Laughing at ourselves: from shame to self-awareness

Do we take ourselves too seriously?

(versão portuguesa)

---

«This would never happen in Portugal», said my boyfriend, catching his breath. His easy, contagious laughter is the foundation for our weekly ritual of watching the British comedy panel show from BBC One, Would I Lie to You.

In the scene that prompted his comment, Lee Mack made a spirited joke about his opponent, David Mitchell — a joke so blunt that it would probably start a fight if they were at the local pub on a Friday night. But David didn’t punch him; he smiled and took it like a champion, making everyone laugh.

British humour has a way of taking human flaws and unfortunate situations and turning them into laughter — the kind that sometimes makes you question whether you should be laughing at all. I grew up with a different kind of humour, more reliant on stereotypes and collective traits, and where the humourist preserved their «dignity».

When I was in my teens, I had a hard time laughing at myself. I was ashamed of my faults, and if someone hinted at them, even in a tangential conversation, an alarm would go off, and I would slip into defence mode. I would retreat like a turtle, safe behind my shell, and try to disguise the discomfort I was feeling, so no one would notice. Showing my weak points felt like exposing an open wound. I was self-conscious and uncomfortable in my own skin, especially around others.

But I also felt pretty confident: I was a good student and a good girl, and I wanted to be recognised as such. Maybe my alarm would go off so easily because of this ideal vision I had of myself, as if my insecurity came not from a lack of confidence, but from the arrogance of expecting to be perfect.

Jung wrote: «Unfortunately there can be no doubt that [man] is, on the whole, less good than he imagines himself or wants to be. Everyone carries a shadow, and the less it is embodied in the individual’s conscious life, the blacker and denser it is. At all counts, it forms an unconscious snag, thwarting our most well-meant intentions.»

Our shadow can be described as a beach ball we try to keep underwater: the more we push it under, the higher it jumps at us. We push under the parts of ourselves that don’t feel «right», that don’t fit the idea of who we are, or of who we want to be. But they don't stay under — they come up without us even realising it, and those are the moments when we get really defensive, retreat into our shell or lash out.

I learned the power of feedback in my early twenties, at a simulation game on a Youth for Europe training course. There were two teams from two imaginary islands, and we had tasks which involved negotiating with the other team. It was all about communication, group dynamics, and intercultural exchange.

At the end of the game, my team's observer shared her insights about what she had seen and heard. She talked about the power dynamics, and served as a mirror reflecting our behaviours. When she turned to me, she mentioned a moment when I used a subtle, covert power to steer the group to a different strategy, without being the obvious group leader.

Her words were like a punch in my gut. I was ashamed. Even though it was just a moment during a game where we were running against time, it hinted at manipulation, and I had been completely unaware of it.

That feedback made me pay attention and realise she was right: there were moments when I pushed what I thought was the «right» strategy without being fully transparent about it, because I was not sure if it would work or didn’t want to be in the spotlight. That feedback had revealed a blind spot.

It felt like I had discovered a human hack, and wanted to know more. I started learning about how to give feedback and, maybe more importantly, how to receive it. I am still learning. I like to watch how other people receive feedback (Would I lie to you is a great school for this, in its own way). I’ve learned to ask for feedback, though sometimes the universe delivers it when I least expect it.

These days I am much more proficient about the things I wish I was better at — I have spent countless hours thinking about and working on them (for instance, these days, I’m more comfortable taking the lead in a group).

It’s now more difficult for someone to catch me off guard about the things that are on that list. My feelings towards some of them have changed. There is less shame and more acceptance. And although I still hope to evolve, I am more realistic about what a human can achieve in a lifetime.

Thankfully, with age, I’ve come to realise that no one cares; no one cares about our stuff the same way we do or as much as we think they do. We are mostly navel-gazing, and if we spend time analysing other people's behaviour it’s probably not about them, but about us — because it triggers something we are also dealing with. As years go by, it's more and more clear that life is not a competition, and that the finish line is the same for everyone.

But one thing is not being caught off guard, and another is being able to see things with such detachment that we can laugh at ourselves (and I don’t mean self-defeating humour, where we belittle ourselves in a way that is harmful to us).

Being able to laugh about oneself requires acceptance and humility. It calls for us not to take ourselves too seriously and to let go of the arrogance of trying to be perfect. Too many times we push the beach ball underwater only to find that it pops back up, again and again. Maybe if we let it float to the surface, gently, we can make peace with our dark side, allow it to come to the light, and be a part of the person we want to become.