8 Steps to Confront and Defeat Your Shame

Adrian S. Potter
4 min readJun 3, 2023

Vanquish this soul-eating emotion out of your life for good.

Photo by omar alnahi: https://www.pexels.com/photo/person-putting-palm-on-face-while-holding-prayer-beads-18494/

Carl Jung, one of the most influential psychiatrists ever, once declared, “Shame is a soul-eating emotion.”

And he was right.

If we examine the catalyst of our destructive feelings, we will quickly learn the causes are often rooted in shame.

Shame can weigh heavily on our self-esteem, self-worth, and well-being. However, by implementing a combination of self-reflection, self-compassion, and self-acceptance, we can challenge and overcome it.

As Robert Augustus Masters once said:

“Shame is probably our most hidden and misunderstood emotion. It’s also the one most likely to motivate men to stay away from the help they need — and need to admit they need — which can range from psychotherapy to addiction programs. Performance anxiety is driven by shame; so is the drive to overachieve; so is the pressure to man up. Shame is behind the scenes much more often than you might think.”

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Adrian S. Potter

Antisocial Extrovert · Writer and Poet, Engineer, Consultant, Public Speaker · Writing about self-improvement, gratitude, and creativity · www.adrianspotter.com