https://www.listennotes.com/e/b75a1527e3f84677b802073a940f9fb7

There's something about you that I can't.

Help but smile when you smile and laugh when you laugh.

Welcome to the Human Intimacy Podcast, Dr. Kevin Skinner with my guest and friend and co-host and whatever we want to say, Marianne Michaels, all of the above. Marianne, I hope that today you're doing well. I'm going to address this a different way. How are you?

I'm good and happy to be here. Same answer. I feel like I give it every.

Time, but same answer.

Well, you know, actually, Dr. Skinner, I'm going to I'm going to show up a little differently. Let me back up. My heart's a little heavier. I like we've had volatility in the stock market and there's just been so much uncertainty and anxiety and I just there's more heaviness it feels like for me this week in all the spaces. And so I'm doing okay, but I'm also noticing the increase of uncertainty.

So a great lead in for our topic because we're going to be talking about speaking the unspoken, talking about things that we're afraid to talk about. Some might call it the shame of our secrets. Because when we can't talk about things, when things have to stay internally because we don't want to be judged or we don't want others to not like us or whatever reason we give for carrying something inside and not believing that others are going to understand or not believing that we can talk about it. Because if other people really knew what was happening inside of me, they would reject me, criticize me, not want to be with me, whatever my version is, the story I created in my mind, by staying silent. That is really what we are going to be talking about today. So whether you want to call it understanding the shame of silence, the shame of hidden behaviors. And today, Marianne, you started off by saying, well, yeah, there is a lot of volatility and there is a lot of potential stress in the markets and there is a lot of uncertainty. You gave a voice to a truth for you that there is a lot of stress or volatility based upon the culture of what we're currently going through.

Yeah, and it's interesting as you point that out, I show up going, yeah, I'm pretty good. Yeah, things are good. And here's my podcast phase. But no, let me slow down and look at everything that's going on in the world and what's really going on. There's a lot going on and I think we are all maybe taught by our culture How we need to show up, how we need to be seen. And we oftentimes don't even know how to go into a space of saying, oh, I'm having a hard time.

Contrasting that with Marianne, how you doing? I'm doing fine. So often we hear the question, so how are you?

Yeah, whoever says not so good.

Right, because what do we do with that?

Right?

I'm not doing very well today, thank you. And so we may start with that and then if I'm the other person, how do I respond to a person's, am I comfortable with the idea that maybe I'm not doing well or this person may not be doing well? So really it might be a pretty loaded question. How are you, Marianne?

Yeah.

What answer do you want?

Do you want my truth or do you want what I think you can handle?

That's an interesting way to put that, right? Because we would probably never do that. But boy, if we did, that would be an interesting outcome.

Yeah, it would change how we communicate.

So what's it like? And I think about this from my perspective of being in therapy, doing it for 30 years now, working on 31. How many times I think about in my career have people kept things to themselves? What am I call silent suffering? they have their own version of something that they cannot or could not share with other people. And previously we did an episode on the burden of sexual betrayal, but I could also look at this as the burden of silent suffering in your own stuff. You've got your own secrets or your own hidden behaviors or your own fears, your own anxieties, your own internal dialogue. that is not being shared, that you're not opening up, you're keeping things internally, what is that doing to us as a culture sitting in that silent place?

Yeah, as I'm hearing you talk about this, Dr. Skinner, I'm thinking, how does this apply to my clients who've been betrayed and how does this apply to my clients who have betrayed? And the concept is applicable either direction. and it's so different in each application as well.

And if I was to add to that, to the coupleship, right? Because if I'm dealing with my own stuff, my own shame or my own hurt or my own internal dialogue, I remember a few years ago I was talking with an individual and the focus of our conversation was on something that had happened in their marriage that was holding them back from connecting. and every time we would get to a certain part, it's like, why does it feel like we're stuck here in this part? It feels like we're not able to get through it. And I scratched my head and scratched my head and I'm like, why can't we get past this certain part? And finally, one of the partners said, Can I meet with you alone? And so I said, Yes. And so we met and she proceeded to tell me things that she had not revealed to hardly anybody most of her life. She had been carrying this incredible burden for years, suffering in silence, influencing the marriage, influencing how she showed up in the marriage. And so often I find that some of our life stuff we're not talking about, maybe we're ashamed, feeling fear, they wouldn't understand. And so we carry this burden. And after that experience, it was almost like there was a voice that came out that had not been spoken. And I find this often in clients who for years carry things in silence. I often say suffer in silence. And now we're talking about it. It's out in the open, the vulnerability, and it literally is a healing. that can occur and yet we're so afraid of it.

I think sometimes we're afraid of it because we can't even admit it to ourselves. I can't say that out loud. I can't look in the mirror and even see that because it might feel like it's too much. And I want to take this a little deeper because we're talking about how this can apply to the betrayed partner. the acting out partner or the coupleship. But when we look at what, what's really at stake here, what are we really talking about here? What we're talking about, I believe, is fear. We're talking about the fear of loss of connection. That, that's usually the basis of everything. When we have shame, shame tells us I'm not good enough. And if I'm not good enough, that means they won't love me. That means I won't be included. That means I'll be on the outside or left out or whatever. And that is at the very base of all of us as human beings. We need love and connection. It's wired in us. It's in our DNA. And we get stuck because we often. I want to talk for just a second about whether it's self-loathing and we can talk about that in a minute. the. The stories that we tell ourselves that keep us apart or keep that mask up. But also there's stoicism. Like, I can't talk about that. I'm not allowed to. But it comes back down to, can I look at myself in the mirror? Can I? Maybe not. It's the looking at my. In the mirror, but it's admitting to myself even these stories that I'm running in the back of my head that keep me. with my, they keep my mask on perhaps because I have to, I am so desperate to connect with other people that I'll keep that mask in place because if I take it off and people really see, that's devastation. I will die alone by myself.

And so we keep the mask on, literally we live behind a mask, behind the mask because we don't want people to see into us, into me see. And so when we look at the healing process, we clearly understand that the answer is being seen. And yet the barriers to being seen, the fears, the fear of rejection. You talked about fear. I think it's absolutely a fear. And so much so that we may tell ourselves a story. If you knew me, you would not want to be with me, you would reject. And in some cases that may be true that some of our actions, a person may not want to be with us because of who they are and maybe some of their life challenges and they just don't feel like it's a good fit. That may be true.

And it may be built on experiences that we've had that people have rejected us and said no. And so we've learned, oh, I can't let anybody see that.

And so then I decide, okay, I, nobody, nobody's gonna come in and see what this is. And so then I carry the burden of this secret in silence. And I have seen that over and over my career that finally when people come into therapy, I can't tell you how many times people have said, I've never told anybody this.

So what I think you're talking about, let me see if this fits. And I don't know if we've ever said these words before, but I think we're talking about there's a self negotiation that goes on. there's a negotiation with ourself of I can't maybe bear the truth of what this really is. If I'm looking through eyes of like radical acceptance and really seeing what this is, I can't bear that truth. And so I might minimize, I might tell myself, well, I'm a really good person. So I might have got this negotiation going on with myself and I might even be negotiating saying, I am like serving the community. I am doing all of these good things. to balance out the scales of me doing this other thing that I'm. That I've got so much shame about and that I think is really bad. But I don't even want to see that. Or I'm telling myself a story of, oh, like, if I'm looking at porn, these are. This is consensual and they like it, and it's not that big of a deal, and it's not hurting anybody. I'm doing some self-negotiation to balance out. what I really think and what I'm telling myself and choosing to believe because I've got such a dissonance between the two. I've got to figure out how to navigate that.

And so this negotiation, more often than not in that negotiation, oh, I can handle it on my own. Or, you know what, they can't handle the truth. So they don't need to know the truth. And so in that negotiation, we get into a place we've talked about before, that form of self-deceit where I get to the point where I conclude my negotiation, internal negotiation is this is obviously the best outcome.

I want to just add an additional thought in here. We live in a society that if you turn on the TV, if you turn on the ads, anywhere that you see with media, It uses sexuality to sell. Sex sells. That's what our society has monopolized on and really used to sell products. And so there's this messaging of your value is based on your sexual appeal, especially for women and girls. If you don't look this way, you aren't valuable. that's the cultural messaging that we get. And so if we take that a little bit further, we. What am I trying to say? There's this huge contrast between what our society, what our culture, what our media is telling us about sexuality and what's okay sexually. and oftentimes it may not fit with our moral compass or our values. Or we get caught in this place of like, well, wait a second. I'm doing what is considered socially acceptable, but it's not my, like, we can talk about porn all the time. It's a joke in the media oftentimes, yet my wife's like, no, that's not okay. spouse says, wait, that hurts me. And so I've got this discrepancy going on with what's acceptable and then what the media then turns around and condemns. So the media sells sex, and then it turns around, and somebody who's caught in, you know, in a sexual situation is all over the billboards, and they're condemned as a horrible, awful person. So we got this. crazy dichotomy going on.

And in that dichotomy, we get lost in terms of what's right and we forget to listen to our own voice. Because that negotiation, how many times do people that you have worked with find that they minimize their behaviors into a rabbit hole that leads to a blindness or things that occur that they can't see because they're so entrenched in it. Because that's ultimately, if you look at the definition of addictive behaviors, you often find that people don't see the consequences. If I'm driving drunk, I can handle it, right? Because everything's been compromised. So the self-concept or self-thought is, I'm a good driver and I only had a little bit, I didn't drink, right? And so we know that as things escalate, we stop seeing the potential outcomes of behaviors. And that's what we find over and over in individuals in this negotiation. that they compromise their own values. Because a sober person would tell you, I would never drive drunk. I wouldn't put my family at risk. And yet, in that negotiation, in a weakened moment, that's often what occurs.

So let's tie this back in too. So we're talking here about this self-deception. If I can tie back in the shame component, there's some really interesting research by Terry Taylor. I'm looking at the influence of shame with PTSD. And I use this visual with my clients and it's really putting shame in the middle, say almost like in a circle and then having an area just kind of like you do a map like your north, south, east and west areas going out. And it's really just saying that shame is often the center. It's a driving force. And whether it's, if we've got fear and anger, then we might be attacking others because it's a protective part. keeping you away from getting close to the shame core that I've got. Or I might have fear and distress, which might create me isolating myself. This is so distressing. I've just gotta hide. You can't see me. Maybe I'm too busy, maybe I'm working, whatever it is, I'm busy. If we're looking another direction, this distress and disgust, maybe my shame is being masked by depression. I'm attacking myself, but it's through depression. I'm shutting down because I can't handle this. And this last direction we look is anger and disgust. This is where I'd hide from myself through addiction. I just gotta numb it all. I can't see it all. So if we're really looking, this shame core has so many different facets of how we utilize it, and we often are protecting the shame. We're using different behaviors, whether it's the lies we tell ourselves, whether it's the things we get involved in, whether it's we, how our, how we see ourselves or we interact with others. But it does come back down to the protection of this or of shame that so many of us care, because it's the, the fear of not being enough, not belonging.

And what, and what you're describing there seems to be, I'm protecting the shame. The shame is protecting me from being seen.

Let's say that. So hold on a second. So you're saying the shame is protecting you from being seen like your deep down vulnerable part that you don't want anybody to see if they really saw.

That's right.

And so the shame is your protector. Right.

Through anger or through numbing out. So the shame is protecting me from being seen. And in reality, the shame is a tremendous barrier to everything. So the shame in so many ways It makes us feel unworthy, unlovable, powerless, helpless. I don't want you to see that part of me. And so after my negotiation where I may justify a behavior, then I go into this place of, Nobody can see me. This is my secret. I'm going to my grave with it. The burden of it, the challenge of that. And so the work of Dr. James Pennebaker, talking about opening up and expressive writing. One of the things that I learned from his many years ago, this is over 20 years ago in my career, is the power of journaling and writing. And he asked students to write about one of the more difficult experiences that they had in their life. These are just students and just write down a challenging experience. And so they wrote and those who wrote, he found had less depression, and their immune system increased. The T-cells in their body actually increased simply by writing.

And what were they writing about?

They were writing about their most difficult experience. And so they were, you know, it was a relationship breakup, or it was some kind of abuse, or it was a challenge in a relationship, or a parent-child relationship. So they were writing about whatever the challenging experience was, and they wrote on the same thing, for four days, for 20 minutes. And there's something about giving a voice to the unspoken, to the thing that's inside of us. It's like a toxin that's inside of us. And as they wrote about those experiences, again, depression goes down, immune system goes up. That's the power of expressive writing. That's just writing.

Well, it isn't, and to me that makes so much sense because you're taking an experience that was felt, seen, heard, tasted, smelled, whatever, which is that experiential or the experience. And when we go through the Broca Center, like that left part of our brain. So we're right. Right brain is the experience. Left brain, we're going through. Now I'm putting it into words. Now I'm trying to describe what the salt tasted like. Now we're moving it through the other part of our brain. We're connecting that trauma through. both sides of the brain. That makes so much sense to me.

And. And that's what the power of talking about something is. The art of confession, talking, you know, confessing something that I haven't confessed. I'll never forget some experiences that I've had where individuals have shared things with me where they felt their behaviors were inappropriate. It's like there's a freeing, a burden that's been left behind. And whether that is through the power of. Of. from a Christian perspective, the power of the atonement in confession. But you look at any irreligious, there is a power of confession. Every religion has this art, this, you share the burden and you get it out there.

So you can- you- recognize, you have to recognize it, and then you're feeling it, and then you're working on a reconciliation, which is through the speaking it, coming to someone. I think that's what I'm hearing is I'm hearing you talk about this.

Yeah, and when that happens, then there's, again, the research shows whether it is writing it down, that burden, whatever it is, and then confessing it or talking with a therapist, the reality is even when we do a disclosure with couples, we're taking what the unspoken is and we're giving it a voice and speaking it for truth to be manifest. In other words, I'm saying I'm carrying this burden, I'm carrying this, and I'm going to share it because it's overwhelming me and my system, it's overwhelming me. And we don't see it that way because people won't accept us, people will reject us. And so there is a element of speaking our truth that actually accelerates our healing, our progress, and overall our relationship success.

Yeah, I love that because I'm hearing you talk about the vulnerability and I think about, for me, when I hit shame, I think, oh, what, what, let's, let's bring this in. What does shame do for me? When I hit shame, I can notice in my body before I even feel or recognize shame, my right cheek flushes, my neck gets scarlet. I can feel it's like hot. I can touch it now. I'm like, oh, wait, my cheek is hot and flushed. Oh, I can feel it in my neck. And I go, oh, okay, this is shame. Shame's showing up. So I've learned where in my body how it shows up. I start to recognize it, but that for me is a cue that says, all right, you've got to be vulnerable. You have to name it and say, okay, shame, you're showing up to help me. I'm not sure what you're showing up to help me with, but because my other option is I'll shut down and I'll get quiet and I'll get really small. And so I remember years ago being in an event with a whole bunch of women and I had some, I had a piece of clothing that we were all going to wear. and I, and I went to pull, pull my now and put it on, and I was like, oh, my goodness, this is so wrinkled. All these women here are going to see how, oh, I don't apparently have an iron or know how to iron or something. I hit this total shame about not having my, my clothing ironed. And, and I was just like, okay, this is shame. I'm just gonna say that loud. And I, and I said to my friend next door, because I was like, everybody's gonna see. This is just out in the open. Everybody will see it. And I said to my friend, oh, I'm going to be vulnerable. This is really awkward. I'm feeling shame right now because I obviously didn't iron my clothing. And my friend looked at me and said, oh, me too. I was thinking the exact same thing. And when we speak it out loud so often, we are like we're carrying these dialogues. inside of us that just beat us down. That inner critic that we've got is just so, so strong. And having somebody say like, oh, me too, it was like, it was just gone. Having it seen, having it validated, going, oh, I'm not the only one here. Suddenly, who cared? If they were gonna see mine, they were gonna see hers. So now we're all fine. And so learning, at least for me, some of the greatest lessons I've learned about shame or to recognize it, to say it out loud, this is shame, and to find some way to say, Hey, here's what's going on for me. And here's the story inside of my head. And even find a safe place to say, Here's the story that I'm telling myself. I'm having some shame right now. Can I just say this out loud? And when I say it with my husband, I'll just say, I need to say some words. What he knows from that is like, he doesn't really need to respond. I just need to say it out loud so that it's that it's out there. Yeah. So I'm not carrying it inside.

So this conversation has brought me to a point. And as we're talking, I'm like, I've got to find this, this information. It comes from the dopamine Nation. Anna Lembke. Here's a quote. Recounting our experiences gives us Mastery over them.

Oh, I love that.

Is that an incredible statement?

Right.

Recounting our experience gives us Mastery over them.

When we say it out loud, we begin to own it.

Yes. So here's continuing on. Next part, whether in the context of psychotherapy, talking to an AA sponsor, confessing to a priest, confiding in a friend, or writing in a journal. I mean, we just listed these things, right?

Yes.

Our honest disclosure brings our behavior into relief, allowing us in some cases to see it for the first time. So when we speak it, we give it a voice, we let it out, you want to see the power of healing, letting the things, the toxins inside the unspoken stories, the misguided beliefs, the denial. You want to let out the shame, don't carry the burden any longer. Really what we're saying is, is Shame needs a voice.

Yeah, because as I'm hearing you say that, what I'm seeing in my mind is having these secrets that we feel like we're carrying and when we say them out loud, the fear is, I can't tell you this because you won't love me. You won't accept me. I'll be rejected and abandoned. That's that driving fear usually underneath. And it pulls me back from connecting. But when I can step into that and say, Here's the thing I didn't want to tell you because I've been so afraid that you'll reject me. That's usually where the other person's like, what? Or they can be compassionate and gentle and say, oh, I can see your pain. It's that vulnerability point where we allow others to actually truly see us. And that is where that bonding and connection happen. That's what I'm hearing from what you're sharing.

Am I Yes, and let me now add to that. If I have opened up to people, if I've tried to be honest with people and their response has been judgmental, rejecting, minimizing, disgust, then I've learned that it's not okay to open up and share. Throughout my career, I have seen over and over individuals who went to somebody trying to release that internal whatever tension. I'm struggling with this. I had a hard time with this, or I did this. And it's not understood, it's not a safe environment. And so one of the critical components of this is being in an environment that allows you the security or the safety to be open. Because when you can't, when you go into a situation and it's minimized, rejected, put down, criticized, It's like being bit by the dog. I'm not going to go close to that dog. I'll get bit.

And I would say oftentimes it's by people who mean well. I remember saying something, sharing something with my friend once and about something my husband had disclosed to me. And she was like, well, why would he even tell you that? And I'm like, well, we're working on honesty and trust in our relationship, but from that outside perspective, that wasn't helpful. And so as I'm hearing you talk about that, I know for my clients so many times, I'll say, I want you to get into a support group because in the support group, this is a place where people get it, where they understand it, where you can talk about it and you won't be looked down on.

And sometimes it's, and we see this in the work that we do, sometimes as couples try to do this when there's been a form of betrayal, they try to talk about it, but it can overwhelm their partner. And so this couple is trying to do this dance and it doesn't work because I am trying to be honest and it's creating emotional pain in the partner. And so, yes, I want to know, but don't, but, ooh, ah. And it's like, do we do this? Do we not do this? Should we talk about it? Should we not talk about it? The answer is you always need a safe place to talk about the secrets. And if you're going to do it in your relationship, and this is where it's really hard to do this dance, and I don't know the best answer for this, Mary, and I really don't. Because sometimes partners and couples can hold that and sometimes it overwhelms their emotional system. And so they can't be there for each other in a certain stage of the healing journey because it's too much.

Especially at the beginning where I think like having a good counselor or therapist can be so helpful because sorting through, trying to make sense of your reality, sorting through like the stories in your head, even there's so much shame. I believe that my husband's acting out because I'm not enough. That's so hard to talk to somebody about having somebody help you understand that, or I can't tell my spouse what I've done, how I've betrayed her because, or them because they won't want anything to do with me. Like those stories for both are so hard, especially at the beginning. And we need those healthy places.

And we need the healthy place because we need to talk about it. Not, and there is no way we're trying to say you need to keep these secrets because those secrets destructive to you, your relationship. As a couple, this is where we find the harder part is how do we talk about these things and it not overwhelm us individually? And that requires tremendous amount of personal work to be in a space where we can be present and understand. And sometimes it might end your relationship. The perception that my spouse can't handle it, you might be right. But your spouse still needs the truth.

And I would, I would add on to that. Just as we've said, I think it's all about timing in the healing relationship. When I've done enough work, but I could talk about that thing in my past, because it has no more emotional energy for me. I don't have shame about it because I've worked through it and I've done a lot of healing work. Then I can have conversations about it whenever. However, it, it just, I don't carry any energy with it. but that's probably not at the very beginning of my journey.

And now we're talking about the timing of when we can be there for each other and we can't be. And I don't know how else to emphasize this. It still needs to be talked about. The sooner you're prepared to start talking about your secrets, the things that are your carrying, those negative beliefs, as you said, I feel like I'm a failure. I feel like I have to do this. I've let everybody down. The sooner you can start talkinG about those internal things that you feel like you need to talk about that are holding you back or that you feel ashamed of, a safe place is going to help you get strategies on how to stop continually acting in ways that are hurtful to you and others.

Yeah, you know, as we're talking about this, I'm just thinking about a client that I've worked with who their spouse had had an affair 10 years ago and they've never talked about it. and their relationship just got stuck and they just both built up their walls. And we did a disclosure and the disclosure wasn't, there was some disappointment there with it. It just wasn't, there wasn't a lot of finesse to it. It was awkward. It was, there were some limitations with even being able to find the emotional words to even describe the behaviors because there was so much shame. And, and so the partner was felt some disappointment with like, this isn't how I had hoped that it would turn out. And it didn't really matter because what happened, the disclosure created a space to begin the conversations, the conversations that happened that have happened afterwards. Oh, those were essential. Those were so needed. Yet this couple stayed stuck in place for 10 years because they couldn't figure out how to get to a place where they could talk about it.

And if we can emphasize anything here, it is when we have something that's holding us back, secrets, whatever you, whatever it is, silence stories, and we don't talk about it. I can't tell you how many clients I've had who've had eating disorders, or they've had secret behaviors on their own, and we're putting all the energy into one partner, when in reality the other partner has their own secret. The point is, is if I've got something that's holding me back from connecting in relationships, you can call it the shame of whatever, the secret behaviors, my own stories, we all need somebody who can be a sounding board to say, I understand. As Brené Brown says in that vulnerability in the darkest recesses of the corners or in the drawers, in the darkest places of the drawers or the closets, when I can go in there with somebody and they can be open enough to share that part of them with me, that's where I see profound progress. And when we can talk about these things openly and honestly, there's a freeing. And I honestly believe James Pennebaker, Benabaker's work, open, expressive writing, letting out those things, writing them down, talking them through, it really can be freeing. And the manifestation is actually physiological. less depression. I would add less anxiety. How many times do we have clients who have, say, a problem digesting food, so they have irritable bowel syndrome, or they have other stressors, and I think it's partially because there's so much that they can't share. I'll give another example. A betrayed client comes to me. I've been carrying this for 15 years, and I haven't told anybody, including my own family. Oh, the weight of that, right? I love my family, but I'm not talking with them about this. When you have things both even positive, James Pennebaker found that even positive experiences that you can't share with others, it hurts your mental health. If you have something positive, I won the jackpot, you know, I won, right? If you can't share with others, because I don't want anyone to know, it actually can have deleterious impact on your health.

And as you say that, I, I have one of my daughters. It's fascinating. Like Christmas, birthdays. She's like, do you want to know what it is? Do you want to know what it is? Like, she can't hold that in herself. And, and, and that's in a, maybe a more of a positive note that I'm talking about. But there is something that happens when we're hiding, when we're holding back because we're not showing up all the way. Yeah.

And thus the counter to that is letting people into see us, into me see.

Right?

It's what we're talking about, right? That's what this podcast is about. The desire is to let people see into us. That means we have to do some of our own work so we can be seen and then we can see others.

You know, I, before we end, for our listeners, if you're listening and going, okay, where do I, how do I do this? How do I start? Because we're talking about shame, and most people Shame is not their favorite topic to talk about, but I love Brené Brown. I love her work. I remember discovering one of her books back in 2013. Somebody had recommended it. And one of the things that she talked about in there that I think is so important and fascinating, it was a game changer for me. She talked about how shame hits a part of our brain. It impacts our brain. just like blunt force trauma. When they're looking at an MRI, the way that the impact, the impact of shame, it's the same reaction. They can't tell the difference. That's huge and that's significant. And I remember what just learning about her stuff, I turned into a Brene Brown missionary. I just wanted to share it with everybody. Here you go because we need to talk about this. But I love she talks about putting it on the table and shining the lights on it. and I loved as you were saying, if we write down, I think that's us putting it on the table, shining the lights on it, and then we start to write about it, the things that we've been afraid to even admit to ourselves. And that's probably the first step is admitting to ourselves. And then I can begin to, you know, to have that conversation. If I can't notice that my face is getting red and that this is shame, how can I talk about it? I have to begin to be able to see it first.

I have written about shame in almost every book I've written because shame is the one of the biggest barriers to human intimacy. And so if a person's been acting out, I talk about how shame is influenced their, their inability, their ability or inability to heal.

Right.

If we don't address shame, I honestly believe this, Marianne, if we don't address shame, we don't heal in relationships, we don't heal in our lives. The reason why is because shame is an ultimate barrier to human connection. It's just how it is. So to our listeners, if you want to heal, find a way to express the internalized voice that's been holding you back, the secrets, the burdens, whatever you want to call it. But we've given you some strategies today, outlined a few of them, and if you'll carry them out, I guarantee you, based upon research, that if you let go of the burden, you'll find some relief. The research shows you'll be less depressed. Your immune system can increase. How about that? Isn't that beautiful?

Yeah. What you're saying there, Dr. Skinner, is it's not just a emotional issue or a psychological issue. It's a whole system issue. And it's not just a whole system of my body of how it impacts me, but it's how I impact and interact with the whole world around me. It's my whole system. Yeah. Yeah.

And in my 100 day courses, but for both the person who's acting out and the person who's been betrayed, I address shame specifically on strategies to remove shame. I mean, these are things that I I I mean, everything that I create, I incorporate shame into it. Shame reduction.

It's got to be addressed. We've got to see it. yeah. As we get ready to close, I just want to thank our listeners for being with us today. This is a harder topic, or it can be a harder topic. It's. It's a little uncomfortable oftentimes, but I want to just let you know that you're worth doing the work of holding up the mirror and looking and saying, what is it that I don't want to see? What is it that I've been hiding from myself or that I've been telling myself a story about and Can you find someone safe to share that with? Because there is freedom, absolute freedom that comes from allowing others to see us stepping into that light.

And my final thought comes from the movie Frozen.

All right, where are we going to go with this, Dr. Skinner?

My granddaughter, I wish I could show our listeners my granddaughter singing Let it go. Let it go. And she's dancing and her dad's playing the guitar and she's dancing and she's, and honestly, a week ago we had spring break and so our family was there. And if I could show the audience my granddaughter singing this at the, this three-year-old just belting it out. Let it go. I can't sing, right? But incredible watching this little three-year-old just dance. And it's just a beautiful thing to see. Just let it go.

No shame.

No shame. Just, but letting the burden go, giving it a voice, let it out. Don't carry the burden so you can heal and you can be better in relationships and you can have better health. So my invitation is to let it go.

Love that. Thank you, Dr. Skinner.

All right. To our listeners, it's always a privilege to be with you. Thank you for your time. We invite you to share this podcast. with others. As we have been doing this for a little over a year now, we appreciate your time. We recognize that time is precious. So we thank you for your time with us and enjoy life through creating human intimacy. Thank.

You very much.