Embarrassment Is The Price Of Growth

03 Jan, 2026

If there is one emotion we have all collectively experienced at some point in our lives, it is embarrassment. Everyone carries stories of embarrassing moments. I would wager that many people replay at least one such moment in their minds every single day. The mind clings to embarrassment like an opiate. No matter how much we resist, it keeps looping—like that terrible song your mind stubbornly refuses to move on from.

At its core, embarrassment is rooted in a false reference point. It arises from the collision between the image of how the world perceives us and the idealised version of how we believe we should be. This clash—between how others see us and how we want to be seen—creates social pain, otherwise known as embarrassment.

When our self-image is negligent or distorted, we begin to view ourselves increasingly through the eyes of others. We fall prey to the image of an ideal, perfect self. And here lies the problem: the ideal self you have constructed is an abstraction. It cannot exist. It is entirely fabricated from hindsight. Your idealised version of yourself is built from imagined perfect responses to past situations—it is not the perfect response. It is merely a mental reconstruction.

In an “embarrassing” situation, your mind becomes hyper-aware of how you believe others perceive you. They must be laughing. I’ve made a fool of myself. These are imagined perceptions—assumptions of how others see you. Slowly, you begin to adopt these images as truth. You start believing you are an idiot. That you cannot write. That you cannot grasp complex ideas because you lack intelligence. You accept every judgment you assume others are making about you.

In those moments, you become acutely aware of every thought you have. You observe every action, every impulse, every opinion passing through your mind. You identify with each one and label it as you. This constant identification with thought becomes your identity. In psychoanalytical terms, this is called metacognition. And here lies the beautiful paradox.

The same metacognitive process that generates embarrassment is also the exact tool required to transcend it. Deep meditative practices force you into this metacognitive state—but instead of identifying with each thought, you begin to disassociate from them. You become a witness to your thoughts and memories rather than their captive. This is why people who meditate regularly often experience reduced anxiety.

You realise that while you are aware of your thoughts, you are not those thoughts. These same psychoanalytical insights find their roots in Advaita Vedanta, as articulated by Adi Shankaracharya. That is why it remains one of the most rigorous philosophical systems in the world—and I have read a fair share of philosophy.

So how do we move out of embarrassment? By flipping the switch.

There are two kinds of embarrassment. The first is social—where you believe you have made a fool of yourself. The second is the embarrassment of being a beginner. In cases of social pain, the work lies in fixing your reference point. Apply the same metacognitive process, but this time observe the thoughts without forming opinions. The moment you judge or indulge a thought, you begin identifying with it—and that identification shapes how you see yourself.

The key is to disassociate from every thought through which you have defined yourself. Every piece of feedback that has shaped your self-perception. You must observe them and let go. What remains, in the end, is who you truly are. Understand that “embarrassing” situations only gain power because you allow them to grow in your mind. Identify them and disassociate. Acknowledge, but move on—not through rationalisation, but through observation. The moment you disassociate, the thoughts lose their relevance. The mind is a sophisticated machine, after all.

The second kind of embarrassment is the beginner’s phase. We struggle to tolerate the label of incompetence. Someone who has worked for a decade in a company believes they have too much at stake to ask basic questions—they fear looking foolish. This is why parents often refuse to learn from their children, despite the children being far ahead on the learning curve. It is why people avoid learning new things or acquiring new skills: every new pursuit forces them to pass through incompetence.

We must accept that whenever we engage in a new project, a new craft, or enter unfamiliar social territory, we will experience incompetence. This incompetence manifests as a mental barrier—telling us we are not good enough, and never will be.

A person joining a company on their first day will inevitably feel inadequate next to someone who has been there for five years. But that inadequacy must be endured. We cannot measure ourselves against standards we have not yet earned through practice. Once again, at its core, this is a problem of false reference points.

Someone once asked me how to get good at writing. I said: write a lot of bad writing. “But my thoughts are messy and my language is pathetic,” they said. “Then write messily,” I replied.

The path to mastery runs straight through inadequacy. You cannot leap over it and arrive at the perfect version of yourself you have imagined. That version is abstract—and fundamentally unreal.

Embarrassment is also a signal that you are engaging with something new, something uncomfortable. The best favour you can do for yourself is to keep going. Action begets action. Feeling shy? Do it shy. Feeling underconfident? Do it without confidence. Stuttering while speaking in front of thirty people? Then stutter your way through it. Go all the way.

Fail repeatedly until failure stops frightening you. That is when learning begins. You cannot fail in the exact same way over and over if you are this hyper-observant of yourself. That is the trick.

The only way out of embarrassment is through direct confrontation. You failed? So what. You looked stupid in front of people? So what. They all hate you now? Good—at least there is clarity. They are laughing behind your back? Even better—hope they are enjoying themselves. You cannot form a proper sentence? Perhaps. But how do you actually know what a “perfect” sentence is?

If people understood that embarrassment is rooted in false reference points—and that the solution lies in the very process through which they amplify their suffering—we would see far fewer people crippled by social anxiety.