Learning how to stop feeling embarrassed is primarily about being your own best friend, not only in moments of embarrassment, but every day, in every way. It’s about self-love and compassion and learning not to abandon yourself at any point in your journey.
Before we talk about how to stop feeling embarrassed, let’s look at how and why embarrassment can surface. We all face embarrassing moments in life and there’s really no way to avoid that, but some people are more apt to feel embarrassed by small things as they easily internalize their interactions with others. A small comment made by another or the feeling of being out of place in a situation can readily trigger embarrassment.
Embarrassment is often simply a recurring reaction triggered by shame, self-doubt, self-criticism, and early life experiences that get replayed again-and-again. Although embarrassment can occur because of something that is said or done, which is judged as somehow wrong, it can also happen when positive attention is placed on you. In this case, becoming the center of attention can lead to embarrassment. It can also extend to others if you perceive that someone else is embarrassing themselves or being placed in an embarrassing situation.
There are embarrassing events that can be entirely situational, not pertaining to any early life experiences, like the time I invited myself to sit next to a fellow during a movie presentation in the high school auditorium. I had gone on one date with him, and it seemed a good opportunity to show him I was still interested. It wasn’t until after the movie began that I realized on the other side of him sat the girl he was dating. Oops. I sat there for the entire movie as I could see no dignified way to make an exit.
As embarrassing as it was at the time, and as much as I was always too easily embarrassed as a child, I somehow managed to forgive myself for making such an awkward mistake. It was a humiliating moment to say the least, but I can now tell the story with a good sense of self-compassion.
There will be occasions such as these that will naturally prompt a fair amount of embarrassment. All we can do is try to find some humor in the situation and practice self-compassion and loving forgiveness for mistakes made. But we’re not talking here about embarrassment that stems from such events. We’re looking at how to stop feeling embarrassed when we see a pattern of such feelings recurring on a regular basis.
As children we can easily become embarrassed and oftentimes adults can unknowingly be the culprits of that embarrassment. Although comments and teasing can seem innocuous, they can lead to long-term insecurities and a lifetime of recurring situations that cause embarrassment. Significant times when these types of embarrassing moments can occur might be when a child begins to have romantic interests or when a child reaches puberty.
Sometimes, embarrassment can come from what appears to be nothing at all because children tend to draw parallels and conclusions in their own minds. They equate one thing with another, and they fill in the blanks. One of the most embarrassing feelings I had as a child was in junior kindergarten when, one day, we needed to take our shoes home from our little cubbies.
Someone had taken the bag I had to transport my shoes. I was absolutely horrified to carry my shoes home without a bag. In my mind it was like being naked. I guess, to this day, I would still feel uncomfortable at the prospect of carrying my shoes in hand while walking down the street. I don’t know where I got the idea stuck in my mind that there was shame in doing so, but it is a memory that stays with me because of the intensity I felt in having to face the shame.
Point is, children receive all kinds of messages, whether they are a result of words said, or simply from the absence of explanation. They take this information and connect the dots. Unless there is good dialogue and lots of opportunity to share these thoughts, often children draw conclusions that don’t make sense to anyone but them. The consequence can be lifelong feelings of shame and self-judgment.
Of course, as parents, we can’t always foresee every potential for such thoughts that will develop into long-term, harsh self-criticism, but we can do an awful lot of good in counteracting this. We can prevent the development of the critical self by ensuring our kids have lots of positive reinforcement and easy opportunities to share their feelings without judgment.
How to Stop Feeling Embarrassed
How to Stop Feeling Embarrassed
Embarrassment and Self-abandonment
Understanding how to stop feeling embarrassed requires a good search into its point of origin. Why do we get so easily embarrassed in the first place? For that, we need to search into our earliest experiences that seem to point toward our present-day feelings of embarrassment. It can be as simple as asking yourself “what does this situation, or these feelings remind me of?”
Most often, the question will prompt a specific memory or feeling associated with a time in your life. There is little objectivity when it comes to embarrassment because we often are convinced there is justifiable reason to be embarrassed. The feeling can be so strong that we won’t even allow ourselves to explore the underlying feelings for fear that we are right in our poor assessment of ourselves. So continues the process of self-abandonment.
One of my early childhood experiences that comes to mind is the day I was making crafty things in the bedroom I shared with my two sisters. I looked down at my left thigh and noticed what must have been a pulled thread in my mustard-colored tights. I took the scissors and snipped the dangling thread. Before long, I could see blood started to permeate through my tights. I must have been four at the time and, like most children, I had little control handling scissors.
Ordinarily, I would have gone running to my mother, having hurt myself, and I know the sudden appearance of blood scared me. What makes me exceptionally sad about this vivid memory is the overriding feeling of deep shame that prevented me from caring about what had just happened.
That feeling of having to hide what I had done meant there was no room to look after myself. A feeling that repeated itself throughout my life. Although an early childhood memory such as this seems to have no connection with the here and now, it in fact has everything to do with it. It doesn’t take long for an old experience to become top-of-mind when faced with a recurring situation that may prompt similar feelings.
Although the feelings of shame that linger from little incidents in childhood don’t necessarily make a lot of sense to you as an adult, they come up when the triggers are just right. As a child you didn’t understand how little those incidents were. They, at the time, were HUGE. At least huge enough that you remember them many years after.
And it’s one little incident, piggy-backed onto the other, that makes these unconscious triggers the stuff that causes recurring embarrassment. The reason being: the stuff that makes us feel bad as kids often have no explainable logic. To truly understand how to stop feeling embarrassed means we must stop denying the feelings that exist and mindfully notice when they come up.
The key tip for how to stop feeling embarrassed is indeed self-love and compassion. Even when trying to guide a child to let go of embarrassment, it can be difficult to get your child to let go of self-judgment and allow the necessary shifts to happen.
My own daughter, who is like my “mini-me”, has always struggled with becoming easily, and overly, embarrassed by seemingly small things, just like her mother did. She has great difficulty in accepting herself with enough compassion. The kind of compassion it takes to melt away the convincing argument for embarrassment.
What I have found most effective for my children when it comes to self-judgment is to present a guided experience where I ask them to imagine they are holding an infant. Even a young child can benefit from this because they often feel protective over the innocent. That includes babies and little animals. Where no amount of intellectual convincing will work, the baby exercise seems to penetrate.
It goes like this. When one of my children would feel caught up in negative self-judgment, I asked them to imagine holding a little infant. Then I asked, “would you talk to the baby this way, or would you want to protect the baby from that?” Almost immediately they would recognize that they didn’t want the infant to experience pain and I could see a compassionate connection start to form.
I then related the infant to the little person inside them. It may sound a little crazy that a small child might have to look at themselves as even younger, but usually by the time your child has developed a self-critical view, they have already abandoned a part of themselves for a while.
This exercise works for adults too. Sometimes, it takes connecting with the smallest version of yourself to summon enough compassion to permeate that resistance to loving yourself unconditionally. This isn’t “inner child work”, it’s a simple and direct line to finding self-compassion without the objections you place in the way of self-love.
Perhaps the greatest reason we resist self-acceptance is that self-judgment becomes so engrained, we internally believe we have reason to feel bad about ourselves. The argument is so convincing that most of us avoid thinking about incidents that cause embarrassment.
The opinions and feelings you formed about yourself become glued in your psyche, often never prompting you to challenge these so-called truths. Returning to your inner child with compassion may still summon resistance because somewhere inside you believe statements to be true about yourself, even though you know you were but a child. Statements such as “I’m weird” or “People don’t like me” or “I say the wrong things and don’t know how to act.” Each of us has a different story.
While going back to childhood with a sense of self-compassion and the intent of re-parenting that inner child is great, we might still face the resistance to see that child through truly compassionate eyes. Where there is resistance to love even the child within, it’s much more difficult to turn your back on the infant. This exercise makes it somehow easier to connect with that part of yourself who is purely innocent and untainted by the effects of self-esteem damaging experiences.
You cannot learn how to stop feeling embarrassed if you accept the reasoning for embarrassment without closer examination. There is underlying fear that what you think about yourself may in fact be true. That, indeed, there is something you have done, or some way in which you are that is different, wrong, out-of-place, weird, stupid etc. The fact that you don’t explore past the embarrassment isn’t actually because of the embarrassment itself, it’s because somewhere deep inside you think you will find resounding proof that verifies your worst picture of yourself.
Here is where you abandon yourself. You’re not weird, you’re not unusual or out of place. How can you be anything but a child of the universe, created equal with all humanity? You too can delve a little deeper and allow yourself to explore the feelings behind the embarrassment you feel in the here and now. What does it remind you of? Let the old surface and treat those feelings with unconditional self-love and compassion.
When people ask how to stop feeling embarrassed, often it’s about trying to escape the discomfort, to make it go away. But the question that really begs to be asked is what the deeper beliefs are that cause triggers for embarrassment and how to correct those long-held beliefs. When embarrassment is a recurring theme, it’s a signal to change underlying beliefs and to raise the bar when it comes to self-love.
Any of the following patterns can be indicators that you don’t allow yourself enough room to be yourself, you have high expectations of yourself, you’re overly critical of yourself, you abandon yourself when uncomfortable in your interactions with others etc... all which lend themselves to being easily embarrassed:
The Rehearser - You plan out what you are going to say before you say it. It could be around important conversations, but the true rehearser often plans their words for just about every simple situation. Perhaps when lining up to order frozen yogurt, or to ask for directions at an information desk, or when you anticipate that you might have to say a few words to someone you recognize in the street, you repeatedly rehearse the words before speaking. The rehearser doesn’t allow room for impromptu dialogue for fear that they may slip up and say something odd or out of place.
The Second Guesser - After you’ve had interactions with others, you review what you’ve said, going over it in your mind and wishing you had said something different. You might feel anxiety, discomfort, or have trouble quieting your mind after you leave social settings. Insecurity may also prompt you to get reassurance from someone you trust just to make sure what you said sounds alright. If excessively uncomfortable, you might not want to share what you said with anyone else for fear that what you think of yourself is indeed true, that perhaps you did somehow fail to say the “right things.”
The Repeater - Comparable to the second guesser, after having dialogue with others, you continually replay the conversation in your mind. Even if it was a pleasant exchange, you repeatedly go over your end of the conversation and never seem to reach a level of ease with how you feel about your interactions with others.
The Judger - You judge many things you say or do when in social settings. You find yourself thinking “I should have or shouldn’t have said...” or you are overly critical of yourself and form opinions about how others see you. Your perception of yourself strongly hinges upon how you project others see you. Even if part of you believes you are better than the way in which others may perceive you to be, you can’t seem to break out of this perception of how you think you’re being received.
The Back Row Student - You don’t like to sit in the front in social settings or have the focus of the room on you. If someone calls attention to you by asking your opinion, asking you to speak about something, or even to pay you a compliment, you feel extremely uncomfortable to be put on display.
The Perfectionist - Your standards are high, and you don’t like to put any ideas or projects forward until you feel they have reached a level of professionalism and expertise. You watch others take risks with half-baked ideas and all the confidence in the world, finding their way to success, but you must cross every “t” and dot every “i” before you can release your brilliant ideas into the world.
The Subject - You often view yourself from the perspective of others who are observing you. Only thing is, that perspective is entirely formed through your lens, meaning you take information from around and form a picture of what others see in you. This isn’t based on direct feedback, but simply on what you perceive, and project others think. It may be based on some comment made once, an experience from years ago, or a combination of experiences. None-the-less, it’s mostly gathered from your own projections. You have become overly focused on what others think. You may even carry this feeling of being observed with you when you’re alone as though there is always a witness to all that you do.
These are just a few behavioural traits that can lead to feeling easily embarrassed in social situations. Now let’s look at how to stop feeling embarrassed with some simple practices:
How To Stop Feeling Embarrassed | 5 Simple Practices To Let Yourself Off The Hook
Notice the Embarrassment While Suspending Judgment - I know this sounds easier said than done, but it is a disciplinary practice and one you need to employ if you are to learn how to stop feeling embarrassed. Give yourself the space to feel embarrassed and to explore that feeling. It’s okay to feel uncomfortable. In fact, feeling uncomfortable is necessary to delve deeper and dissolve judgments that prompt embarrassment in the first place. Naturally, there may be events in your life that cause embarrassment, but that is true for all of us. Here, we’re specifically looking at situations that bring up embarrassment for you based on your past experiences and your harsh inner critic. Simply observe the embarrassment without judgement, then move onto the next step.
Delve Deeper - Now it’s time to delve a little deeper and ask the important questions. What does this moment remind you of? Have you had a similar feeling or experience before? Often embarrassment is simply a rehashing of old experiences and beliefs. If you can locate a similar experience, you’ll be closer to uncovering long-held beliefs and self-judgment that keeps you in the cycle of embarrassment. Being able to isolate early experiences will make it easier to see that the embarrassment you currently feel is distorted by those earlier events. This makes both understanding the embarrassment and letting go of it a little easier.
Don’t Abandon Yourself - I know you feel uncomfortable, and the temptation is to fight the embarrassment, but the opposite is needed. Accept the feelings with compassion and be with those feelings in the most loving way you can. The more you avoid the discomfort, the more you try to shut down the feelings, the more you reaffirm that there is justified reason to be embarrassed. There isn’t. We all do and say embarrassing things. Why should you be the only one not to forgive yourself for something so human and natural? No matter what it is, promise you’ll side with yourself with compassion all the way. You deserve it just as much as any of us do.
Make Corrections and Move On - If you have made a mistake, make the correction, and don’t go beyond that halfway point. Allow the world to meet you halfway. You’ll find that most people are more forgiving than you are to yourself. A correction is all that is needed. If you find yourself going beyond that, you are feeding into all the long-term beliefs you have about yourself. You want to move past that. Make the correction, forgive yourself, be kind to yourself and move on.
Reframe - For each old experience or long-held belief you uncover as you cozy up to your embarrassing moments, keep a little self-nurturing phrase or action in your back pocket. Be ready to replace those old ideas and feelings with a little pampering. It could be a warm and loving message to yourself or something that you actively do that gives you a feeling of peace and joy. Here are some self-affirming phrases to get you started. Fill in the blanks as it feels appropriate:
It’s okay for me to make mistakes and I love myself all the more. When I allow myself room to ___________ , I create opportunities for __________. What you think of me is none of my business. There is grace in life, and I accept that grace into my heart. I deeply and completely love and accept myself unconditionally. When I accept myself without judgment, I make room for ____________. I forgive myself for ___________ because I love myself and I am my own best friend. I let go of my old feelings from ___________ and allow myself to be present in the here and now. I am not my experiences. I am ever-changing as I grow and allow myself room to be me. I let go of my judgment around __________ and allow unconditional love into my heart. This is how to stop feeling embarrassed. When the feeling recurs, it’s a red flag that is calling for your attention. What it’s saying to you is that you carry too many judgments about yourself, and you need to quiet that harsh inner critic. If you really want to know how to stop feeling embarrassed, first you need to know that your higher self is asking you to pay attention to your needs and start fuelling up with a healthy dose of self-love and compassion. Now, I have to go carry my shoes down the street without a bag ; )
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