Dignity for Humanity
Compassionate Storytelling for Peace
When using service-centered art and creative reflection as tools for overcoming anxiety and depression (learn more about that here), it’s been essential to recognize the role that shame has played in my mental health challenges; indeed, it’s one thing to be afraid to what’s to come, but it’s a whole other ballpark when that fear is compounded with the fear of being blamed or disgraced for it. Likewise, enduring loss or pain is already a difficult experience, but when shame is added to the mix, it becomes insufferable to bear it.
With that in mind, in this article I’ll share how compassionate storytelling helps me grow empowerment and peace without the shame that’s been so disabling.
Let’s start with some definitions:
Compassionate Storytelling is the commitment to tell every one of my tales with dignity for all parts of the story; it’s a willingness to relate to all the characters of my life with loving understanding.
It does not, however, ignore harm; compassionate storytelling does acknowledge guilt. However, compassionate storytelling doesn't take guilt to the level of shame, which insinuates an unworthiness of love as a result of the guilt, thus “alienate[ing] you from your inner self1” and from others.
With this in mind, although shame is often used as a mechanism to improve behaviors, it often backfires by feeding patterns that ultimately create more harm. Indeed, shame is an inherently self-perpetuating cycle: the more shame I feel, the less worthy I feel of love. The less worthy I feel of love, the less I’m able to give it. The less I’m able to give love, the less I feel worthy of it. Needless to say, shame doesn’t make me more caring.
Furthermore, on the other side of shame is defensiveness (and even denial), which only prolong behaviors that were harmful. Though denial is a complex psychological condition that’s made of much more than shame (such as helplessness), the resistance to recognize where I’ve been out of alignment has prohibited me from taking the necessary steps that would bring me back into wellness.
With this in mind, compassionate storytelling aims to break the downward spiral of shame by allowing the realization of guilt to point me in directions that better serve well-being, while, at the same time, protecting me (and others) from the soul-crushing shame that can be so paralyzing.
Healing My Shame Story
Healing my self-worth has been a long journey as shame has been woven into my experience of myself from a very young age. It started in middle school with the double-edged sword of modern sexuality (where on the one hand my self-worth was tangled into sexual desirability, on the other hand I was ostracized for promiscuity). Similarly, shame was laced into my sense of power where on the one hand I was encouraged to be a bad-ass, while on the other I was called an asshole. Or, conversely, on the one hand I was urged to be kind, while on the other I was called weak. Growing up, I found shame in every place of empowerment that I could seek.
Then, when I went to college, shame rooted even deeper into me as I learned about all the harm that has been caused in the world. That being said, learning about all the trauma that’s been inflicted over time, and that is still happening today, naturally made me want to do better.
So, with a youthful angst and idealism, I threw myself into activism. I attended marches and volunteered with grassroots organizations and worked for non-profits. I studied social work with street kids as an international student and blew my mind open by falling in love with different cultures in different classes and languages.
However, as enlightening as I’d like to say that it was to care so deeply about the world’s suffering, it was also shattering. On the other side of the oppressed identities that I’d come to know so intimately were plenty of opportunities to see myself as the the problem. No doubt, I couldn’t help but to feel related to the harm that’s been caused by people just like me.
Terrified that I might have played a part in heartbreaking, guilt sunk in and I became ravenous to wash my hands clean. Ravaged by an incessant sense that I was innately undeserving, I poured myself into activism with no mercy: if I didn’t fix these problems quickly, I didn’t deserve to live.
From there, shame began spiraling: from what I could see, not only was the world ending, but I was surely to blame for it. With hyper-vigilance to any kind of harm, all my sincere efforts had their own shadow: if I spent too much time cooking for myself, I felt selfish that I wasn’t of more help. Still, if I ate too many meals on-the-go, I felt guilty for the waste from the take out.
No matter how hard I tried, I could do no good -and that’s when the insomnia and nightmares started. I’d lie awake until I fell asleep to dreams of unimaginable suffering. From there went my energy, my tummy, and my immune system too. Still, I did my best to follow-through with the help of cigarettes, sweets, booze and fried food. It was a downward spiral, to say the least, as I made myself sicker by self-medicating.
By that point shame had fully taken root in me. Unsurprisingly, my condition also affected those around me as I was quick to judge others just as harshly. I began to isolate myself from my family as I became evermore extreme in my quest for purity (contrasted, ironically, by the messiness of self-medicating). Still, I slowly removed myself, as best as I could, from the whole of society. I became wrecked with social anxiety and life became very lonely, with the impulse to numb even more compelling.
But no amount of isolation or addiction brought me the peace I was craving. I was chronically fatigued, weak, and floundering. My mental state declined so rapidly that there was more than one occasion that I questioned whether not to keep on living.
Thankfully, by the grace of something much bigger than me, I was saved by love -which came in the form of a small voice inside that began to teach me compassion and mercy through the creative invitation of seeing, and loving, the reflection in everything.
That being said, seeing myself in everything wasn’t easy at first as I ran straight into self-hate every time I challenged myself to relate to the things that scared me or hurt me Read more about my journey here.
But over time, the mirrors of nature began to support my heart’s healing. Indeed, one of the most helpful reflections that I have received from the natural world is the observation of life’s cycles wherein things do fall apart as much as they come together. However, when things degrade, burn, freeze or flood, nature doesn’t point fingers or call anyone a failure. In fact, someone in the ecosystem always benefits immediately, and everyone benefits eventually from the times that things are shaken up.
Over time, nature’s reflections have helped me understand the human condition more compassionately. From there, I became more capable of offering myself empathy. Shame began to dissipate with my loving understanding. Then, as I became more capable of giving myself grace, I became more capable of sharing it with others. Indeed, this is the beauty of nature’s mirrors: they reflect all of us.
Finally, with the inherent empowerment that comes with self-worth, I started to regain my strength and energy, and began to engage the world more confidently. This ongoing process of releasing shame allowed me to engage the challenges of my life, and our world, with hope and grace. Though resolution is clearly still in-progress for our world today, I have regained my faith that we’re on our way.
Ultimately, this commitment to service has been the most important element of my redemption. My sense of power, purpose and dignity strengthened as I have given my life to service. That being said, I didn’t get there by being shamed into it; I got there by the love that patiently and mercifully believed that I could.
With that in mind, here’s a compassionate story of how humanity has come into the challenges we face today, and how our stories of love might empower us to overcome them with grace.
Compassionately Embracing the Vulnerability of the Human Condition
To understand our nature, it’s been helpful for me to start with our place in nature, wherein being human in an ecosystem is a vulnerable thing: water sometimes comes too much, and sometimes not enough as droughts and floods have ended entire civilizations throughout time2. Though the sun usually shines all day, there have even been exceptions there. Did you know that the sun went dark all over the world for 18 months in 536 AD3? Due to a huge volcanic eruption in Indonesia that spewed massive amounts of ash into the atmosphere, the sun had “a ‘bluish’ color; the moon had lost its luster and the ‘seasons seem[ed] to be all jumbled up together’.4” Cold and starvation caused stark declines in population as “people…couldn’t see their own shadows—even at noon5.” All over the world, even the trees stopped growing.
Furthermore, catastrophes aside, each biome and ecosystem offers its own challenges, whether it’s the dry heat of the desert, the cold frost of the arctic, big predators, or microscopic diseases; being part of an ecosystem is a vulnerable thing.
Over time, living beings have evolved to respond to that vulnerability. One of those adaptations includes a nervous system that guides desire for that which is beneficial and aversion to that which is harmful. This physiological task/reward system occurs not just in humans, but in all mammals; even vertebrates, insects and nematodes have the famous dopamine to fuel their motivation that says “Yes! This is good for me. More of that, please!6” Similarly, all mammals have wired within them a fight or flight response for when something goes wrong7.
What makes humans unique on Earth is that, over time, we’ve developed technologies8 that, like any evolutionary adaptation9, are largely designed to make us less vulnerable to our environment. Starting with fire, we first gained the ability to grow our brains with cooked food10. With this growth, we developed greater ability to remember and understand things with a “working memory”11.
This ability to string memories together to form an understanding has had a few major impacts on our human experience, to say the least. For one, it has changed the way we relate to trauma. While recent studies show that animals do experience long-term trauma symptoms (such as PTSD12), humans have an exceptional ability to log painful experiences not only with a working memory13 but with stories that can be shared and co-created with others to build a collective understanding of how life works, why hurt happens, and how to avoid it.
That being said, traumatic memories can become quite distorted14 (making the understandings that are born of them just as flawed). For example, trauma often “shatters” our self worth, our sense of meaning in the world, and our belief in the world as a benevolent place15. This shattering is especially pronounced when we believe that the trauma happened as a result of our own unworthiness or wrongdoing. From believing the we’ve been punished by a supernatural/spiritual force to believing that we were hurt due to some kind of personal defect, flaw or mistake, self-blame is common for trauma survivors as it insinuates that the hurt happened somewhere within our control (which can be easier to stomach than accepting that we’re so vulnerable16).
Even so, the belief that we are at fault for traumas that were outside of our direct influence (such as natural disasters, accidents, or abuse) can have a dramatic impact on how we see our reality and interact with it, causing hyper-states of anxiety and depression that greatly color our choices and behavior towards ourselves, each other, and the Earth. Indeed, the shattering of our realities can elicit suffering that ranges anywhere from the total loss of self-confidence to hyper-controlling behaviors17. Ultimately, this suffering then spills out into the world in cycles of trauma where hurt people tend to hurt people, not because they’re evil but because the psychological wounds from trauma are so dang contagious18.
No doubt, these collective wounds have influenced our technological advances. As we are all influenced by flight or flight responses, it’s natural that we tend to create technologies that aim for less suffering, and more pleasure.
As a result, humans have come to rely on technologies that override the checks and balances of nature. While individuals in ecosystems are motivated by their own survival, the limits of the ecosystem (called limiting factors19) keeps them in balance. But humans have (understandably) developed technologies that specifically seek to overcome these limitations (which are vulnerabilities). As a result, the balance of life is off.
Furthermore, human technologies are limited by the understanding that gave rise to them. This includes the misperceptions that are inherent to bias20 (check out The Caring Curiosity of (our) Nature to see how naturally it happens). These technological blindspots tend to create unexpected consequences that ultimately make us just as vulnerable as ever (in new ways).
Does that mean that we’re all doomed? I don’t think so. It is our creative nature to overcome: We find a limit. We overcome it and grow. The solution then creates its own problems with new limits. Again, we overcome the limit and grow as a result only to, again, find more challenges in the wake of our process.
Still, it’s been valuable for me to see that no matter how much we develop technologies, our net vulnerability doesn't increase or decrease; it just changes form. From our earliest ancestors, we’ve all just been doing our best to manage the vulnerabilities of being human with perpetually incomplete or inaccurate understandings of what the heck is going on here.
What would it be like if we really accepted that vulnerability?
Whether we’re made vulnerable by our own wrestling with the challenges of the human condition, or by others who are wrestling with the challenges of the human condition, whether we’re made vulnerable by a natural force or by our own creation, we are subject to loss and pain. The fact that we’re always learning and changing an ongoing liability that none of us are immune to.
Still, it is this vulnerability that also connects us to all things. Where one is weak, the other is strong. The ecosystems of life make sure that together we overcome.
Could it be beautiful that we need each other, even as life’s so out of control?
Could there be love there?
What if alongside the fear and hurt, all the addictions and wrong turns, love were there to soothe us as we learn?
Of course, I don’t have an answer to this question, but I do have a testimony: since I’ve been healing my shame with compassion and mercy, my anxiety, depression, IBS, and insomnia have all improved steadily. In the meantime, my relationships have been improving too; as I love myself in-progress, I love others in-progress too.
No doubt it’s a journey that is ongoing, but overtime I’ve come to cherish the discovery. In the process, service-centered art and compassionate storytelling have become pillars of my heart’s evolution. The more I frame my songs and stories with loving understanding, the more I witness peace bloom around and within me. Thank you for joining me in growing love’s great beauty.
https://eddinscounseling.com/depression-understanding-shame-based-depression/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7392566/
https://www.history.com/news/536-volcanic-eruption-fog-eclipse-worst-year
Ibid.
Ibid.
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0960982222010223#:~:text=In%20mammals%2C%20dopamine%20comprises%2080,species%2C%20from%20roundworms%20to%20humans
https://www.discoverwildlife.com/animal-facts/fight-or-flight-response-explained
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK210023/#:~:text=Among%20the%20characteristics%20that%20might,standard%20biological%20evolution%20per%20se.
https://www.sciencedirect.com/topics/agricultural-and-biological-sciences/evolutionary-adaptation#:~:text=Evolutionary%20adaptation%20is%20defined%20as,in%20relationship%20to%20the%20environment.
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/why-fire-makes-us-human-72989884/
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/fire-good-make-human-inspiration-happen-132494650/#:~:text=Psychologist%20Frederick%20L.,and%20repeat%20previously%20learned%20tasks.
https://eusci.org.uk/2019/08/29/ptsd-the-evolutionary-advantage/#:%7E:text=In%20other%20words%2C%20PTSD%20seems,and%20behaviour%20in%20the%20process.
https://www.sciencedirect.com/topics/computer-science/human-working-memory
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shattered_assumptions_theory#:~:text=Therefore%2C%20the%20negative%20effects%20of,title%20%22shattered%20assumption%20theory%22.
https://cptsdfoundation.org/2021/05/13/control-as-a-trauma-response-knowing-you-were-powerless-helps-you-heal/
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/20/15/6530
https://wefixbrains.com/resources/hurt-people-hurt-people#:~:text=Some%20individuals%20may%20unconsciously%20react,desperate%20need%20to%20find%20restf
https://psychcentral.com/lib/how-intergenerational-trauma-impacts-families#who-it-affects
https://www.khanacademy.org/science/hs-biology/x4c673362230887ef:matter-and-energy-in-ecosystems/x4c673362230887ef:population-growth-and-carrying-capacity/a/population-growth-and-carrying-capacity-article#:~:text=Limiting%20factors%20within%20every%20ecosystem,support%20given%20all%20available%20resources.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8784036/