There can be something incredibly powerful about opening up to others, emotionally and sharing your thoughts and feelings. Showing your true self, saying “this is part of me” and trusting the other person to understand and accept you, can bring a wealth of benefits. 

However, opening up emotionally does involve risk and can provoke anxiety. What if the other person doesn’t understand where you’re coming from? What if they disagree with you, mock you or outright reject you? 

“Our underlying fear of rejection… gets in the way of talking to other people about how we’re feeling.”

A recent study found that 66% of people feel lonely at least some of the time. Our underlying fear of rejection – and the feelings of shame this creates – is one of the key barriers that gets in the way of talking to other people about how we’re feeling. 

When you combine this with our cultural (negative) beliefs about expressing emotion that we learn through our families and broader social contexts (think stiff upper lip, big girls don’t cry, men should stay strong), it’s no surprise that many people are reticent about sharing their emotions with others. 

In small doses, shame can serve important functions that can keep us connected to our social groups. For example, not telling your boss about how you had a few too many drinks at the weekend and ended up dancing on the tables, may well be a good idea if you want to keep their good opinion and maybe even your job. 

However, if left unchecked, shame - which often makes itself known through your critical inner voice that says “you’re weak”, “you’re not good enough”, “you’re a failure” and so on – can get in the way of opportunities for healthy sharing of our inner experiences, problem-solving and deepening our relationships.

Steps to opening-up

Learning to recognise your shame and healthy ways of managing it is vitally important for maintaining your self-esteem and positive relationships.

First, it’s important to figure out what your own shame triggers are. We’re all different and some people will be more prone to experiencing shame in certain situations than others. Shame has a habit of showing up when we are feeling at our most vulnerable. For example, somebody who was bullied for being overweight as a child may be particularly sensitive to comments about their appearance and fearful of sharing concerns about their body image as an adult. Reflecting on your own experiences can help you to develop self-awareness and to treat yourself more kindly when shame does show up. 

Second, it’s important to untangle what you do from who you are. It’s natural to want other people to admire and approve of you, but if your self-worth becomes defined by what you do and your perceptions of what other people think of you, you can be crippled by the sense of shame that follows in the face of potential rejection. 

Third, recognise that your actions are separate from your identity. For example, if you’ve tried talking to someone about your feelings in the past and they didn’t seem particularly interested, remember this could simply mean that they were distracted, it wasn’t a good time or maybe they weren’t the best person to share your experience with in this case. It doesn’t mean that person doesn’t care about you.

Finally, if shame shows up at the thought of sharing your feelings, check the facts. Ask yourself: 

• Is my shame justified? 

• Does it fit the facts of the situation? 

• Or is it based on my own interpretations (e.g. I feel embarrassed so I shouldn’t mention this) , judgements (e.g. talking about how I’m feeling is a sign of weakness) and assumptions (e.g. they’ve got better things to do with their time than listen to me)? 

If your shame doesn’t fit the facts, take a leap of faith and start a conversation with someone you really trust.