Lady Gaga's shame

With a sense of humor and with honesty, she faces her shame, the humiliation of rejection, her sense of inner ugliness, and then transforms them into art. [psychcentral.com]

In Lady Gaga's fifth and final fashion video for "You and I", the 26-year-old pop star shows off her impressive figure in a series of bondage getups. She also gives a glimpse of her more sensitive side, wearing a white veil over her face and making out with boyfriend Taylor Kinney beneath it.

+12

Based on Sigmund Freud’s idea of the artist as someone who retreats from hated reality but finds a way back through his or her artistic gifts, I suggested that Lady Gaga “has managed to take profound shame and make it into something aesthetic and compelling. By putting her shame on display — she’s not afraid to make herself look ugly, or to expose herself in ways that other people might find ‘shameless’ — she has in a sense triumphed over that shame.” [psychcentral.com]

Lady Gaga: "When I look back on my life, it’s not that I don’t want to see things exactly as they happened, it’s just that I prefer to remember them in an artistic way. And truthfully, the lie of it all is much more honest because I invented it. Clinical psychology tells us arguably that trauma is the ultimate killer. Memories are not recycled like atoms and particles in quantum psychics, they can be lost forever. It’s sort of like my past is an unfinished painting and as the artist of that painting, I must fill in all the ugly holes and make it beautiful again. It’s not that I’ve been dishonest, it’s just that I loathe reality." 

  

His accomplishment was not in overcoming shame but rather in being able to tolerate it:  he no longer felt so overwhelmed by his shame that he had to defend against it.   In other words, the healing of shame means transforming it from something toxic and unbearable into an experience that is still painful but can be tolerated.  Toxic shame becomes non-toxic shame.  Toxic shame so poisons one’s sense of self that the usual remedy is flight into various types of narcissistic behavior, whereas consciously dealing with non-toxic shame and being able to bear it can generate feelings of authentic pride and self-esteem. [afterpsychotherapy.com] 

"You and I":








BDSM, sex and relaxation: news and ideas · (c)Mem's digest