Humiliated

Back to Webster’s dictionary. Humiliated is defined as reducing a person to a lower position in the person’s own eyes or in the eyes of others; injuring their dignity and self-respect, especially publicly. My brain’s opinion is that no one can embarrass or humiliate you unless you permit that, unless you agree with their assessment and tell your brain to believe it. If you believe that you are just as valuable as anyone else, albeit each brain is unique, then your brain must agree to perceive itself as being reduced to a lower position as compared to the other individual. My brain is somewhat dyslexic and early in my career I allowed myself to be embarrassed and even humiliated at times because I found spelling so challenging. No longer. I now thank other brains for helping me correct something that is difficult for my brain, which in no way diminishes who I am or puts me a step down from the person who has found a spelling error on one of my presentation slide. But that perspective finds its start in the brain—just like everything else. 

Embarrassment

Sometimes embarrassment reflects a sense of low self-worth, unhealthy comparisons between yourself and others, or even a wish you had not agreed to something. The other day I was making a presentation and asked a young woman if she would be comfortable with me using a conversation we had had as an illustration since I thought it could serve as a positive model for others. “Sure,” she had replied. “I’m okay with that if it will help to make things clearer for others present.” So I took her at her word and did just that. Later in the week I discovered that she was telling people, “I was so embarrassed when the speaker started talking about me. In fact, I felt humiliated.” Unfortunately, she did not choose to talk to me about it. Where did this come from? Somewhere in her brain. Perhaps her personal level of self-worth was uncomfortable being the center of attention, however briefly. Maybe she didn’t view our conversation as positively as I had. Nevertheless, your brain believes what you tell it. If you tell it that you are embarrassed or humiliated it will believe that and hang onto it. 

Mistakes, 2

In general embarrassment is a choice, so I recommend you stop choosing it. I know I’ll make mistakes this year, learn from them (hopefully) and get busy making more. Some are humorous, some are sad, some are irritating, and some lead to doing things in a new and better way—assuming, that is, that you learn from your mistakes. Look up any dictionary and you’ll likely find a plethora of examples related to embarrassment, such as: A state of discomfort arising from being bashful or from having broken a social rule or from feeling personal humiliation or confusion due to hesitation or difficulty in making a choice . . . and so on. Actully, nt can be helpful or unhelpful. If you have violated an important social rule, a sense of In general embarrassment is a choice, so I recommend you stop choosing it. I know I’ll make mistakes this year, learn from them (hopefully) and get busy making more. Some are humorous, some are sad, some are irritating, and some lead to doing things in a new and better way—assuming, that is, that you learn from your mistakes. Look up any dictionary and you’ll likely find a plethora of examples related to embarrassment, such as: A state of discomfort arising from being bashful or from having broken a social rule or from feeling personal humiliation or confusion due to hesitation or difficulty in making a choice . . . and so on. In actuality, embarrassment can be helpful or unhelpful. If you have violated an important social rule, a sense of embarrassment can help you recognize that and make a different choice—you learn from your mistake and decide to avoid breaking that social rule in the future (or not) and let the embarrassment go.   

Mistakes

My cell phone rang this morning and a disconsolate “brain” began commiserating that it was only the middle of January and the mistakes (especially in relation to the one New Year resolution that had been made) were already piling up. I said, “That’s likely a good thing,” and explained that mistakes help you to recognize yourself as a human being. Everyone makes mistakes—if he or she is doing anything, that is. The only people who make no mistakes are those who have died, and sometimes a serious mistake triggered that death.  I like the words of Neil Gaiman: “Hope that in this year to come, you make mistakes. Because if you are making mistakes, then you are making new things, trying new things, learning, living, pushing yourself, changing yourself, changing your world. You're doing things you've never done before, and more importantly, you're doing something.” The caller went on to say, “But I am so embarrassed!” More tomorrow.

Your Environment

In a laboratory setting, scientists often study cells carefully to learn about their structure and functions and to identify when they are healthy and well or unhealthy and ailing. Gradually they learned the importance of looking at the cell’s environment first, rather than investigating the cell itself to determine a cause for its failure to thrive. The bottom line: in a healthy environment, the cells thrive. In an unhealthy and less-than-optimal environment, the cells falter. No doubt you have seen this in the lives of people, each with their 50 trillion cells like a huge condominium complex or an oceanic coral reef. Counselors sometimes refer to the child who is exhibiting unhealthy, dysfunctional behaviors as ‘the identified patient.’ If you spend your time trying to figure out what is wrong with the child, you may never identify the cause’ of the unhealthy, dysfunctional behaviors. If, on the other hand, you study the environment in which the child is living and identify the functionality or dysfunctionality of the family system (especially dynamics between the parents and other adults), a cause’ is often quite easy to identify. The child ‘looks like the patient’ but is often mirroring or acting out the dysfunctional family dynamics.

A miniaturized You

Imagine that you could miniaturize yourself, not actually but metaphorically in your mind’s eye, of course. If you could really do this, shrink yourself to the size of a single cell and then somehow stand back and study the environment around you, what you would see as yourself would not be a single entity but a bustling community of more than 50 trillion individual cells. Most of the cell’s structures are referred to as organelles, which are its ‘miniature organs,’ suspended within a jelly-like cytoplasm. These organelles are miniature versions of tissues and organs of your own body. Each nucleus-containing cell (eukaryote) possesses the functional equivalent of your nervous system, digestive, respiratory, excretory, endocrine, skeletal, circulatory, skin, and immune systems. Groups of specialized cells that form the tissues and organs of the nervous system, are concerned with reading and responding to environmental stimuli. The nervous system’s job is to perceive the environment around it (both inside and outside the body) and coordinate the behavior of all the cells in your vast cellular community.

(Lipton, Bruce, PhD. The Biology of Belief)

Epigenetic 'Dials'

Imagine that ‘test pattern’ on that antiquated TV screen represents a pattern encoded on a specific gene, say the pattern for blue eyes, since that represents my eye color. There are dials, and switches on the TV, however, that allow you to alter the ‘test pattern’ for blue eyes. By adjusting the dials and switches, you can alter color, hue, and contrast while not changing the original pattern for ‘blue eyes.’ [Look at your eyes through a magnifying glass. What do you see? I see a gray-blue color with little flecks of green and gold. This means that my eyes take on a slightly different hue depending on the color of clothing I am wearing.] To use this metaphor, studies of epigenetic dials have shown that they can create 2,000 plus variations from the same gene blueprint. Consequently, there are many blue eyes on this planet, each set likely having a slightly different pattern and hue—because each person’s external and internal environments differ slightly, just like their fingerprint.