What's Shame Got To Do With It? Exploring Shame, Contempt & Disgust with Dr. Eve Ekman and Ven. Tenzin Chogkyi

Science & Wisdom LIVE

Most of us would do almost anything to avoid feeling shame, an emotion that creates a feeling that we are fundamentally flawed. Shame is a self conscious emotion - one connected to how we view ourselves through the eyes of others. Shame has an evolutionary purpose for sustaining social norms and can be seen in its most contemporary manifestations through “cancel culture.” Our other “self conscious” emotions contempt, disgust, and guilt — perpetuate the judgement and “othering” polarizing us from others and degrades our ability to engage with our full hearts of empathy.

In order to transform our shame we must see it closely and hold it with great care. Ven. Chogkyi and Dr. Ekman will unpack the scientific understanding of shame and consider its cognitive, emotional and somatic impact on our lived daily experiences. They will consider: is shame to be avoided at all costs? Is there any purpose to these emotions, do these emotions have any kind of a message for us? How can we learn to manage these emotions mindfully and with compassion?

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Join Ven. Tenzin Chogkyi as she explores shame with Dr. Eve Ekman, a foremost emotions researcher. Dr. Ekman is the director of Cultivating Emotional Balance and has been exploring burnout, shame and other emotions in her teaching and research.
This episode was recorded during 'Healing the Body, Healing the Mind', a weekend of workshops and talks organised by Science & Wisdom LIVE in collaboration with Jamyang London Buddhist Centre and Land of Medicine Buddha.

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About Ven. Tenzin

Venerable Tenzin Chogkyi is a Buddhist monastic who first became interested in meditation and Buddhism in the early 1970s, and became a student of His Holiness the Dalai Lama and other Tibetan Buddhist teachers in early 1991. Ven. Tenzin took novice ordination in 2004 with His Holiness the Dalai Lama and completed several long meditation retreats over a six year period. Ven. Tenzin teaches Buddhist philosophy and meditation within the FPMT network, and also teachers Cultivating Emotional Balance. She is passionate about social justice and interfaith work in addition to her Buddhist practice, and has been teaching in prisons for more than a decade. She resides at Land of Medicine Buddha.

About Dr. Eve Ekman

Eve Ekman is a Senior Fellow at the University of California Berkeley Greater Good Science Center, Director of Cultivating Emotional Balance Training Program and volunteer clinical faculty at the UCSF Department of Pediatrics. Ekman draws from an interdisciplinary set of skills and knowledge from her professional work and personal practice in clinical social work, integrative medicine, emotional awareness, contemplative science, and meditation.

Ekman’s inspiration for research and training were inspired by her experience as a medical social worker in the emergency department of San Francisco General Hospital coupled with her training in emotion awareness and meditation intervention which she now leads: Cultivating Emotional Balance, CEB.

Science & Wisdom LIVE brings meditation practitioners in conversation with scientists to address the problems of contemporary society and come to new possible solutions.
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