Anger Management

1. Module 5
Shame & Shadow Material

2. Shame
“While his mother talks to a neighbor outside the house, a 2-year-
old child explores the outdoors. He finds a special place nearby
where he digs happily in the soft soil. ”look at me!”, he wants to tell
the world.
“just look at this mess” says his mother with scorn. “look at you. You
are filthy dirty!” I am dissappointed in you.”
The child experiences himself as very small. He drops his head and
stares at the ground. He believes there must be something very bad
at him.

3. The Shame Problem
Shame as an inevitable human
experience
• Most of us have felt shame because, as
mentioned, it is perhaps an inevitable
human experience. We have all suffered
feelings of incompetence, inadequacy, &
inferiority; known as a sense of failure or
defect.
• Shame is among the most painful of
human feelings.
• When we constantly hear this shame
triggering in our lives, we find it harder to
get out of this feeling of shame.
Healthy & Unhealthy Shame
• Shame can be healthy & unhealthy.
• Healthy shame is normal & temporary, it
can provide specific messages for you
that maintain a healthy balance for your
thoughts/behavior.
• Unhealthy shame, by contrast is excessive
& distorted.
• With unhealthy shame we have been
shamed more than normal by prolonged,
repeated, or perhaps chronic situations.

4. *Emotions regulate and influence everything we think or do including our
moods, our sympathetic/parasympathetic autonomic balance, our beliefs &
our social relationships. If we are relaxed, wide open and accepting, our
emotions will naturally flow with or purpose of the moment. Defensively
repressed emotions cannot flow easily back into a healthy rhythm of harmony
& needs firm internal guidance, or self-regulation.
* Shame & Guilt can sometimes be confused. Guilt is when you have done
something wrong. Shame is when you are something wrong. A child might feel guilt
if they broke their mother’s vase and hid the pieces. But they might feel shame if
their mother then told them they were clumsy, no-good sneak who would never
amount to anything.
Think about a time when you might have had a shame situation. Keep in mind that a shame experience
most often has to do with feeling small, or unacceptable, inadequate, etc…
Describe the situation, how it felt, and how you reacted to it below:

5. Unhealthy Shame-Anger Cycle
• Shame is an emotion that feels so
awful many people try to avoid it
at all costs.
• Driven by the flooding of
neurochemical arousal.
• Focused on our ego and how we
perceive ourselves.

6. Types of Shame Anger
Survival Anger- When physically attacked, and your body might be injured.
Impotent Anger- When feel threatened and feel utterly helpless and unable to deal with the situation so you become angry
instead.
Attachment Anger- When feeling threatened because you might be abandoned or rejected by someone you care about. This might
develop if you had a rejecting sort of parent who used withdrawal & threats to discipline you.
Shame Anger- When humiliated, embarrassed, or ridiculed and your self esteem plunges. You become angry in order to cut off the
bad feelings. (a sign of having a parent who is critical, abusive, or partner, or bullied as a child)
I’m Not Garbage Shame-Anger - Usually from a poor childhood, parents were dysfunctional alcoholics or different in some
undesirable way. As an adult, you get angry when you are reminded of how you are different from others.
Loss of Performance Shame-Anger – Loss of your identity as a person because. You are less functioning person than you used to be.
You may have lost stamina, memory, or are disabled and can’t work.
Guilt Induced Shame-Anger – feeling ashamed of yourself because you have not lived up to your values or moral principles and
don’t respect yourself.

7. Healing the Unhealthy Shame-Anger Cycle
5 core shame messages causing you to
feel worthless & small
1. You are no good.
2. You are not good enough.
3. You are unlovable.
4. You don’t belong.
5. You shouldn’t exist.
Helpful skills & Techniques
• 1. Take responsibility: Taking
responsibility for your own actions
is a way to gain self esteem.
• 2. Listen to your body: Catch
yourself when you start to trigger,
or lose control.
• 3. Coping statements: Talk yourself
down. Use phrases that calm you
down such as “this isn’t worth it.” .

8. Shadow Material
About shadow material
Composed of both negative & positive
qualities of ourselves that we do not want
to accept as part of our personality.
We project onto someone or something
else like a movie projector onto a screen,
our undesirable thoughts etc…
We have no awareness that we are doing
this.
Spotting shadow material
• To spot it, you can notice when
another person triggers you,
either because of a positive or
negative quality.
• Thinking ”I'm not angry,” then
you are likely hot on the trail of
uncovering some of your
shadow material.

9. Projecting your shadow material

10. Destructiveness & Shadow Material
How do you work with the energy of your shadow material without having it destroy the life you’ve
built up?
*Eventually you need to engage with the
disowned projected aspect of yourself –
and if not, it will eventually engage you in
some very unpleasant ways.
* The more one denies their shadow
material, the more ready one is to find the
quality in others.
Shadow Material in a nutshell:
• Disowned aspects of the self (disconnected, repressed,
regressed, split-off, or despised)
• Projected onto others (which we then feel angry at or
critical toward)
• Unconscious or subconscious (we are not aware that
we have done this)
• Anger & critical feelings point directly to shadow
material
• Opportunity to re-integrate the healthy essence of the
disowned parts of the self.

11. The 3-2-1
Shadow
Material
Process
1. Choose an experience in your life that you want to work with. It’s often easier to begin with a person with
whom you have difficulty. (e.g., lover, relative, boss)
2. Face it- Imagine this person. Describe those qualities that most upset you, or the characteristics that you are
most attracted to using 3rd-person language (he, she, it) Talk about them out loud or write it down in a journal.
Take this opportunity to “Let it out.”
3. Talk to it: Begin an imaginary dialogue with the person. Speak in the 2nd person to this person (you). Talk
directly to this person as if he or she were actually there in the room with you. “Why are you doing this to
me?” What do you want from me?”
4. Be it: Become this person. Take on the qualities that either annoy or fascinate you. Embody the traits you
described in “face it” Use 1st person language (I, Me, mine) . This may feel awkward, and it should. The traits
that you are taking on are the exact traits that you have been denying in yourself. “I am radiant.” “I am angry”
“I am jealous”
5. Complet the process, notice these disowned qualities in yourself. Experience the part of you that is this very
trait. Avooid making the process abstract or conceptional: just be it. Now you can re-own & integrate this trait
in yourself.

12. Being aware of our inner critic &
identifying shadow materials