HW-2

In the ted talk we watched on Wednesday by Anne Hallward we listen to her talk about shame. Specifically, we listen to her talk about shame and how it affects people and can be related to many different types of mental illnesses and even suicide. Anne’s main point during the ted talk was that shame should be talked about and dealt with head-on. I completely agree with that statement and we should talk about shame more. One example is during the talk she mentions that shame hide you from your feeling and keeps you “in the closet”. She then goes on and says, “but the thing about the closet is that you can’t see and it’s very dark in there. And in that darkness you can’t see very clearly.” In other words, Anne believes that you aren’t being the real you if you stay hidden in the closet and that you don’t think straight while you’re “in the closet”. Also, she uses an example of how to express shame and what it does. During the talk, she mentions how lesbian and gay couples are coming out of the closets now, and that mentions a lesbian couple who have been together for 72 years and are finally getting married. Anne says “And that, what that does, is it feeds right back to the sources of external shame and begins to reduce their power.” Anne’s point is that if we keep exposing shame it will get weaker, and then make it not mean anything.