. 

When shame is overwhelming because it is just too much to take and/or we do not have the skills or resources to deal with the issues we are facing, shame can become toxic. 

Being abused, neglected, or traumatised, for example, often leave us facing questions about how worthy we are, how loveable we are, or how moral we are. 

No one should expect a person to be able to deal with these issues well, let alone deal with them on their own. Those cruel words and actions and our inability to combat them only lead to self-doubt, self-judgement, and self-criticism leaving no ability to build a sense of self on the foundations of confidence, worthiness, and autonomy. 

Circumstances can make shame toxic too. If we are feeling emotionally exhausted we may not be able to deal with feeling shamed or ashamed as well as we might when we aren’t. If we live in poverty and have to face the challenges of getting by with little money and support in a deprived neighbourhood we might not be able to deal with feeling shame as well as someone with more money in a more affluent area. It doesn’t take long before we start to blame ourselves for not being able to do things better, to provide for our children, for taking action that we had to to provide for our children, for hiding aspects of our lives for fear of judgement, etc. 

Feeling shame, whether that is shamed or ashamed, in many circumstances is indeed toxic. But it is usually most toxic when we feel shame a lot. 

Which leads us to the fourth component of experiencing shame: how shame influences who we are and what we do.

How shame influences who we are and what we do

Because shame is inherently about our self and our belief that we are less than others, feeling shame erodes our confidence to do things and our perception of ourselves. We can start to cover up our perceived failings for fear that others would look down on us if they really knew about us. We can present a particular version of ourselves to others in the hope that they will like what they see. But none of this leaves us feeling really known and loved because we don’t allow people to know and love us for who we really are. 

Because we are very self-conscious in an experience of shame, it makes us do things differently. We may not want to take a risk that could actually result in a huge improvement in our lives for fear of being seen to be inferior. We may not ask that person we really like out on a date. We may not apply for that job that excites us. We may not have that conversation with the person we love that may deepen and strengthen our relationship. 

Shame can keep us small, stop us from doing what we really want in life, stop us from entering relationships or making our relationships what we really want, and it leaves us feeling that there is something missing in life. 

We can now consider the fifth component of experiencing shame: shame-proneness.

Being prone to feeling shame

Shame-proneness is a term used in psychology to mean how likely a person is to feel shame. A person can be more likely to feel shame in a situation than others, termed highly shame-prone people, or less likely. 

It is possible that some people are just born with a greater sensitivity to feeling shame, but most of the time a person is highly shame-prone because of their own personal experiences. 

If we experience shame a lot, we end up being more likely to feel shame in the future. 

If we experience shame a lot as a child, we are much more likely to feel shame in childhood and adulthood.

What the research shows is that these following things are highly correlated with being prone to feeling shame (meaning they are linked):

• Poor interpersonal skills
• Increased feelings of anger and hostility
• Maladaptive strategies for managing anger
• Depression
• Anxiety
• Eating disorders
• Sub-clinical sociopathy (this refers to individuals who exhibit many of the characteristics of psychopathy, except for some of the more severe antisocial behaviours)
• Low self-esteem
• Substance use

In adulthood, being prone to feeling shame is correlated with: 

• Dysfunctional family environments
• Co-dependent relationships
• Parental put-downs
• Parental protection (over control)
• Lack of parental care (towards children)
• Harsh and inconsistent parenting
• Parentification of children (the process whereby a child is obliged to act as a parent to their own parent or sibling)
• Emotional abusiveness
• Domestic violence (perpetrators of DV particularly shame-prone)
• Borderline Personality Disorder
• Self-Inflicted Injury

What all of these things have in common is an underlying belief of being somehow less than others, mainly because they have been made to feel this way in their formative years so now they carry with them a sense that they are less than human. 

In the research the ‘gold-standard’ test for identifying how shame-prone a person is, is called the Test of Self-Conscious Affect version 3 (or TOSCA-3 for short) (it also tests for things other than just shame-proneness). It is available for free in the back of June Tangney and Ronda Dearing’s book.

In understanding our experiences of shame and being able to turn them from toxic experiences into opportunities to become a more confident person, we have to understand the sixth component of experiencing shame: power.

Shame and power

Power is the ability to do something or act in particular ways. Power does not, by definition, have to affect or influence others but it is most commonly associated with that because that is where it is really felt. We know someone has power when they use it around or against us. 

To feel shame we have to perceive ourselves as somehow inferior in the eyes of others and believe it. For this to happen we either do something ourselves, and feel ashamed, or someone else does something which changes how we perceive ourselves in that situation, and feel shamed. Being shamed is an act of power. 

Someone can try to shame us by saying or doing something but it does not always mean we will feel shamed. It is when they have the power to change how we see things that we are shamed. 

Shame is a very effective tool to get people to do things in an attempt to avoid feeling it, which is why it is used by politicians, journalists, newspaper editors, and brand marketing campaigns so extensively. All of these people have been given power in some way to influence and shape the story about a situation. 

We can’t help but feel shamed if we read in the news that lots of people are looking down on us for some reason – like being overweight, unhealthy, for smoking, for example. You may think that we should shame people for these things, but by stripping these attributes out of their context we risk abusing power as more often than not these attributes are linked to other issues like class, race, gender, poverty, sexuality, and disability. 

This brings us to the relationship between shame and humiliation. 

Shame and humiliation

Humiliation is not the same thing as shame, although they are similar in some ways. 

Humiliation is hostile rejection without justification. By this I mean that if a person excludes us in an unfair manner and that we do not feel that there is justification for that exclusion we will feel humiliated. 

If we did believe there was a reason for the exclusion, such as they had said we were fat and ugly and we believed that to be true, then we would feel shamed and probably ashamed. If we did not, then we are more likely to label that experience as humiliation. Usually, however, it is both shame and humiliation because we feel bad and feel the action was hostile and extreme.  

Shame and embarrassment

Equally, embarrassment is not the same thing as shame, although they are similar in some ways. 

Embarrassment is unwanted social exposure. By this I mean that when we have attention focused on us when we do not want it, we will feel embarrassed. 

So embarrassment can be a painful experience, such as saying or doing something silly that other people laugh at. We may blush and feel hot, but we do not think there is something wrong with us because of it and others aren’t rejecting us because of it. 

But embarrassment can be a strange sense of uncomfortable connection too. For example, you could have done well at something you tried really hard at and someone gives you lots of praise. The attention makes you feel closer to someone or a group and can make you feel good about yourself, but you can still feel uncomfortable about the attention. 

While there are similarities and differences to shame and humiliation and embarrassment, we do display some common ways of defending against these experiences. 

Which brings us to the seventh component of experiences of shame: Defenses against shame.

Defenses against shame

You may not even know you feel shamed or ashamed.

The American sociologist, Thomas Scheff, argues that shame is a taboo in our culture. We do not like to talk about it because the very act of admitting you feel shame can result in feeling ashamed. The result, according to Kaufman, an American psychologist, is that we develop defenses against feeling shame to insulate the self, create a protective cover, and keep others away. 

These defenses are designed to predict and control scenes of shame:

• Rage
• Contempt
• Striving for perfection
• Striving for power
• Transfer of blame
• Internal withdrawal
• Humour
• Denial / forgetting

I personally like Linda Hartling and colleagues’ work on defenses against shame and humiliation. They argue that there are three forms of defenses: 

1. Moving Away: These are withdrawing, hiding, silencing ourselves and secret-keeping
2. Moving Toward: These are attempting to earn connection by appeasing and pleasing
3. Moving Against: These are trying to gain power over others, using shame to fight shame and aggression

Putting all of these together you can see that you may feel shame but not really know it because your defenses against it just mean it is covered up in some way. You can address the presenting issue but it won’t resolve the problem because that isn’t the problem! 

This leads us to the question of how do we address the problem? 

What you can do about feeling shamed and/or ashamed

If we want to know ourselves and be known by others. If we want to truly love and be loved by others. And if we want to make the most of our lives and develop fulfilling relationships, then we need to face our shame.

This can be done with the following three attributes: 

Self-awareness and emotional honesty

All personal development starts with self-awareness. We need to know about ourselves to understand our experiences and be able to use them as a source of knowledge and wisdom, to find our passion and strength, and to develop satisfying and fulfilling relationships. 

Emotional honesty is the awareness to know how we feel and the courage to talk about it. We need to be honest about feeling shame if we want to stop it from influencing our lives and relationships. 

By learning about ourselves, processing our experiences, and facing our shame, we can know what is our responsibility, what we need to apologise for, what we need to improve in ourselves, and what is not ours, who we need to hold to account, and what we need to fight for. 

Shame is often the result of someone trying to assert or impose their own version of reality on to others and if we have not explored who we really are and faced our own shame we run the risk of accepting others’ reality as our own – at our own detriment. 

Social acceptance and support

We cannot face our shame alone, certainly not the toxic form of shame that is not ours.

If you feel that there is something wrong with you, then it is hard to tell others about it, let alone those who you rely on and need.  

We need to have others accept us for who we are and all of our experiences to really get that we are worthy and loveable. We need to take the first step of emotional honesty with those who we can trust. And we need those others to take a step towards us to show us we can trust them to take the next step. This process eventually leads to discovering more about who we are and developing confidence and courage to be ourselves, unburdened by the shame that has been eroding our self-belief. 

Healthy boundaries and a commitment to growth.

Shame can teach us is that we are human and that some people can treat others in inhumane ways. 

Because we are human, we will experience that sense of inferiority and inadequacy at different points in our lives. It may be painful but it does not mean we are unworthy and unlovable. 

Because we are human, other people will try to impose their ideas and opinions on us and try to get us to bend to their will. Sometimes this ends up being abusive; sometimes this is unintentional but sometimes it is intentional. 

In knowing who we are and having the support of a close group of people we can know when we are uncomfortable with how someone else is treating us. With self-awareness and emotional honesty we can communicate to others how we feel. But we also need to develop the ability to defend our boundaries to stay true to who we are and hold others to account for their behaviour where it becomes unacceptable or inappropriate. 

By developing these healthy boundaries and being able to say what we want and need and by using our anger in healthy ways to defend our boundaries we can feel ashamed but not be overcome by it, we can be shamed but not be reduced by it, we can know shame and come to know ourselves in a much deeper, stronger, and more meaningful way. 

To Sum Up

Shame may not be the most talked about emotion but it is possibly the most influential emotion of all. Because it is painful it can make us do things that aren’t good for us or our relationships. 

If we do nothing about feeling ashamed or being shamed, the consequences can be that we end up feeling worthless and unlovable. We can take on the ideas and opinions of others. We can be made to feel things are our fault when they are not. Or we try to hide our mistakes rather than make amends when they are. 

Feeling shame does not have to result in such outcomes. It does not have to end up feeling so heavy, devastating, and painful. In fact, doing something about our shame can set us free. 

By this I mean that we do not have to carry the burden of shame because we can do something about it. We can speak up and speak out. We can own our mistakes and repair relationships. We can let go of toxic ideas and beliefs about ourselves. We can learn who we are and discover how to build deeper and more meaningful relationships through our shame. 

We just have to be brave enough to take the first step.

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