How Humiliating
Discarding the cone of shame
Y’know what I’ve been thinking a lot about recently?
Shame.
That miserable feeling that lives so deep in the pit of our stomachs we can sometimes miss it. Mistaking it for overwhelm, irritation, embarrassment, guilt, or even tiredness. It hides in the darkness, quietly thriving and, before we know it, it’s grown too large and starts to bubble up in all sorts of ways.
I’ve always pushed myself to learn new things, not always because I enjoy it, but because I want to experience so much variety in what life has to offer. I like lots of things and have a fear of missing out (until of course that becomes too much and I need to hibernate for five days).
Here’s a thing about learning: it is HUMILIATING. And when humiliation is activated, shame gets a boost and the cycle is off and running.
The amount of effort it takes, particularly as an adult, to learn something new is painful. Unless you are one of those naturally talented all rounders… in which case… as you were.
As children we have the perfect excuse: everything’s new - and if we fall or fail, someone usually checks we’re okay, gives us a juice, and encourages us to try again.
Wouldn’t it be nice to have this now again as we stumble our way through adulthood?
I’ve been trying to learn the piano for nearly six years. Music has always been challenging for me. I tried guitar when I was younger, the drums for a phase in my teens, and it just didn’t stick. But six years ago, I committed to a piano, subscribed to an app, and I’ve been tinkering on and off ever since. I tend to follow this same cycle each year:
January — “Okay, it’s January, it’s dark and miserable. I will play the piano every day for ten minutes.” I play daily, hear myself improve, my hands move more freely, I can recognise notes, I can actually play the whole of ‘Love Me Tender’ — maybe I should become a pianist?!
February — “Oh crap, I haven’t touched the piano in three weeks… I’ll do ten minutes tonight after work.” I do, and I get annoyed about how much better I was in January.
March — “I haven’t looked at the piano in a month. I’ll do an hour on Friday when I have more time.” I do, and I get annoyed at my inconsistency.
April–October — “The piano is a winter activity; I’ll wait for darker nights. I’ll get really good by Christmas. I’ll learn the whole of Folklore and Evermore!”
November — “Ok, I’ve started doing ten minutes every Friday, so why is it still so frustrating?!”
December — “Christmas is no time to learn hard things.”
January — “Okay, it’s January, it’s dark and miserable. I will play the piano every day for ten minutes.” I play daily, hear myself improve, my hands move more freely, I can recognise notes, I can actually play the whole of ‘Love Me Tender’ — maybe I should become a pianist?!
Why do I insist on this annual loop? Because I genuinely want to be able to play this obnoxiously hard instrument I planted in my house. I want the hobby to be relaxing, and one day to have a slick repertoire of songs that I could start playing at a train station piano in a cool, casual way: a slice of ‘Exile’ while waiting for my train, finish the song, sling my duffel over my shoulder, put on my shades, and wander over to platform seven with a humble swagger… (I mean, who do I think I am — Bob Dylan?)
At this rate, I’ll be shuffling my Zimmer frame over to the nice man in the ScotRail vest asking for assistance from the piano to my train carriage after this grand debut. “Ever heard ‘Love Me Tender’, son?”
And it’s not just the piano. I’m learning to sing (also via an app), which, let me tell you, is no picnic for anyone in this house. I wait until I’m alone; so only the dog can roll his side-eye at me as I hunt for the right key. There’s a moment in each song when you shift from singing along with the coach to singing solo with a backing track and - my goodness - it’s painful. But we persevere.
This year I also started learning to skip with a jump rope. The mobility PT I see occasionally is a master at it, so we finish our sessions with some ‘fun’: tricks, steps, side swings. It’s hard. I don’t know if kids still use skipping ropes in playgrounds (somehow - I doubt it?) but don’t underestimate them - it takes coordination, brain power, countless mistakes, and regular whips of the rope against my knees, face, and back (from the rope, not the coach - yet). I also strained my achilles the other month because I hadn’t warmed up properly before skipping on my driveway then running. Turns out I no longer have the tendons of an 8-year old. Warming up to skip? How humbling.
The humiliation with learning jump rope comes from doing it in front of someone else. With piano and singing, at least the shame is private: I shut down the app when I’ve had enough and move on. With skipping I’m under supervision, getting coaching tips and repeated instruction as I make the same mistakes over and over… until I get it right, level up, and then it gets harder again.
And there’s golf - so rewarding and humiliating in equal measure. When my driving improves, my chipping collapses; when my chipping improves, my putting becomes hopeless; when my putting improves, I’ll hit every sand bunker on the course. Sure, there are satisfying rounds, especially in summer when it’s dry and calm, and for a heartbeat I think, “maybe I should become a golfer?”
Anything new we try as adults comes wrapped in ego. Humans don’t like feeling incompetent; it makes us feel rubbish. But what if we brought that shame out into the daylight? If we said out loud, “Well, this is embarrassing, but I’ll keep going anyway.” What if we did keep going, hoping that one day we could look back and say, “I couldn’t always do that”? Or “I wasn’t always brave enough to try that”.
If I look back to seven years ago, I didn’t know any chords at all on the piano. If I look back four years ago, I didn’t know how to hold a golf club properly. If I look back one year ago, I didn’t know that a shuffle step to rap music with a jump rope was unbelievably mood boosting…
If you did this for your own things whether at home, parenting, at work, with your chosen hobbies, or in life generally, what would you say to yourself? Would that be enough to convince you to start, to continue, or to even decide, “actually, that thing isn’t for me; I’ll try something else”?
It isn’t easy to be human. But if we stepped out of our own way, threw a spotlight on the shame/embarrassment/humiliation about not being immediately ideal - and admitted to ourselves what we really want, then we could do it — even when it’s hard, even when at times, we want to chuck it all out the window.
We’re not here to hide. And anyway, if it does go wrong, and we don’t take ourselves too seriously - it becomes a good story.
Thanks for reading. Until next time!
Amy x
Brilliant, Amy! How true and well written as always! 💕