Episode 001: Shame - The Swampland of the Soul
I’ve started working with The Circles of Men Project on a podcast that’s a platform for showcasing what the group and its gatherings are all about. I encourage you to check it out, especially if you are male, identify as male, or are struggling with or thinking about masculinity in the context of the modern world. It’s an exploration of spirituality, compassion, and mindfulness, with weekly gatherings. The podcast is a little bit of a taste of what we talk about without breaking the trust and confidentiality of the Circle, which operates on Vegas rules: what happens in the Circle stays in the Circle. So give it a listen! My thanks to Skip Swies for being the first of the group to participate. He was kind to indulge me spontaneously, with no warning or preparation.
Here are the videos of Dr. Brené Brown that were the starting point for this week’s gathering.
Clay Boykin’s book, Circles of Men: A Counter-Intuitive Approach to Creating Men's Groups, is available at Amazon.com.
Music in this episode comes from:
License: CC BY (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/)
Tracks include "Cheery Monday", “Fearless First”, and “Scheming Weasel (faster version)”, all by Kevin MacLeod.
Here’s the transcript:
Rod: Did you get a chance to watch the videos that Clay posted about the topic?
Skip: I did. And what Brené Brown was saying about the toxicity of shame, she characterized, we tend to talk about guilt and shame together, and she says no, it’s a little different than that. Guilt is feeling bad about something you did, whereas shame is you feel bad about you. Shame is, if you peel the onion far enough, it’s the basic issue that most men deal with, mostly because we take on unrealistic ideas about what it means to be a man and how we should show up in the world. I see men taking that on as, “If I can’t meet that image, I’m flawed. There’s something wrong with me.” And that creates a whole cascade of events, starting with silence, pulling back, not sharing what you’re feeling. And, even if you wanted to share what you felt, we don’t always have the language to express it.
Rod: Yeah. It takes practice.
Skip: Yeah, it absolutely takes practice. And the thing that I love about the men’s group that Clay has brought forward is that it’s absolute practice at finding a language, finding the words to express what you feel because there’s no one in the group that’s going to prompt you or challenge you about what you said. What you say is just what you say.
Rod: She talks about shame being fed by secrecy and judgement…
Skip: Exactly.
Rod: ...and being in an environment where you’re allowed to be open, or encouraged to be open, and there is no judgement…
Skip: Yes.
Rod: ...that’s really healing.
Skip: Absolutely, and one of the 3 things that are, that shame needs, one of the things is silence, and in our group, we stop being silent, and we practice empathy, and those 2 things are just wonderful for dealing with, if you’re holding shame, it can’t exist in an empathetic environment.
Rod: Her videos went pretty deep. I don’t always get a chance to watch all of it, everything, and I got, I took the time to watch all 4 of the videos, and in the 4th one, she started talking about that empathy is at the heart of a healthy partnership, a healthy romantic relationship. She did talk a little bit about, like men expressing to her that it’s not men that are hard on men, it’s women that are hard on men.
Skip: Yeah, one of the coolest Christmas presents my wife ever gave me, a couple of years she gave me a little pewter knight standing in his armor and his shield and his lance and all that. And she said, “You’re my white knight.” And you know, it brought me to tears. I thought that was just a wonderful thing. And now when I look at that, I ask myself frequently, “Can I live up to that? And what happens when I fall off the horse?” That wonderful gift is kind of a two-edged sword.
Rod: Do you remember a moment in your life where you realized that shame was destructive? Did you come to that on your own before you found a group like this? Did you… What was your experience with shame?
Skip: I saw, for me personally, I’ll just go way back. When I was in high school, I recognized that my family was different, the family system itself. I’m the oldest of 6 kids. Dad worked, Mom was in the home. Pretty traditional family. But it was volatile. Mom was a yeller and screamer, and she and Dad would bicker and fight, and it was just a… It was never a physical thing, but to me it felt violent to the extent that whenever I would walk home from school, and this is again I’m in high school, I didn’t know who was going to be on the other side of the door when I put my hand on the knob to open it, whether it was going to be loving Mom or angry Mom, and whether or not some of my sibs would be yelling and screaming at each other. And where that took me was I was ashamed, sometimes even just a little frightened, to bring friends home. And so I didn’t. I ended up all through high school being involved in sports and every extra curricular activity I could think of to keep me away. I created my world outside my house. I was just embarrassed at what might show up if I brought some of my friends over. It was just, this is nuts, and I don’t want my friends to be part of that.
Rod: When you’re in high school, when you’re a teenager, you’re dealing with all kinds of stuff anyway.
Skip: Oh my God.
Rod: And you kind of think, when you’re a kid growing up you kind of think whatever your normal is, is normal. That’s got to be a big epiphany to realize, this isn’t right.
Skip: Exactly. And there were, I had mile markers along the way to show me that something else was possible. When I was maybe 10, 11, Mom made us take piano lessons. She was a pianist. My dad was a violinist. They were accomplished musicians. And I did, under protest. My piano teacher was a wonderful woman, and they had just the most loving family that… I would go over for piano lessons, and I would be totally embarrassed and ashamed because I didn’t practice. I wasn’t prepared for the lesson, but I loved going to the house, to their home, which was right down the street from my house, because it was such a happy place and such a loving place. And I think at that time I started recognizing something’s different. Something’s amiss. And I started going underground at that point.
Rod: Yeah.
Skip: It’s not like I could go home and say, “Hey Mom and Dad, you know when I go down to Mrs. Lucia’s house to take my piano lessons, man, everybody gets along, and they actually smile a lot.” And to make it worse, they were friends with my parents, and we shared dinners and stuff like that, family outings. And I don’t know that they had any clue how it was at our house, or how it could be at our house.
Rod: Yeah. Yeah. Well thanks, Skip.
