Meaningful Happiness with Dr. Scott Conkright
Meaningful Happiness is a podcast that unpacks the science of emotions, relationships, and personal growth through the lens of Affect Relational Theory (ART), Chronic Shame Syndrome (CSS), and Latalescence—the second act of life where experience, adaptability, and purpose shape our journey forward.
Each episode explores how shame operates beneath the surface, influencing our confidence, connections, and sense of agency. Through deep insights and practical tools, we uncover ways to rewrite our personal narratives, break free from shame-based cycles, and cultivate a life rich in authenticity, curiosity, and joy.
Join me as we dive into the psychological frameworks and real-world applications that help us navigate relationships, self-perception, and the ever-evolving landscape of human experience.
Let’s make happiness meaningful.
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Meaningful Happiness with Dr. Scott Conkright
Ep. 07- Breaking Free from Shame_ Dr. Scott Conkright's Insights on Emotional Well-being
Chronic shame can feel like an invisible weight, dragging you down no matter how high you climb. Have you ever wondered why feelings of inadequacy and self-doubt persist even in the face of your accomplishments? Tune in as Dr. Scott Conkright unravels the complexities of chronic shame syndrome—a condition he's observed over three decades of practice that stands apart from any official DSM-5 diagnosis. Journey with us as we explore how subtle judgments and microaggressions can insidiously chip away at your core sense of self, and discover how group therapy can offer a haven of support and a pathway to reclaiming your worth.
We also delve into the shadowy realms of imposter syndrome, examining its corrosive impact on your self-perception and the relentless cycle of self-criticism it engenders. Dr. Conkright shares a personal story of his own struggle with these feelings, offering insights that many will find both relatable and enlightening. We'll also explore the destructive compulsions of people-pleasing and perfectionism, and how these behaviors often stem from a need for safety rooted in childhood. Finally, we differentiate between healthy and chronic shame, explaining how the latter is often a product of past traumas that can lead to self-imposed isolation and hinder intimacy. This episode is a must-listen for anyone looking to identify the sources of their unhappiness and take meaningful steps toward healing and self-acceptance.
For more information about Scott and his practice, articles, videos, and more: https://linktr.ee/scottconkright
Hi, I'm Dr Scott Conkright, and welcome to the Meaningful Happiness Podcast, where we talk about feelings, affects, the biological basis of emotions and all those things that have to do with making life meaningful and happy. At least, that's my hope. Today, I'm returning to the topic of chronic shame syndrome. I brought that up in the last podcast. Again, it is not a real diagnosis, it is an observation on my part. With over 30 years of practice and with my work on affect theory affect relational theory it's become pretty clear to me that there are a lot of people suffering from this disorder, which I'm calling chronic shame disorder, shame syndrome and so today I'm going to talk about the various symptoms, the things that led me to believe that there is a diagnosis of this sort and that it's distinct from other DSM-5 categories diagnoses. So what exactly is it so? First and foremost, it's that pervasive, insistent, persistent sense of being inadequate, not being enough, really spending too much time in your day and being with yourself in which it just doesn't feel good, that, no matter how many accomplishments you have, how well you're doing, no matter what awards you get, no matter how you make it in your field, there's always this, this lingering doubt that you're faking it. You're an imposter, that somebody's going to find you out that if you don't please everyone, if you don't go out of your way to make everybody happy, we're going to find out out that if you don't please everyone, if you don't go out of your way to make everybody happy, people are going to find out who you really are and they're not going to like it, and so you really have to be on high alert, which makes life really really tough to live sometimes, insofar as that you don't have time off. I'm hoping that for those who have chronic shame syndrome, that they do have some time off, that they do have friends I hope one or two friends that they can relax with a loved one, family. If not, that's one of the goals of this podcast is for you to take a look at these things in your life, for you to take a look at what's making you unhappy, what's getting in the way of your own happiness and of making your life meaningful and starting to make changes.
Speaker 1:One of the things I'm going to come back to in this podcast again, it's going to be a theme of mine is that, as a group therapist, I can tell you that, when it comes to shame. Group therapy is the modality that works the best, as difficult as it is for most everyone to feel like, oh no, I can't be in group with anybody. Everybody's going to hear my stuff. Well, yes, they are, and you're going to hear their stuff, and that the sharing of your stuff and their stuff is going to help lower the shame barrier. You're going to feel like other people experience the same thing, and you as well, and with that sharing, find out that there's other ways of being in the world. You don't have to suffer that much. So let me go through some of the symptoms, and I'm sure that you will recognize many of these. Now, you don't have to have all of them. Not every single one of these applies, and let me stress as well, I'm actually trying to depathologize people's lives.
Speaker 1:One of the things that I'm trying to do in terms of talking about shame is to normalize. It is to make sure that people understand that shame has a healthy place that is part of our lives. But the most important thing that I'm trying to get across is that shame is on a continuum that we only tend to focus on. The very high end of shame public humiliation, being really embarrassed, horrible things. Fortunately for most of us, that is not our lives, that our lives are not built around that. We all have had those moments, realistically or not, we have felt them to be those moments of extreme humiliation, and of course, we've been there where it just felt like you just want to die. I'm talking more about on the low end.
Speaker 1:What I really want people to understand is that chronic shame comes from the microaggression, so to speak, the micro shaming Ones that are just slightly under the radar, where, growing up, a parent would just say a certain word or give that certain look that you knew that they were being judgmental or people around you were being judgmental, or you've come to learn, in a kind of paranoid way, this you come to learn that or feel that people are judging you all the time and so you may misinterpret those looks, and that's part of the chronic shame syndrome is that your radars are not really very good for this, and so that's the other thing that you need to recalibrate. Is that often, what you think are out on it, being aware that it has a really profound effect on you. That is progress. That's what I want. I want people to say like no, you can't do that. You can't say that, you can't tease me. I don't like the way you're talking to me.
Speaker 1:That doesn't feel good. That doesn't feel good because it's the accumulation of the small ones that leads to the gradual for a child, gradual wearing away of their core sense of self as being good, because we're born that way. We're born good in the sense of every child feels good about themselves and every child wants, wants to connect. That's part of our biology. We want to connect, we want to learn, we want to explore. As parents, as caregivers, we have to say you can't do this, you can't do that. There has to be a barrier to good things that you want, all the things that you believe that you want, that you feel are good, may not be so. That's our jobs as caregivers, parents, teachers and so forth.
Speaker 1:And again, in my model, in the affect theory model, anything that gets in the way of what feels, of what you think is good, feels like a shame, like shucks, what a bummer. I can't do that. That's shame on the very low side. And it's going to happen 100 times during the day and again, whether it's you miss a ball playing hoops, or you play racquetball like I do, or you miss the elevator door, it doesn't matter. You're still going to do that slump of shame when you're teased, when you're left out, when you feel lonely. Those are also, again, minor ones, but they add up. And they add up because they can add to a script that you're writing about yourself that gets confirmed You're a loser, that you're unlovable, that you're not worthy, and so forth. So when I start going through these, each and every one of these symptoms again, you don't have to have them all, I hope you don't have them all. You might have bits and pieces of each one.
Speaker 1:The real purpose of this is for you to get in touch with the subtle and some with stealth. I keep calling it stealth, I feel like. I think it is kind of stealthy this the secretive, underhanded ways that shame works or that people use shame, the ways that parents, caregivers, teachers, employers use really sneaky ways to put people down. Sometimes. Sometimes it's a reflection of the way that they were raised or reflection of our society. But how shame is used as a weapon, which it can be very much so, and it certainly is in racial matters, certainly is in orientation matters and so forth, where we put another group of people down for whatever attributes they have that we decide are shameful.
Speaker 1:For a kid, the constant berating of oneself, of one's self-esteem, of one's abilities, of who one is, in terms of just how you look, how you think, how you are in the world. You don't have any control over that. That's the body that you are given, given and that's what you've got, and you're doing your best. And for somebody around you, somebody that supposedly loves you and they may, but they may not know better, but let's say, in the best case scenario, they love you but they don't know any better to be knocked down all the time, that's chronic shame. You might feel it in being an imposter.
Speaker 1:Imposter syndrome is a really common one where I think everybody knows what this means, which I'm sure you do as well. You can get at least get an idea of it that you don't, that you didn't really deserve the job, you didn't really deserve the title. People really figure out that you don't know your stuff as well as they think that you do. There's going to be a disruption, it's going to feel good and it's not going to be pretty once they figure out that you don't know what you're doing, that you're an imposter. The difference between common everyday imposter syndrome. Let's all feel that when I first got my doctorate degree and I was teaching at Northeastern Illinois University, I'd just gotten the degree and I got it while I was still working on my dissertation.
Speaker 1:I figured out how it worked, but I got the degree. It wasn't completely done yet, but I was teaching already and I think I'd mentioned to the class that I just got it that day to one of the classes that I was teaching. It was all undergraduate and I left the class after teaching and I was walking down the hallway and somebody called out hey, dr Conkright. I looked up and around and I had no idea who they were talking about. The only person that I'd ever heard call Dr Conkright was my dad. So I assumed that it was him and I was wondering what the hell is my dad doing here, because it didn't fit me yet. I didn't think I was wondering what the hell is my dad doing here, because it didn't fit me yet. I didn't think I was an imposter, I just wasn't used to it yet.
Speaker 1:It took a little while to get used to and in that sense I may have felt at that time and I don't recollect it very well, but I can imagine having a hard time fitting into that title. In that sense I was. I probably felt like an imposter. That's a normative thing to feel like. When you're new in a job, new in anything, you're gonna feel like an imposter. That goes away over time. That's a normative process. Everybody experiences that. If you've been in the same job for a while and it's a continual doubt about your abilities, that you feel, after years and years of being on the job, that you're not as good as everybody else, or that if somebody really looked into your work, they may I don't know demote you or kick you out, it doesn't matter. If you have those doubts, more so than everybody else, more so than just a fleeting issue about a new job or a new talent, then there's something to think about. Is that chronic shame syndrome? Think about that.
Speaker 1:Another one is persistent and persecutory self-criticism. So again, I can be very self-critical and actually I'm pretty okay with it. I know the limits of my self-criticism Doing these videos. There's times that I get done with one and go like, yeah, we're not doing that one and I learned from it. So the self-criticism could be in the shame that comes from. That is healthy. I don't feel like I'm a loser, for instance, when a podcast doesn't go well and I have to redo, it means that there's stuff that I, there's a barrier to my, my positive feelings towards doing the podcast, and so I do it again. So, in that sense, the shame that I there's a barrier to my, my positive feelings towards doing the podcast, and so I do it again. So, in that sense, the shame that I feel, my, my upsetness, self-criticism, which is basically a defense against the shame, it's my anger towards myself.
Speaker 1:For the shame that I'm feeling can be instructive if you're just stewing in it all the time, if it's always there, no matter what you do. You blow the dishwasher, that there's a problem with the way you made the cake, you didn't do this right, you didn't do that right, you're not dressed right, it doesn't matter. You said something stupid on the phone. If your life is a continual set of self-criticisms, that's a real indication that there's an enormous amount of shame that is persistent in your life. And again I'm stressing the persecutory part that it feels like persecution that you have this mean person that is now living in your head.
Speaker 1:It may be the accumulation of voices from parents, caregivers, teachers, instructors, whoever coaches that now has morphed into your own. Is that the right word? Morph is more physical. Well, I guess the voice has morphed into your own voice. Their voices, collectively, now your voice. So it sounds like your voice, but it's all the critics in your head, all the board of directors, so to speak, are still there telling you you're not good enough. So something to look at.
Speaker 1:So again, it's very shame-based. People-pleasing is a really common one. The world is not safe unless you are making sure that everybody's happy, everybody feels good, nobody's upset. You're used to scanning the room, you're used to figuring out who needs help, and it is so compulsive that the idea that there could be somebody around you that's in distress of some sort means that you've done something wrong, especially if you know you can intervene and do something. If that's, you, take a look at that. That's also shame-based. It means that you're not willing to make other people unhappy or to let them suffer in their own way, on their own terms, because that's what they need to do. You had nothing to do with it. You don't need to go in there and fix everything. It's not your job. You may have learned that as a child. It may have been to your benefit to learn this as a child to take care of your parents and people around you, because it made you world safer. I'm not telling you that what you learned in the way that you adapted to your world is wrong. The same may not be working as well right now, so you know. So it doesn't feel good. It's an enormous amount of energy to take care of the world around you when you don't need to. And again, it's shame based in that you feel guilty. You feel guilty that it rained out. It rained outside when you threw a picnic. How can you be in charge of the rain? But you are apparently. If you're in charge of the rain and you're feeling guilty about it, you might look at this disorder and think might be in there, you might be dealing with chronic shame syndrome Perfectionism.
Speaker 1:It's a good thing. It's a bad thing. It's a good thing insofar as that, if you know that you're doing is you're just trying to get do things better. If you're not looking at the amount it costs to try to get to get perfection, then you're you're not doing good. You're not doing good calculus about how you're spending your time and the energy that's involved. Obviously, there's no way to do anything perfect. That's really not the point. The point is that what you want to do is make sure that people are not seeing your flaws, people are not seeing the mistakes you're making, that people see you at your best, see whatever side you think you're best at, and you want to show that because the idea of their seeing anything other than what you feel is your best side feels shameful. So, again, from a shame perspective, that's a lot of work. Here's a big one, I think.
Speaker 1:If you're 35, 40 years old or younger, I think this is an even bigger issue for that age group and increasingly so the younger that you are, in part because of social media. I know it's really popular to beat up social media. I think there's certain ways, certain things about social media that it deserves to be beaten up, so to speak, around the self-esteem and the self-consciousness stuff. It is not good, and there's a couple generations out there of you out there whose parents did not teach you shame, tolerance around social media because they didn't know anything about it. So what I'd like to do is, once we're done with this next couple well, we have, I think, two more podcasts around shame, chronic shame syndrome, and then I'm going to talk about what to do about it, because all this leads to dealing with shame tolerance, which is basically building up your immune system around shame. So, going back to what I think Millennials and Gen Z's are doing right now around this issue is that I think for them, around social media, they are dealing with more social anxiety and social avoidance than previous generations, and I think that that's showing in the data. There's more anxiety than there is depression, for instance.
Speaker 1:Isolating away from others is to deal with shame. It's certainly one way to deal with it, but it's also part of the chronic shame syndrome. If you can't be with other people because you feel like you're going to be judged by them, and if you feel like there's always something for them to judge you around, it's going to feel safer being in isolation. So just another one to look at and again, it's shame-based. When it comes to intimacy and I'm going to end on this one, and next week we will come back with the next podcast I'm going to talk more in depth about a couple other symptoms and then also how it differentiates from anxiety and depression. Before I end, after this next set of symptoms, I'm going to talk about healthy versus unhealthy shame very quickly.
Speaker 1:But intimacy is is by definition, requires shame as part of it. Any relationship that you want especially if it's a love interest or a friendship that you find exciting, exhilarating and that you really desire, or group of people or a team any of those moments of intimacy, by definition, are shame moments because you want them so much and there's always a chance you can't get it, or that they don't want it, or they're not going to be included. There's no guarantees around that when you're in a relationship with one person, three people, a group, you can get expelled, you can get expunged, you can get dumped. You name it and we've all had it where what you wanted and what the other person wanted are not the same thing. So from the very beginning there's the possibility of shame and again, that has nothing to do with you're doing anything shameful or that there is anything shameful about you. The shame is simply going to come from a hindrance towards a barrier to what you want, to that connection. So one way to deal with intimacy is some ways to not do it, because if you're going to do intimacy, it's going to require that you lower the shame barrier. You're going to have to show parts of yourself and get the affirmation about the parts of yourself that you don't really love that much from that other person, because they're in many ways wanting the same thing from you. So you both have to do that with each other, especially in a loving relationship. So in a loving relationship you're lowering the shame barrier and if you're really scared about that, if you're really scared about being seen, if you're suffering from chronic shame syndrome, you're not going to want to do that. It is not going to feel safe to do that.
Speaker 1:So let me talk about real quickly here the difference between healthy shame and chronic shame. So with healthy shame, healthy shame serves as a moral compass, so to speak. And I say so to speak because, yes, it does Directly and indirectly. When caregivers and parents tell you not to do something, you don't know why they're saying that, for the most part because intellectually, cognitively, emotionally, you're not old enough to know why you need to go to bed, why you need to take a shower, why you need to brush your teeth, why you can't run out in the middle of the street, why you have to wear clothes you name it you just do it and it can feel very arbitrary, but ultimately we're learning from those around us what we can and cannot do. That's why we dress a certain way. That's why we make fun of our friends who dress in funny ways sometimes, or make fun of ourselves when we dress in funny ways because we know that's not what we should be wearing. But I'm going to wear socks with my Birkenstock shoes or sandals because it's cold out and I need to just get the mail, but I don't want to be seen in that dorky way.
Speaker 1:It's temporary, healthy shame has to be temporary and the motivation behind it is that it's encouraging positive change, it's encouraging self-reflection and it's encouraging personal growth. And you hope that the intensity of the shame is proportionate to whatever it is that needs to be fixed. So you don't want it to be so devastatingly shameful for the person that they're incapacitated to learn from it, and you hope that the response is that there's constructive action taken, that the person changes their behavior or they apologize for it or they learn from it, and so forth. Now, with chronic shame, there really is often no constructive purpose for the chronic shame and it often stems from past traumas and other long-lasting negative belief sets that one carries around with oneself, so it comes out of nowhere generally doesn't have a purpose. You're not learning anything from it.
Speaker 1:The other thing about it, too, is that it's persistent and it's pervasive. It's not time-limited, it's always there. You're walking around with it like a heavy coat and it inhibits and paralyzes growth. It can feel disproportionately large and overwhelming for what you did or what you thought you did or what the other person thinks you did, and it tends to cover everything that you're doing and it tends to cause destructive behaviors. So, for instance, if you're feeling chronic shame syndrome, there's going to be a small event that you need to go to for work and you're going to find some sort of way to not go, which is going to cause problems at work, maybe cause problems with some of your friends there. It's not going to advance your career, but it's also going to reinforce your chronic shame syndrome in that you once again if have reinforced, you're not being worthy to go out and be with other people and so you don't get to practice new ways of being with people and find out that you're going to have a good time and that they're not going to shame you. So another difference between healthy shame and specific chronic shame issues is that healthy shame arises from specific actions. You can locate it. Chronic shame is kind of a persistent way of being in the world. Walk around with it. Dior is one of those characters in Winnie the Pooh, that depressive state they can bring it on.
Speaker 1:Healthy shame is about what you do. Chronic shame feels like it's about your being, it's about who you are, and so chronic shame syndrome is more of an identity issue than it is about behaviors, about the things that one is doing. Healthy shame is grounded in reality. Chronic shame syndrome is not grounded in reality. Matter of fact, it distorts reality. The person who's really is really suffering from long-term chronic shame syndrome doesn't, doesn't really have good reality testing. I'm not saying that they're psychotic, I'm just saying that they will go into situations and you might recognize this in yourself, that you go and you go into situation, into situations and in some ways you inadvertently cause what you're trying to avoid Act timid and shy, you're treated as such, nobody talks to you, you leave and it's confirmation that you shouldn't go out and be with people. So in that sense it's distorts reality.
Speaker 1:So the healthy shame is there to help you grow and you can ask yourself when you're feeling shame in general, and it would help you overall identify, especially on the low and mild shame incidences, so you get to recognize them faster. Is that feeling helping you grow or is it holding you back? You can ask yourself too, as a parent or as a friend, as a lover, as a partner, what I do with money and what are you doing in terms of giving feedback to my partner, to my child, to whoever I'm with, helping them grow? Am I giving them the feedback to learn from this, or am I just so angry at them and disappointed in feeling so negative about my relationship with them that I want them to suffer and hurt? It's an important question to ask. Another question you can ask about yourself is is your shame response proportionate to what's happening, or does it once again just confirm how you feel about yourself and just adding to it? Is it also about a specific action, or do you generally feel shame about your whole being, or do you generally feel shame about your whole being, about who you are?
Speaker 1:I'm going to end there. We've covered a lot of ground today and I really appreciate you listening in. I would love to hear from you Again. I'm Dr Scott Conkright, with Meaningful Happiness, and this has been a fun podcast and, I hope, an informative one. Please take these issues to heart. See if you identify with them. We all suffer from these issues. Shame is pervasive. It's not a bad thing. It's a horrible thing if it's dosed improperly. So click whatever likes and all that Sign up, come back. I want to share more. If you have questions, please mail me and send in questions and I look forward to. I look forward to talking to you next time. Take care, be kind to yourself and be kind to others. Life is short. Bye now.
