Have you ever tripped over your own feet?  We all agree that embarrassment can be excruciating.  Everyone is staring , and just like that, the hot flush of embarrassment has taken over.  But is it really all that bad?   Not really, if you just regain your composure because – this flush acts as a physical apology to those around you and says, “hey, I am human.”   Embarrassment is a sign that you care about the way others see you.  

When does embarrassment become a part of our lives – earlier than you think?  At the age of about three, we begin to understand that others have expectations of how they should behave, and so they blush and freeze up when someone judges them negatively.  Then we arrive at the teen years, when a perfect storm of factors happen.  One of the parts of the brain that monitors the reactions of others (known as the rostral cingulate zone) grows rapidly.  

As your skins is breaking out, thanks to raging hormones, your brain is telling you to worry even more about what people think of  you.  It is a good thing that most people develop thicker skins and a stronger sense of person until these hormones even out.  Not all adults outgrow their tendency to feel embarrassment.  Some people are just naturally self-conscious, and this may run in families.  Others may hold themselves to unreasonable standards and feel unnecessarily embarrassed when they fail to meet their own expectations.

You have to learn to confront incidents head-on!   You want to pour water on the event not gasoline.  If this is  your child remind them of the good things that have happened.  Just always remember act as if it was “no big deal”  because others will follow suit and lose interest, too.  Stop replaying the incident – because replaying the incident only leaves us feeling like we lost control of the moment.  You have to clean up your mind of the incident.

Teach  your kids to sing a song in their head or do something silly –  you have to recruit different parts of your brain for an exercise like that because it gets your mind unstuck.  Just remember, that no one is thinking about you – but you.  We overestimate the extent to which our actions are noticed by others.  Your kids have to see you laugh at yourself when your shirt has been misbuttoned, maybe they’ll giggle when the same thing happens to them.

Remember when you share an embarrassment with someone – they often will tell  you about an even bigger embarrassment they encountered and lived to tell about it – laughing all the while.  This tells you that none of us are perfect even though a lot of us think we are!

kommonsentsjane