Areas › Focus, starting, and ADHD › Shame and stigma
Listen to how you explain your own good news. If every success gets put down to luck, timing or somebody not looking closely enough, while every failure gets put down to you, the books are not balanced.
It is one of the more reliable signs that shame is running underneath. The pattern is worth catching in the act, so next time something goes well, write down one thing you actually did to make it happen, in your own words. You do not have to believe it yet. You are only keeping the evidence you would normally throw away.
Qur’an and Sunnah
Men have the portion they have earned; and women the portion they have earned (Quran 4:32). What you earned is spoken of as yours, which is the part shame keeps trying to hand back.
وَلَا تَتَمَنَّوۡاْ مَا فَضَّلَ ٱللَّهُ بِهِۦ بَعۡضَكُمۡ عَلَىٰ بَعۡضࣲۚ لِّلرِّجَالِ نَصِيبࣱ مِّمَّا ٱكۡتَسَبُواْۖ وَلِلنِّسَآءِ نَصِيبࣱ مِّمَّا ٱكۡتَسَبۡنَۚ وَسۡـَٔلُواْ ٱللَّهَ مِن فَضۡلِهِۦٓۚ إِنَّ ٱللَّهَ كَانَ بِكُلِّ شَيۡءٍ عَلِيمࣰ ا
Do not covet what God has given to some of you more than others- men have the portion they have earned; and women the portion they have earned- you should rather ask God for some of His bounty: He has full knowledge of everything
Qur’an 4:32read it in the library
Translation: M.A.S. Abdel Haleem, The Qur'an, Oxford University Press, 2004.
What the research says
A randomised trial with 122 self referred people who were high in self criticism added an online compassion focused programme to their usual care and compared that against usual care alone. It goes at the self critical habit directly rather than waiting for life to disprove it. One trial with a self selected sample is a modest basis, so take it as encouraging rather than conclusive.
Krieger T, Reber F, von Glutz B, Urech A, Moser CT, Schulz A, Berger T. (2019). An Internet-Based Compassion-Focused Intervention for Increased Self-Criticism: A Randomized Controlled Trial.. Behavior therapy doi
Strength of evidence: one line of research. A single study, or a theoretical account.
Why it works
Crediting yourself for what you did puts the good outcomes somewhere they can count.
This one is still a draft. It is waiting on a scholar and a clinician to read it before it is published.
Near this one
Sensing that you got something wrong socially, without knowing what, tends to turn into watching yourself constantly. That watching is usually what makes the next conversation go badly, not the original mistake.
If your version of this is fog, slowness and drifting off rather than restlessness, you are not a half case. Researchers are still arguing about whether that pattern is a subtype or something of its own.
Most of what other people do is about their own day rather than about you. That is easier to hold once you have also admitted that in childhood, sometimes, it genuinely was about you.