A Small Action You Can Take This Week - Noticing your own Compass of Shame

This year's Mental Health Awareness Week (11–17 May 2026) has a simple theme: take action.

The Mental Health Foundation has been clear that the action doesn't need to be dramatic. It can be small, it can be quiet, it can take five minutes. What matters is that we move from knowing about mental health to doing something with that knowledge.

So here's one small action you might consider this week: get to know your own Compass of Shame.

Why shame matters

Shame is one of the most uncomfortable emotions we ever feel. It's the sinking sense that there's something wrong with us — not just that we've done something wrong, but that we ourselves are not quite right. Quietly, it sits underneath a great deal of what we call poor mental health: it feeds anxiety, depression, addiction, eating difficulties, and burnout. And because it's so painful, we rarely talk about it. We act it out instead.

The American psychiatrist Donald Nathanson noticed that, although shame triggers countless behaviours, almost all of them fall into one of four categories. He called this map of reactions the Compass of Shame.

The four poles

Think of a compass with four points. Nathanson placed a different shame response at each one. None of them are bad people doing bad things; they are simply the four directions humans tend to run when shame arrives.

Withdrawal — the instinct to hide. When shame hits, some of us go quiet. We isolate, avoid eye contact, leave the room, stop replying. Underneath is often a powerful belief: if they really saw me, they wouldn't like what they saw.

Attack other — the instinct to turn the tables. One fast way to escape the feeling that I'm the problem is to make someone else the problem. This pole shows up as blame, sarcasm, contempt, or outbursts. It can briefly relieve the discomfort, but it tends to damage the relationships we most need.

Attack self — the instinct to punish. Some of us turn the harshness inwards. We replay our mistakes, call ourselves names, apologise excessively, or accept blame that isn't ours. The strange logic is: if I'm hard enough on myself, maybe no one else will need to be. The cost is that the inner critic gets louder and self-worth gets quieter.

Avoidance — the instinct to distract. This pole is about drowning out the feeling — through alcohol, food, scrolling, shopping, work, or thrill-seeking. It's often the most socially acceptable response, which is partly what makes it sticky. Many addictions have shame quietly humming underneath them.

Most of us mix and match – I often say to clients that we dance around the compass of shame. You might withdraw at work and attack at home. You might avoid for years, then collapse into self-attack. The compass isn't a personality type; it's a map of moves.

The action: notice yours

If you're looking for a small action to take this week, here it is. The next time you feel that flash of shame — the heat in the face, the wish to vanish, the sudden urge to snap or pour a drink — see if you can pause for one breath and ask: which way am I about to run?

That's it. You don't have to do anything different yet. You just have to notice. Naming your direction creates a tiny gap between the feeling and the behaviour, and in that gap, choice becomes possible. That gap is where change starts.

Shame thrives in secrecy. Part of what makes it so painful is that it convinces us we're the only ones who feel this way. The Compass of Shame quietly disagrees. Every person you've ever met has, at some point, withdrawn, attacked, blamed themselves, or distracted themselves in the face of shame.

A gentle note

The compass isn't a tool for judging yourself — that would just be another lap around the attack-self pole. It's a tool for noticing. The four reactions Nathanson described are not failures of character; they're a sign of how clever the human mind is at trying to keep us safe. Understanding the map doesn't mean we never travel it again. It just means we know where we are when we do.

And if this week's small action turns out to be a bigger one — if you notice you're spending most of your time at one of these poles and it's costing you — that's worth talking to someone about. A GP, a trusted friend, or a qualified psychotherapist (such as myself) are all good places to start.

Take action, as this year's theme reminds us, doesn't have to mean take big action. It just means take some.

Get in touch if you need to talk to someone about shame. I would be happy to help!

Adapted from D.L. Nathanson, Shame and Pride (1992/1994). Mental Health Awareness Week 2026 is organised by the Mental Health Foundation; this year's theme is Take Action.