BLOGCAST: This post was recorded by Morten Winkler. You can listen to the blog here (07:04):

About '’Shame – innate and learned ’–
by Lars Sørensen, cand.psych., specialist and supervisor in psychotherapy and for 25 years chief psychologist at the Amtshospitalet in Nykøbing Sjælland. In this book he describes what can support – and threaten – our innermost vulnerability.

‘'We have an innate shame in the form of sensitive perceptions of the world that protect our innermost vulnerability and register any form of wrongdoing. Shame thus belongs as much to the preparedness of the nervous system and the body as to the person's social understanding. If this sensitivity is properly taken care of, it helps to create our humanity.'’

We take this quote from Lars Sørensen's book 'Shame' bit by bit because it is, like the book itself, concentrated and significant:

’'We have an innate sense of shame in the form of sensitive perceptions of the world that protect our innermost vulnerability and register any kind of wrongness.'’

Here, shame is not described as a flaw. Nor is it necessarily something negative. Instead, it is explained how, around the innermost core of every human being, our 'innermost vulnerability', there are innate barriers or, as the book says, 'detectors', a sensitivity that constantly monitors ourselves, our inner self and our interactions with the world around us.

When something in a situation, something in ourselves or in our relationships with others, is experienced as wrong, the alertness turns into shame, into the experience of wrongness. Of being wrong or of others being wrong. Or the situation. The painfulness in the situation triggers shame. Shame is, as it is said several times in the book, 'the psyche's pain sensor'.

‘'Shame thus belongs as much to the nervous system's and the body's preparedness as to the person's social understanding'.

Which situations trigger shame, and how strongly, depends on our personality and our history. On our nervous system and social understanding. Which also has to do with our history and upbringing.

If we fail to register the pain in a situation, its wrongness, the shame increases and can turn into 'white shame', a paralysis that triggers anxiety.

‘'If this sensitivity is properly cared for, it helps create our humanity.'’

We find it important to understand these simple, yet sophisticated analyses:

We all have a vulnerability deep down as a kind of barrier to our human essence. If this vulnerability is pressed, by ourselves or others, it triggers shame. Which is not initially anxiety-filled, but a message that our system interprets the situation as somehow wrong.

If we listen to this modesty, it supports our integrity and that of our fellow human beings by telling us something about boundaries.

If we do not meet this sensitivity, the shyness, the 'red shame' as shyness is called in the book, will increase and turn into white shame and paralysis which triggers anxiety.

Lars Sørensen says in the book: ‘'Actually, it is imprecise to claim that this or that feeling causes anxiety. Even if it is experienced that way, the pain does not lie in the feeling itself, but in the painful absence of not being able to contain or be with the feeling.'’

We dare an example. Of how we experience that the book, its understanding and attitudes can help people: Let's say we experience anxiety when we have to stand up in front of a group (who of us doesn't, at least sometimes?). To make our opinion known or just to be present with others. Instead of diagnosing this anxiety, by, for example, calling it social anxiety and tracing it back into our personal history, this book suggests that we feel into the anxiety and trace it back to a feeling of shame behind which it is possible to reach the vulnerability. Which is not in itself anxiety-provoking. But which, if we do not face it and allow ourselves to feel it, makes us have to leave the presence. To leave the present is to lose contact with oneself and with the body, with the outside world, here the group. Because the wrongness of the situation becomes unbearable. And this leaving the presence is anxiety-provoking, yes, in a certain sense is the anxiety itself.

If you have discovered this, you can begin to gain freedom. Before fear paralyzes us, by registering the shame and behind it the wrongness, and behind it the way we are at that moment leaving our vulnerability.

The book helps us to gain this insight and experience. It is free from dogma and written in a way that allows us to experience it as – dare we say it – a living being. It is like a prism that is constantly being turned so that the phenomenon of shame and its connection with vulnerability, self-esteem, anxiety, paralysis and integrity is described again and again in ever new ways.

It gives the reader a feeling of being met with respect throughout the text. Again and again the prism is turned and a new side of shame is uncovered. So one discovers that it is also a fascinating phenomenon, also a form of blessing, also a gift of grace placed in the nervous system and the innermost parts of our personality.

Throughout the book, two ways are pointed out to heal the white shame, the paralysis, the loss of presence:

One is self-understanding, the practice of presence. The insight into the refined psychological and bodily mechanisms that allow us to discover them and gain inner freedom.

The second, and, as we understand the book, perhaps the most important, is the empathic encounter with another person. ‘'Being met psychologically and neuroaffectively'’ is, writes Lars Sorensen, ‘'an establishment of a fundamental human right which carries within itself the possibility of rebuilding a loving understanding of oneself.'’

We find that the book Shame offers the reader such an encounter.

The blog post is narrated by Morten Winkler.

Hanneli Ågotsdatter
Master of Architecture, psychotherapist and meditation teacher.
Hanneli established Kontemplation in 2010 and is the platform's daily manager.
She is affiliated Center for Systems Awareness in Boston and leads the contemplative part of the center's educational program.
Together with Martijn van Beek is she responsible for Mind&Life Europe international retreats for young researchers.
She is part of The Children's Life Skills Association.
Hanneli is a permanent teacher at Vækstcenteret and receives practical guidance from Jes Bertelsen.
She lives in an interplay between family life, an outgoing work life, and withdrawal in long-term retreats.

Peter Hoeg is an M.A., author and teacher of meditation and creativity. He is one of Kontemplation's regular teachers, co-founder of The Children's Life Skills Association and part of the Growth Center's teaching group.

Peter lives next door to Vækstcenteret in Nørre Snede and receives practical guidance from Yes, Bertelsen.