Tapping into Courage Requires Leaning into Shame and Vulnerability
By: Caitlin Lynch
Tags: Courage, Relationships, Relationships Love Dating, Psychology, Love

Shame is — I’m sorry, I am a mistake. Guilt is — I’m sorry, I made a mistake.

The difference here is profound. With guilt, we are able to separate ourselves from our behavior and the circumstances we find ourselves in now, or have found ourselves in the past yet continue to judge ourselves. When we are in shame, we cannot separate ourselves from our behavior and inherently believe that we are not worthy of love and belonging. Guilt, rather than shame, allows us to remember our self-worth and helps us to maintain our positive feelings of self-worth as separate from our choices. That way, we can understand that our behavior can be altered and that we are not powerless in our ability to change for the better. Leaning into guilt, rather than shame, enables us to move out of a victim narrative of “life happens to me” and into an empowering narrative of “I create the life I deserve.”

For women, or more feminine individuals, shame most often manifests as what I refer to as the “Wonder Woman Complex”. Women experience shame when they can’t “be everything to everyone”. Women feel the need to live up to ridiculous standards, contradictory expectations, and successfully complete an endless array of tasks, without breaking a sweat or giving themselves the ability to fall apart once in a while to just own up to the fact that they are tired or have had enough. What have we told women who were at their wits end, feeling an entire range of emotions all at one time? We have told them that they are crazy, that they are irrational, that they are too moody and unstable. We tell women that their vulnerability is too wild, it is not welcome here because it makes men uncomfortable and makes them feel unworthy because they have not upheld their duty of “keeping it all together” for the women in their lives.

For men, or more masculine individuals, shame manifests as what I call the “Iron Man Complex”. Men have been told their entire lives, “don’t be perceived as weak”. Men have been told that they are the rock, the foundation, the support for their families. In order to create and maintain that strength, they cannot be seen as weak. Now, what have we told men weakness looks like? We have told men that crying is weakness, speaking about their fears is weakness, that questioning their next steps or looking for loving support is weakness. We tell men that their vulnerability makes them weak, and therefore it is not welcome here because we need men to be strong and to keep it all together for the women in their lives.

Under the patriarchal systems we have lived in for centuries, we have created a narrative that shuts down feminine expression, in both men and women. I believe that our shame today was born out of the shutting down of the wild feminine — the incredibly powerful and dynamic feminine and goddess archetypes. With the extinguishing of feminine emotional depth, shame was born. We began to equate emotional expression as weakness and therefore lost our ability to cope with and move through emotions in healthy ways. We have lost the ability to self-soothe and we have lost the ability to hold space for ourselves and others with non-judgement.

Men need women who can sit with them in their fears, in their emotions, in their vulnerability, without fear of being judged or seen as weak. Women need to be able to embrace their men with unconditional loving compassion, seeing them as the wholly dynamic human being they are. Women, we have to stop judging our men for being weak when they show emotion or fear. We must also stop telling our little boys to “stop crying” or “man up”. We need to model to them what real courage looks like, and that is vulnerability. Our men need a safe place and space to feel, to be seen, to be heard, and to be loved, as they work through their shame and uncomfortable feelings.

Women need men who can sit with them as they work through their range of emotions. Men need to allow women to freely express all that is on their hearts and in their minds, also from a place of non-judgement. Men need to be able to embrace their women with unconditional loving compassion, without judging them as clingy, crazy, or weak. Women need men who know that they don’t have to save their women, but instead offer loving help and assistance when she asks for it. We must also stop telling our little girls that they need saving. Our women need a safe place and space to feel, to be seen, to be heard, and to be loved, as they work through their shame and uncomfortable feelings.

Can you see the similarities? We need to have the ability to hold space for one another. However, we are not always equipped or able to do this. Or, we avoid it all together. We can also recognize that the narrative of vulnerability as weakness is detrimental to both sexes in ways that are unique to their experience of patriarchal social conditioning.

Two good questions to consider when challenging the belief that vulnerability is weakness are: