The Shame and Blame Spiral…

Well it happened. For the first time in years, I bombed an audition. And when I say bombed, it stunk. The kind that makes us want to put our heads in the sand, ostrich style. The kind of performance that is not at all reflective of our talent, experience, or skillset.

As I left the audition room I felt those familiar phrases lying in wait. The “you’re not good enough, why didn't you prepare more, you don’t belong here, they’ll never hire you…” The old refrain of The Shame and Blame Spiral.

So what is it?

The Shame and Blame Spiral is the negative stories we tell ourselves about our worth and work as artists. It’s the evidence we gather to prove those stories to be true, the discouragement, the doubts, the exhaustion…

Here’s the thing: The Shame and Blame Spiral is a stress response.

Simple as that. It’s normally triggered by an event, a stressor such as an audition. And like all stress responses, The Shame and Blame Spiral shifts our perception. This is why we tend to feel differently about our work and careers when we have a good vs. lousy audition. Who else has thought “I flubbed that” only to get a callback?

Our perception of how we do is skewed based on our current state. And when we gather evidence to confirm that harsh perception, we propel down The Spiral. The response intensifies the farther down we go, till we hit anxiety, depression, or even shut down.

And although The Shame and Blame Spiral is normal, it can be debilitating at times. It can make us skip other auditions, avoid work or loved ones, or even burn us out so much that we stop performing.

So what can we do about it?

First off, we can recognize the patterns and cues. Are these phrases familiar? Have we said them before? The Shame and Blame Spiral puts us on a story loop. We get so distracted by the content, that we forget it’s a response. And responses give us lots of information on our current state. Like the fact that shame is often an indicator we’re in a freeze response.

Once we realize that, focus on the response not the content. A lot of us may try to reason our way out by talking to ourselves as we would a friend or making a list on why those phrases aren’t true. And if that works for you, great! Keep doing it. However if we’re in an intense freeze response, we might not believe our own voices (especially as the call is coming from inside the house).

In those instances, try shifting our current state rather than rewriting the content. Use a tool or practice from our actor toolbox that’s body, movement, or breath based. Any tool that connects us with a tiny bit of grounding, spaciousness, or ease. Sometimes even the smallest shift in our state can change our story.

Next, incorporate some slow, gentle movement. This may seem counter intuitive as performers. Our actor training conditions us to always raise the stakes. When we’re far down the spiral, we think it’s going to take one big push to climb back up! Yet, freeze responses use up a lot of our energy.

If we try to muscle through it when we’re already exhausted, we can boomerang harder down into the response. Setting such high expectations on ourselves also runs the risk of increasing shame if our efforts don’t succeed. We can cut ourselves some slack here for having a normal (and difficult!) stress response.

Let’s go for smaller, more frequent practices. Gentle movement, light stretching or yoga, a stroll outside, even a power pose. Like a tortoise in the race, slow and steady helps us climb back up bit by bit, without falling farther down.

Lastly, we don’t have to do it alone. The Shame and Blame Spiral encourages isolation and disconnection. Sometimes our tools or our own voices just can’t snap us out of it. That’s when it’s time to ask for support. This could be as simple as calling a loved one or engaging with our community.

Extra credit: notice when The Shame and Blame Spiral motivates us! Humans are motivated by pain, fear, and rejection, just as much as we are motivated by hope, pleasure, and acceptance. For some of us, The Shame and Blame Spiral can stir us into action, get us to sign up for that class, always warm up before auditioning, try a new technique…

Just watch out for that boomerang effect. Especially if shaming ourselves out of The Spiral turns into self-punishment. In that case, self-compassion or external support may be more effective at helping us climb back up. Let’s be honest in when The Shame and Blame Spiral is helping us and when it’s hurting us.