Jess explores what to do when you say or do something that conflicts with your values in a relationship. She distinguishes shame from guilt by their physical sensations, and explains how staying present and choosing accountability over defensiveness can repair the rupture.
So there are going to be moments in life, because we're human, where we miss the mark and we do or say something that actually was not a reflection of who we want to be or our highest selves. And it's going to happen, it really is. We can do the best we can, but it's still going to happen. And so when it does happen, the most important thing that we can do is really be available to listen to the impact of that on the other person. And in order to be able to listen to it and be accountable and show up and repair with them, we have to be able to hold ourselves from dropping into guilt or shame, right? And this is not an easy thing because when someone comes to us and shares something that they're not happy with us about, it's almost like a default just to go into shame or go into guilt. So it's something that you can learn to do though. And so in order to do that, we have to feel into our body what it even feels like to go into shame and guilt, right? And I was talking about it today, it came up in my sessions a bunch of times today, so I thought this is probably an important thing to talk about. It also came up in my life, my own life, um, yesterday. So yeah, just learning to slow down and tune into your body And really feeling into, okay, what does it feel like when I want to just go into— one of my clients said it felt like, like a sinking feeling, like sinking into shame and, and feeling like that feeling of guilt. Like, and the shame, the shame feeling, um, brings up the thinking of like, I'm bad, I'm bad, I'm wrong. And the guilt is that I did something bad or wrong. So every time I start talking to the camera, my cat starts meowing like a crazy little thing, and then as soon as I stop recording, she stops. So I've tried to record this. This is going to be the last take because I tried to record it a few times. But anyway, so if you are— if you're struggling with this, um, I totally get it. And there were so many years where I couldn't do it. I didn't even know what it was to even try to practice, and I'd go into, you know, defensiveness or whatever, because it's that defense against shame and
