Shame is a Feeling of Being Less That Alive, Loss of Vitality, Masculinity or Femininity, and Feeling a "Deadened"
There are so many things that cause Shame is. However, it is a highly useful word about our behavior for some specific reasons. For ease of understanding, Shame is the opposite of Passion, and a depletion of it, the depletion of Masculinity or Femininity and therefore the negation of one's sense of identity in these, the blocking of masculine or feminine expression or behavior, the delegitimizing of either of them, and the absence of charisma, vitality, motivation, joy, bliss or exuberance. It is anhedonia, the lack of pleasure too, seen in such depressions as those called dysthymia, or melancholia. As such we believe it to be a gender specific cause of these depressions.
Shame may occur generally in only two kinds of situation - those that pertain to "life and death issues," and those pertaining to love, romance and sex. If you were to reenvision these two uses in the day of both Charles Darwin and Sigmund Freud, you would see something remarkable: that our unconscious instincts function in only the same two circumstances - those which are designed to help us with survival, and those which help us find a mate with whom to reproduce.
Our instincts are about survival and reproduction, and the word, PASSION, is about survival and reproduction. When we fail to exhibit "viability" or a robust set of behaviors of vitality, or the verification of them in progress toward our life's mission or purpose, then we feel shame, a depletion of masculinity, femininity and passion. When we fail at romance, suffer a breakup or divorce, or are cheated upon, the circumstances surrounding us in those times also show us how lacking in masculinity or femininity we are - our genes will not survive the ending of our romance, and we become more passionless.
We might then see Shame as also UNCONSCIOUS, like passion, and based in the area of the mind that evolutionary psychologists have termed, the reptilian brain. As such, there is an absence of the most fundamental energy - that spark of life, and we have less capacity for "AROUSAL." Both to have the motivation to defend or maintain our health ("learned helplessness") and to have interest in romance or sex.
For example, one might be concerned with survival on one end of a spectrum in the sense of the fear of death, avoiding death, and dangerous, deadly threats. The absence of arousal over danger lets us wander into harm's way, as if we "don't care anymore," the unconsciously suicidal - perhaps what Freud was referring to as the Thanatos Instinct. In other words, living with great vitality, exuberance, charisma, and excitement - all synonyms for what Freud referred to as "Libido" has died a bit, and with it, our will to live, and to even care.
Over to the "reproductive variable" that passion also defines, we have the principles of human courtship, dating, love, romance, marriage and sex. With a depletion of masculinity or femininity and the passion therein, we lose the sex drive, the interest, the energy that advertises our romantic worth - the "winning instincts" that we call the Ares and Athena Instincts early in the steps of romance and courtship - and we find that we no longer attract the opposite sex, whom in committed partnerships would then be our spouse.
Consider that there are two genders, and that the nature of their reproductive behavior is different, and yet the variable, Shame, is the same term. It makes men and women feel less alive, and to be tempted to "give up on their dreams" on account of their flagging energy of life.
Consider further then that Masculinity and Femininity are as biologically and psychologically "real" as concepts as there can be, with rules and structures in which it operates very precisely. As two sets of instincts in males and females, they are simply gender specific words for the lightning-quick behaviors designed to save our lives, survive (and truly feel alive), as well as to help us find a mate with whom to reproduce. Their absence leaves us too slow to respond to opportunity in career, to invitations to court, and the dropping out of life, itself. One might even deduce that Shame may be behind any violent acts, whether in the case of males, more so physical, and in women, more so social and verbal violence.
What's more - Masculinity and Femininity are actually whole sets of instincts in men and women, respectively, and which exhibit certain traits and tendencies in universal situations out in the world - from behaviors in romance, to consumer spending, to waging war, or finding diplomatic peace, to raising children, selecting a geographic location to live within and a type of domicile, there are universals in common to all women with each other, and those common in all men with each other. One might deduce that in these activities, the shamed male is a poorer father, husband, friend and participant in career and society, and the shamed woman is a poorer mother, wife, friend and participant in career and society. Their dreams have died.
As "passions" they are unconscious and "reptilian brained." However, the specifics of their pathways of behavior, as sets of instincts, were originally mapped out by Psychiatrist Carl Jung, successor to Freud. Stories of the ancient Greeks and many world traditions of myth likely give us key codes to the universals of instinctual behaviors among men and women within their own genders. It's the code for the universal behaviors through which the unique masculine and feminine forms of passion are expressed in communication, and more importantly - for the evolutionist's understanding of why the species survived - their utility for a universal, but diverse set of human situations: the social, the survival, and the romantic.
One might then presume a shamed male to be less of a "winner" and more of a "loser," less "Ares-like," less competitive, less goal-directed, less achieving, "less Apollo-like," less sexy or romantic, "less Hermes-like" or "Eros-like," less paternal, "less Zeus-like," and with these, less arousing to women, giving less masculinity to arouse their sense of femininity by way of association with that specific man.
The shamed woman is less a "winner" or diplomat at war, "less Athena-like," less accurate in determining opportunity, "less Artemis-like," less maternal, "less Hera-like," less skilled at management, "less Hestia-like," and with these, less arousing to men, giving less femininity to arouse their sense of masculinity by association with that specific woman.
A good example of Shame in a male is that of Actaeon, the hunter, who upon stumbling across the goddess, Artemis, bathing with her nymphs, was transformed by her into the form of a stag, and hunted down by his own hounds, who eventually tore him to shreds. This may sound physically violent, but as a metaphor, speaks to the violent power of gossip and the mob rule effect of those who were formerly the hunter's associates, whether male or female, who seeing him different, in the metaphorically reptilian form of an actual animal - the stag - see only another animal that is weak and exists to be hunted by the pack of hounds, and whose now mistaken or transformed identity, is destroyed. We see the very same story in the rich and famous males who without any due process of a court, are vanished from the earth by social media gossip (whether a just outcome or not does not matter.)
A good example of female shame is that of the origin of Medusa, who was once a fair maiden sought after by the god, Poseidon. The god set about stalking, attacking and raping her in the unholy place and in an unholy act, in the temple of Athena herself - the goddess of war and wisdom - and the goddess taking pity on her death as a fair maiden and birth as a monster, grants her the monstrous power of rage and revenge, with hair made of snakes, and the ability to turn any man who dares gaze in her eyes to stone. Rage as a power producing death, and the ultimate violent revenge on one's own shame, whether just or not, the men who happen to gaze in her eyes meeting the same fate.
There are antidotes to the shame, rage and revenge in others, provided by yet another Greek myth - in that of Perseus, who defeated Medusa after being given, ironically, five gifts from the same goddess, Athena, who took pity on the monster, Medusa, whom again, was once a fair maiden and is no more.
She gave Perseus a Helmet of magic, which once he donned it, could not be seen, symbolic of blocking our ears and minds from listening to the words of hate and gossip which may come our way from a shamed, rageful and wantonly violent people.
She gave him winged sandals which could fly him rapidly out of reach, symbolic of the role of geographic distance from those who would produce harm - such as cutting off one's social media accounts, and where the gossip and rage of others cannot reach you.
She gave him the "helm of darkness" from Hades, himself, a cloak of invisibility in which he could not be seen - advice on not directly making one's self a target for the shame and rageful revenge of others.
Athena gave Perseus a polished shield in which he could see the reflection of Medusa, but not the direct gaze which turns men to stone and would mean certain death. Symbolic of the personal boundary itself - to remain self-respecting, to engage only indirectly and yet to disagree with her words and actions - to say NO to them - and to observe her behavior indirectly, not by literally what she says or does, but to "see" through her outer behaviors and words, to the truthful location of them and what they mean. To "see" her strategies indirectly, and thereby to know her trajectory, her "next moves" in argument, shame and gossip, and be there before her armed with the sword of truth, the last gift.
She gave him an adamantine sword, with which to cut of the head of Medusa, and symbolic of incisive truth, just and accurate communication, will and purpose. Truth which ultimately defeats the rageful monster by forever ending both her communication and actions of wanton death and destruction.