Anne Hallward’s Ted Talk is one of the most interesting and thought provoking Ted talks I have watched as of recent. It brings up some interesting claims about shame and sharing stories. I took a lot of time to think about her talk of shame, and how it is potentially a dangerous emotion. Hallward believes, “Shame makes us want to hide and makes us retreat in silence and isolation”(0:40). Boxing out the world and isolating oneself is what she claims that shame does to a person. I believe shame has a wide variety of possible reactions because not everyone chooses to let shame drive them to dwell and fester on unhealthy emotions. Shame could also drive a person to do great things. I think shame can be a great motivator the emotions are used in the right way. I think an entire discussion could arrive on the subject of shame, and it is not just simply this one dimensional emotion. I relate this to the emotions behind depression, and the world impact that has. While shame is to be argued to be one the main psychological factors of depression, I think there is a multitude of other factors besides shame that take place. Not all shame leads to depression, and not all depression is caused from shame. The correlation does not equal causation in this case.

On a personal level, I loved how Hallward talks about how sharing our stories, especially difficult to tell emotionally driven stories, can be so beneficial to the story teller and the story receiver. She talks about how when the physical signs of shame show, its very healthy to release those emotions, “…[T]hat we are on the track in therapy when someone starts to covering their face or starts averting their eyes”(4:45). Those are tell tale signs of shame being released. Averting eye contact, covering your face, crying, and having the tone and volume of your voice decrease are all signs of truthful shame being let go. Sharing an emotional story can be so relieving, and make your feel so much better afterwords, especially when told to a person in whom you put a good amount of trust in.