Why Sharing Cringe Moments Is the Path From Embarrassment to Empowerment

Cringe doesn't have to singe.

These glasses are back in style. Photo is author’s property.

Imagine standing on stage, microphone in hand, telling your most embarrassing story to 200 strangers. 

Imagine that everyone is smiling and clapping after you're through.

Imagine feeling joyful, not self-conscious at all. Now that you have released the story, its fangs have lost their grip on you.

Last week, I attended "Cringefest" in Red Bank, New Jersey. It was a fundraiser for Project Write Now, a non-profit community offering fee-based virtual classes, editorial services, and literary events. 

Five brave speakers shared their most embarrassing stories. 

One man's first sexual encounter topped the list of cringeworthiness.

When the speaker was fifteen, he stole a condom from his father's wallet and got caught. But as a man on a mission, he implored his father to allow him to hold onto the crinkly foil packet. Sensing his son's urgency, his dad let him keep it.

The condom was necessary, you see, because he was planning to lose his virginity to a girl he had met on the cruise ship where he was vacationing with his family. They had met up regularly, and the heat and hormones were building to a predictable conclusion.

This would be the night. 

To be prepared for what he envisioned as the best moment of his young life, he put on the condom hours before the planned rendezvous. In his innocent brain, he thought he was supposed to do this. 

Demonstrating a funny limp-walk across the stage, our speaker shared that the spermicide in a condom eventually dries up. 

We all felt that.

When he met up with the girl on the ship later that evening, she was both grossed out and turned off by his uber-preparedness. To his great disappointment, his virginity was preserved.

Everyone cringed (of course) and laughed because we remember what it feels like to be an inexperienced teenager.

Then there was a story about bodily fluids, which always elicit the best cringes.

This speaker, a former newscaster, shared a period story where she bled on the cloth seat of her male coworker's car. The event impacted her so much that twenty years later, she started a program in her local school to ensure free feminine hygiene products in all girl's bathrooms.

At the end of her story, stagehands threw packages of pads and tampons into the crowd. Quite a funny way to imprint her story in our minds!

I bet you've got period stories, too. No one makes it to menopause without one (or ten!)

No matter our gender, we've all got cringeworthy anecdotes.  Although not necessarily on a stage, sharing them can be surprisingly beneficial. I've shared my not-funny-at-all divorce story, which still makes me cringe, but less so than before. Maybe there will come a day when I own my story's good, bad, and ugly.

The more open we are about ourselves, the more transparent and aligned we become. Fewer secrets mean we are lighter and more receptive to higher truths.

The man who can keep a secret may be wise, but he is not half as wise as the man with no secrets to keep. Edgar Watson Howe

Being in a state of embarrassment is a type of poison. The word "embarrass" comes from the Portuguese embaraçar, whose prefix "em" is from the Latin" in" and whose base word "baraço" or "baraça" means "a noose" or "rope." 

The French word "embarrasser" means to block. 

In Italian, "imbarrazzo" means to bar.

In a noose.

Block. 

Bar. 

Can you feel how your energy might get stuck in embarrassment? 

Tell me if I'm taking this too far, (please leave me some comments!!) but maybe we shouldn't be embarrassed at all. Like ever.

People might argue that we need to be embarrassed to change our behavior. But what if our embarrassing behavior is caused by a lack of knowledge?

We can only act within our current level of understanding or consciousness. We can't help what we know or don't know. 

That's why sharing those moments you'd rather forget is the way to let go.

Sharing a cringeworthy story normalizes our imperfection. Nobody's perfect, and no matter how hard you try, perfection is unattainable. By exposing our cringeworthy moments, we break the facade of perfection, especially on social media and HGTV. 

By sharing an awkward story, we create bonds with each other. Hearing your cringe will stoke empathy and compassion in the listener, reminding them of a moment they're not fond of either.

Admitting our embarrassing moments requires noble attributes like bravery, humility, and vulnerability. It also shows that we can laugh at ourselves. I like being around people with those qualities.

How about you?

Best of all, and most importantly, cringe-worthy stories make us laugh—not at ourselves but with each other as we own our experiences.

So, next time you cringe at a past blunder, consider sharing it with someone—it might be the healing you need.

Since you made it to the bottom, here is your reward. ⬇️ ⬇️ ⬇️

My granddaughter put her baby brother to sleep! Photo credit Author