Welcome to the Very Well Mind podcast. We've interviewed over 100 authors, experts, entrepreneurs, athletes, musicians, and others to help you learn strategies to care for your mental health.

This episode is hosted by psychotherapist and bestselling author Amy Morin. Now let's get into the episode.

Okay. You're listening to The Friday Fix.

Today I'm talking about embarrassment.

It's an uncomfortable emotion.

And when people say things like, oh, I almost died of embarrassment.

Embarrassment won't actually kill you.

But avoiding embarrassment, that might actually kill you.

Before I explain how, let's talk about what embarrassment is.

It's a little bit different than most emotions.

A feeling like sadness is something that you feel regardless of whether you're alone or you're around other people.

Embarrassment, though, involves other people. It's that cringe-worthy feeling that you get when you've lost a bit of social status. You feel like you're being judged negatively by people around

you. It might be for having spinach in your teeth or for tripping on stage in front of a room

full of people.

But it's not always the negative things that lead to embarrassment. You might feel embarrassed when your boss gives you a compliment in front of everybody in a meeting. Or you might feel embarrassed

when your new love interest rags about how amazing you are to their friends while you're just

sitting there. If you're a strongly empathetic person, you might also

feel embarrassment from someone else's behavior. If your friend says something inappropriate at the

dinner table or your colleague has too much to drink at a networking meeting, you might find

yourself feeling embarrassed by their behavior. When you feel embarrassed, you'll likely also feel

self-conscious and awkward.

You might experience some physical symptoms, too.

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