Working Through Shame

Hi everyone, and welcome to another episode of Hannah Talks About Things. So today I wanted to start a series that I'm gonna do of reading through some of my Psychology Today articles and talking about them. I know a lot of people are auditory learners, if that's a thing, visual learners, we learn better by reading, by watching, and I have found that many people are more likely to listen to some of this stuff if I put it in a video form because it's something to look at. Um, and so I have written a lot of articles for Psychology Today and I just wanted to start at the very beginning and do one video for each article and talk about kind of my process writing it, but also just some of the topics that come up. So the very first one is called Deconstructing the Shame Narrative. Now if you've been following my journey of writing and speaking and counseling for a while, you'll know that when I launched my website in 2016, maybe, that's when I started writing a lot. I began writing articles in the fall, end of summer of 2015, during a point of a ton of emotional pain. And I didn't know what to do with all of that pain, so I just started writing. And through that, I was able to really find my voice. And, um, yeah, a year or two later I launched my website, which essentially was just a blog. And now that I'm in private practice counseling, I took the blog portion off of my website because it was also pretty personal, and I instead started writing for Psychology Today. So a lot of the things that I've submitted to that website are are actually articles that I had written for my website and just filtered a bit to not be as personal. Now that's not because I'm veering away from vulnerability, which most of you know I absolutely love, but it's because being a professional now, I can't just have my entire life on the internet for people to read. So maybe sometime down the line if I veer away towards counseling, I will get back into writing really openly about everything. So, "Deconstructing the Shame Narrative: A Step-by-Step Guide on How to Detach from Unhealthy Core Beliefs." This was published on June 21st, 2019 to Psychology Today. And yeah, here it is. I write a lot of articles about shame. I do this because in my professional and personal opinion, shame is at the root of everything that keeps us stagnant, that keeps us sick, and that keeps us feeling broken. It's important to remember that shame and guilt are two completely different emotional processes. Guilt is actually a healthy emotion that can be tied to motivation and growth. Shame, on the other hand, is counterproductive. It's insidious. It grows inside of us, spreads its roots deep into our souls, and stays buried, penetrating every conversation, every relationship, and every experience we have. So what's the difference between shame and guilt? Rule of thumb: guilt, I feel bad. Shame, I am bad. So it's super important to know— I'm veering away from the article for a second. It's super important to know what's going on in us. Emotionally. And oftentimes I'll hear the narrative, oh, I just have tons of guilt and shame. Well, which one is it? Maybe you are actually experiencing both, but often you're experiencing one of two. So again, guilt: I feel really awful about X, Y, and Z. I feel badly that I lied. I feel badly that I wasn't present for my kids. You know, I just feel really awful about being a shitty friend. I mean, whatever it may be, right? Fill in the blanks. That's guilt. Guilt is healthy and motivating. It really, it's like that feeling of remorse where we wanna do better. You know, like, God, I feel really bad about that. Shame is like taking guilt and swallowing it whole. It's the internalization of guilt. It's saying, I am bad, right? I am a bad friend. I am a failure, right? I feel really awful that I self-sabotaged and my relationship ended. Guilt. I am unlovable. I'm a shitty person. I'm never gonna find love. I'm not good enough. I'm inadequate. Shame, right? And so it's important to start to deconstruct as the title of the article, the shame narrative. Instead of just saying, oh, I'm so ashamed, what is it that you're ashamed of? What is your shame narrative? Even if part of you cognitively knows, okay, I know I feel this way, but it's not who I am. It's still important to identify what the shame narrative is. I am blank. What is it? I am a failure. I am not good enough. I am unlovable. I am hopeless. I mean, really, it's important for us to identify what the problem is, right? In any problem-solving process, we have to first identify the problem in order to start to move forward. So rule of thumb, thumb, rule of thumb, guilt, I feel bad, shame, I am bad. Oh wow. I just said this out loud, but whatever. I often hear people combine these two emotions in one enmeshed sentence that sounds something like, I have a ton of guilt and shame. Well, which one is it? You may be experiencing both, but more often than not, one is more pervasive than the other. To feel guilty would lead us to wanna make changes, but still have enough self-efficacy to know that we can. Self-efficacy, think of Thomas the, is it Thomas the Engine truck? You know, I think I can, I think I can. Self-efficacy, but the belief that I can do it. Shame will lead us to feel incapable of growth and change. Shame leads us to the narratives that sound similar to, this is just who I am, how I am, or what I am. And I talk a lot about this in some of the articles about relationships. Like, oh, I'm just bad at commitment. We'll return to that. These finite and labeling narratives, however, are at the core of everything that can keep us feeling stagnant, unworthy, and incapable. Again, I should really read this before I read it here. Uh, when someone says they are bad at commitment, they simply haven't dealt with some serious wounds that have buried deep shame inside of them, which leads them to the belief that they are incapable of commitment. But you can substitute commitment with any other word. I'm bad at setting boundaries. I'm bad at dealing with conflict. I'm a people pleaser. The main question here would naturally be, how do I let go of my shame narrative? But we do not let go. No, we walk through it. We need to first acknowledge it, then accept it, and finally challenge it. Walk through shame, not around it. That can sound incredibly vague and abstract. This can sound incredibly vague and abstract. So here's a step-by-step process to deconstructing the corrosive shame narratives. Part 1. What are you ashamed of? Like I just said, this is the first part of this lengthy, emotionally exhausting but necessary process. It's to first identify where you hold shame. Just like any problem-solving process, the first step is to actually identify the problem. Shame usually presents itself as feeling overwhelmed with a lack of self-worth, beaten down by others, but mostly ourselves, and feeling not good enough. When I ask my clients what they are ashamed of, they often stare at me blankly and say, I don't even know where to start. I'm ashamed of so much. So let's start with identifying what we're ashamed of. Start by breaking it down. We usually get super verbose in this area. We can start to go on long tangential tirades about how we're ashamed of all of the things we've said, what we've done, how we've behaved, and ways we felt or thought about certain ideas, and so on. I need some coffee. Maybe we're ashamed that every time we look in the mirror, we feel too fat, too thin, too flat-chested, not muscular enough, too muscular. Okay. Now how about we condense our shame into a simple shame narrative? We trim the fat, right? So it's really hard to identify what the core shame narrative is when we're so bogged down with all of the things we're ashamed of. Your shame narrative is an I am statement. No fluff, no miscellaneous details, just cutting to the core of what you're ashamed of. Some very common examples: I am unlovable. I am unworthy. I'm ashamed of who I am. I am ashamed that I am not enough. Not smart enough, pretty enough, strong enough, accomplished enough, social enough, spiritual enough, good enough. I'm ashamed of how I am. How codependent I am, closed off, open, scared, apathetic, lost, damaged, hurt, confident, insecure, privileged, unprivileged, sober. I am or am not. You get the point, I hope. So that was part 1, right? Trimming the fat and figuring out what is the shame narrative. Part 2, write down your shame narratives. Now that you understand what a shame narrative is, come up with a list that you'll write down. And if you're thinking, okay, Hannah, write it down? I'm reading this lengthy-ass article right now. I took out the word ass for Psychology Today, but it's important. Isn't that enough? I'm just going to think my way out of this one. You are mistaken. This takes work. Far too often we wanna do the work. And then when someone's like, hey, try this, we're like, mm, yeah, I'm not gonna do any of that. I'm just gonna think about it. You stuck in your head with your shame is probably the worst case scenario here. So start by writing it down. You're probably watching this video on your phone right now, X out of it, or just like press the home button and minimize it. Go to your notes app and start writing down some shame narratives. Ooh. This takes work. It's no joke. Put your phone, tablet, or computer aside for a few minutes and jot down on paper or even in the Notes app on your phone, some of your shame narratives. Remember, these I am statements, these are our, remember, these are I am statements that plague you. Even if a rational part of you is aware that these statements aren't true all of the time, you likely still feel them sometimes. Write them down. By this point, you'll probably be feeling pretty ashamed. Part 3: Learning how to detach from the shame narrative. It's gonna get better. I promise. Now that you have your shame narratives, take a good hard look at them. Are these characteristics that you display and feel 24/7? Or are they susceptible to fluctuate, to ebb and flow depending on your mood? None of what you wrote down is who you are, but some of them are how you've been. These are very different narratives, and this is how we learn to detach. Let's take a common shame narrative: I am unlovable. These narratives may stem from other core narratives like I am not good enough, I am not attractive enough, and so on. Nonetheless, they manifest in feeling unlovable or unworthy of love. This is a major issue in our lives because as stated in the book The Perks of Being a Wallflower, one of my favorite quotes of all time, we accept the love we think we deserve. So if I don't believe I'm deserving of love because I'm not enough or I'm inherently unlovable, all of my relationships are going to be dysfunctional. To an extent. What are the facts to support your claim that you are unlovable, right? This is how we start to detach from the shame narrative. We first identify what the narrative is and then look at, wait a minute, is this something that would hold up in a court of law? Is there evidence to support this claim, or is this how I'm feeling based on a behavior and an experience? Is this something that's been told to you or that you've been telling yourself, or both? What evidence backs this up? Pro tip: it's usually that someone hurt us, left us, or abandoned us. What would it be like for you to change the narrative? You aren't unlovable. You feel unlovable sometimes. You feel unworthy of love. You're working on being more open to love from yourself and others. You've struggled with accepting love. I'm a really big advocate of narrative therapy, and if you've read the book The Four Agreements by Don Miguel Ruiz, you'll remember that the first agreement is be impeccable with your word. Now impeccable, deconstructed, means without sin. So really bringing a level of awareness to the way that we speak about ourselves and others and the world. So if I'm saying to myself and others, I'm codependent, I'm a people pleaser, I don't do conflict, I'm unlovable, I'm a piece of shit, I'm unworthy, I am going to believe all those narratives to be true. So part of this deconstructing the shame narrative means changing the way that we think and talk about ourselves. So instead of I'm unworthy, or yeah, I'm just really bad at fill in the blanks. I'm working on blank. I'm struggling with this. I'm not a people pleaser to the core, but I have displayed patterns of people pleasing. So instead of telling someone, yeah, I'm just really people pleasing and avoidant of conflict, I can say I'm really working on setting boundaries. Right? So I start by changing the narrative. So the next part, change the narrative. Throw the statement, I am unworthy, or I am unlovable out the window. It does not serve you anymore. And arguably it never has. Substitute this statement with literally any other shame narrative and throw it out the effing window. It, it is keeping you stuck. It is keeping you isolated. It is keeping you in a dark hole that is impenetrable unless you start to shed light on it. I always used to say I'm bad at commitment. Nope. I just had a lot of pain that I had never dealt with. I always used to say I'm a people pleaser. Nope. I just never leaned into the discomfort of setting boundaries because I was unwilling to look at what was blocking me from setting boundaries. Therapy helps a lot with that, by the way. Lastly, I used to call myself codependent. Fun fact: human beings are wired for connection. We all have traits of codependency within and around us. It is what we know. It's how we operate. But we don't have to let feelings of control, fear, and mistrust guide our lives. We get to separate ourselves from the narrative and actively take matters into our own hands to change. Stop labeling yourself as something and then blindly believing it to be true. If you're looking for evidence that you aren't enough, you'll find it. But on the other hand, if you're looking for evidence that you are absolutely enough, that you are worthy and you are— that you are a worthy child of the universe who deserves just as much love and acceptance as any other human on this planet. You'll find that evidence too. My dog is coughing. Part 4: Talk about it. The only way to walk through shame is by connection, and we cannot do this alone. Tell on yourself, tell on your shame. You're not alone. Right? Have you actually talked to anyone about this? Or on the other hand of totally extremist, uh, unhealthy behaviors, are you telling everyone about it? Selective vulnerability is real. So me not talking to anyone about what's going on internally is just as unhealthy as me telling anyone who who will listen. We need to really have selective vulnerability. It's its own thing. Okay, part 5. Oh God, I get really worked up in this article. Oh yeah, if you want to see this article, I'll put the link somewhere too. Um, part 5: stop falsely advertising yourself on social media. It doesn't help shame, it makes it worse. We often construct a double life for ourselves by promoting this fairytale-esque life on social media. Whether it's videos of us working out on a beach somewhere in our perfect relationship and so on. Then when we feel pain or fall off of our perceived pedestal by being human, we feel immense shame. So stop! If you're fighting with your significant other, don't post on Facebook about how great they are once you make up. If you're struggling with body image issues, don't post a picture of yourself in a bathing suit or at the gym working out to make yourself feel better by the number of likes that you get. Social media is an insidious way for us to deepen our shame and disconnect ourselves from our peers. If you're feeling good about yourself and want to share that with the world, awesome, do it, but maybe pause and check your motives first. But if you're posting to mask your shame, know this: it doesn't work. It really just deepens it. Part 6: Things to remember. It's okay to not be okay. You cannot shame yourself into growth. Everyone, literally every single person on this planet, experiences shame. You are not alone. We don't connect with each other via our perfections. We connect via our imperfections. Let yourself be human. It's a beautiful, raw, imperfect experience. You will only feel good enough when you stop seeking outside of yourself and start getting comfortable in your own skin and in your own mind. Stop distracting. If you have a problem with your phone, go watch the last video I posted, which is called How to Break Up with Your Phone, which is a book by Catherine Price that's really good. Lean into the discomfort and let yourself walk through it even stronger. And if you're still reading this, you can do this. See original post at HannahEliseRose.com. All right. So yeah, that is my video. Also, if you haven't noticed, I got a ring light. I'm really trying to make this video thing a little more professional. So have a wonderful day. Today is Tuesday, but I probably won't post this until later because I don't want to inundate everyone with videos every day of the week. But yeah, have a great day. Start deconstructing the shame narrative and really start to focus on the story you tell yourself about yourself. So the next time you say, God, I'm so insane, or God, I'm such a whatever, try to pause and just notice the narrative that you've been constructing and try to combat those core irrational beliefs. Okay, have a great day. Bye.