Have you ever felt like your grades, extracurriculars and level of college success weren’t good enough? Me too.  That feeling is at the core of dealing with shame in college.

I experienced this with a lot of intensity in nursing school. It was like a breeding ground for shame particularly around grades.

 

There is this culture in the class room of wanting to know how everyone else is doing, what internships they’ve landed, what they got on an exam or paper and seeing how we measure up.

 

I never felt comfortable sharing my grades in college. I believe grades are relative to the person and grades can be a trigger to send anyone into a shame spiral. You can feel really freaking good about your grade until you learn that your study buddy got a higher one.

 

In this week’s episode of Soulful Studies Sunday I talk about dealing with shame in college.

 

Brene Brown says Shame is a self-inflicted injury.

 

It is literally an attack against yourself.

And what do you do when you feel attacked or threatened, well we do one of three things, we you gear up to fight (doing), your run or try to distract yourself (avoid), or you hide (put the test away before anyone can see it).

 

For college students these responses show up as doing more, distracting activities and hiding from classmates, the professor or the reality of their standing in the class.

 

How do we begin letting go of shame?

Brene Brown says we need to overwhelm shame with the one thing it cannot survive against, empathy and love. 

 

There are 3 ways we can start to crush shame with empathy and love as college students.

1. Start by recognizing that we have done nothing wrong.  Just because you failed an exam does not mean you are a failure. You are perfect as you are, you are not flawed or a mistake.
2.  Become aware of our ego talk and change the conversation. If you’re best friend failed an exam you wouldn’t call her a failure. You’d say to her, she is smart and together you will figure out a plan to bring up her grade. Why are you not deserving of that same kindness, compassion and love? The next time your ego starts talking, talk to yourself as though you were talking to your best friend. Change the dialogue around your limiting beliefs.
3. Open up about your story of shame because it creates the opportunity for empathy. It opens up the dialogue for someone to say “me too” and for you know that you are not alone and deserve love.