How Men Break The Shame Cycle And Repair Harm

We talk about how men get trapped when we confuse accountability with shame, then wonder why the same harmful patterns keep showing up in our relationships. We break down how to own abusive behavior without turning our worst choices into our identity, so we can actually change instead of getting defensive. 
• abuse showing up as emotional, financial, mental, and sexual harm 
• why “at least I’m not hitting her” keeps men stuck 
• accountability as behavior-focused ownership 
• shame as identity-focused self-attack 
• how shame shows up as anger, defensiveness, shutdown, avoidance, and blame 
• the step-by-step cycle that keeps dysfunction repeating 
• how harsh criticism and labels in childhood shape adult reactions 
• fear of accountability and the need to control 
• separating who we are from what we did 
• why blaming your wife or kids is weak leadership 
• what healthy accountability looks like in marriage and fatherhood 
• reflection questions to practice ownership this week 

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Transcript

Show Premise And Host Intro

SPEAKER_00 0:00

You're listening to Excellence Above Talent, a podcast where we have the hard conversations about the lives of men and what leads us to achieve greatness and suffer defeat. Hear from other men's journeys as well, as we all learn and grow together to become inspirations to ourselves and those around us. And now your host, Aaron Thomas.

Accountability Versus Shame Defined

I Did That Versus I Am That

The Shame Loop That Repeats

How Labels Shape Boys Into Men

Fear Of Accountability And Control

Marriage Accountability And Blame Patterns

Healthy Ownership Without Self-Destruction

Reflection Questions And Closing Charge

SPEAKER_01 0:35

What's up, my beautiful pee? Oh, Aaron Thomas with excellence above talent. We are on week 16 on our 24-week series for why men become abusive and ways we can be better, to stop being abusive as men, to be open and vulnerable, to look in the mirror and say, okay, I have been an abusive man, and becoming aware of it. Because it just it just isn't physically hitting someone. Over the last few weeks, we've been talking about emotional abuse, financial, uh, mental, sexual abuse. It's not just one thing. And I feel like a lot of men try to sugarcoat it or make it easier for themselves because they'll say, at least I'm not hitting her, but they're doing everything else in the book to be abusive in that relationship. And that still doesn't make you strong as a man. Still makes you pretty weak. And you have to see yourself and not just bits and pieces of yourself in order to really see if you are being abusive and the importance of changing. Because I'll tell you this men who are abusive are men who are miserable. Because you're running around creating chaos in somebody else's life because you can't control your feelings and emotions. And so today's episode, we're going to be talking about accountability versus shame. And I'll tell you this: here in the last couple of years, accountability has been my stick. Something that I have been trying to live because I want to make sure that I'm free when it comes to going out into the world. I'm not trying to hide the bad parts of me. I see all of me. And that helps me work on the things that I know I need to work on to be a better man for myself, for my family, for my community. And it also just gives you a level of confidence of, yes, I am or I was that person, but that's not me anymore because I'm trying to figure out a way to be better. Versus shame when we talk about trying to hide ourselves, trying to overcompensate with our actions and attitudes, because we don't want other people to see what we have done or who we think that they think we are. And so we allow shame to show up and make us defensive because we don't want people to see who we really are, and we don't want to see who we really are. So we we defend ourselves, we hide ourselves because we know we can be better as men. We know that how we're treating our spouse and our kids is not how we should be treating our spouses and kids. But we won't take the time to to get better or be better. We'll just allow shame to lead our life. A lot of men say they want to change, but the moment they're called out, they shut down. They get defensive, they disappear. Not because they don't care, but because they don't know the difference between accountability and shame. Today we're talking about why most men stay stuck and how confusing these two keeps cycles alive. Most men don't struggle with knowing right from wrong. They struggle with what happens after they realize they are wrong. Because that moment, that's where everything changes, or everything repeats. I need you to understand the difference between accountability and shame. And I'm gonna make it very simple. Accountability says I did that. Shame says I am that, and there that's a big difference because you can't focus on the negative and then make yourself be the negative. You can focus on a behavior, and that's what accountability does. I did that. I screamed, I emotionally disappeared, I did that, and then find ways to fix it. But shame is like, I am that. I am a screamer, and it makes you feel bad because you know it hurts the people around you, but instead of focusing on the behavior, you make yourself become that thing or that that feeling or that emotion. And I need I need you to understand that accountability focuses on behavior, and that's where we need to be. My behavior is messed up. Let's find ways to fix it. And shame attacks your identity. I am a screamer, so therefore, I am a horrible person and a horrible man. My family hates me. You begin to identify with all these negative things because you're not fixing the behavior, you think you are the behavior. And this matters because how you see yourself determines how you respond. So if you believe I made a mistake or I made a bad choice, you can fix it. But if you believe I am the problem, you'll hide from it, you'll avoid it, or you'll defend against it, knowing that there is a problem, but your ego won't allow you to be talked to in that manner, so you'll defend what you know is making you feel shameful. Accountability is not comfortable, but it is very clear, and it sounds like that was wrong. I should have done that. I hurt someone, I need to change this behavior. No exclus, no excuses, no blaming, no but she or but they or but I, no buts. Just showing up saying this is what I did and I'm going to fix it. That is ownership. What shame looks like, shame is heavier, and it sounds like I am a bad person. I always mess things up. What's the point of trying? They already think I am this way. And once shame sets in, you don't fix your behavior, you protect yourself from the feeling. And we had a podcast a little while ago where we as men, uh, we are protectors. We can protect family and friends and the people we love, but we can also protect our feelings and who we are. And we will die going to the grave, protecting what we think needs protecting. Men don't respond to shame the same way they respond when they are walking and living in accountability. So men don't say, I feel a shame. They show it through defensiveness, anger, shutting down, avoiding the conversation, blaming others. Because facing shame feels like losing control. And that's one thing men don't want to do or feel like they're doing is losing control. So they do any and everything to try to keep that control. But a man with accountability knows that he can only control his response and his actions to things. Here's how the cycle of shame can create dysfunction in your life. You have to pay attention to the patterns. One, the behavior happens. Two, someone calls it out. Three, shame is triggered. Four, a man becomes offensive or avoids it. Five, no real accountability. Six, the behavior repeats. That is how the cycle stays alive. Not because men don't care, but because we don't know how to sit in accountability without falling into shame. And just sitting in it is one of the hardest things to do. Because as a man, sitting in something that you created makes you seem weak from the outside looking in. So most men will just be in shame because it's easier to defend themselves. It's easier to get angry. It's easier to get defensive. Not dealing with the behavior that has caused the chaos, but just knowing I can fight my way through it because I don't want to feel ashamed. Or I don't want other people to make me feel ashamed. And I feel like a lot of men confuse the two, accountability and shame. Because a lot of men were raised with harsh criticism, punishment instead of correction, being labeled instead of being guided. So a lot of men, instead of hearing that behavior was wrong, they heard you are wrong, and that's that stuck with us. The words you tell your young men matters. Having a conversation with them about why they did what they did matters. Not putting a label on the behavior of what they did matters, because then they grow up with the assumption when they do mess up that that's who they are, versus looking in the mirror and talking about how they got there. How did this behavior happen? How did this decision happen? Super important to not label yourself, to not label the kids in your life, to talk about the behavior and the choices and the importance of making better choices and figuring out why you feel a certain way versus just labeling that kid kid that they're bad. So let's be honest, there's a fear about or behind accountability. A lot of men avoid accountability because they're afraid of what it means about them. If I have to admit this, what does that say about me? That you're a monster? But I'd rather know that I'm a monster and control my monster than to run from my monster and not know it when it's gonna come out on any given day. If I was wrong here, where else am I wrong? If I face this, do I have to change everything? Yes. Because once you start changing the way you think, everything around you in your life changes. It has no other choice. Because you're not you're not living the same way you used to. Your body starts to realize that, your mind starts to realize that because you're slowly changing how you think about yourself. And again, instead of faith and accountability, they defend who they are, and who they are are monsters. So I don't understand why, as a man, you just don't go and have the hard conversation to break yourself down so that you are able to accept and feel that criticism that's going on. Pick up what needs to be picked up, learn and grow from it and be better. I don't understand, I don't understand why men are okay with protecting their monster knowing that it only creates chaos and mess in their lives. Growth only happens when you can separate who you are from what you did. You are not your worst mistakes, but you're responsible for it. And that's the balance. I can't blame what happened in my last marriage on my ex-wife. I am not what maybe she and her family thinks I am because of my mistakes or because of my bad choices. But I'm definitely responsible to make sure that I don't put anyone else through what I put her through because I didn't want to deal with the monsters that were in my head. And that sometimes is the sucky part. There will be people who there's nothing that can be said or done because you are a monster towards them, in their head you'll always be a monster. But don't let that shame, don't let that hurt stop you from sitting at that mirror and saying, I could have done better, and these are the things that I could have done better to protect my last marriage that I didn't do, that I will do to protect my now marriage with Yanning. I would not have been able to sit and learn from my bad choices if I was running around trying to blame my ex-wife as to why we got divorced. Um I would have been running around trying to defend myself. And the sad part is I need I need you men to understand this. In order to defend yourself in a relationship that you created chaos in, you're going to have to blame your woman for why the relationship didn't work. But men don't want to be weak. But that sounds like one of the weakest things a man can do. You've been with your spouse for eight years, and y'all got divorced, and it was her fault when you are always running around saying that the man leads the relationship. The man is the head of the household. You cannot blame anyone as a man for why your relationship or your household is the way that it is without the conviction of I'm running around here saying I'm the head of the household, but I'm not leading, or in my leading, I'm creating chaos. And because that's chaos, I don't want it to seem like I don't have control over my household. So I'll blame my wife and kids for it. That is weak man behavior because you don't want to be accountable for the space that you are bringing into your world and not only your world, your wife's world and your kids' world. It's their fault that the house is the way that it is. It shows a level of weakness that men say they don't have, but when things go bad, I can tell the measure of a man when things go bad and then trying to fix the issue. That's a man who is accountable. That's a man who doesn't run from uh the bad things that are going on in his life. That's a man who doesn't identify with the problem but knows that the problem needs to be fixed. Another type of man who looks around and says it's everyone else's fault and doesn't do anything to try to fix what needs to be fixed. There's strength and weakness in those two examples. And if you feel like one is stronger than the other, uh that's your life. But the first example, that man is strong because he's not looking to blame. The second example, that man is very weak. Healthy accountability looks like I'm not perfect, but I'm responsible. It means owning your behaviors, learning from your behavior, correcting your behaviors, and doing better next time without tearing yourself down as a person, without tearing the people around you down as a person. Because we live in a world where we need to be perfect, and I'm fad, sadly, I'm here to tell you there's no one that's gonna be perfect. We are going to hurt someone in our lives more than once. We're going to not make the best decisions in our lives more than once. We're going to be angry and frustrated and sad and happy and glad more than once in our lives. What you don't do when making decisions, after making decisions that you that came out to be a bad choice, you don't tear yourself down in the midst of you making a bad choice or decision. You sit in it and you try to figure out what went wrong, what you can do to be better, so that when the decision comes back up again, you're not making the same one that creates chaos. Here's the hard truth. Every time you're called out and you feel attacked, you're operating from shame, not accountability. Shame will keep you stuck longer than the mistake ever would. I need you to hear that again. You can make a bad choice two years ago. And because you weren't accountable for your actions and you allow shame to take over two years ago, and you still feel the shame of that behavior. But when anyone calls you out on it, you have to defend, you have to protect, you have to get angry, and you have to fight. You're stuck, and you can't grow as a person and a man stuck in those behaviors because that's who you think you are when you're not. If you want to grow, you have to learn how to sit in accountability without running to shame. Because accountability builds you up and shame will break you. And the difference between the two is the difference between staying the same or actually changing. The reflection questions for this week are one, when I'm caught out, do I respond with accountability or defensiveness? Two, do I focus more on what I did or what it says about me? Three, what would it look like to own my behavior without attacking myself? This week, when you're wrong, because you will be wrong this week, because ain't nobody right all the time. Don't defend it. Don't destroy yourself over it. Just own it. Share this episode with someone who you think needs it. If anyone hasn't told you today they love you, let me be the first to say I love you, you're awesome, you're amazing. You deserve the best that this world has to offer. Do not quit, do not give up. The world does not get easier, but you get stronger, my friend. Have a blessed Easter Sunday. Bye-bye.

SPEAKER_00 21:14

Thank you for listening. Be sure to subscribe to the podcast so you never miss an episode. And for daily, motivational, and up-to-date content, follow us on Facebook and Instagram at ExcellenceAbove Talent. And remember, keep moving forward, never give up, and you are never alone in this battle. We'll see you next time.