Episode 76: Childhood Trauma, Adult Shame, and Grace

This episode is titled "Podcast 76: Childhood Trauma, Adult Shame, and Grace." It follows Nathan’s personal experience of feeling ashamed and embarrassed after nearly missing a VIP dinner at an event he was invited to. He reflects on the childhood trauma that can trigger similar emotions and reactions in adult relationships. Nathan’s counsel emphasizes the importance of giving grace and understanding to others who may be responding from their past experiences.

I am willing and ready to help you. Find me on Instagram @natesschoolofthought, or on the web at natewalkercoaching.com.

Transcript

Podcast Episode 76: Childhood Trauma, Adult Shame, and Grace 

Hello my friends. A while back I was invited to a special event by a friend, and I thought it was very kind of him to do. And so I got all excited and asked what time it was and he told me it started at 6 p. m. And so I put it on my calendar. I was surprised that it was a week earlier than I had expected. But I went, and it was successful, and it was great, and life was good. While I was there, we talked about the next event. It was then that I realized that there were two things that he was talking about, and that the VIP dinner promised was actually in the event to come, not the one I was at. And so, I made sure that was on my calendar and I got all gussied up for it. I was pretty excited about this one. This VIP thing was going to be a big deal. He told me that there was a table that had been reserved for his group and they had paid for me to go, and I was their invited guest, and I thought, man, this is going to be cool. And eventually it was.  

Confusion about the two events had left one on my calendar for 6 p. m. That was the VIP dinner, or so I thought. I got ready to go and made sure I was dressed appropriately for the event and that everything was going to be cool, and then I checked my computer just before I left to make sure I had the venue address right. But when I went to the website and looked at the event, I couldn't see the VIP dinner on the site at all. That was weird. And then I looked at the hours for everything that was to come up, and it had already come up. It turns out the thing started at 7:30 a. m. and ended at 4 p. m. The venue was an hour away. I was in my house and it was 3:30 p. m. That meant everything was going to end a half hour before I even got there. 

Now, this may sound silly to you, but it wasn't silly for me at the time. It was a very big deal. I felt instantly so ashamed, so embarrassed, so disappointed---knowing that they had paid money for me to be there, knowing that I was supposed to be impressing people with, you know, my business savvy and, and my good looks and all that kind of stuff, that when I realized how big a blunder I had made, and when I stood there in my fancy clothes, all ready to go, with my water bottle filled and my paperwork nearby and my business cards in my pocket, and realized that I had missed the whole thing---It hit me so hard, I started to cry. I just stood there in my room and like a grown man, or a child, started to cry. I was embarrassed. I was ashamed. I was disappointed. I didn't even know how to handle that. What do you do when somebody has invited you to something, and they've spent money on it, and you blew the whole thing? What do you do?  

And how was I to save face? I didn't know what to do. I didn't know how to react. Now, the rest of the story is that I started driving toward that venue anyway, hoping that there was some chance I might get hold of the person who had invited me, explain what was going on, and there would be some reason to be in that city anyway. 

Part way there---using Siri, not my hands, because I'm not an idiot---I dictated a message from my phone while I was driving, that said, "hey, did I just make a terrible mistake? From what I can tell, the events ended at 4pm. I won't even be in town until 4:30." I got a response a little bit later with just a screenshot, that showed that the VIP event, the one that I had hoped so badly to attend, didn't start until 5. I ended up getting there about 15 minutes before it began.  

And then, went and stood in the room alone at the VIP event. The friend who had invited me was unable to attend that portion, and I didn't know a soul. I felt awkward, out of place, and embarrassed again. I went and got some refreshments and then went over to one of those little standing tables, and I found a standing table that was completely empty, and stood there, and looked toward the refreshments, 

and looked at people lined up to get a picture with the guest, and thought, "what in the heck am I doing here? I feel out of place and I don't know how to handle this."  

Not long after that, I looked over to my left, and standing between my table and another one some distance away, was a woman all alone, looking toward the refreshments, and feeling awkward and out of place, and a little ashamed. I waited until she glanced my direction and I caught her eye. And I said, "would you like to feel awkward and a little out of place with me?" "Oh, thank you!", she said; came over to the table and we had a good discussion, and were later joined by three more people who joined in that discussion, and the whole thing turned out great. 

 When I thought I had blown the whole deal and began to cry like a grown up, in my room; when I felt awkward and out of place at my little table, my solitary standing table, until I was joined by someone else, there were two things I was reminded of. Number one, I needed to get out of my own head. It It was only when I took concern for someone else, and invited her over, that both she and I felt better and a little bit more like grown ups who knew what they were doing.  

But the biggest thing is something that came up again in conversation just a couple of days ago. 

My wife has a friend whom she dearly loves and wants to be closer to. But the relationship between the two of them over the years has been a little bit of an on again, off again kind of deal. My wife feels like she's often the one that reaches out, and sometimes the friend responds with excitement and love and a desire to spend time together, and sometimes she just doesn't. It's like nothing ever happened, and no invitation was even received. This was a painful thing for my wife to experience. I have had similar experiences, where I wanted to have a relationship with someone, but for whatever reason they didn't respond in the way that I thought they should respond, whether I was seeking time with them, some connection on a topic or another, or any other thing. 

There's a reason that this happens, and it's the same reason that I stood and cried when I felt so awkward, ashamed, and stupid. And it's just this. We tend to go back to things that happened when we were young. Childhood trauma of any kind, whether or not it should have felt traumatic to us at the time, is something that we tend to hang on to, and we hang on to it until we have dealt with it in some way, and learn to respond differently. 

Often, these experiences happened so long ago, and have been so long buried inside our unconscious mind, that we don't even realize that's something we needed to work on or overcome, until we're faced with a situation that puts us right back in that same spot, emotionally and instantly. That's what had happened to me. 

When I was five years old, I started first grade. That's unusually young. I hadn't attended kindergarten, and I didn't know what all the rules were, but when we were told to line up for lunch on my first day of school, I ran and got in line. A classmate named Scott started yelling, "he took cuts, he took cuts," and screaming at the teacher to intervene and punish me. I didn't even know what taking cuts meant. She ran over and took me by the arm and chastised me for doing such a horrible thing and then drug me to the back of the line where she told me to behave, and I had to stay in the back of the line until everybody else was in the lunchroom. 

I didn't know what was going on. I felt embarrassed, ashamed, out of place, and stupid. And that set of emotions, for some reason, presented themselves when I felt like I had missed out on that event to which I was invited.  

Similar things happen in relationships with friends. 

We talked for a while, my wife and I, about what she desired from this friendship and about why she felt so abandoned, and so rejected, when the friend did not respond in the way that she had expected. We talked about their respective childhoods, since this is someone we know well, and we were reminded of some of the trauma that our friend had had to deal with when she was young. 

Much of it centered around about age 6 or age 7. As we talked about what she went through and what she would have felt, then I said to my wife, "do you realize that when you reach out to her and she responds in that way, she's responding not as an adult, but as the seven year old?" she never got past that.  

Those emotions stay stuck in our unconscious minds, as I mentioned before, until we have dealt with them, overcome them, or learned how to process those things. Sometimes they come up at really awkward times and places, and many years later than we expected. This is a good time for us to learn.  

When you are hurt, offended, feel abandoned, rejected, or ignored, or are somehow responded to in a way that you don't expect from someone you love, value, or hope to spend time with, it's really important to remember that the person responding to you at that time, the person who offended you, or ignored you, or seemingly abandoned you, isn't the adult that you're talking to. The person who did those things is the six year old, or the five year old, or the seven year old, that didn't know how to handle the situation, and so they cried, or they ignored your invitation, or they didn't seek closeness, or whatever it is.  

The things that you might struggle with in your relationships, whether it's your marriage, your friendships, your family, your employment, or any other situation, often result in experiences that can hurt, offend, or make us feel less than we really are. 

When you have those types of experiences, when you deal with people that act in seemingly childish ways, it's because you're not dealing with the adult. You're dealing with that child that they were. That child who didn't know how to handle a particular situation. That stays with them into adulthood. 

You're not talking to an adult. You're not getting the response that you should get from a 20 or 30 or 40 or 60 year old person. You're getting the response you would get from that child.  

When you are faced with an experience like that, give each other some grace. One of the kindest things that you can possibly do, one of the kindest things you can do for yourself or for anyone else, is to give them a little grace, and remember that sometimes it's not the grown up in the situation. It only looks like one. It's really a child who experienced something difficult, and scary, and embarrassing, and that made them feel stupid, and they just didn't know what else to do. 

The reaction you get, the responses that you receive; those are the child talking. Be kind, be patient, and know that that's not really who the person is. That does not represent the sum of what they are and what they have become or what they could mean to you. That's just a moment in time when that little frightened child came back up, to the surprise of all involved.  

Now, there are ways to deal with some of this childhood trauma, whether it be great or small. I can help you with those kinds of things, and I can help you overcome any of those emotions that you still harbor, even if you're not aware of them. In the meantime, just remember; every once in a while, we're going to have a good cry, or be embarrassed, or feel stupid, or awkward, or out of place. Look to your left and your right, behind and in front of you, and find the person standing there who may feel as awkward as you do, and invite them into your world. Ask them if they'd like to spend some time feeling awkward, or out of place, or stupid, with you, and then enjoy your time together. Life is full of good people trying to do good things for good reasons, and they need good friends, and kindness, and patience, and a little grace. 

We'll talk again soon.