In this solo episode of the "Stronger in the Difficult Places" podcast, Dr. Zoe Shaw speaks directly to women confronting unexpected, painful life changes. She frames the conversation through psychology, faith, and her own feminist perspective, emphasizing that the work is not about fixing broken relationships but about fixing oneself. Dr. Shaw shares a personal win—her daughter Sullivan, who has Prader‑Willi syndrome, being named athlete of the year—and a personal fail—sending a scathing text in a moment of anger. From these anecdotes she extracts a lesson about pausing before reacting and allowing emotions to settle. The core of the episode explores guilt, shame, and blame, distinguishing guilt (a useful signal) from shame (a liar) and urging listeners to release self‑judgment. She offers practical guidance: pause, seek community, breathe, and allow space for faith or forgiveness. Dr. Shaw describes the gradual shift from feeling broken to feeling rebuilt, encouraging listeners to find fellow warriors, seek mentorship, and accept the “different, sacred, messy” life they now live. The episode ends with a call to action to subscribe, share, and lean on the supportive community the podcast fosters.
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This is not a podcast about being broken, although you may have been. This is a podcast about strength for women who find themselves in difficult relationships, including that sometimes difficult one with yourself. We'll look at your relationship through a lens of psychology, faith, and a little dash of my own kind of feminism. We're not fixing them. We're fixing you. And that changes everything. Welcome to Stronger in the Difficult Places. Save yourself, heal your relationships. Listen in. I'm your host, Dr. Zoe. Welcome to Stronger in the Difficult Places. Today's episode is for someone who's either just found out that their life has changed in some way, shape, or form, or there's a slow realization that life didn't turn out the way they expected, that This is not what they signed up for, whether it's in your relationship, whether it's in your life. I actually wrote this essay for another publication, but I've changed it a little bit, really just to speak to that person who's going through a hard thing. So if that's you, listen in today. I hope this is encouraging. If you know somebody who might've had something devastating happen in their life, or their life has changed in a way that they didn't expect, or they're just in a bad space, Share this episode with them. But first, my win and my fail. My win is that I visited my daughter Sully in Massachusetts at her end-of-the-year ceremony, and it was such a beautiful experience. And she won athlete of the year for her school. And it was just so exciting to celebrate that with her and to see how far she has come. For those who don't know my story, my daughter Sullivan has a very rare genetic disorder called Prader-Willi syndrome and raising her and continuing To care for her has been a journey, and she's had so many struggles. So this was just a beautiful, beautiful win for all of us. So my fail is my anger. Now, those who know me know that I do not have anger issues. Probably the opposite. I tend to be more of a people pleaser. And yet I had to deal with a confrontation where I was clearly wronged. I'm not going to give you all the details because it doesn't really matter. But this was with my neighbor, and I sent her a scathing text in the moment. And it's funny because my partner suggested that I listen to a sermon about anger that he just happened to have on his phone. Now, just so you know, if someone's angry, maybe don't suggest that they listen to a sermon about anger, but he did. And actually it was great because it worked. But that just made me go straight from feeling angry to feeling terrible. And I didn't feel vindicated at all. I just felt bad. At least let me enjoy my anger for a minute, right? But no, he did not let me do that, which was— I'm thankful for at this moment. Now, my anger was valid, but like I said, that doesn't matter that my anger was valid. I wish I had just sat with the feeling for a little longer before I responded, because no one ever says, I wish I had reacted quicker. I wish I had just gone off on somebody faster because when you wait, when you give your primal brain, that part of your brain that just reacts from a fight or flight state, and you allow it to calm, then you see things more clearly. You're never going to regret thinking through your actions. So that's my fail. I reacted. I sent a scathing text that I shouldn't have sent. This woman who's supposed to know all about how to do relationships flew off the handle. At my neighbor's. Now, long story short, I actually went back. I repaired the relationship and she was a part of it too, because she also apologized. It was a whole thing, but I learned a hard lesson. A lesson I already knew, but I learned it in the moment is just wait, Zoe. It doesn't matter if your anger is valid. You're not going to feel better by sending that scathing text. Stop, pause, talk to somebody, let somebody send you a sermon on anger. And you'll respond in a healthier way in a few minutes or the next day. So that's my fail. So let's get to the topic. I just wanted to give you some encouragement and some hard truth, actually. I don't, I hope this is encouraging, but I know that it's more of a hard truth. When you're going through something hard, when life has changed in ways that you didn't expect and don't feel you deserve, listen to this. Dear brave soul, this is about guilt, blame, shame, and other things we are not meant to carry. You don't know it yet, and you probably don't feel it at all right now, but you are brave, and you will be brave, because you have to be, and that's okay. Brave might not look like what you think it does, though. It might not look like confidence, and it might not even look like courage. Brave might look like curling up in a fetal position and crying in your closet, and then wiping your face and making breakfast like nothing ever happened. Brave might look like sending a text that says, I can't do this alone, or dragging yourself out of bed to face another day that doesn't look like the life you signed up for. Brave might look like going to work when you want to scream, or sitting in silence because the words haven't found you yet. Brave may look like making that hard phone call, or Googling terms you never thought you'd need to understand. Brave may look like saying, I'm not okay, to a stranger, Who eventually becomes your lifeline, or advocating for yourself when your voice shakes and your palms feel wet with sweat. And one day, yes, one day, brave will look like you taking the hand of another woman who has just started the same journey that you now know like the back of your hand. You'll hold her hand, not because you have all the answers, but because you've walked through the fire barefoot and you've lived to tell the story. I went into my own battle wide-eyed. I was terrified. I was naive. I was completely unprepared. I didn't have the strength that people assumed I did, and I didn't want to be strong. I didn't want to be chosen for this. When I first got the news, when I realized my life would never be the same, I snuck down to my car so that I could scream and cry in private. I remember I was hitting the steering wheel like it was the only thing that was solid enough to Hold my rage, and I remember being afraid to even pray. Pray for what? I thought, God, if you are even listening, if you even care, I need you to know that you got this wrong. You handed this job to the wrong woman. I'm not brave. I'm not patient. I'm not strong. I have children to care for. I have a life I thought I was living. God, you made a mistake. And at the same time, some dark part of me whispered, God's not going to hear your prayers anyway. Because I was convinced deep down in the ache of my soul that, that He was punishing me for mistakes, for mistakes that I had made in my past. Looking back, of course, I can now see that the foolishness of all of those thoughts. I can see all the broken theology, but I also see the pain behind them. And maybe you're there now. Maybe you're feeling punished. Maybe you're feeling misunderstood. Maybe you're feeling unseen, like nobody gets you. Maybe you're wondering, what did I do wrong? Maybe you're silently screaming, why me? When this isn't happening to anybody else. So let me whisper something to you in the midst of that pain. It's not your fault. And even if you did something to cause it, because I already know what your brain is saying, this isn't your fault. Pain doesn't mean punishment. Suffering doesn't mean failure. The ache that you're carrying right now It isn't proof of anything except the depth of your humanity. And I know you might feel alone, but I promise you, you're not. And that shame? That shame will try to rule your life. You'll hear it whisper, you should have known, you should have done more, you should have been better, you should have been stronger, you should have been smarter, kinder, quieter, louder. It'll whisper all the things. It'll throw everything at you. All your past decisions, your words spoken in anger, the things you didn't say, the moments you didn't show up, the things you couldn't control. But here's the truth. Guilt has a job. It tells us when we've done something wrong so that we can make it right. But shame? Shame is a liar. Shame says you are wrong. It says your story disqualifies you. It tells you to hide. And I want to gently tell you this: you are allowed to stop hiding. The you on the other side of this pain is not weaker. It's not less worthy. She's more compassionate. She's more grounded. She's more real. You don't have to carry blame for things beyond your control, and you don't have to hold on guilt for choices that you made with the knowledge that you had at the time. And you don't have to make yourself smaller just because life got hard. So can we just stop? Can we just breathe together and work on letting all of that go? It doesn't serve you. It never did. And if you need permission, I am giving it to you right now. Whatever is happening to you now, it is not a punishment. It's also not a cosmic accident. It's here on purpose, for a reason. And I hate that for you, because yes, it still sucks, and yes, it still feels unfair, but it's not your fault. You can spend a good chunk of your life carrying shame and guilt, apologizing for what you didn't cause, shrinking yourself in every room, Or you can stop. You can forgive the world, you can forgive God, you can forgive yourself, whoever you need to forgive. For me, it was everybody and everything. And in doing so, you give up the hope of a better past. You stop asking for a redo and you start choosing this moment, as painful and messy as it is, because this is the only place your healing can begin. Don't go further than this moment though. That's where anxiety gets created. You don't need to map out the future yet. There'll be time for that. The road of the future will rise to meet you, I promise. But for today, just be here with your tears, with your breath. You see, there's a phantom critic that lives inside of us, and it's a voice made up of every toxic relationship, every societal standard, every unrealistic expectation. And it's going to whisper to you that you're not enough. It's going to compare you with everyone else with a similar issue that you have. They're doing better. They're thriving. They've figured it out or they've gotten over it. And suddenly either you're devastated that you're not where they are, or maybe you're prideful that you're ahead. Both are traps. Both are shame in disguise. One day I stopped looking for a different life. It didn't happen suddenly. It wasn't a profound aha moment. It happened after a slow burn of disappointing days, after articles I read 5 times and still didn't understand, after another specialist with a shrug and a copay. And then one random Tuesday, I realized something. My thoughts were now more preoccupied with the vacation that was coming up, with plans, than with my life-changing event. I had stopped obsessing. I had started living. I'd begun the long road towards acceptance. Acceptance of my past, acceptance of my present, acceptance of my new normal. I emerged on the other side, my eyes a bit narrowed from what I had seen, but not bitter. Weathered, yes, but not worn. I'm a warrior now. I'm not broken, but I'm rebuilt. And you will be too. So find fellow warriors, seek out those who are in the thick of it so that you can cry and you can laugh and you can collapse together. And then also seek out people who are a few steps ahead of you so that you can learn, so that you can breathe, so that you can borrow their faith until your faith returns. Because you're not broken. This is not a broken life. It's a different life. It's a sacred life. It's a messy, inconvenient, gloriously imperfect life. that will ask you for more than you ever thought you could give, and it'll give back more love than you ever thought you could receive. So take the next breath, take the next step, take the next moment. You've got this. With love for anyone who's going through anything, Dr. Zoe. Thank you for listening to Stronger in the Difficult Places. New episodes go up on Tuesdays. Subscribe to my email list so that you can get some encouragement from me, And have a strong week. See you next week.
