271: How To Recognize and Release The Damaging Shame You Hold with David Jurasek

Because if you're a baby, right, Think about it on a very primal level. I'm in need of my survival from you as a giant. And if I'm crying and you're turning away from me, if I'm doing something and you're showing me disgust in your expression, I have to swallow the disgust directly. Your shame becomes my shame. If I want to be in relationship, if I reject it, then I'm abandoned. I die.

Right?

Right. So it starts from like the very beginning. And then even as a teenager when you rebel against your parents and you're still stuck in a shame, like, what are you rebelling against? You're rebelling against their approval.

Hello, everyone, this is Kathy Caprino and welcome to my podcast, Finding Brave. I've created this show for everyone who longs to create something bold and brave in their life. To rise up, speak up, and stand up for who they are and to reach their highest and biggest visions. Each week, I'll be speaking with inspiring guests from all walks of business, leadership, entertainment, the creative arts, and the entrepreneurial world. And they'll be sharing their intimate stories of Finding Brave and offer their best strategies for building your most rewarding, joyful, and meaningful life, business and career. Hey, folks, Kathy here. Are you ready for a big positive shift in how you're working and what you're capable of achieving in your career? Let's make that happen for you. While you might know me best as a podcast host and writer, a key focus in my work is helping women achieve greater success in their work. In my career and leadership breakthrough, one on one coaching program, I help women get what they want most, which includes more confidence, impact, advancement, financial reward and fulfillment. And I also help them achieve their most exciting visions for the future. In the past 16 years, I've worked with over 20,000 women across six continents. And before that I served as a therapist. And before that I was a corporate VP managing multimillion dollar budgets and global initiatives. I leverage all of that experience to help women build a new chapter where they can reach their highest and happiest potential doing work they love. Check out Kathy Caprino.com CareerBreakthrough and I hope you'll register now. I'd love to support you. Here we go. Hello, everybody. Welcome to another episode of Finding Brave. Kathy here. Boy, am I excited. I see David, my wonderful guest, David Jurassic. You're already meditating. You're already going to calm me down and bring me down to earth. But you know, I was thinking about this and David, I can't wait to tell everybody about you. Having been a therapist for a few years and been in the corporate world myself, and now coaching and doing this podcast, what I'm seeing is there are thousands of ways to look at life, humanity, our challenges, and incredible experts like you have a particular lens that cuts through a lot of what we're experiencing that is very confusing. And you have a framework that's. That I know speaks to me so deeply and will speak to, I think, pretty much everybody who hears this. And. And I would also add that what I'm floored about is every. Almost every podcast is showing a new lens, a new framework. And so the joy of this is if you all listen and this speaks to you, you know, this is a lens that's going to be helpful. It's really, truly that simple. What do you think about that, David?

Absolutely. Yeah. I think there are. There's something really valuable about every person's contribution. And. And then there are certain frames that really speak to us that go, okay, this is what I need for this stage of life. And what I needed when I was in my 20s and 30s and early 40s is different. So at every stage of life, we. We. We want to penetrate reality a little further. And. And then we need a new map to orientate us.

Right? So well said. That is so well said. So before, you know, without further ado, folks, I want to introduce David. And we are going to be talking about shame and how to release shame and about 50 other points within that one statement, a hundred other points. How shame is at the core of so much pain that we're experiencing that we're not aware of it. So let me tell you about David, and I'm going to read you something that he wrote that. My head exploded reading it, and I bet yours is, too. David. Jurassic, wears many hats, but has one mission right now. As a father, husband, therapist, sensei, theater director, writer, actor, singer. Didn't know you were a singer like me. Community leader with 25 years of experience in helping boys and men to become both powerful and loving. And boy, do I love that, because for women, I'm teaching them how to be loving and powerful. Today, David is called to be a bridge between men and women, revealing the biggest barrier we have to loving one another and standing in our power together fully. What a. What a fantastic bio. All right, I want to start. David, thank you again for taking the time with what you wrote me here about, you know, a key focus for today. This is what you said. If you've ever felt like an imposter not good enough. Or conversely, you think you are incredible but can't figure out why others around you don't get it, calling you too much. Can I relate? I'll stake my reputation as a theorist, therapist and mentor for 25 years to say that your biggest source of sabotage is driven by core shame. Once we flesh out and name this beast, I will show you through examples how to stop them from sucking your soul so you can begin to show up more whole, more powerful, more for you. All right, David.

Wow, I gotta live up to that.

You better live up to this.

Oh my goodness.

10 hour course, but we're making you do this in 35 minutes. Can you please talk about shame? Now? I know you, you do relationship work, you work with men and boys. And let's frame it any way you're comfortable, but I have a feeling it really resonates with everything. What is shame? What is core shame? Yeah. How do we figure it out? Tell us, tell us.

Well, I want to, I want to touch it lightly and quickly so we can get to the how to release it part. Okay. Because I think we're starting to understand, since Bernays Brown's famous talk, we're starting to understand the nature of the beast. And so my simplest understanding of shame is that it's a core misunderstanding of myself as being unworthy, unlovable, unimportant. And every, every baby comes into this world, one of its core needs is to be important, to be recognized and seen. That's why babies cry. And when you come, they stop crying. They're like, okay, you get it, you saw me, I'm here. And when the messaging happens that no, you're not worth paying attention to, you don't matter. This is the crisis I think of our society right now is people are with AI, with everything going on, people are wondering, do I matter? Do I have a place in the world? All our identity politics is driven by shame. I think I'm better than you. And that's the flip side is the contempt and the grandiosity that's like cocaine on the brain, is like, I think I'm superior to those people over there. It's all driven by shame. Every person I've ever counseled, from like 8 year olds to 80 year olds who are suicidal, the only reason they want to die is because of shame. You take you, you, you deal with shame, they stop wanting to die. You don't deal with shame, they're going to find a way to hurt themselves.

I have questions, can I ask you? I don't Even want to ask one question, because I want 50 questions, but let's do it quickly. I think of the word validate. Like people have said in my life, gosh, you need a lot of validation. And for me, it was because I don't feel I was validated. Is that, in some core ways, what you're talking about?

So when I worked with a lot of group leaders and kids for 20 years, I saw the same thing happen Every time a leader would run a group, they would come afterwards and they would complain about one of the. One of the kids was an attention seeker. And then everyone would jump around, go, oh, I know that kid. He sucks the energy out of the room. And all they did was shame that kid. They didn't understand what that kid needed was like the soul food is recognition. You see me as a unique human individual in this moment. What we used to giving people is junk food. And if you don't give me junk food for getting straight A's or hopping when you tell me to hop, I'm gonna be a. I'm gonna up your classroom. I'm gonna be a bad boy, a bad girl. Because then I'll get something. I'll get sent to the principal's office. I'll get yelled at. I'll get something. I'm not insignificant now, am I? So there's a crisis to that. That core need to be recognized. The problem is shame interrupts us from actually receiving the food. If someone's trying to tell you, I love you, you're important to me, I care about you. But you spend your whole childhood and most of your life hearing the opposite, believing the opposite. You can't take that food in. So then you're hungry constantly, but you're actually not being fed. So, you know, that's why shame is this thing that we have to deal with so that we can actually feel seen, feel loved, and find our place in the world.

I have. Can I help us dimensionalize this? Since, you know, goodness. I spent years as a therapist, and you'd think I get this in a minute, but I really want to understand the words you're saying and the concepts. I. You know, I've written a book, the most powerful you. And I believe one of the power gaps is allowing the past to continue to shape and define you. And I mean traumatic past. But a lot of people don't even like that word because they think you have to be blown up in war, you know, for trauma to happen. And that's not what trauma is. Trauma can be someone saying, you're stupid and you can remember that for the rest of your life, right?

Yeah.

But what, what I always say is you are what your childhood taught you to be. Unless you unlearned it and healed it.

Absolutely.

Though I am pretty sure, and we'll get there in a second, that all of this stems from our formative years. Before we had boundaries, before we had coping skills, before we knew. Wait a minute.

Yeah, sometimes even before we had words.

Right?

Because if you're a baby, right. Think about it on a very primal level. I'm. I'm. I'm in need of my survival from you as a giant. And if I'm crying and you're turning away from me, if I'm doing something and you're showing me disgust in your expression, I have to swallow the disgust directly. Your shame becomes my shame. If I want to be in relationship, if I reject it, then I'm abandoned. I die.

I die.

So it starts from like the very beginning and then as. Even as a teenager when you rebel against your parents and you're, you're still stuck in the, in the shame, like what are you rebelling against? You're rebelling against their approval. Why, you know, you're. You're still in this, this trap. So, yeah, there's no escape. I call it the impossible choice. You didn't have a choice. You had to swallow it to survive. It's like your ancestors have their own ancestral trauma. Your genes took it on. You didn't get to choose that. But you do have a choice to break those chains when you become conscious. And there's ways to do it that are really powerful and accessible. Just. It's not our way of our society. Our society functions on using shame against us. Getting us to buy shit that we don't need. Getting us to behave in certain situations where we would be smarter to actually question.

Getting us to hate our bodies because it makes money.

Exactly.

All right. We will get there. How to tease it out. But I want a little more understanding of shame. Could I please. One thing I have to throw out. I think of all the things I teach. It's what being raised by a narcissist does to you that is the most shocking to people. Because they don't read about it. They don't what they say, what's narcissistic personality disorder? And you know, Per Brene Brown, you know, I've seen her years ago, right. You know, let's not demonize. Narcissists are broken. I'm going to use a non therapeutic term. I mean they didn't get what they needed. Typically, nobody really knows for sure exactly where narcissism comes from, but everything I've seen they didn't get. They, they have core shame yet they're either internalizing it or externalizing it in ways that, whatever. But the point is, I want to ask you about the other ways people have been shamed. So I'm guessing you would agree with this. But I would love your thoughts. If I look at just my own life, having a Greek mom and an Italian dad who were very traditional, you know, children of immigrants, if I, if I just listen to your words and think and this is not to blame people, this is not to blame. If you blame, you'll never heal. It's eyes wide tell me if you're. It's eyes wide open about the impact of your childhood. But it's not blaming them. They did the best they could. So being stuck in blame is not where we're going. But if I think of where have I been shamed the most, it's really from being different. Different beliefs, different ideas about girls and women. Different because I was an athlete and mom said don't beat the boys. Different because I had a lot of talents that maybe my friends or family members didn't and there was maybe a sense of inferiority among some other people. There's a lot of ways that I think I was shamed. Does this make sense? Is this kind of what you're talking about? Can you talk about how people can understand what shame looks like as people grow up and why they're shamed?

So first I, I would say that it's in. It's the soup we're swimming in. There's no escape. It's a question of what kind of. We all have shame. It's a question of what is your shame about what's. What is it attached to? What's the label? Is it because you're stupid? Because you didn't get straight A's? Is it because you're to this or not enough that. Is it about your gender because you were told that men are evil and women are weak or whatever messages you got about your gender and the other gender about your sexuality, in a way it doesn't even matter. It's like, it's like a multi headed dragon. You cut off one head, you don't deal with the body, another head pops up, you know.

You mean it doesn't matter to figure out what kind of who shame you.

And how it matters in the sense of being able to trace it. To be able to say, oh, this isn't mine. Oh, man, I've taken. I've swallowed this because I had to. I've been carrying this forever. It's colored my whole sense of the world and my identity, but it's not mine. It came from somewhere outside of me. And it, It. It's like a toxin in my body that's affected my, my. Everything, right? That's important. It's important to trace it to its root, not have to know everything, but to know enough to know this does not belong. Now the feeling of shame in the body is the same feeling as the flip side as contempt. They're both the same sides of the same coin. Two sides of the same coin. It's. It's a feeling of disgust. This does not belong. This feeling of, I need to get this out of my nervous system, right? That part is accurate. You swallow poison, you want to. You want to puke it out or get it out of your pores somehow it makes you feel sick to your, to your whole being is disgusted, right? That part, that's your body trying to tell you there's something invasive in your nervous system that does not belong. But we misunderstand even that signal and we think, oh, I feel disgust when I'm in the presence of those people. It must be that those people, there's something wrong with them, right? Or a narcissist is a very. It's a strategy to say, well, I can't tolerate this shame, so I'm going to stay in contempt all the time. I'm going to be in the superior position all the time. So they've just sort of developed the whole identity around I'm better than everyone.

Because they don't have to hold.

They don't have to feel that. They kind of cut it off and put it in a tight box. Deep down inside it's there. Otherwise why would they need to be contemptuous of humanity and everyone around them, right? But they are really good at that particular strategy. And then they get rewarded in our society. Our society is run by narcissists. We reward them. We give them millions of dollars because we worship them.

So, you know people. It's. Because it looks like something else. It looks like confidence and competence and, and strength and, oh, we'll be in good hands with this person.

But you know what? I don't believe in our guts, we know it's fake. We know when we're with someone who's got fake power and fake reputation, we can feel it in our gut. It's like when we're being conned by a salesperson. We know we're being conned. So the reason we buy into it is because we feel inferior.

Right.

And this person says, I'm superior. So it's sort of like, you know, and energetically matches. But we stop feeling inferior. We can see through that mile away we go like that. That person is so fake. I would never follow them. I would never give them a penny. So our society is kind of embedded with all of that. Right. And what we value, who we elevate, who we. We put down, we get all of those messages constantly. The good news is that all of it's impacting our nervous system, and that's where we can create the change. And if we work together, we can accelerate that change. There's a power in community and people being able to unshame together, that makes it easier and faster than if we try to do it alone. The other thing that shame is like an advisor who's always whispering behind you said, I've been here since you were a babe. I know you. I'm looking out for you. I'm protecting your ego, your reputation. Trust me. And it speaks to you in your own voice. Right. And you've been listening to it your whole life because you had to. So that's why it's really hard to identify it and notice it, because it's. It's. It's so internal. It's so amazing. It's who you think you are. You don't know your soul, but when you look deep, deep, deep down, you meet your shame. And your shame tries to tell you, this is who you are. Trust me.

You know, I'm seeing this with a lot of clients right now where this is the challenge, just like you're talking about David. They're making decisions based on what shame is telling them is going to work.

Yeah.

I'm going to isolate from the world. I'm. Or even as simple and non. You know, what am I saying? Straightforward is this. I'm so tired of corporate America. I'm only going to work at nonprofits because they're doing good, and then they work at a nonprofit. Nonprofits are filled with humans and many of whom are coming to me to.

Leave the nonprofit just as dysfunctional.

Just as dysfunctional. And in. In some ways, they can be worse because they have this elevated belief that they're doing good. Don't get me wrong. There's amazing nonprofits.

Yeah.

But the shame is. Is making us have decisions that are continuing the shame.

Yeah.

Because let me try a non profit. Oh, I'm still not validated there. There's still people that are crushing me down. It must be me. Yeah. But before we go there, and I know you're, you're really wanting to tease it out for us and I want that, I want to ask you this. I have an idea, obviously from the work I do, but I want to hear what you have to say. There are some people who were shamed and have, have really crushed under the pressure of that and they're not functional. There's intense depression. Like you said, look at someone who wants to die. There's shame there. There are other people and you can't, you know, it's not like measuring ounces, you know, oh, he had more shame. You know, a little bit of shame can make you want to end your life. You know, it's right. I believe it's not an objective measure.

Yeah.

There are people that have overcome it. If I look at, say, my degree of it, which was not what other people, you know, wasn't as horrible as what other people are going through, but it was a lot. And unintentional, of course, from my family and my parents. I think for me, when I said I've had it, I don't even know what this is, but I've had it was when the pain was so great, I decided, enough of this blippity blip, blip, blip, enough of this shit. Yeah, I don't know what's happening, but I am interrupting this damn pattern. And then the step was to get a lot of help. Energy healing, become a therapist, become an energy healer so I could feel more. But some people I see, you know, their boundaries were so violated. There was, there was shame that they haven't yet processed. My question to you is, what do you see as a difference? And we're going to tread very lightly here because none of this is unilateral. What do you see as the difference between people who've had a lot of shame and buckle under it and never live a healing, healed life versus people that do say, hang on, here I am, I'm getting to the bottom of this. What is the difference in your experience? Hard question. I didn't prep.

Yeah, I know. It's a, it's a beautiful question.

I.

There's so much grace in that too. Because it's not just the individual choice. If I'm. If I'm full like I. In my. When I was 28, I wanted to, to fall off the edge of a building Because I had so much shame, I wanted to erase myself. And what saved me wasn't just my individual choice saying I've had enough. That was also part of it. But it was having one friend who walked me, came that day, rang my doorbell and went for a three hour walk with me. And every other friend abandoned me because I was so fucking dark and depressed and suicidal. This friend just cooked me food, took me for walks, saved my life.

I need to ask, did you say to this friend I am at the end?

Yeah.

And the friend came right over.

No, he came spontaneously just because he was in the neighborhood.

No, he didn't know.

He didn't know. And, and he spent the whole day with me and he came checking up on me and he gave me space to just be broken, lost, defeated, feel like a piece of. He gave me space. He didn't convince me that I was good enough or great or anything. And he just gave me space.

Space to say and be and feel.

He left all the shame out, right, to start letting it out, say, okay. He didn't take it on, he didn't take it personally, he didn't react to it. And he didn't try to fix me or save me like even a therapist might, right? That was the beginning of me reclaiming my life.

When an evolved angelic experience happens to be in the neighborhood.

And that's a. That's what a good friend can do, right? That's what a powerful ally can do. Right? Right. Yeah. As someone who. So the only way he could do that, his name is Shannon Lynch. The only way he could do that is he faced his own dark night.

Of the soul before that. Before.

Absolutely. How old were you? I was 28. And so this is the gift of someone who has faced their darkness and has done a little bit or a lot of shame unshaming work. They've had to go to the deepest core of themselves and face down that dragon, that beast that says, you're a piece of shit, you don't belong, you suck. You're just pretending all the time. And they said, you sit down, we're gonna have a talk and we're gonna wrestle this out till I get to the bottom of who I really am. Because you're just the guardian of that door. And behind that door is who I really am. They had to do that work because otherwise they can within themselves, because they cannot tolerate being around someone who starts to get real. Everyone is wearing a mask and it's driven by shame. The only people who can take off that mask are People who have had the resilience, the strength that the. I have to. My mask is breaking. I can't even keep it up anymore. Right? Whatever the.

The catalyst, this is not sustainable.

And they healed somewhat in relationship. They did the work, but they had to be seen by someone who really saw them. So they couldn't do it alone. You can't unshame alone. That's not. That's just narcissism. Narcissism wants to reinforce itself with the mirror.

Right?

You can't just tell yourself you're good enough. You have to look into someone else's eyes. Who doesn't. Who knows you're good enough, but doesn't have to tell you. They will tell you who you really are. They will reflect to you who you are in that moment and who you are deep down. And then you start to begin to know yourself and go through this. This long journey of who do I believe? Society and all this conditioning or this quiet little voice of my soul that this person just called out and brought forth. Do I believe them or do I believe them? Right. And it. And so that's the greatest gift, to be able to unshame yourself is then you don't pass it on to your kids, your friends, your partner. But you also liberate people around you because they can come to you and say, I'm suicidal. And you don't run away and go, oh, no, I have to shut down. You say, oh, my God, I know what that's like. Let's talk about it. Let's be real. Let me be here for you. Whatever's going on, I can hear it. I can see you in the dark. And I'm not going to fix you or rescue you, but I believe you're going to find your way through this because I did. Right.

Questions, David?

Yeah.

Two things come to mind. One statement, two questions. Com. Community is everything. We can't do this by ourselves. We can't do this by ourselves. We can't become the most powerful, confident. We can't. It's just not possible because the ally we have inside is flawed. Right? But let me ask you this. When you ask people in therapy, or if you were to ask your friend, can you name the shame? Do you know where it came from? Do most people immediately know?

No. No. They. They don't even know they have any shame.

Right. Right.

It's like they have the poison, but they. They talk about the symptoms. I doubt myself. I. I'm indecisive. I feel like an imposter.

I.

When they say, should I, should I, shouldn't. There's so many ways that it shows up that I just. It's. It comes up, like within a minute of talking to somebody new, I go, oh, there's a shame right there. Okay. And it identifies in very unique ways, like, oh, this person is ashamed about their money situation. This person is ashamed about their physique. But it's the same beast. It's just for them, it's attached to that little label. Right. That's so painful. But it's so easy to notice once you. Once you smell it. It's like walking into opening a fridge and smelling something's off. You go, oh, there, that cheese has gone moldy. Oh, gross. Let's get it out of there. It's that obvious once you start to notice it. It's just so common that we don't notice it.

You know, I think that, you know, people in our lines of work, like when I look at someone's career path assessment when they're a client of mine, there it is. I'm looking for it. I'm just looking for it. And sometimes it's not there, but I know it's there. Like, they didn't write it down. For instance, I'll say, was there a pivotal moment, negative or positive? And I can feel there was. And they don't put it down. So in our first call, gently, gently, I'll start to see signs of what it was. And in my work, I do find that getting to the root, you're able to pull out the root. It's like you're gardening.

Yeah.

If you don't get the weed, forget it.

Yeah. And you gotta get that root. Cause if you just cut off the head, that's what positive affirmation and mindset stuff is superficial. Unless you get to the root of it.

That's it.

Yeah.

So you and I do so much the same work, although I now coach. And if they need therapeutic help. And, and, and I need to say this.

I'm retiring as a therapist.

Right.

Because I. I believe that the work is more powerful and accelerated in community. So I'm 70% now. I'm a mentor in community and only 30% therapy. And I'm. I'm closing down in a couple years. Interesting, Dave, because that's how it works, what you just said. Yeah.

And you know, another thing I'm going to spit if I hear one more coach or one more organization said, we don't want anything to sound like therapy. What they mean is, if you're asking someone to think about their childhood, that's therapy. What a bunch of nonsense.

Yeah.

You are what you were in the past unless you looked at it. So I want the whole world to stop saying, and coaches are trained that way. If you're talking about the past, that's therapy. And they're trained that way because they're trained that you don't have the chops, you don't have the knowledge to dig around in someone's childhood.

Yeah. So they're afraid of it.

They're afraid of it. But, but to me, you know, I, I do not do therapy the way I view it in, in coaching. But we go right there. Tell me about your childhood, Tell me about mom, tell me about dad, Tell me about your siblings. Tell me about the role you played. How can you not ask that?

Yeah.

And you're helping someone in their career. Anyway, thank you for so letting me stand in my soapbox.

It's also like, again, shame based society doesn't want us to look at ourselves. So if it's a shame based society in a culture, we don't have a past, we don't want to look about what we did in the 70s in Vietnam, we don't want to look about our history as a country or a West, we don't want to look at anything because it brings up shame. We feel bad. Let's not look at it. Let's focus on the future. Everything's going to be better in the future. Let's focus on aspirational. Right. As opposed to being real.

Can I ask you something about that? The reason you and I connected was I wrote something on the Barbie movie that I was disappointed in. Long story short, that in the Real World segment, there wasn't one man that was likable, that wasn't gross, laughable, that makes me upset. I wish for, and I don't mean a lecture, I wish for a 15 to 30 second look at a man who wasn't all in on the patriarchal system. Didn't get it. Anyway, you commented and you agreed with that and we had a wonderful interchange with Mark Green was fantastic. But I want to ask you this. When somebody recently said to me, you know, we want to bring you in to coach and train, but we want to make sure, you know, let's make sure it doesn't sound like therapy. And I had just done a talk for a lot of people and I said, what? What about what I shared? Not meanly, I said, what about what I shared? Sounded like therapy. And she couldn't answer it. Well, nothing but what struck me. Tell me what you think, David. I think it's a very patriarchal view, that we don't want anything. That sounds like you're going vulnerable.

Yeah.

Patriarchy is what it smacks to me of, that it's a world where you're supposed to have it all together. You're supposed to be strong. You're not supposed to let on that you're crumbling or weak or feeling scared. And organizations are still patriarchal because they're dominated in leadership by men. What do you think? When I say that, would you agree? Would you push back? What do you think?

I totally agree. I think it's bigger than patriarchy, even.

What do you think?

I think it's capitalism. I think it's so many things. Meritocracy. I think you can. It's racism. It's so many things that have this. Different heads of the same beast. There's people who are superior and there's people who are inferior. And in this company, it's. It's. Engineers are in fear, you know, superior. And these people. It's men over women. It's white people over black people. It's always one group that's the in group, and there's one group that's the out group. And even.

Is there ever an in group that does allow themselves to be vulnerable? Is there ever an in group anywhere that you've ever seen at an organization? It's okay. Yes. Women. I mean, women.

Yeah. Yeah. I. I've only seen it in organizations that are small and that have a healthy culture and that have diversity. Not because they're trying to have diversity. They're not trying to get that black person on there.

So they like to check a box.

But they have diversity. Neurodiversity, gender, sexuality. It just happens to attract people, and people feel safe. And then people can be different and be real, and they have conflict and tension, and then the organization grows and becomes stronger because of it. That's rare, though. That's why I've spent my whole life studying communities that are functional and healthy, because 95 of the time, we see society and communities are dysfunctional, you know, perpetuating shame. So what does it look?

We're. Yeah, we don't fit in. And even though we are conscious that we don't want to fit in.

Yeah.

We have shame from it because it's. Oh, my God. All right, I think we've given you, in 15 minutes, people enough to start dissecting it. Can you walk us through? We name it, we translate it. We can Tell us.

Yeah, this part. This part is so exciting to me because it saved my life. And I wouldn't be. I literally wouldn't be here. And I think that the first step, and it can all take when it takes place in community, when you do it with a therapist, you can. You know, there's a famous African proverb. You can travel faster alone, but only together can we go farther. I think, in a way, with shame, you can't even get there. Shame is also an immobilizing emotion. It stops you from going after what you want, and it motivates you to be fake and try to hide and walk, run away from people. That's. That's the impetus of shame, is your inferior. Go hide. And when you reemerge, be fake and try to fit in. So the counter to unshame is to start to name it. And I'm. I think often in intimate relationships, it's so easy to project our shame on our partner, on our kids. You know, if I feel inferior in terms of my intelligence or my virility or my whatever, and I see that in my daughter or my wife, I start to pick on them, criticize them, try to fix them, or. Or, you know, try to get frustrated with them and impatient with them. And I blame them if they're not working on it. Right.

Because it's agitating the very thing that we hate about ourselves. Because we've been taught to hate it.

Exactly. So the most powerful first step is to name it and go, whoa, why do I feel so much charge and impatience here? They're just being themselves. They're on their own journey. They have their own priorities and values. They're different than me. So why does it. Why am I so hooked into this? Oh, and if I'm honest and I just take a minute to feel my own body, I feel disgust, I feel shame. I feel something doesn't feel good inside about myself. And it's more comfortable to put it on them and to be superior and try to fix them and help them. Right. And this is in the helping profession, too. We try to help people sometimes from a place of contempt and righteousness.

Wounded hell. The wounded. What is it? The wounded healer. The wounded healer who's wounding everyone around them because they haven't healed their wound. Yeah.

And we diagnose people and give them stupid labels that put them down and make them feel worse about themselves. So as soon as you name it and say, oh, so an example of my wife and I, because of our attachment styles and because I'm an Introvert. And she's an extrovert. Is. For a long time, I used to think, oh, she's so needy. Fuck, she's so damn needy. And she would think, oh, he's so fucking selfish. He's always thinking of himself. And it would, like, cause so much pain and suffering because we would get into stupid fights about anything. That was the undertone, right. When we start to look at that and say, well, yeah, she's actually better at expressing needs. I've been shamed my whole life to not have needs. As a boy, as a man. Men don't have needs. I need space. That's all I need. What do you need? I'm fine. I'm good. Right. So there's male conditioning. There's also my introversion, where I'm less reluctant to be outspoken. Like my wife. She's. She's Greek and she's extroverted. So she puts it all out there. So we just have innate differences. But the shame has distorted that mirror. So we look down at each other, right? And then it made us not want to be around each other. Put a lot of distance between us and a lot of hurt, a lot of grief and lessons. So once we start to own our own shame. Oh, I'm putting that on you. I'm taking it back. I'm taking that projection back. But now I feel uncomfortable because I'm not comfortable with my own needs. I'm not comfortable with asking for affection and love. I feel. I feel needy. It's easier to put it on you, honey. But now that I own it, a lot of bullshit doesn't have to play out more. Hurt doesn't have to be created out of that. Right.

Which so then, you know, doesn't get to the heart of it. It's a lifelong of hurting.

Yeah.

Shaming others when really it's time you go inward, people and look.

That's right. So all of these steps kind of fade into one another so that. That translating the judgment. So it's like, think about. It's like a grain of truth in a pile of manure. There's something in there that makes you convinced that it's all true. If you can pull out that grain of truth, then you can. It makes it easier to release the bullshit. So the grain of truth is we are different. My wife is really good at expressing her needs. I'm actually really good at taking care of myself and being stoic. Sometimes that's really good. Sometimes it's really not good. Right. Men can be too stoic by their conditioning. And then they end up being suicidal or very depressed, very lonely. They neglect their relationships. And it's just the grain of truth. The thing I see in her is that she's really good at that. The thing I see in myself. So that, that's the thing that I want to hold on to. Then there's the critic who's like that voice that's saying, no, you know, it's, it's her fault, it's her, it's her problem or you're, you're to blame, you suck. And it's just the two sides of that same coin. It doesn't matter which moment you can flip in a second, right? It's confronting that voice inside and saying, whoa, when did I make you the authority of my life? I must have been when I was a child because I'm 46 year old adult now. You better sit the fuck down.

You mean talking to your shame?

Yeah, to the critic who carries that shame, who's training me. He's like a bad coach. I see him in my psyche. He's like an Eastern European uncle who's like an alcoholic and smokes too much. And he's just shit talks you all day, just puts you down all day. That's my version of my career.

Did you ever have that?

I had wonderful uncles, but I saw guys like that in my culture who just bitter, bitter and vicious and mean.

And an expert on everybody else.

Everybody you need.

Your problem is this, you weak, blah, blah, blah.

And I had some of that with within my own family of origin where that's played out. But the moment where you, you decenter the critic and you don't let them sit in your, your throne, your king or queen throne, and you sit in that throne and you put them on the sidelines and you say, look, you're being a terrible advisor because I'm. Listen, I'm actually like tuning in now to what you're actually saying. It's not just noise constantly. And you're like, you're telling me she sucks and I should leave her. And you're telling me I'm, I'm this one moment and the next moment you're telling me I suck. Like you're not giving me anything helpful or constructive. So if you don't, either you shut up and let me play the game or you come up with some constructive criticism. Oh, and then your critic has a choice. If they want to be heard, they have to evolve. They have to get better, more articulate. Well, I'm concerned about this. I think this. Okay, that's better. There's no putting anyone down. Putting me down. You have a concern, you have a fear. Okay? You know, that's where that translator comes in. You pull out the thing that's actually helpful. But that move is huge. And I've done this with so many people where they reclaim their throne, they put the critic to the side, and it's like the whole, their whole world turns on its axis a few degrees and then from that moment on, they no longer believe their shame 100. They're suspicious, they're doubting the doubt. They've got their detective eye out there and go, wait a second, I'm shooting a lot, aren't I? This smells like shame. Oh, look at that. The critics stole my throne again. I better tell him to sit down again, because he doesn't. He's got too much power. So that's a really powerful moment to see people. It's just the whole body language changes too. They go from eye rolling and looking down on people or kind of collapsed. They, Their spine actually holds them better and they, they look taller and clearer. Their eyes open up. It's beautiful. But we can't forget the last part of the equation, which is shame is that toxic stuff, that yucky stuff. So even when you're conscious of it, you're naming it, you're owning it, you're challenging it, you're questioning it. It can still just like make you just filled up with such disgust, such.

In your cells, loathing.

Right? You go, oh, I can't help but loathe that person. Or I love myself. So you have to deal with the physiology of shame. And there's so many ways to do it. There's. Since the 70s, there was primal release work, which, which has issues, you know, because there's expensive EMDR therapy, which I think is way too exclusive and expensive. My favorite way of helping people to unshame, besides talking about it in groups, because that, that's when you release it osmotically. You start talking, everyone else starts talking, you start sharing, and it all comes. Comes out of your pores in the circle, right? It's really powerful. But I, I teach people to tap, Eft tapping. And it's such a simple, graceful way to regulate the nervous system. Yeah, exactly. You can be in deep shame where normally you would reach for your addictive substance because you know you can't handle it. It's too much. And you can actually handle it because you're breathing, you're tapping, your system is regulating you talk it through. I feel like A failure. Right now. I feel inadequate and I choose to breathe and tap. I don't know what to say. Doesn't matter what you say. You just keep tapping, breathing through the shame. And it's. And you measure it and you see it go down, down, down to the point where it gets to like a 2 or 3 out of 10. And you can laugh about it, you can put out a play about it for your friends.

Because attachment from it now, it's not you in yourself, it's you looking at. Well, that video was really interesting, huh?

Yeah. Yeah.

You know, I can attest, you know, I used to do EFT on my own.

Yeah.

And if you have a resource, we'd love to.

I do. Yeah.

We're going to link to it. It is. You can actually feel the change in your body. Yeah. Like, all quickly.

Yeah.

All of a sudden you're like.

But you know, the key with the. With tapping is you have to be willing to feel the shame. You can't just do it intellectually and go, yes, I have shame. I listen to the podcast, make it. You can't just kind of have a Akashic record, download some. You have to actually, like, feel it. And then as it comes up, then. Then the spiritual insights come after. Right. Because they're grounded in your body. Then you can realize the truth of who you are.

And. All right, people, roll your eyes. It's a form of energy healing because we are energy. So it's one thing to do it here. That isn't enough. It's in our cells. It's in our body.

Yeah. And we need. We need support because that shame is so sticky. It's like black tar, gucky stuff. It sticks to. It hides and it sticks. Right. That's the nature of how we feel it. And our body says, I can't. Oh, it's gross. Get it out. But it doesn't want to leave. It's a. It's like a parasite. Right. So we need support. We need support. So if you have tapping, breathing, if you have a friend holding you, if you have someone looking you in the eye, if you have a circle, if you have angelic guides that you call in, if you bring in your ancestors and light a candle, anything you do, you sit in nature.

Nature.

You bring together all your allies. Right?

Right.

You bring all your allies and you say, this is the most powerful work that I love or do. I'm breaking the chains of the past. I'm healing society by releasing shame from my nervous system. So I don't recreate it. And I don't add to it, and I don't put it on other people. I think it's the most important thing we could ever do. And every time I lead someone through it, I'm just like, wow, this is. The world has gotten a little bit clearer and brighter in this moment.

It's so beautiful. David. You know, they say that when we heal, we heal generations behind and generations ahead.

Yeah.

And you and I see that.

Yeah.

We are healing ourselves, and we're healing our children and the people in proximity and the people we lead, and then they're healing. It is incredibly powerful. You know, I love every word that you're sharing. And. And I also love that there are things that I will tell someone. For instance, you talk about talking to the critic. I love it. And dethroning the critic. And for me, I might say we have many different voices inside of us. And think of them as the board of directors. And they're sitting at the table. And this one is your warrior, and this one is your little girl or little boy, and this one is your. Blah, blah, blah. And if that one voice, the warrior who has to fight through everything, you can feel when it's like, back off, warrior forgot. So talk to the warrior. What is it that you want most? I want to protect you. You've been hurt. I hear that. And you've been so helpful. But I need you to sit in the corner now. I need the other voices, the mediator, the listener, the whatever, you know? So I think the whole point. Tell me what you think. If we try to suppress, it keeps going. It sustains. Forget depressing.

Yeah.

Talk to it. Figure out what. What is it you want?

I think that's brilliant.

I will give you what you want, but you have to back off and let me get it in other ways now.

Yeah.

So you do it your way. I like my. I like to see the board of advisors and the warrior in the. In the armor and the.

Yeah.

And the angel who's so spiritual. Whatever way we do it.

Yeah. No, that. That's.

Do it.

Very powerful work. And what you're talking about is integrative. And it makes us feel whole and it gives us our full power. What I find, just to add to that. And. And is what. What you're assuming in that. In that exercise is that the person you're talking to is willing and ready to be the chairwoman or chairman of the board. But most people have abdicated. They left that seat empty. So the different parts jump into that seat.

Or.

And this is where shame comes in. Shame is that part that's saying, you don't belong here. You don't get to sit down. You get to be in the corner watching the show.

Poor person. Yeah. Like when I say warrior, back off now.

Yeah.

Some people can't do that because your voice or the dominating voice is too strong. Is that it?

But it's not the warrior that's the problem. It's that the shame is preventing that power, the power that you just expressed. Shame would be trying to suppress the power and saying, oh, you can't talk back to the warrior. You should just sit in the corner and watch these guys argue. You don't have. You don't belong here. You can't be in charge.

Me, I'm the one who runs the show. A show.

Exactly right. So. So when you, when you de. When you put the critic in their place, you can finally step in and be the chairwoman, chairman of the board. Right. And then the work is actually right. Quite joyful. Because even when you argue, all of these parts want to help. They're not trying to take you down or get rid of you like shame did. They're just arguing for their position, saying, we need to do this, we need to. And you can listen to all of them and you can balance all the messages.

You're saying the very act of what I just shared shows. I don't mean to self congratulate, but shows that the critic isn't running me anymore. The very fact that I can say critic, thanks a lot, but it's time for someone else. I've already done the work to know that I am the one in control, not the critic anymore. Is that right?

Absolutely. Yeah.

Well, that's good to know.

Well, I knew that about you when I met you. You had a strong sense of yourself, and that comes because you've. You've done the work right. Very few people come into this world and have the right conditions to find that naturally we have to be wounded, traumatized, shamed. And then we come through that and we realize who we are. Right.

I'm going to ask you one more question then. You know, I think a mom who passed away at 98 in March, and my mom and she. There was shame from mom. I got that. Okay. But one of the funniest stories my sister and I tell of her is she was tough to other people in a fantastic way. So I was a little kid and I was in the car with her and I got out of the car. Cvs. I'll never forget it. I Might have been eight. And my car door, I opened it, and it dinged some other woman's car, but there was no mark. Well, the woman was furious and marched in. I go, mom, mom, this lady's mad. And she's marching into cvs. And then she confronts my mother. Greek immigrant, so smart. And the woman says, your daughter? And my mother went, oh, go home and take an aspirin. My sister and I just. We bring it up every year. I felt so validated. I felt she was so strong. The lady didn't know what the heck to do. She just went and scooted away. Is it possible I know the answer, but I want to hear you say it. Or maybe I don't know the answer. The very sources of shame were also sources of me being able to say warrior or critic. Back off now. Can. Can it come? Can. Can we get those threads of power now? Mom gave it to me by showing me what strong was and showing me that, leave my daughter alone and back off.

Right?

There was some strength I got from that, and I was a strong person. I had a kid bullying me, and I went, what's your name? At the. At the bus stop. And he's like. I go, what's your name? He ran away. And I'll never forget it. I'm like, take that. The point is, do you find that we get threads of all these things sometimes that it's. It's not black and white as we would like?

Okay, think this is. I love your questions. You're. You're a brilliant interviewer.

Bless you, Kathy.

I really like. Your questions are really deep. What I believe when I see people on shaming, all kinds of people, all kinds of races and colors and genders, the thing that they started off with being the worst judgment about themselves is the thing that was revealing to them one of their greatest gifts. But it was covered in shit. It was covered in. In poison. It was. It was distorted. And they were reacting to that distortion their whole life.

Like, you're too outspoken. Be quiet. Girls need to be quiet, right?

So then that outspoken person learns to shut up, or they double down and they get really loud and obnoxious, right? But when they finally see themselves as worthy, lovable, irreplaceable, unique diamond in the universe, they can. Their range of being able to be outspoken expands. And they can be so compelling, because their natural gift is to speak truth to the universe, and they can do that without any shame, without any. Without trying to prove, without. Without pumping themselves up or putting themselves down. They can. They can, like, penetrate People with their.

Words, but they do it selectively. It doesn't have to be bombastic anymore. Exactly. It's not trying to prove anymore.

And they can have such nuance and skill and mastery that someone without that gift wouldn't have. Right. So that's the beauty that I see when you. When you unchame, you liberate your ancestors and you save future generations, but you also liberate your own soul to show up more clearly in the world. And then all of your natural gifts can start to shine and be the medicine that people need and be delivered in a clear way. You're not overselling, you're not underselling, you're not trying to prove anything. Just your presence shines through. And it's unique and it's needed in the world. It's desperately needed by your loved ones, by your business, by everyone around you. And then power can be expressed in the most, sometimes the most gentle ways. My.

You know, I love that.

Like, I struggled with power in my family. My dad was really tough, I'd say. And I got beaten up a lot. So I struggled with power, collapsing into it, fearing it. Then I became a sensei. I started controlling kids, dominating them. And then I had to unshame around power. And then I came into a relaxed, gentle kind of power where I can compel people in the direction where they don't want to go, but they need to go. That's taken me, you know, a lifetime to get to that. But that feels so satisfying because I found my natural power. I don't have to shout and yell at people. I don't have to give up. I can be persistent and playful, and I get. I get them there. And so that's the beauty of when we unshame is we discover who we really are, and all of our faculties come forth. Our power, our love, our grace, our compassion, our forgiveness. Deep. Yeah. It's beautiful.

Oh, David, I could talk. I feel like. Well, number one, I had an energy healing session. Number two, I've. I learned so much, so much nuance and richness in, you know, even how I'm seeing things and helping people. First of all, have you done a ted talk? A TEDx talk? No.

But you know what? I've been thinking about that. I want to get, like, a dozen guys on stage to do it with me. I want to demonstrate what shame looks like in different bodies and in an embodied way. I don't want it to just be words. I. I have that background in drama.

I would love to help you. I mean, in any way, you know.

To actually see it. It's not just one person's issue. It's all of our issue, which just comes out in different ways. This guy's trying to overperform. This guy's giving up. This guy's rich. This guy's poor. This guy's brown. This guy's white. We're all struggling with shame, and when we come out of it, our natural confidence and clarity comes forth. And so I'm looking to gather all my allies and do something fun and exciting like that.

Yeah, I can't wait. And let me know how I can help. David, where do people learn and soak up all of this? Where do we send them? Where do we.

Well, I get a lot of women who reach out to me saying, can you fix my man?

Oh, dear.

Like, no, I cannot fix your man. But if they're interested, if they're curious, if they're looking for something, and it's often they're not looking for therapy or they've done therapy, and they're looking for something deeper, richer, like a real community, there's nothing to sell. We're not trying to plug them into anything. But if they go to powerfulandloving.com, they'll find a way to reach out. They can reach me directly. I love consulting with men, helping them find their way. And if they're a good fit to our community, then they're welcome. It's really that simple. And. Yeah.

Oh, my gosh. Thank you so much for going deep. And I didn't prep you for any of these questions. You just flew with them. Thank you so much for what you're doing. Literally. I feel different, calmer, more at peace. Look at that. I hope you do, too. People.

All right, Kathy, can I just say something?

You may.

I feel different, too. I feel.

You do.

The way. Yeah. The way you hold presence and space, and you're, like, unafraid to cut into the deeper layer of a question and just go, like, let's go there. That's just so exciting and wonderful. And I. I. Yeah, I feel. I feel really calm and clear and grateful right now.

What a gift. Thank you for saying it. And, you know, truthfully, when I ask questions, I'm not afraid for you to say, no, you didn't get it. No, that's not. That's not happening. Not that you would ever say it that way, but.

But you want to.

I want to learn.

Counter.

I do. What am I doing here if I can't learn from you? Thank you for saying that, though. That means the world, people. You know, I say this every time, but honest to goodness, if you don't have a question here, what are we doing? If you don't want to follow up in some way, you know, whatever way feels right. Checking out Eft, checking out David's work, the website. I hope this inspires you because truthfully, action is the way we change it. Insight is lovely, but I truly believe it's action and it's action unlike anything you've ever taken before. That's what creates breakthrough. So will you please take some kind of action and let us know wherever you see this. Instagram, LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, we would love a comment. We would love to hear from you. That would mean a lot to us. So thank you again, David. Can't wait to keep talking and learning and everybody sending big brave love to you. I hope you found this helpful and have a wonderful brave two weeks and we will see you next time. Hi folks, Kathy here. So are you thinking about launching a new podcast or have you been at it a while and recognize it's time for more or better production help to create the best podcast you can? I totally understand. I've been podcasting for over six years and I know how challenging it can be. That's why I'm really excited to share some key information about the great production team I'm using now called We Edit Podcasts. I've been working with them for well over a year and I've been so happy with the results. They're a full service production agency and their services give me access to a wonderful team of seasoned audio engineers and editors who help create a polished professional sound, and they work hard to ensure that my particular podcasting approach and style comes through in every episode. They also help me make sure that my guests are reflected in the best possible light through the creation of terrific show notes, which is an important part of the show for me. Their process is easy and streamlined and their responsiveness and customer service is terrific too. If you're ready for better production help, definitely check them out and take advantage of their free trial episode, allowing you to sample their processing quality to see if it's a great fit for you. I'm confident you'll love them. Just go to the link we edit podcasts.com finding brave. That's my special link for you and book your free call today. Happy podcasting. Thanks so much for joining us today and please don't forget to check out finding brave.org for more programs, resources and tips. And tune in next time for your weekly dose of finding brave.