The Importance Of Meaning Of Embarrassment

There’s a reason why we say we’re “dying of embarrassment”: because while we’re in the midst of an embarrassing episode, dying really does seems like the better option. No human being I know is immune from them; however, I seem to have a knack at collecting a large variety. After a recent incident that made me want to hide in a corner of the world without wi-fi, my writing and spiritual mentor gave me great advice. “It’s okay to be embarrassed,” he said. “It’s cleansing. This one has already passed, and passed nicely, like a kidney stone after the first day. You may relax.”

Of course that didn’t stop me from feeling embarrassed some more. So after collecting some nuggets from friends and professionals, I compiled these 10 ways to really deal

7. Allow some tilting.

Embarrassment belongs to the disorder known as perfectionism. Think about it. You are embarrassed because you didn’t live up to your standards. There is a small (or wide) gap between your expectations of yourself and your performance. As a person who writes a lot about relationships and mental health, I sometimes fool myself into thinking that I’m fixed. I dispense the stuff on a daily basis, so obviously I live it. Ahhh. Not. When I land in a messy situation, I think, “How the hell did this happen if I’m the expert?”

My therapist told me the other day that everyone is allowed to tilt. “What we don’t want to do is fall over,” she said. “But if you never allow yourself to tilt, you will fall over. Just be careful tilting.”

8. Learn how to be afraid.

Embarrassment is essentially fear — of being perceived in a way that is less, well, endearing than we’d like. So we if learn how to be afraid, we can handle the embarrassment in a way that is more psychologically and physiologically tolerable. Taylor Clark, author of the book “Nerve,” gave me some simple instructions on how to handle fear in a recent interview I did with

The more we learn to welcome our fear and anxiety, work with them, and weave them into the lives we want to lead, the less beholden we are to the whims of the amygdala [the brain’s fear control center]. And eventually, with enough effort and patience, the conscious mind gains the power to say, “Hey, amygdala, I have this one under control.”

9. Step away from the looking glass.

I once hear this expression: “I’m not who I think I am. Nor am I who you think I am. But I am who I think you think I am.” I had to repeat it like four times before I got the gist. Most of the time we base our identity on what we think other people think of us. In my case, “Whack-job mother who doesn’t have her crap together and could go postal at any minute.” We assume they are reacting to our embarrassing act in a way that they may or may not be. And so we base our reaction to a faux pas on what we guess is their reaction. That’s a lot of needless guesswork.

10. Solicit other stories.

There’s no doubt that comparing your incident with others will make you feel better, or at least in good