#89 Toxic Shame | Recovery Secrets Series

Welcome to the Overcoming PTSD Podcast. My name is Brad Schipke, and this is the limited series called Recovery Secrets Daily Coaching. Now, these were private sessions that I originally ran as a paid coaching program, but now for the first time ever, I'm making all 100+ sessions available for free for all of you podcast listeners. And this series is over 100 days of practical strategies that have helped thousands of trauma survivors fully heal. So make sure to subscribe because I'm dropping a new episode every single weekday until the archive is complete, and you definitely do not want to miss it. So without further ado, let's dive on in.

All right, we are live here. Welcome everyone to our Recovery Secrets daily coaching call. It is so good to be here with each and every one of you on this Friday morning, Friday of another amazing, amazing week. So we'll give everything kind of a, a minute to connect up here. If you— my brain is in the wrong place. If you're gonna be joining us live, Feel free to say hey in the chat box there so that we can welcome you as we go along here and we can engage throughout the session here today. This lovely man to my right.

Good morning, everybody. My name is Brad. If you are new, welcome. It's great to have you this Friday. If you're old, welcome back. I'm excited for today's topic. It's something that I struggled with a lot personally, and when I was able to kind of fix this, it really transformed my life. And this is a topic that you guys voted on. So it's, it's a topic that you guys picked, right? You guys submitted. And also, do we know who submitted it? But we, whatever you guys submitted and voted on. And the topic today is toxic shame. So how to overcome shame, overwhelming feelings of shame, embarrassment, humiliation, worthlessness, all of that stuff. But the term that kind of embodies that is shame and toxic shame. So it's, it's going to be a great topic, hopefully very transformational for you guys. And we're going to, you know, really try to get a lot of interaction with you guys today as well. So you can stay tuned to that.

Cool. So this is an awesome topic. Super.

Oh, Sharni. Sharni submitted it.

Is that how we— is that how we pronounce— are we pronouncing that right?

Yeah. Let me know if I said it wrong.

Because we're having a conversation about this recently.

I'm pretty sure it's Sharni.

Sharni. Okay. So great topic. And I mean, I looked last night and it won by— yes. And thank you. And it won by a landslide, which is awesome. So super excited to have this conversation here today. This isn't a topic that we've done a direct dive on. So very, very exciting stuff here. So let me welcome some people. Welcome Jen, welcome Mimi, welcome Sherry, welcome Judy, welcome Lorena, welcome— I always do this— Sharni.

She's dyslexic, so she says it wrong.

Shereen, it— because it sees that. Welcome Christina, welcome Jeanette. Great to have each and every one of you here with us this morning. So that's the conversation: shame, toxic shame. And so Anytime— and I think this is a good part of the conversation to have— when Brad and I are solving a problem, the very first thing that we try to do is figure out what the problem actually is. Now, that might sound a little weird and sound like an unnecessary step, but we need to fully understand the problem before we can solve it. So when we just say something like shame, I might have different feelings of how shame presents for me than Brad does. And so What we like to do is get on the same page and have basically the same foundations. So the very first thing we want to do here is actually define shame. So we're going to define that. So shame, by definition, is a painful feeling of humiliation or distress caused by the consciousness of wrong or foolish behavior. So I'm going to read it again. Shame, by definition, is a painful feeling of humiliation or distress caused by the consciousness of wrong or foolish behavior. That's our definition. So that's our starting point. Now, I personally feel like this definition is missing one word that makes a tremendous difference in how it's actually defined and how it's actually perceived and taken on. So I'm gonna tell you what that word is, and that word is the perception, right? So here's what I feel shame is. Shame is a painful feeling of humiliation or distress caused by the consciousness of of perceived wrong or foolish behavior. And that is a really important tweak to that definition. Okay. So we, we've gone from the consciousness of a just straight out wrong or foolish behavior to a perceived wrong or foolish behavior. Because very often when we're feeling shame, basically what's happening is we think that what we're doing would be humiliating or in someone's eyes is humiliating, in our eyes is humiliating. But it's a perception, and that's really all that it is. And one thing I think is interesting about this topic is, is it is a perception because so many things we do aren't shameful. They're not humiliating when it comes down to it. We're all human beings. And as much as I think the world likes to paint us and we like to paint us as perfect, we all make mistakes and we all do things. We're all human. And what— so, so much of what you do behind closed doors or the things that you struggle with. Everyone else is struggling with too. If not everyone else, so many people are struggling with too. And it's really, it's not that uncommon. It's not that big of a deal. And you, there's no reason to feel ashamed, even though there are going to be people out there. And this is an important part of the conversation too, that would think what you're doing is humiliating. That's on them. Right. And so that's their own perception of themselves and really actually has nothing to do with you or that behavior. And I'm getting a little bit ahead of myself, but Mm-hmm. that perception is a really important part of this conversation that we're going to have today. So I want to ask you all in the chat box here, how many of you have ever felt shame? Ever felt shame? Give me a, a Y for yes, hands up, whatever it is. I definitely have. I know Brad has. We're all, we're all humans, right? So Joe asking me to repeat that definition. So if you literally Google shame, there's just one word that I'm going to add to this definition. So a painful feeling of humiliation or distress caused by the consciousness of Perceived, that's the word I'm adding, wrong or foolish behavior. Because is a behavior ever, is it ever actually wrong? Was it ever actually wrong? Right? We make mistakes. Would you look at a kid and be like, well, that's, that's like totally wrong, right? Well, no, that's a learning experience and we need to have these experiences and make mistakes in order to grow and actually figure these things out. And so even if something is wrong, it's actually not wrong. Because we need to do something, what we would call wrong, in order to get To a place where we're doing the right things and we're living our life in the way that we want to live. So a lot of people experiencing shame. So I want to welcome some more people. Welcome Joe. Welcome Helene. Welcome Mimi. Welcome Pat. Welcome Bonnie. Welcome Judy. Welcome Ella. Great to have you here. So a lot of people struggle with shame, which is why this was voted on today, right? So you're not alone in that. So just in that alone, right? So just in that alone. So whatever you're feeling shame. about or with, just know that other people are not only just feeling shame, but there are other people out there in the world that are feeling shame about that thing that you feel ashamed about. And do you have anything? Do you want to— I'm like, just—

No, you can go. You're free to go. I do have stuff, but it's—

Yeah. And so for me in my life, the combatant of shame, and I actually pulled up the thesaurus, isn't really doing us any good today, but some Antonyms for shame. I love doing this. I love— again, we like to define the problem, get on the same page, and make sure we're using the same dialogue, describing the same thing before we solve it, right? So some antonyms are approval, esteem. Think about the word self-esteem, honor, praise, respect, pride. I want you to look at those antonyms. The opposite of shame is pride, is honor, is respect, is esteem. You want high esteem in yourself. Mm-hmm. Shame is not going to give you that thing, right? And there's nothing wrong with feeling shame, but for me in my life, how I've combated shame and how I worked against shame is actually turning into it. So for me, it's always been one of those things where it's like, you know what, I'm gonna lean in, I'm gonna own this thing. I'm ashamed of how much TV I watch. I'm ashamed of watching pornography. I'm ashamed of playing video games late into the night. I'm ashamed of The way that I treat my partner. I'm ashamed of being hurt and having PTSD. I'm ashamed of all these things. I'm ashamed that I, I yelled at Brad, right? And I, whatever, threw an ice cream sandwich at him. I'm ashamed of that thing. Why would I be ashamed of that thing? If I'm ashamed of that thing, what's gonna happen? What's going to happen if I'm ashamed of that thing? Let me know in the chat box there. If I'm ashamed of something that I've done or something that I'm doing, What will happen? What will happen if that shame is there? Let me know in the chat box there. I'll give it a minute. I'm always— I always jump right on it, right? But what's going to happen if I feel ashamed of that thing, right? So I feel ashamed of the way that I treat Brad. I yell at him, I threw an ice cream sandwich at him, and that makes me feel shame. I feel ashamed of that. Now what's going to happen if I feel ashamed? What actions am I going to take? Am I going to take actions to make that better? No, right? I'm not going to take actions to get that, make that better. That's the tricky thing about shame is you would think, okay, if I feel guilty, if I feel ashamed, I'm going to take action to make that better. But what happens with shame is we perpetuate a negative cycle of not doing anything because we're hiding from it. Shame is hiding from it. Shame is putting kind of a hood over your head, right? And putting a blanket around you and hiding from it. That's what shame is doing. Respect, esteem is me saying, you know what, I did that thing. I hurt you. I yelled at you. I threw something at you, and I'm sorry. That's not shame. That's the opposite of shame. That's taking the hood off and facing it. And so shame is one of those things where you need to lean into it. You need to face it. You need to go head on to it, own it, beat on your chest. It doesn't matter what it is. There are so many other people doing that thing, no matter what the thing is, no matter how how intimate or how weird that you think it is, it's not that weird. We're human beings. And so many of us have that human experience, whatever it is, even if it's in society seen as bad, seen as negative, seen as whatever it is, you need to face that basically and own it. And it starts with you. And again, when we go back to the definition of shame, I changed that word to be the perception, the perception of a behavior that you think should be humiliating, or you think somebody else might think is humiliating. It's not. We're human beings. Okay? We're all little kids at some point and pick our nose and bite our nails and, and eat our boogers like that. It just is. It just is. Kids don't feel ashamed for that because they don't have the mental framework that says, hey, this person's gonna judge me. Right? I mean, that's just, that's just how it is. So by owning it, that's how you're gonna like unlock yourself from that shame. You're going to take that hood off, you're going to throw that blanket off, and you're going to be out in the world saying, I, I did this thing, I do this thing. And that's how you're going to be able to make a change, right? That's how you're going to be able to make a change. Shame is going to be negative and it's going to keep you hidden. It's going to keep you running away.

Yeah. It's like you're fighting reality, right? It's like you are doing this thing. You have done this thing. The shame is you trying to push it away. You're trying to keep it at Arm's length or even, even further away. So you keep pushing this, this fear and this pain away more and more and more and more. And then it builds and it just like festers inside of you. It's the same thing with any, any, any trauma or anything, any other pain that you go through in your past. If you don't allow yourself to, if you, if you don't face it and you don't allow yourself to feel it and let that feeling and emotion, that fear go, it'll stay stuck inside of you. So by owning it, by looking at it, You, you face it, you release it, you accept reality for what it is. Like, the reality is you did this thing, right? Right. It's not going to help anybody to deny reality. It's just going to cause you more pain. It's going to cause you to hold on to that pain even more. And that's what shame does. You're basically holding on to this pain and trying to— like, you're holding it inside of you is what it is, and you're pushing it down, which is just going to cause it to grow and get bigger. So, I mean, that's— that is the real solution, is you own it. And you allow yourself to feel that fear or whatever it is, and you let that emotion out and you process it.

And I think what's important about this too is you want to make that this very person, because what shame can sometimes be is, I'm ashamed of how somebody else will perceive me. I'm ashamed of what somebody else will think of me. And at the end of the day, the only person that matters is you. So you want to get so personal, so in a good way, selfish about this. And you want to, you want to own it. I don't care what Brad thinks about me, right? So I'm saying I have an issue with TV. I have an issue with drugs. I have an issue with alcohol. I don't care what his perception is. I don't care what friends and family, I don't care what they think. This is about me. Make it about you. It's okay for things to be about you. You need to own it. And again, like you need to own it to the point where there are going to be people in your life who are like, that are like, wow, so embarrassing. And you wanna own it to the point where it's like, no, it's actually not. You know what's embarrassing? Hiding from it. You know what's embarrassing? Continuing to do it. Here's the thing about shame, right? So you take an action and you feel ashamed. You don't wanna take that action. You don't wanna do that anymore. Shame is what keeps you doing that thing. Owning it and saying, hey, I did this thing, is what allows you to actually make that change. It's what allows you to make that split. Okay?

Mm-hmm.

So feeling shame is, is an indication that you want to get better. Our brain's just doing it in the wrong way. It's just taking the wrong route.

Mm-hmm.

Owning it and saying, hey, this is an issue for me. That's where you can start to feel pride. That's where you can actually make a change. Shame is gonna keep you hidden. Owning it, pride is gonna give you that esteem. It's gonna allow you to beat on your chest. Guess what? I don't care what anyone else thinks about, you know, me having a, a TV addiction or a drug addiction or an alcohol addiction or video game addiction or food addiction or spending addiction or a pornography addiction. It doesn't matter what it is. It doesn't matter what anybody else thinks. It doesn't Doesn't matter what my parents think. Doesn't matter what my best friends think. It doesn't matter what my partner thinks. It does not matter what anybody else thinks. It matters what I think. And guess what? If they think less of me for owning something, it's probably because they're not owning things in their own life. And honestly, they're going to see. Then is when we can cultivate change. That is when change happens. And that's their loss. If anybody thinks less of me, that's not on me. That's a huge reflection on them. That's a reflection on them not being able to own up to human experiences Them not seeing that acceptance is the first part of changing anything. And honestly, it's just their loss, and it's their embarrassment about their own things. It's their shame about their own things. Because what somebody does when— if they're going to judge you like that, what's going to happen is they're putting themselves in your shoes, and they're saying, I would feel ashamed, because they don't have what it takes to own it in that moment. Doesn't mean they never will, but they don't have what it takes to own it. And so what it takes to own it is Making it selfish, making it about you, and seeing that we're all human beings. We're all human beings. Everyone has their thing that they do, and it's not that weird. And you're not in a good way here. You're not unique in whatever behavior or action or whatever it is that you're feeling ashamed about. You're not. And it's okay. And it's okay to talk about those things. And it's okay to own those things. I've screamed at Brad more times than I can count. For sure. And said awful, awful things to him and put my fist through a wall many times and done all these awful things. And now I can look and I can own it. And guess what? Somebody else might be like, wow, you're a horrible person. Doesn't matter to me because I'm owning it. And once I started to own it, I could change, right? So I've been abusive to Brad. When I didn't own that, when I felt ashamed about that, no change happened. No change happened. When I said, you know what, listen, I have been abusive. I have. But those are abusive actions. Those are manipulative, controlling, whatever actions. When I say, hey, that is abusive, that is controlling, that is manipulative, then I can change. I can own that. I can wear that as a badge and then move forward with that. And that's how you put it in the past, is wearing it, owning it. So whether it's addiction or relationship stuff or whatever it is that you're facing, stand straight and own it. You're a human being and you deserve to be able to move forward, and you don't have to stay hidden in the shadows because everyone has their thing, everyone's doing their thing. And there's so many other people out there that are hidden in the shadows thinking that, you know, they, they have to feel ashamed or that society would shun them or friends, family would shun them. And, you know, if that happens, that's friends and families, that's their loss, and that's an indication of where they are in their life. But there's so many other people out there that will accept you, especially the— with the age of the internet, you can go and find groups for anything, support groups for anything, for, for spending, for video games, for any sort of thing that you're facing that you're feeling ashamed about. Could be— I mean, I— there used to be this show when I was younger, My Strange Addictions. There's all sorts of things. So I digress a little bit, but own, own it. Own whatever it is that your thing is.

Yeah.

And I encourage you to do it right now. There's no pressure to do it right now. If— and whether you want to do it in the chat box or you just want to do it out loud, and you're— if whether you're walking or driving or at home, whether you're alone or even in front of people, Just own whatever your thing is, right? I'm addicted to TV. That, that's one of my things. I'm addicted to TV. That's one of my things. That's great. Okay, now, now I can change. So I encourage you to own it in some way, shape, or form right now. Say it out loud. Put it in the chat box if you want. There's no pressure to do that, of course. But if it's a little uncomfortable, do it. Absolutely do it. Because that's how you step out of it. It's not going to be comfortable to step out of shame. It's not going to be comfortable, but it's going to benefit you long term, and it's going to show you That you're capable and you're worthy and you're deserving of the healing that comes after the shame, right? Because so much of shame is worthlessness. We think we're worthless. We think we're not good enough. And you are, but you have to be the first one to see that. And eventually, it will reflect on everyone in your life.

That's huge. And one thing I love that you said is it's not about what other people think, like what other people think doesn't matter. Because ultimately, you can't control what other people think. The true problem lies is that other people's thinking, if you, if you are blaming somebody else, it's, it's not that it's their fault. It's that you are allowing their thoughts and their beliefs to change the way that you perceive yourself. I'm gonna say that again. It's not their, it's not somebody else's thoughts or beliefs that makes you feel shame. It's you taking on those thoughts and beliefs and having, having those beliefs about yourself, thinking that you're not good enough, that you're not worthy. And just overall not accepting who you are and what owning it really means. Like underlying everything is just accepting yourself, accepting this is, this is the way I am right now. And that's okay. That's, that's what owning it is. Cause I used to think owning it was wrong. I used to think owning it was like, okay, I need to step out and say these things. Like I'm this, this, and this, but it wasn't really addressing the, the, the shame because I still wasn't accepting myself. You know, I would say it and I would still feel more shame. Underlying owning it is building like basically an unshakable foundation of acceptance, self-acceptance and self-love and changing those beliefs so that you do love yourself so that you do accept yourself no matter what and say, hey, I do have this. That's okay. I'm working on it. I'm getting better. And it doesn't matter what you say because I love me. I accept me. Right. And that's where ultimately you want to get is getting to that foundation where you can say it, you can own it. So I believe the foundation of owning it is, or when you own it, you move towards self-acceptance. And if you, if you're focusing right now on blaming somebody else, all your attention, all your focus, all your power is being focused and channeled into something that you have absolutely zero control over, right? And you're absolutely ignoring the one thing that you can control, which is your own thoughts and your own beliefs, which Most of us don't spend enough time changing the way that we believe. And Kayleen had a great coaching session last week on, you know, blaming and excuses. When you do that, when you blame somebody else for your shame or for whatever, or they said this, they said that, again, it's not them. It's your thoughts about yourself that are making you feel bad. If you felt so good about yourself, if you loved yourself, you accepted yourself, and somebody said something, it wouldn't matter unless you allowed that to shift the way that you believed Who you are, because that's where the emotions come from. It's not whatever, what somebody else says. It's what you believe about yourself. And that's such a huge thing. So with that knowledge, you can start changing those beliefs with what we've taught before and everything else. But sometimes just the awareness alone is like, wow, I haven't been good to myself. It's not their fault. It's like, I can work. I need to work on my thoughts. I'm telling myself I'm a bad person. I'm telling myself I'm, I'm not good enough. I'm telling myself I should be ashamed for doing this thing. Or I should be bad. I'm a bad person because I did this thing, or I do these things all the time. That's the stuff we need to, we need to cut out. Other stuff, like other people are going to say whatever they're going to say. Like we can't, we can't do anything about that. We can work at changing it and influencing, you know, influencing change in other people's life, but ultimately can't do anything about it. But the thoughts that we have about ourselves, that's where the power comes in. That's where the change comes in. That's where owning it comes in.

Yeah. And I think what's cool is a lot of times what happens is And you don't have to like just go out and like get a tattoo on your forehead that says, I'm addicted to this thing. Right. And you don't have to go out and tell everyone about it. It's about owning, owning it with yourself. But if you ever do like own it to the point where, you know, you're saying it to a partner or to a friend or to a family member or whatever, a lot of times what happens is it breaks down this wall that we can keep up as society. And it'll, it, it's vulnerability. And a lot of times what happens, and this isn't always the case, but a lot of times what happens Is someone will see that and someone will reflect and say, you know what, me too sometimes, right? I also struggle with that thing, or I struggle with this, or, you know what, I have another good friend that really struggled with that, and they'll help you out and they'll give you resources, right? And I've had that happen a lot in my own life, like, you know, being so ashamed, so scared to say something. I was struggling with this in my relationship or whatever it was, and then saying it, and then somebody being like, oh, you know what, I've actually been through that too. Or a good friend of mine went through that, right? And so it allows you to have this vulnerability, and that vulnerability is a really cool thing. But like Brad said, owning it is— it's the first step. It's self-love, and it's putting the power in your hands, and it's giving you what you need to move forward. And it's so, so, so important. So I see Pat sharing about sugar, right? And so what I want to say to you all, whatever your thing is, welcome to the human experience. Welcome to the human experience. You're addicted to, again, sugar or spending or drugs or whatever it is. Welcome to the human experience. We have all had a thing or have a thing. Like Brad said, it doesn't make you a bad person at all by any stretch of the imagination. Things that you do are not reflective of who you are as a person. So when you start to own it, what's cool about healing is one of the— just to kind of sum it up, one of the really cool things about healing is Who you are as a person and the actions that you take start to align more and more and more. So you might be taking some sort of action right now that is not reflective of maybe your morals or who you are as a person. But the more that you heal, the more that those actions will align. And the more that you love yourself and know that you are worthy, you are capable, you are not a bad person, you are a human being. You don't need to hide. You don't need to feel afraid. The more that you see that, the easier it is, it's actually going to be to change those things. And that's kind of the conundrum of shame is you feel shame because you don't want to do this thing, but shame makes that cycle perpetuate and it just continues on and on and on. And so it seems counterintuitive to feel just, I mean, esteem would be a word, pride, you know what, just I'm a human being. And this is something that I did or that I do. So it seems really counterintuitive because it feels like, okay, owning this thing, does that mean I'm just going to continue to do it and just not feel bad about it even though maybe it's like a bad thing or something that I don't want to do? No, that's not what it means. It's what's going to allow you to move forward. So again, it's one of those moments where that's why I say lean into it because it is counterintuitive. It's really counterintuitive and it's uncomfortable. Discomfort is good. It's okay. Discomfort is good. So move towards acceptance and and self-love. And we work on a lot of other things throughout Recovery Secrets, throughout Broken to Unbreakable program, all sorts of things that will help you with that mindset, will help you with that self-love, will help you with those beliefs. But make this selfish. Block everybody out for the next 2 minutes. That's my challenge for you. Just 2 minutes. We'll start there. It's a muscle. Block everybody out. If nobody else mattered, how would you feel about yourself? If nobody else mattered, right? And now you're gonna have some beliefs that are there from other people. Imagine you're like a, a little kid who's never been hurt. I see this all the time at the grocery store or whatever, and they're just like picking their nose and just having a good old time, right? Because they don't, they don't know. Nobody has instilled the belief that they should be embarrassed about that thing. And they just, they just dig and then they'll snack on it, right? And they don't feel embarrassed about it. And it's because no one has given them that weight, that anchor yet.

Yeah.

And what's cool is we can, we can release ourselves from the, those anchors when we lean into it, when we see it, when we address it. That's what it is. It's addressing the problem. You can't just ignore it, ignore it, ignore it. We need to address it. We need to face it head on. Face that shame head on. Shine some light on it. That's how you're going to eliminate shame. Shame is this shadow monster that we feed by ignoring it. We feed by not facing it. We face it, we turn that light on, we realize it's not a monster under our bed. It's a helmet, it's a sweatshirt, it's a skateboard. It's not as scary as we think that it is, and it's okay to own these things. So that's the, the gist of what I just want to just tell you all. Like, you're a human being. Don't forget that. Don't miss out on that. And being a human being, making mistakes, whatever it is that you're, you're doing that you don't want to be doing, that you're feeling ashamed about, you're not alone.

And absolutely not.

So many people do it, and so many people are struggling with it. And you don't have to struggle with it in the shadows. You can own it. And that's how you can move forward. And what's cool about that is eventually you'll get to a point where you own it to the point where you can help other people. You can help other people own it. You can tell people, hey, my PTSD was something I was extremely ashamed of. Look at what we do. This was not something that I wanted to do because of that shame. So eventually you'll get to the point where you can own it to the point where you can reach out to other people and say, hey, you don't, you don't have to live in the shadows. You don't have to be so scared. You don't have to be ashamed. You're a human being. And guess what? This is all changeable. You don't wanna do this thing?

Mm-hmm.

Here's a hand up. Let's face it together, and here's how we can do it. Own it.

Yeah.

One of my great experiences with shame in regard to addiction specifically is with a good friend of ours. And it was the first time I really heard someone own something that I was like, whoa, did he really just own that thing? And he's an addict, drug addict. And we were away at a trip one time, and he just like— I forget how it came up in the conversation, But he had said something like, yep, I'm a drug addict. And it just like, it just came out of left field. Like, just had no idea that this was coming into the conversation. But it was part of it. It was like an appropriate part of the conversation. And it was just there and gone that quick. And it was like, this guy just like dropped this information that felt like this big information, but it wasn't big information to him because he owned it. And that's how he was able to move forward in that. Right. And then for the rest of us, it was like, oh, that's, that's not big information.

Right.

Since he owned it.

Great. But if he was like, like ashamed about it, like if you saw like his body language, if he was slouching or he's like spoke quietly, like, yeah, like I was a— I used to be a drug addict.

It's like it would be totally different, different experience.

And you could tell he was confident about it, right?

And that was cool.

It was a cool experience.

It was such a cool quality. It was, it was really, really neat to watch. And that was one of my first times of like, wow, like he just owned that thing that a lot of people would be iffy on. He just walked straight into it. So stand up straight, take a deep breath, walk straight into that shame and walk straight through it. And you're going to see what's on the other side. It's confidence, it's self-love, it's motivation, it's change. Change is on the other side. So own it. I mean, that is the ultimate thing that I can say is own it.

Yeah.

Own it.

Shame just causes you to avoid the true problem of what's going on. Like in my life, I felt when I first started become— becoming very, very hurt in my life, I was very ashamed just because mental health, my belief back then was, you know, you're, you're crazy if you go to a therapist. That was the belief that I held. And, or if you ask for help at all for any sort of mental health issue, like you're, you're crazy and like, you don't want to be that, like, that's a really bad thing. So I had a lot of shame around that, believe it or not. And I, I, I had a lot of shame just accepting it just within myself. But up until that point of me accepting it, I, I wasn't making any progress because I was avoiding the problem. 'Cause I was like, I don't wanna have this. I'm ashamed of this problem, so I'm gonna push this problem away. Had I kept doing that, I never would've solved it. Things just would've stayed the same or most likely just gotten worse because I'm like, I don't wanna deal with that problem. I don't wanna deal with the problem. I'm ashamed to admit that I have this problem. But when you own the problem, you can actually solve it and fix it.

Mm-hmm.

Now, another thing that everything we like said today is like the foundation to overcoming shame, toxic shame, whatever. I want to go a little bit deeper on just for a few minutes here, because I think it's important to touch on if you have very deep shame or shame that has a lot of trauma, because you may need to go further than just accepting it. Like that might be enough for a lot of people. And there were so many situations in my life where I didn't need deeper processing. I just needed to face it. I just needed to own it. And that was enough. And just being aware of what I was thinking and how I needed to change my thinking, that was enough to like transform. Everything. But if you're finding you're still struggling with it, or you have a lot of trauma around it, you may need to go deeper. You may need to use some processing tools on it. But I also want to highlight that just by you going through this process that we talked about today, just like owning it and changing your thoughts and your beliefs about it, you're— you are processing. You are doing processing. It's just not a processing tool per se, right? So a lot of things that we do and a lot of things we teach are walking you through and helping you process whatever you're going through, right? So it's not always like a tool or something else. But what we walked you through today hits on the 2 elements of processing, which is a logical change in belief and an emotional release, right? So we're changing beliefs, logical beliefs at a foundational level, right? Like I'm not good enough to I'm good enough, or I don't accept myself, I'm a bad person to I am a good person, and I accept myself, and this is okay. So we have that logical change. And then also, when you do this, there will likely be an emotional release to that as well. And And those are kind of the 2 elements of processing. So you're already doing processing. However, if it's deeper and that's not enough, you can use— and I saw Judy, you touched on this— you can use— I would recommend the Protector tool, which we teach in session 35. So if you go into the platform and hit the magnifying glass to search in the upper left-hand corner and you search 35, we did a— we did 5 sessions. We did a whole boot camp on Protectors teaching you that. Processing tool. So if you need deeper healing, know that you have the tools available to yourself to get that deeper healing. So I just wanted to touch on that as well, because for a lot of you, what we talked about today will be enough, or for— it'll be enough for probably most of your shame, but you might've experienced some bigger things, some bigger trauma in your life where you may need some kind of more targeted tools and effort and time put into that.

Yeah. And I'm glad that you mentioned that. Because sometimes, honestly, all you need— and if this is a gift that we can give you today, then great. And this is— if this is all you need, awesome. There's nothing to be ashamed about, right? And sometimes you just need to hear that from someone to say, you don't have to be embarrassed for that thing, whatever it is. That's a blanket statement, but literally whatever your thing is, I want you to think about your thing and hear me say, you do not have to be ashamed of that thing. You do not have to be embarrassed about that. And the underlying— you are not a bad person. You are not unlovable. You are not unworthy. because you do that thing or you have done that thing or whatever.

Yeah. Also, you know what's cool is like when you own your, your stuff, your problems, other people start to own it and you realize, wow, like I'm like, I'm seeing you guys who are sharing. I'm like, that's amazing. That's amazing. And then it makes, and it's making other people who are having, who have those same problems feel like they're not alone. Like us owning our PTSD hopefully makes you feel like you're not alone. Us owning that we went to therapy and we hurt and we had relationship issues and we had all these problems in our life hopefully make you feel like you're not alone and hopefully help you lower those walls. So that's another really great thing, an aspect of this, like when you own it, even in just our relationship, you own it. And then it helps me own it. Yeah, like, wow, that's really cool. It's okay. It's a safe space to, to share what I'm truly experiencing, what my, what my reality is. So that's another really cool, cool aspect of it and why I love you guys in this community here. It's, it's amazing.

It's the way to change. It's the way to growth.

I had so much shame in my life. It's like ridiculous.

And there's so many moments I remember even within our relationship where one of us owned something, and this happened on both sides, and it stopped everything in its track that was negative. It stopped the negativity completely when we were having maybe an argument or a fight or we're on our way and one of us, either of us, again, we've both done this. We're like, you know what? That was on me and I own that and I was wrong and I was abusive or I was whatever. It stops it in its track. It can't get, and it can't continue to go negative from there. And then what typically, again, this is a relationship example, but what happens is the other person's like, well, you know what? I contributed too. And I've done those things too. And I understand. And so again, the human experience, if you've ever screamed at your partner or screamed at your kids or just screamed at anyone, and you've heard us talk about those moments where we have screaming matches or where we've, Broken things, thrown things, trashed things, whatever it is. I can't tell you how many cups that we've lost.

How many cups we broke.

More than I care to count of those tumblers. And, and now we can laugh on it because we've owned it that much. I want you to own everything in your life like that. I can own the fact that I threw an ice cream sandwich at Brad because owning it was what allowed me to heal.

Also, I helped her own it a lot by teasing her ruthlessly.

He's a roaster.

So, but always, always accepted on the other side.

Yes, always, always accepted. So this is a safe place to, and again, just have a human experience. Understand that you're not alone, right? So whatever it is, I'm codependent, I'm addicted to X, I'm not, I'm, I screamed at this person, or I, maybe, maybe even I'm abusive. I'm abusive to people in my life at times. Maybe not all the time. It doesn't have to be a total count here. Right.

All right.

I've been abusive. I've taken abusive actions. Right. If you want to separate that a little from identity. So just whatever it is.

Or I've been abused.

Or I've been abused.

That's a huge one.

Right. So owning those things. Yeah.

Yeah.

That is a huge one. Right. And that's how you walk through it. That's how you shine the light on it. And like Brad said, there's going to be deeper processing. So Brad had said before, just the underlying, maybe you feel like you're not good enough. Maybe you feel worthless. Maybe you feel like you're a bad person. And this is the permission that you can give yourself. You're not a bad person for these actions. You're a human being. The nature of human beings is to make mistakes. So if this is something you don't want to do, this is a mistake that we need to work through. We need to own. I make mistakes all the time. I constantly make mistakes. And guess what? I own them. If an apology needs to happen, I apologize and I move forward.

So I think that's a great Great summary right there. If there's anything you feel ashamed of or embarrassed of or you're avoiding, work towards owning it. And it's a bigger concept because there's so many things you can own in your life. And it kind of goes on again, what you were talking about last week with excuses and blaming people. It's just like when you own it, it's like, okay, this is a problem. You just accept it. Like, okay, this is, this is how it is. How can I move forward? That's all it is. That's basically all it is. Okay, this is the problem.

This is the truth.

This is reality. How do I move forward?

Now let's—

this is my life. How do I move forward?

Bonnie sharing, so this is actually a good part of this, right? I had to accept that I had done things in the past that wasn't great behavior, but I also finally understood that much of it was not intentional and I did the best I was able to do at the time. That's beautiful.

That's awesome.

Right? So being ashamed about things we've done in the past, that's a beautiful example of another area that you can bring this to. I love that, Bonnie. That's awesome. Pat sharing, bringing the areas of shame into the light breaks the power of it. That's right. Shame thrives in the shadows. You got that shame shadows. Shame thrives in the shadows. Owning it, walking through it, stepping into it, that's what brings it into the light. That it melts it away. It literally melts it away. Helene sharing, when you own it, you move towards self-acceptance. Absolutely. So Judy sharing, I struggle with judging people completely the opposite of who I want to be. And we were talking about that misalignment a little bit here today, which is part of— or you're going to see more and more alignment as you heal more and more. This brings on shame too. Probably starts as a protector, but definitely not who I want to be. So this is a great example, Judy, of kind of the journey with shame is you are this person. I'm using hand movements here. You are this person, but you're acting not as that person. And what the healing journey does, and owning your— that you're acting in that way is part of what helps you do this, is it converges those 2 paths basically. Until you are acting as the person that you are. Your actions are reflecting who you are, who you say you are, your beliefs, your morals, all sorts of things like that. And so that, again, great, great thought to start with a protector on that. That's awesome. So I love this, Ella owning some, some med stuff, right? So on a bunch of different meds, reliant on as an addiction, right? So that's, I mean, that's owning. That's awesome, Ella. Awesome. Awesome. I love that. And I want you to think about, even if it feels uncomfortable initially to do that, how good that, how much of a relief that feels like. Mm-hmm. Yeah, just to say, hey, I'm, I'm addicted to this thing.

It's huge.

I've been abusive.

It's so transformational.

I've been manipulative.

Whatever, whatever it is. Just accepting reality, right?

Man, is that not— I love that. That's one of my favorite parts about this is that, that weight that comes off.

Yeah, that release.

You don't have to carry this big, giant, scary thing.

You don't have to step tiptoe around life trying to avoid the pain. It's just like, oh, there it is. It's done.

Bulldoze through it. Just Out it. I love it. I love it. And then Ella, I love the actions that you're taking, right? In search of someone to help with that detox, which is awesome. Couple of other med things. Awesome. So, so I love where, where you're taking this, right? So you're taking it from, I'm, I'm having these medications that I'm addicted to and, and don't want to be on. And then you're also seeing a future and basically here's what's going to happen in the future. And you're painting those 2 things is awesome. And you sum it up really well in your next comment there. Mother Nature is my doctor, right? So you're taking it from This place of highly processed meds to this place of something we might just term as a lot more wholesome. That's, that's beautiful, Ella.

Awesome.

Helene owning overspending, under-earning, sugarholic, codependent.

Love it.

I mean, like, literally beat on your chest about that. This is what I would literally do. I will sometimes still do this. I will just walk around and like Tarzan beat on my chest because, yeah, because I deserve it.

Yeah.

Because you deserve it. And honestly, just how good does that feel to be like, you know what, I'm codependent. That's— now you can do something about it. Now you can make a change. And honestly, it just makes life a lot less scary and hard and dark and twisty.

Yeah. And that makes you strong. The strong people do the hard things.

That's right. Right.

It's easy to run away in the moment.

Right.

It's easy to run away. And I don't like calling anybody this, but like, just to delineate 2 different types of people, like we people run away. Like if you're, if you run away from that, you're taking the easy route. You're doing, if you are accepting this and you are owning this, you are doing the hard thing. It's hard to do that. It's the challenging thing and you can feel good about it and you can start to feel some pride about it because you're doing the hard thing. And that takes a really strong person to do it. That takes a really powerful person to do. So when you own it, feel pride, be like, I'm doing something most people don't do. And That for me is— that was a big thing for me too, because I felt a lot of shame around getting help and admitting that I was hurt. And I realized that, wow, this is the hard thing. This is the thing that, at least my belief at the time, that society thought was bad. Like, I thought I was going to be extremely judged by going to therapy and, you know, accepting that I had PTSD. I thought I was going to be judged very harshly. I didn't want to tell anybody about it. I wanted to hide away and push it down. And so nobody would ever find out, right? Because I was so ashamed of it. But then I realized that it takes an extremely strong person to go against this massive judgment from other people. And I wasn't weak for having these problems. I was strong for admitting those problems because most people don't admit those problems and they never fix the problem. It takes a strong person to admit it, first of all, because there might be other judgments out, out there. And then it's just, it's just hard. It's just painful anyway to do that.

But it's a scary thing.

Then it's gone. Then you release it. It's done. And it's amazing.

And does that not feel so good? So I love that, Pat, sharing. That's so true. I only recently owned being a sugarholic. I heard someone else admit it, and it was a moment for me to realize that that is me, but now I'm recovering. I mean, that's nice. I think it's so cool. And that is the transition for so many people. Own it. Even, you know, put a name on it, right? And, and that's the transition. And say it out loud. And we don't really talk— I'm not a huge fan of a lot of what the 12-step does. The 12-step is great for some people. It's awesome. It has a lot of really good elements. 2 specifically can be the first, first step is to own it, right? That's, that's what they're talking about there. They're saying, hey, you have this, this addiction, own it, admit it, own it, get it out there. And then one of their other steps, and I forget exactly which step, is admit the nature of your wrongdoings to basically another human being. And what that does, and what I think is cool about that, is it lets us see that we are just human. And it lets us kind of get that off our chest and, and see that we're not crazy. We're not nuts. We're not Wrong. We're not bad people, and it just it gives you in that setting someone to just say, "Hey, it's okay. It's okay," and it's out and it's done, and then you're not. It's not hiding in this closet of your brain. Just it just is, and now it's out there, and man, is that such a relief! So those are two really kind of positive things, and just a good thing to admit. Sunny sharing, "I'm old. Own it." You can totally own it. You're only as old as I mean you like think that you are, right? Age is quite literally a number. I know some seventy-year-olds that are in the best shape of their life, and I know some seventy-year-olds that. that are less healthy than 90-year-olds. And it's— I mean, I would say own your age. Own your age. Don't act your age. Own your age. And still just understand that anything is possible. Anything is possible, right? So whatever your age is, own that, because that, like, that's reality, right? You've been on this planet that many days and months and years, right? That you can own. You don't have to accept maybe what people even perceive as that age. Right? So in my 90s, I would like to be rocking and rolling and jumping around still and dancing. And like, I don't know how old Betty White is, but that kind of situation, right? Where we're just, we're jumping around and we're still working and we're crushing it. And into my hundreds, rather than, you know, I've had a lot of family members who in their 70s or 80s look much, much older than that and don't do anything and basically stop moving, stop taking action. So It doesn't have to limit your perception of what you could be or what changes that you can make. You can make changes at any point in your life. I know a lot of stories about people who were well into their 80s, made a lifestyle change in regard to diet or exercise, and extended their life tremendously.

Yeah. So I would say it's 100% something to own.

Yeah.

And it can happen at any age, you know, where you, you feel ashamed at whatever age you are. Like, I know when I was younger, when I was first— well, I was in real estate Probably just for a year and a half. And then I started my own business and I looked so young. I looked like a baby. And I thought nobody would respect me. Nobody would think I— I didn't think I could provide value to anybody because I was so young. Even when we started doing this, we're like, wow, we're so young. But that was something that we had to own. And I'm so glad that we did, you know, and that we didn't allow that to prevent us from doing what we wanted to do. And at the end of the day, it was just our beliefs around ourselves. So at any age, no matter what age you are, I think it's extremely valuable to own it and be like, this is what I am and this is my worth and I'm freaking awesome.

Yeah, we're all human beings. And that's something I like to bring to kids as well. It is, I work to very actively sometimes just treat everyone as an equal and everyone gets an equal say and an equal opinion, no matter how old, no matter how young. I, you know, I try to treat everyone with the same level of respect. And so I had a tendency in my life to people who were Quite old, almost kind of talk down to them and talk to them almost like I would kind of talk to a toddler and assume that they don't know anything. And that was just kind of like a weird thing that I experienced when I was younger. And what I didn't realize until I got a little bit older was actually they know a lot more than I do. Okay. And and I mean, kids have unlocked in certain areas because they don't have judgments, right? And people that are much older have a lot more wisdom and have a lot more hindsight, which is. 2020, which is a pretty good situation, right? So just, I don't know, that, that's a little digression there, but something that I, I work to do. I love, I love these admissions, right? Pat sharing, I admit sometimes I'm a screaming meme and have an angry outburst and say mean things. That's a great admission.

There you go.

That's awesome. Beat on your chest about that. You're a human being.

Again, you're something I had to admit too.

That's right.

Yeah. And it went so against my identity and who I wanted to be, and it was hard for me. So you're not alone in that.

Not alone. I love it. Barbara sharing, I'm so grateful for your coaching as I'm receiving the information I need for just what I'm working through at the present. Deep gratitude that you share your healing experience. Barbara, I'm so glad that this resonates and this lines up with what you're going through. That's awesome.

Yeah, you're crushing it.

Teresa sharing, I'm addicted to shopping. Awesome. Owning that. Fantastic. Right? Just again, like, man, how good does that feel? Just to say that, to own it. It's out there. It's done. And guess what? That, like, it's, that's one thing that I think is cool too. You break that initial barrier, it's done. You never have to break that initial barrier again. You've owned it. Now you can continue to own it and it's going to be easier from here on out, right? Because you're, you're beginning that process. It's awesome. Theresa sharing, there's an app that I use to help with my addiction, which is great because you're taking action on it. You have a plan in place. Joe sharing codependency addiction to people.

That's a huge one.

Awesome. So important to own. Because what happens when we own it? Once we own it, then we can take action. Then we can change it. Then we can make improvements. Pat sharing, I'm addicted to buying books. Pat, honestly, same, right?

Honestly, kind of same here, but I don't have a problem with it.

Brad is, but that's an awesome thing to own.

Yeah. Yeah. I guess if you're like, your house is just filled with books, like that could be like hoarder style books.

Well, I mean, whatever. It's totally up to you as an individual, you know? And that's awesome. That's an awesome thing to own. I love it. Alina sharing food and TV, another awesome thing to own. Here's what's the, the thing, for an example, like, I mean, anything, even a lot of things that were mentioned— shopping, food, TV. What else did we have mentioned? Just people. What's going to happen on the, the outside world is almost going to try to invalidate what you've just owned because, well, you know, it's not that big of a deal to watch TV at night. You got to unwind somehow. Well, you have to eat. Well, I mean, you're going to need to buy things. Which is why it's so important for this to be an individual journey, an individual journey, because there are going to be people out there that say, hey, that behavior that you don't like, it's okay. Don't worry about it. Everybody does that. Everybody plays video games. Everybody watches pornography. Everybody eats bad foods. Everybody watches TV. Everybody scrolls on social media. And guess what? That's actually not the truth. That's not the truth. But it doesn't matter. Even if it was, even if everybody but you, which is not the truth, did that thing, you need to live your own life. And you need to own what's best for you, which is again why this has to be such a— and I use selfish in a good way cuz selfish is a good thing— selfish journey. You have to put yourself in this bubble, focus only on you, put those blinders on and do what's best for you and own it for you first. Because the stronger that you are in your owning of it, the better you're better off. You're gonna be kind of moving out into the world with it. And that's why that needs to be the first step. I love it.

Love it. Love it. I'll read this one from Teresa, which I think is awesome. Teresa says, when I started therapy, I asked my bosses if I could leave an hour early once a week. My boss's boss figured I always figured I was going to therapy and said it was great to see me taking care of my wellbeing. Just awesome.

How great is that? I mean, how great is that?

That's awesome.

I love when people will mention like therapy casually in a conversation. We were somewhere recently, I forget exactly. It's becoming so much more normal and You know, someone just casually in a conversation said, you know, something like, yeah, my therapist and I actually had a conversation about that. And that's something that I had to work on. Normal. Because she owned it.

Yeah.

Right. Right.

And obviously, it's so strange, like, thinking back even 10 years ago, that it was just wasn't part of the conversation. Yeah.

I mean, bring it into the conversation. The more we bring it into the conversation, the, the better we can get as just like a global community to start to own these things. And to start to not like just show people you don't have to hide in the shadows. You don't have to be ashamed of these things. So many people struggle with these things, and that can start with you. Again, you don't have to go out to be the spokesperson. This is again not what I saw myself doing many years ago. I did not go out, and you know when I kind of Brad and I were having the conversation a long time ago where the question was, you know we didn't even really know what was going on with me, and it was like okay PTSD CPTSD and then going to kind of get help and stuff. And this was not— I, I owned it to him. I owned it to myself, or rather I owned it to myself first, and then I started to own it more and more in my life. But I didn't set out with the intention of, oh, I'm going to be the person, the person. I'm going to own it to the point where I'm the person on this for the rest of my life. That's not how I set out. And you don't have to do that. You can just own it and live your life and it just be part of your individual life. You don't have to go out there with the intention of Changing the global community or changing the conversation or bringing it into conversations. Just start with you. And that's an important step. So any other things we wanna own before we hop off here, feel free, safe space to do it. And understand again, when you, when you do this, honestly, everybody goes up. Really, really does. So for those of you who own something, whether you did it in the chat box or you just said it out loud where you were, or you wrote it down.

Mm-hmm.

Or you said it in your head and you owned it and you owned it to yourself. Congratulations on doing that, because that is the first step. I'm super proud of you for doing that, and I want— I just— I want you to know you're acknowledged for doing that. That's not an easy thing to do. It can be a very scary thing to do. But I also want you to think about the way that you feel right now having done that, and I want you to think about the weight that was lifted, that you were able to just get out there and get out into the world, and the deep cleansing breath, the, the light breath that you can kind of take having that heaviness off of you, having that shadow off of you, putting that into the light, putting that out into the world. I want you to use that as a reference that whatever problem that you're facing in life, you're not alone. And owning it is the first step in solving it. And there is, again, here's my permission for you to give yourself permission. If this is what you need, there is nothing to be ashamed about ever on this journey. It doesn't matter what it is. You're not a bad person. You're worthy. You're capable. You don't have to live in the shadows. You don't have to be ashamed. And that's the step to getting growth and getting better. The reason that you feel shame is because you want some sort of change and our brains just get a little bit twisted. That's all. So if you feel shame, you're a good person. If you feel guilt, you're a good person. We just need to take that goodness. Basically, we need to make a tweak and make a change, and that can be uncomfortable, but that's the step to the other side.

Yeah. Remember, it starts with you. It starts with you and your thoughts and your beliefs. You have ultimate power over that. And Helene says, I think it's a perfect way to end it today. Great session today. Thank you both so much. And for all who shared and who are here. So you guys all did a great job. All of you who shared, whether it was publicly or privately with yourself, again, great job. That's the, that's the first step towards healing to going forward. It's amazing. You guys are crushing it and just keep up the awesome work.

All right.

I love it. Just gets better from here.

Amazing job, everyone. Oh, oh, I have announcements. I forgot tonight. Tonight we are having an on-Zoom community. I forget what I'm calling it.

Are you calling it a mixer? I don't know.

No, because I'm not. Nope. So hang out, a social hour sort of thing tonight at 4 PM Eastern time. We are having a little social hour on Zoom. I've put an event in the Facebook group with the link to the Zoom room so we can hang on. What we're going to do is just do like some shares, just kind of some fun stuff just to chat with each other so we can see each other, so we can hear you. It's going to be a ton of fun.

So just to get to know each other, if you want to hang out. Social hour.

If you can make it to our social hour tonight, 4 PM Eastern, we'd love to have you on and it would be fantastic. We are gonna do them moving forward in the future, kind of depending on how this goes, but I think it'll go well. And we have some other events, so check out the events section of the Facebook page because we have a game night coming up which we're going to do for the first time. And that's actually— I guess that would be a mixer with the Broken to Unbreakable community. So that's going to be a kind of a— okay, a mixer thing. Maybe we'll have a little competition, Recovery Secrets. Broken to Unbreakable, and then both, because we have a couple people that are both. We'll see who has the most knowledge, but there'll be prizes and stuff for our game night. And then we have Ryan coming up in a couple of weeks as well. We have his session, so you can look for all that. And we have our 100th Recovery Secrets session coming up very, very soon. So those things are all in the events tab on Facebook, so you can go and check them out. You can check out the details. And that's what I have for you.

Yeah. And just a last thing. Thank you again for the topic today, Sharni. Amazing topic. We want to hear more topics from you guys in the platform. If you just click in the menu, the Recovery Secrets platform, you can click, click submit topic and submit your question there. And we want to hear from you. So keep those topics coming and then so we can vote on them and keep it, keep doing amazing topics that help you guys and serve you guys at the highest level.

Awesome. Okay. Love you. Believe me at the very highest level. I have to hop off because I have a call. And we'll see you bright and early. No, no, no. We'll see you tonight. We'll see you tonight. We'll see you tonight. I keep forgetting. All right. Bye, everyone.

See ya. Hey everybody. Thank you so much for listening to this podcast. If you want to learn more about how you can coach with me directly, there's a link in the description you can check out. There's absolutely no pressure. The main thing is I wanted you to get value from this episode here, but I hope you have a fantastic day and I'll see you in the next one.