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Areas › Low mood and hard feelings › Shame
Shame is catching. The particular risk is a quiet spiral of your own, along the lines of I am no good at this, which pulls you out of the room at the moment your steadiness was the offering. A long breath out, feet on the floor, and remembering that you do not have to fix them is usually enough. If you cannot get back, say plainly that you are still here and take a moment.
'He has been aware of you from the time He produced you from the earth,' and then, 'do not assert your own goodness' (Quran 53:32). Your own record is not what is being weighed in the room, which frees you to attend to the person in front of you.
النجم
ٱلَّذِينَ يَجۡتَنِبُونَ كَبَٰٓئِرَ ٱلۡإِثۡمِ وَٱلۡفَوَٰحِشَ إِلَّا ٱللَّمَمَۚ إِنَّ رَبَّكَ وَٰسِعُ ٱلۡمَغۡفِرَةِۚ هُوَ أَعۡلَمُ بِكُمۡ إِذۡ أَنشَأَكُم مِّنَ ٱلۡأَرۡضِ وَإِذۡ أَنتُمۡ أَجِنَّةࣱ فِي بُطُونِ أُمَّهَٰتِكُمۡۖ فَلَا تُزَكُّوٓاْ أَنفُسَكُمۡۖ هُوَ أَعۡلَمُ بِمَنِ ٱتَّقَىٰٓ
As for those who avoid grave sins and foul acts, though they may commit small sins, your Lord is ample in forgiveness. He has been aware of you from the time He produced you from the earth and from your hiding places in your mothers’ wombs, so do not assert your own goodness:He knows best who is mindful of Him
Qur’an 53:32read it in the library
Translation: M.A.S. Abdel Haleem, The Qur'an, Oxford University Press, 2004.
A meta analysis of kindness based meditation found improvements in daily positive emotion and self compassion in randomised trials, which offers some support for practising a warm and settled state in advance rather than summoning it under pressure. The trials were few and generally small, so this is encouraging rather than strong evidence.
Galante J, Galante I, Bekkers MJ, Gallacher J. (2014). Effect of kindness-based meditation on health and well-being: a systematic review and meta-analysis.. Journal of consulting and clinical psychology doi
Strength of evidence: one line of research. A single study, or a theoretical account.
A person in shame borrows the calm of whoever is with them, so there has to be some to borrow.
Shame speaks in one flat sentence: I am bad. Notice that it never offers evidence, it just announces a verdict.
Shame does something cruel. It makes you want to disappear from the very person whose warmth would settle it, so if you notice yourself going quiet and pulling back, that pull is the shame talking rather than the truth about you.
A child facing a frightening parent often reaches for the safer story: I am the bad one and they are fine. It costs the child their sense of worth and buys them a world that still makes sense.