An antidote to Nice Guy shame: mindful self-compassion
When you think of “Nice Guy” do you associate it with these terms?
- Chump
- Beta
- Doormat
When you think of “Nice Guy” do you associate it with these terms?
- Resilient
- Available
- Grounded
So when you think of yourself being a Nice Guy are you seeing yourself as the first list or the second list?
How does this make you feel?
Shame is a large component of the underlying reasons for being a nice guy
Dr Glover’s book No More Mr Nice Guy discusses what he calls Toxic Shame. The word “shame” appears 96 times in this 176 page book. A lot of this shame discussion centers around things the Nice Guy may hide from others and even himself.
But shame is a totally normal and functional human emotion. It becomes “toxic” when it is holding you back, when it is unrealized, unrecognized, resisted. It also becomes toxic when shame leads to shame.
Telling yourself you are a Nice Guy is just adding fuel to fire
See, when you criticize yourself you also set up the next moment of criticism of yourself for criticizing yourself.
Now add to this the verdict that it is because you are a Nice Guy.
Ask yourself: deep down am I telling myself I am faulty?
Many Nice Guys are seeking to cure themselves of being a Nice Guy by somehow banishing their Nice Guy tendencies. One can easily get wrapped up in this paradoxical thinking where there are Nice Guy parts to banish but where the self is a Nice Guy. So the parts are what we are trying to remove while the whole is what we condemn.
As long as we have a misguided view of what our self actually is, how can we expect to make healthy change?
Consider for a moment if you actually have a coherent plan or theory for how to deal with the fact that you have identified as a Nice Guy and you hate Nice Guys.
Mindful Self-Compassion could be the tool you are missing
There may be other ways to deal with shame but Mindful Self-Compassion is a proven method with many positive benefits.
This is because the opposite of shame is self-compassion.
You don’t have to take my word for it because there is extensive research to back this up.
This research says that the degree to which you are experiencing self-compassion is inversely proportional to the amount of shame you are experiencing. This means one crowds out the other. Which one do you want?
Shame is negative self-talk
A simple way to look at shame is that it is any form of negative self-judgement. In relational terms it is about our judgement of ourselves that comes from our internalized and imagined vision of how others judge us – internalized criticism.
Shame feels like it is from others
These judgements may feel like they really come from within our own voice but this can be unraveled to show that the judgments are not really our own. They are more like predictions which underlies an emerging explanation of all emotion.
Those others could just be parts of us
A useful way to look at these judgements can be to find what parts of us they come from. Maybe part of you is telling you one thing and another part of you is telling you another. We all contain multiplicities and using this concept can be our fast track into finding our core self-compassionate voice.
As mindful self-compassion expert Chris Germer explains it, any time you imagine another person has a negative judgement of you, this is shame. So the others are really our imagination.
Shame is really because we want love
The quickest way to reduce shame is to just recognize in a moment of suffering around self-judgement that you feel this way because you really want love, connection, compassion. Seeing this innocent blamelessness is part of how we heal from shame and voices of shame. It is also a way for us to increase our compassionate understanding of others.
Shame for Nice Guys
Shame hits hard for self-labeled Nice Guys. This label often stems from certain behaviors, but ironically, accepting it can be counterproductive. Identifying with the ‘Nice Guy’ stereotype compounds shame, turning normal human feelings into sources of distress.
Labeling your actions as ‘Nice Guy’ behavior intensifies self-judgment. It’s one thing to acknowledge feeling needy, but attributing this to ‘Nice Guy’ tendencies worsens the emotional impact.
It’s that damn Nice Guy shit I keep doing!!
This mindset doesn’t just amplify discomfort; it groups isolated actions into a broader, more daunting category of ‘Nice Guy’ behavior, making it seem like a larger, more insurmountable issue.
How shame is holding back your healing
It should be clear how none of this is helping and how a lot of it is making it harder. You have some bucket of behaviors you call your Nice Guyness. And while many of them are driven by shame you are adding more shame on top of them.
Sure, progress can be made by pushing through the pain but don’t you think it would be more worthy of your life if you felt loving support from yourself and others along the way?
If you are so intently listening for inner and outer voices of criticism how can you hear voices of love, joy, support, and celebration?
How can you feel connected when you have othered yourself as a Nice Guy?
Mindful self-compassion is part of the answer
What is Mindful
Mindful here means awareness. Imagine a baseball flying towards you. If you flinch you may not have time to react to it. Mindfulness is like slowing down time by reducing your reactivity. You may have 100 moments to react but if 99 are taken up with scattered thoughts, emotions, judgments, predictions, strategies, doubts, cross references, you are left with 1 moment to skillfully act.
What is Self-Compassion
Self-Compassion is an attitude of loving kindness and care to oneself. Self-Compassion sees you as innocent. Self-Compassion is part of your core self, the self that cannot be wounded.
How to get it
You can work on your own and learn the principles, theories and practices and then apply them on a regular basis. This is the slow road.
A faster more comprehensive method is to learn from an experienced teacher within in a supportive community.
What a course in Mindful Self-Compassion for Nice Guys can offer you
Teaching
Learning from someone else gives you a chance to experience compassion within the context of your learning. This is like the therapeutic relationship in psychotherapy where an open, accepting, and compassionate therapist relationship has been shown to account for more progress in therapy than the therapeutic approach itself.
Experiences
Your journey will be your own. Questions, discussions, exercises can help guide you. Your internal dialog is part of the problem so having a dialog with others around things like what provokes shame can accelerate self-insight. And ultimately getting to know and accept ourselves is the path towards peace and clarity.
We will work to uncover triggers for shame.
We will identify some of your internal voices that are responsible for this shame and uncover what they are trying to protect you from.
We will work to find and cultivate supportive internal voices so that in a moment of struggle we can tune into a group of best friends and family who offer us support.
We will learn practices for in the moment as well as for on the cushion.
Meditation
A large component of the effort and ongoing practice will be meditation (on the cushion work). Tailored practices will be provided as will support for your developing meditation practice. If you already have a meditation practice this should not interfere, but it may be additional practice if you already are pursuing a specific, planned path in your practice.
Connection and support
One of the reasons shame is such a strong emotion and so hard to deal with is that it feels isolating. Shame makes us recoil and hide and it makes us feel exposed and alone. Connecting with others in a supportive setting can help us see the actual connective power of shame. Sharing that we all experience shame is a powerful antidote to the isolating nature of shame that makes it such a difficult emotion.
Your investment
The course meets over Zoom for 2 hours each week for 6 weeks with daily practices between, including recorded guided meditations.
You get out of it what you put in. You will learn powerful tools but these tools require practice and patience. This isn’t about learning Nice Guy dating skills or planning behavior change. We will be looking deeply at our emotional states and learning how to self-soothe and create a better foundation for self-leadership.
Groups are limited to 8 participants and cost $250.
Contact me to learn more or join a free info session for a $50 discount off your tuition.