Men Talk Articles - August/September 2009
The Transformative Power of Owning Shame
– © 2009 by Bob Anderson
At the core of the Men’s Center anger management program lies the subject of shame. It’s a fearsome subject. I remember one guy who hurriedly grabbed his jacket and workbook and exited the room before the check-in got to him the night the topic turned to shame. He apologized the following week, saying he had felt overwhelmed and scared. Till then, he had been one of those guys who rarely disclosed in group, and we facilitators were wondering how to smoke him out, but from that night on he was candid with the other men and committed to the process.
That’s the releasing power of owning shame. For all its fearsomeness, the subject speaks to the men like nothing else in the course. It touches a vital nerve near the core of identity that sparks much of their harmful behavior, and somehow they know this and are willing, even grateful, to be challenged to drop some of their defenses and become more real with themselves and each other.
That’s not easy for men, conditioned as they are to maintaining the facade of control and invulnerability at all cost. Yet, as they become aware of the shaming messages they’ve taken on from family and culture, notice the shame-based rules they follow in their own behavior - be in control, be perfect, blame, compare, deny, distort -and count the cost to themselves and those they love, there’s an almost palpable sense of relief that comes over the room. They’ve broken the one rule that maintains the stranglehold of all the rest: don’t talk.
I saw this demonstrated yet again in a recent class I co-facilitated at the Men’s Center. It was an atypical class: six of the ten guys were court-ordered, some had been in and out of jail and some had felonies pending or on their record, which kept one man from getting work and housing. Yet on that first night the class was totally typical in its denial and refusal to own the problem with anger.
“The other guy started it.” “I just stepped in to help someone else out.” “I only have issues with this one person.” Most blamed their predicament on misunderstanding, bad luck, the system, its bias toward women, anything but themselves. During check-in one guy raised his foot to show off his ankle bracelet, said he was there only because he was ordered, then wise-cracked his way through the rest of the session. I thought to myself, this is going to be a tough class.
Bit by bit more incriminating facts emerged about their altercations: involvement of alcohol, the brutality of their response, a pattern of losing control. That’s often the way it is in these classes. Men begin in denial and only gradually assume full responsibility for their behavior - a cardinal principle of anger management and the beginning of real change. I couldn’t imagine a group less entitled to the presumption of innocence.
We spent two sessions exploring the escalation process, how to slow it down, manage stress, anticipate triggers, monitor and modify negative self-talk and intervene earlier and earlier in the process. We looked at underlying causes, what gets them hooked in an escalation, how anger is often a cover for deeper, harder-to-face emotions like shame or grief or fear, or a core hurt from the past, which intensifies its destructive charge.
The most important thing we did, however, was talk, and here these men came into their own. Their shared predicament created an immediate rapport, gritty honesty and willingness to challenge each other. We went deep fast; no hiding, no games, especially regarding shame.
One night a trucker acknowledged how he always felt guilty when he spotted a squad car. “I don’t know why, I haven’t done anything illegal, and it isn’t like I view these guys as enemies. I depend on them for help and safety.
“I know why,” another man said. “Because even though this time you haven’t done anything wrong, there’ve been plenty of times in the past when you have, and you’ve never been caught.” A third man chimed in, “We’ve all done bad stuff, we’re all guilty and we know it!” The room erupted in laughter. There followed a discussion of shame, guilt, innocence and moral responsibility, including a reference to The Shawshank Redemption, as deep and heartfelt as anything I’ve ever herd.
In another session on shame, one man who had held himself somewhat aloof from the group till then, presented what amounted to a brief on his perfectionism and need for control that always left him feeling restless and dissatisfied with himself, no matter how well he had performed. He always gave 110 percent, he said – a lesson learned from his father – yet it was never enough. He wanted a way out of this trap, and his words were about as naked a confession of pain and need as I have ever heard in eleven years of doing these classes.
He had voluntarily taken the class and had previously expressed to one of the other facilitators his misgivings, even resentment, about being in a group with so many court-ordered men, yet it was precisely one of those men – the guy having trouble getting work and housing because of his record – who came to his aid. “What would it mean, what would it look like to you,” the man asked, “if you could deliver perfection?” The question floored the guy. It helped him see how thoroughly ingrained and self-defeating his shame-based rules were. In subsequent sessions he returned to that question again and again, and to the man who had raised it, as a touchstone in his struggle to reframe the negative life script that kept sucking him under.
No quick fixes here. We remind the guys that this is life-long work. We give them the tools to keep from spiraling into a shame cycle, exercises to help them confront their inner demons and make peace with their shadow side, techniques to communicate and assert themselves more effectively and resolve conflicts, but the work is theirs to do. As important as these skills are – and they are vital – even more important is what the men give to each other: a safe place to bare their souls and be heard, the knowledge that they are not alone and need each other, and that they have it within themselves to connect across barriers of all kinds, including the gulf that separates men from each other.
Bob Anderson is a long-time member of the Men’s Center and facilitator of anger management classes. He has recently published a coming-out memoir, Out of Denial: Piecing Together a Fractured Life, which is available at Magers and Quinn, Micawber’s, Amazon and Rainbow Road, and on-line from Lulu.com and Amazon.com.