Embarrassment, embarrassment and shame are an emotional reaction to an unintentional mistake. Everyone is familiar with the experience of such feelings, but for some people the threshold is extremely low. Why are some people more prone to embarrassment than others and what is shame actually useful for?

 

 

The main reason why people are more prone to embarrassment and shame is due to conditioning during childhood. If you are conditioned to have unrealistically high expectations of yourself and condemn yourself for not achieving these goals, it is hardly surprising that the threshold for embarrassment is low. What's more, society teaches us to let the opinions of others determine the value of our own person.

 

However, the tendency to feel ashamed is learnt and not innate and can therefore be unlearned. 

 

 

If you take a closer look at the expectations you have of yourself, it usually becomes clear how unattainable the goals you have set yourself are, because mistakes are human and nobody is immune to them. A person feels embarrassed when they stumble in public. This means that their self-expectations include never stumbling and always walking with a sure step, which is a complete impossibility. 

 

Unintentional faux pas and mishaps are innocent events. Instead of condemning yourself for something you can't help, you need to learn to own up to these mishaps and apologise if they have caused inconvenience to others. Only then will these embarrassments be turned into trivial moments that you immediately forget, instead of tormenting you for years with the shameful memory. 

 

Embarrassment does not exist in nature, so it is unique to humans in society. It also has no biological or evolutionary benefit. It is a sign that our thinking and our brain can turn against us.

 

In order to overcome the trained embarrassment, you first have to realise which situations you find embarrassing. Am I embarrassed when I spill in a restaurant and slip on the pavement? The next step is to realistically observe that such things happen to everyone from time to time and are therefore completely normal and nothing to be ashamed of. How can you judge yourself for something that is completely human?

Whatever the cause of the feeling of shame, being ashamed doesn't help you or anyone else.