Repair Without Shame

Two Caucasian women hugging. One is gray haired and looks sad. The other is dark haired and is facing away.

This essay explores the experience of causing harm and the process of repair: acknowledging our impact, mourning the needs that went unmet, listening to the person affected, and taking meaningful action to rebuild trust.

It’s Easy to Feel Guilt or Shame

Sometimes our actions have a painful impact on someone who matters to us. They may feel surprised, angry, hurt, sad or disappointed. Sometimes they know what we did; sometimes we feel remorse before they even know what happened.

When we care about the relationship, we may want to repair the harm. But guilt and shame can make the repair difficult. Guilt may tell us, “I did something harmful or bad,”  but shame says, “I am bad.” Shame carries the painful belief that our actions reveal something fundamentally bad about who we are.

Shame is nearly unbearable. It is so painful, we may deny, hide, minimize, justify, defend or blame to relieve our suffering. If we feel shame, it is unlikely we can openheartedly hear our impact on another person because the pain of inherent unworthiness is so excruciating.

We May Get Stuck in the Drama Triangle

When we are feeling guilty or ashamed, we may become stuck in the Karpman Drama Triangle. The triangle outlines a set of roles we easily fall into in our culture. We often see ourselves as the victim, the perpetrator, and/or the rescuer. All three are reductive, limiting, and missing the heart of the matter. When we are in the triangle, we take an action (or series of actions) and use it to label ourselves or others with a sense of permanency that doesn’t have to persist!  In truth, at every moment, we can recreate ourselves with intentionality.

Goodness and Badness are Moralistic Judgments

Nonviolent Communication (NVC) teaches that good/bad labels are considered moralistic judgments. Moralistic judgments are evaluations classifying or labeling people or behavior. Remember getting your report card and it saying you were satisfactory or unsatisfactory?  Polite or rude? Loud or quiet? Obedient or defiant? Moralistic judgments are baked into our everyday experience! When people make a moralistic judgment, they take their own experience from how you impacted them and label you with their experience. If someone is frustrated with you, they might say, “You are so frustrating!”

We have absorbed these judgments all our lives and, if we didn’t develop a solid sense of self, we likely have a fear that we will be found out as fundamentally inadequate.

Nonviolent Communication (NVC) Offers an Alternative

Repair requires something different: 

the ability to acknowledge our impact

without turning that impact into a verdict on our worth.

NVC suggests we can experience the world through value-based judgments. Rather than assessing goodness or badness, value-based judgments assess how well an action does or does not meet our needs. 

The beauty of value-based judgments is that we can mourn the needs that were unmet in an action, acknowledge our actions, and orient towards behaving differently in the future.

Value-Based Judgments Don’t Eradicate Impact

Even when we don’t label our actions as good or bad, our actions do have impacts on others, regardless of our intent. It can be painful to hear other people’s pain (and possibly blame) regarding our actions. Especially if we receive (or perceive) blame, we are likely to blame ourselves. This can further the shame cycle.  

Get Support for Your Pain

When we are in pain over an action we took and are making moralistic judgments of ourselves, it’s time to get support! When we access unconditional love through a friend, therapist or our own compassionate presence, we can begin the process of lovingly connecting to our young, ashamed parts. We can even find that loving witness in ourselves! We can show our vulnerable parts that they matter and are loved.  

Remember Your Value

Our pain is a reminder of our care.

We desire to belong, stay connected with and contribute to others. We can remember that our worth is inherent. There is no action any of us can take that can diminish our value as living beings. 

When that happens, we can start to understand why we took the actions that we did. We can validate the pain and need for relief, while recognizing the impact. It is a process of mourning - honoring the needs we were trying to meet in taking the actions we did, but also mourning the needs that went unmet as a result. There is a bittersweet flow and relief in the process.

We Can Take Responsibility without Self Abuse 

Imagine having broad access to your Self energy - loving, compassionate grace towards yourself and others. Picture yourself having deep empathy for the dynamics that led to your actions and the feelings you and the other person are experiencing. Imagine bringing that solidity, trust and grounding to your repair conversation.

Envision yourself standing in your dignity, acknowledging and mourning the negative impact of what you did, but also knowing it does not represent who you are. Imagine knowing that you can be accountable for your actions, without it impacting your worth.  

Picture yourself fully receiving the other person’s experience with deep care, while also attending to your own pain so you can be an attentive, caring witness to theirs. Visualize yourself holding the clarity that their pain is shaped not only by what happened, but also by their own history, interpretations and beliefs.  Imagine your acceptance of your impact as well as their own lived experience - allowing you to hold your pain, their pain and listen with understanding.

Picture yourself having a genuine desire to listen and understand - to ensure the other person gets fully heard and understood. Visualize being prepared to take action to build trust and safety between you - not out of shame or guilt, but out of commitment and love.  

Lastly, imagine the other person getting fully heard and their nervous system settling, providing relief, sweetness, and mutual understanding.  All this is possible.  If you want more support, I’ve created a free guide, How to Repair Without Shame, with practical steps for acknowledging impact, listening with care, and taking meaningful action. Just message me and I will send it your way!