Episode 409: The Journey through Shame to Empowerment

Hello everyone, this is Rebecca Green for the Winey Palooza podcast, and I am very excited today because I get to talk to the fabulous Dr. Abby. Dr. Abby, thank you so much for doing this with me today.

Thank you so much for having me.

I want to tell you about this extraordinary lady that I have been so excited all day to talk to. She is a psychologist, behavior analyst, An analyst. Oh, I'm already messing up. Analyst. That's a tongue twister. She's a behavior analyst. She's an educator recognized internationally for her expertise in human behavior. Dr. Abby serves as Director of Education at Social Engineer LLC, and she co-hosts the Social Engineer podcast and is a sought-after speaker and trainer. Her new book, Work in Progress: The Road to Empowerment, The Journey Through Shame, redefines shame as a catalyst for personal growth. And I can't wait to hear about this. And the United States Department of State has recognized her top in her field, which is amazing. So, Dr. Abbey, let me start with, I want to know what inspired you to pursue a career in psychology and human behavior.

That is, uh, a simple question with a complicated answer, so I'll try and keep it as simple as possible. Um, I didn't have the best upbringing and I wasn't the most studious of students. And this was in my first year of A-level, which I believe is high school for Americans. So I was about 15 years old and I was kicked out of college at the time.

Oh my goodness.

I was in a pretty bad state. I had quite a disruptive home. There was some abuse, um, pretty seriously from my mom and I was bullied extremely badly. So I failed my courses. I didn't try. I was fighting a drug addiction at the time too, and kicked out of my mom's house, my dad's house. I was living, living with a friend. And there was a moment where I just saw my whole life go down the drain. And I remember I was on a holiday with a friend and I was shaking and sweating and being sick. And it occurred to me that I'm 16 years old and I have a drug addiction and I'm having withdrawals. And it was that moment that I realized everything has to change. So I decided to make a change and I went back to my college and I begged them to let me stay. They didn't want to have me for the 2 years to redo the year, so they said, you can do both your AS and A2, but you have to do them in the same year. The problem was that I didn't pass enough of my subjects to be allowed to stay, so I had to go to my psychology teacher who hated me and I hated her. I failed it very badly and I had to go to her and beg her to ask to see if she would let me stay and redo both years. And she did not want to, but she let me. And I had said to her, I will prove to you that I want to be here and I will write you an essay every week on a topic you choose. And that decision for her to say, yes, you can stay. And that conversation that changed my life because I realized I had to fight to stay in college and I needed to get my life together. So as the year started, I was not very good. And she, you know, effed everything that I did because it wasn't very good. And eventually she taught me how to write because I just— I realized I was dyslexic. So I was really struggling with the structure and she took extra time to help me. And I realized a pattern. And then I applied it to every essay. And as I started getting better at the essays, I started to enjoy the subject. And then it became the only thing that was joy for me. I started to realize, you know what, I'm good at psychology. And that moment that she gave me, she was like, this is a B. And that moment I was like, I'm good at this. And I put my heart into it and I realized how much I loved it. And from that point, psychology became my lifeline. It became the only thing in my life that had ever made me feel good enough. And I decided this is what I wanna do for the rest of my life. And I ended up getting almost 100% on my psychology exams, almost all of them. My psychology teacher became like a surrogate mom to me. She became my best friend. I would sit in her classrooms at lunchtime because I didn't have anywhere else. To go, and I didn't have any other friends, and psychology just became my whole life, and it has been my whole life since. And I could not imagine anything different. I couldn't imagine a different path to it, and I couldn't imagine myself doing anything different now.

Wow, that is not the answer I expected. That is amazing and beautiful, and I'm so I'm so glad that you found psychology. Um, my story isn't as profound as yours, but I do want you to know that when I started studying psychology, I was like, finally something that I want to learn about.

Yes, and it's so interesting because you understand not only the world and other people, but you understand yourself.

Yes.

And there is no part of psychology that isn't helpful at some point. Because anyone, no matter what career you work in, psychology is important because you work with people and just general wellbeing. Psychology is important. So I am biased because my PhD is in psychology, but I think it's the best subject in the world.

I agree with you. That's amazing. Well, and you, you moved into really studying shame and, and, and how shame can lead to empowerment. So how, so how did you go from, I love psychology to, I'm gonna study this?

Us. So again, it's not the expected story. My journey hasn't been linear, um, but my PhD was in psychology, but I focused in forensic psychology, so I was never in this positive well-being side. And my full-time job, I work in security. So I was recently just out in Seattle training the Secret Service, training Homeland Security, FBI, and I teach them information elicitation. Deception detection, nonverbals. So very different to this shame and emotion and wellbeing side of things. So people are always very surprised when they see that my passion projects and my book and my side work is all in emotions, but it's all connected. And I did my PhD focused in information elicitation down the security route, and I had become a professor in social psychology and forensic psychology, and my career was starting to take off. And I was working with Joe Navarro at the time who wanted me to do more media and come into the private sector. But I had gone through a lot of really difficult experiences and gone through some traumas, and I had made decisions in my life that I very much regret and/or regret at the time. And I felt so much shame inside of me that I didn't want to do anything publicly because I was worried, what if people figure out what I had done in my past? So I stopped taking any opportunity. And not only that, I was actually squashing things that were coming my way that could help me grow into this career that I've always wanted. But I was so ashamed of the things that I had done that I was purposefully making myself small. And it got to the point that even as a professor, I would come home and go to sleep, and every night I would have severe anxiety that what if they figure out that I'm an impostor, that I'm not this put-together professor that everybody thinks that I am. And I had really changed and grown this image of someone who was very, you know, grounded and stern and stoic. And I was so afraid of my past selves. And they got to a point where I got this new career opportunity to come to America and live my dream here in Florida, and I was debating staying and just being small. And I made a choice and I said, I can't do this anymore because I physically can't live with this shame. It, my health, my career, everything is suffering. So I decided to use anything I could to get myself out of that shame spiral. And I turned to the popular books and podcasts and TED Talks, and they worked for a time. But the problem is, as well-meaning as they are, they're not really grounded in science. So you have these great notions of what empowerment are and working through shame and, you know, mute shame and all these things, but they don't last and they don't really help in the long term because that's not how human beings work. So I turn to the literature and I imagine, what if I'm a data point? What would I do? Because I'm a scientist. So what would I tell other people? And I ended up getting myself from that really dark, awful place. And this is the same way I've handled everything in my life. I've looked at the literature and then I grew into this person I was so proud of. So I wrote the book and I really focused all of my passion into this because I realized that there's so many people in that same situation as me behaving in a way that they don't understand why they're behaving that way. Feeling feelings they don't understand, and they're turning to TikTok and Instagram and they're seeking knowledge. They're reading books, but the knowledge given to them isn't in line with how human beings work because it's not scientific. So I needed to get it out there. I felt like it was my responsibility as an educator to get the science out there in a way that people could digest it. So that's where the book came from.

Wow. So when people think of shame, yes, they do not think of anything positive.

I know.

Not at all. So can you help us redefine and reframe that?

Yeah. We are told that shame is actually the antithesis of empowerment. To be empowered means to live shame-free, and I read that everywhere. Yes, you know, and, and a lot of the therapists that I coach and advise, when I speak to them, they go, ah, for years I've been telling people to get rid of shame. And actually, if we think about it, that doesn't make any sense because the way the human brain works is it's 2% of our body weight, but it's 20% of our energy. It is hugely energy hungry. It takes up a huge amount of our energy. So it doesn't really do things just willy-nilly. Emotions aren't just there to be ignored. The brain puts so much energy into creating emotions because they're important. They have evolved functions. Our emotions send signals. They help us interpret the environment. If we feel anger, it says, okay, an injustice has been had. You need to react to this. If we feel fear, it's the brain saying, hey, You need to withdraw. Something could hurt you. But when we feel shame, we go, okay, let's get rid of it. We don't say, let's listen to what it's trying to tell me. Now, the actual evolved function of shame is it's saying that the person that you are, or the person that you want to be, or the way you see yourself, is not in line with how you're behaving. So if I wanna mix into this social group, and these are the social norms, If I behave in a way that is not in line with that, I will feel shame. Or for example, if I see myself as someone who is very religious and regardless of what religious, I'm, I'm Christian or I'm Muslim, and then I behave in a way that doesn't align with that, I feel shame. So it says you are doing something that is either morally or ethically not in line with that sense of self or ideal sense of self, that future person you want to be. So it signals a change needs to be had. And actually, if we look at the research, people that feel shame after doing a social injustice, they are more likely to try and change behavior and more likely to try and act pro-socially than if shame is not felt. So it drives us towards change. And the problem with that is Feeling shame isn't comfortable. So shame is that signal of, hey, something needs to change. But when we look at it, it— looking at what needs to change is very difficult because usually we're behaving in a way— say I am going against my religion, if I— and I'm not a religious person, but say I am and I'm behaving in a way that is against that religion. When I look at my behavior and say, okay, well, this says something needs to change, let me figure out why, the answers to that are usually very distressing. Or say I have gone through a trauma and I'm engaging in trauma responses and I don't fully understand why, but my behavior, I'm drinking, I'm smoking, I'm having really dangerous sexual encounters. I'm doing these things that cause shame. If I then listen to shame and say, okay, what are you trying to tell me? Behind that feeling of shame is really hard truths. And that's why shame feels so difficult to process, because that reflection of this is who I want to be and this is how I'm behaving. When I look at that reflection, that is so confronting and difficult. So actually shame isn't the antithesis of empowerment. It's synonymous with empowerment. Because my shame, that shame I was feeling that I was hiding from, when I sat with it, when I allowed it to talk to me and say, let's dig deeper, okay, let's figure out why I'm behaving this way, that although it was the hardest thing I have ever done, it allowed me to change. Because I can't, I can't address the underlying issues unless I face it. Because shame isn't Shame isn't the cause, it's the symptom. Shame is a symptom of that underlying problem, and addressing the cause is so hard. But when we do that, when we listen to shame, we allow growth, we allow change. And empowerment too is really hard thing to define, and we have a lot of really toxic notions of what empowerment means. But for me, what empowerment simply means is You can't use me against me. I understand myself. Doesn't mean I think I'm perfect or I have no room to grow. It means I have an understanding of my emotions and I understand and I accept them. So if you reflect to me my own behavior, I might feel embarrassed. My gosh, do I feel embarrassed for things I have done? Maybe even guilty. But do I feel shame now? No. Because they're very different emotions. And if I feel shame with reflections of myself, then I'm not empowered. If I feel guilt or embarrassment or other emotions that don't make me feel like a deep failure, then yes, I can still be empowered because I recognize I did things I'm not proud of, but I am a better person now, and I can be a better person. And that's why shame is synonymous with empowerment.

It makes so much sense. And I'm thinking of so many examples while you're talking. And I'm going to talk about the woman who is, let's say that in her past she was sexually abused. And let's say that she's walking around holding on to that and feeling so much shame and doesn't know where to start to move to a better path. How do we help her?

Well, when I wrote the book, I realized that at the time I wasn't someone that people could come to because I did present this really stoic image and because I was running from my own traumas. So when I wrote the book, I realized that the only way to do it truly is to put in the hard truths. Now, there are things in that book that I wish I could go to the grave with, but it would be dishonest. And when I read it And when people say they've read it, I cringe because I know there's embarrassing things in there, but it needed to be because how can I stand up and say to people, hey, do the hard work yourself if I'm not, and if I'm not authentically putting out those things too. And in my past, I did experience sexual assault. And part of the shame that I was carrying was I've always defined myself as a very strong person. And I've always said, it doesn't matter what situation you put me in, I'll fight my way out. And I have been independent for a very long time. And when I experienced assault, I didn't fight back. I said no. And I ended up, you know, I was crying, but I, I didn't fight. And I had so much shame of how could I consider myself strong if I didn't even fight for myself at that point? And what I realized is, again, what I said is we don't always understand why we do the things we do. So the best gift we can give people is education, because you cannot remedy an emotion unless you understand it. And when we don't understand our behavioral responses, it is all-consuming. And that's where the shame comes from. And actually, I was, um, in court a couple weeks ago as an expert witness for the Conor McGregor case. I was on the side of Nikita Hand. I was supporting the victim who was sexually assaulted. And while she was on stand, she was watching the CCTV of her behavior, and I could see the utter distress in this woman who— she was watching herself behave and she could not understand why she behaved that way. And we— it's extremely distressing when you're doing things and you don't know why. And what I learned when I said, okay, what if I'm a data point? And I looked at the research, I learned about the freeze response. And I learned that in those times of sexual assault, over 80% of women freeze. And it's because the brain says, okay, you need to survive. And we have the fight, flight, and freeze response. And they are survival instincts. We cannot control them. They are instant and automatic. Now, if you are in a situation where the brain says, in this situation, if you fight, you're likely to get hurt or die. If you flee, you're likely to get hurt or die. So the other alternative is to utterly freeze because it's your best chance of survival. So what happens is our parasympathetic nervous system is activated, which causes this— it's our rest and digest system. So it actually reduces activity in part of the brain called Broca's area, which is responsible for speech, which is why a lot of the time women and victims will say, I couldn't scream, I just couldn't. And jurors and people looking to see if you're guilty would say, well, did you scream? Did you make it known? And you go, no. And often that is, well, it didn't happen then, you're lying, because they don't understand the trauma response. And it also immobilizes our body. So what happens is we will get endogenous opioids will be released, and opioids are almost this pain reliever, this natural pain reliever. So our body becomes numb and we become almost immobilized. That's what the freeze response is. It tries to immobilize you, to stop you naturally trying to run away. And when I learned that and I realized, you know what, it wasn't that I'm weak. It wasn't that I'm a failure. Actually, what it is, it's that I'm so strong that my brain said, we do whatever we have to do to survive. And when we change that narrative with that education and we go, you know what, my body kept me alive in that moment. Maybe if I had tried to fight or flee, I could have been seriously hurt. And who knows what could have happened? But my brain did what it could to survive. And just that knowledge, it opened the door for me to actually say, maybe I wasn't responsible because there's so much self-blame that happens when a woman goes through sexual assault. It's not just shame, it's self-blame, which then cycles into more shame. And that's what we see so commonly. And then that really affects the healing process because we go, well, it's my fault. I don't deserve Healing. We also question, did I allow it to happen because I didn't do these things? But no, it's a natural response. And just that simple education is so important. And there's also education on, well, when we're in that freeze response, there is so much cortisol going through our body that you cannot form memories. So we often blame ourselves too when we're being asked and we don't remember everything that happened or the sequence. Or our emotions are not being processed in the way that we want them to be. And that's because when we're under high stress and cortisol is in intensities being released, it's not that we can't remember, it's that too much cortisol can actually block the encoding of a memory. So you, it's not that if I sit and force that memory to come to me, it will come because it was never created because there was too much time at that point of trauma for the memory to be created. So there's so many misconceptions and so many things that we blame ourselves and we, we judge others because we don't have an education on what happens in the brain and the body during trauma. So that was one thing, and I'm working on a second book now that dives more into the behavioral side of things rather than the emotional side, um, for this exact reason.

Well, and it's such a lack of knowledge, lack of understanding. And what is, what is striking me as you're talking is that we tend to give ourselves such criticism instead of the self-compassion and the understanding. It's like we jump to blaming ourselves for whatever it is.

Yeah. And that's a really common thing with shame because shame— there's multiple types of shame. There's actually healthy shame and toxic shame. And toxic shame is where we have done something that causes shame. So what we do is we have self, this is who I am as a person, and then we have behavior, this is what I have done. Now, healthy shame is I have done something I'm ashamed of. Maybe I'm a good person that has done bad things. You know, good people do bad things, bad people do good things. And when I feel healthy shame, I go, okay, I did a bad thing, and I recognize that we are all flawed. And now I need to dive into why I feel this shame. But it doesn't mean that I am inherently bad or a failure, but it does mean those bad things happened and I am the cause of them. Now, toxic shame is where we move the dial from behavior to self. I did a bad thing, so I am bad. I did a bad thing, so I am bad becomes, well, I'm a failure. Well, I am weak. Well, I'm worthless. And then that soon becomes, well, I'm unlovable. And when we start to think those things about ourselves, that our behavior inherently means who we are, well, what's the point in changing? Because if I'm flawed at my core, what's the point in even trying? And that's where we start to get into really bad cycles, or we start to do drugs and drink because we go, well, I'm unchangeable. And I work a lot with, um, I volunteered with this, um, recovery center and rehabilitation center. And I remember speaking to an individual, and he was stuck in this cycle for many, many years. And he now volunteers with them too to help other individuals recover. And he said there was a point in his, just before his recovery where he said he felt so much shame that he had no other option than to just keep doing it because he looked back and he said he'd hurt so many people. He'd burnt so many bridges. There was so much shame that the idea of working through that felt so impossible that all he could do was keep doing it. And that's what we do. We realize that if I sit here right now and I say enough is enough, I'm gonna look shame in the eye and say, what are you trying to tell me? We are gonna be faced with those things of maybe it's a question about, is this a religion I believe in? Maybe it's a question of, well, maybe I'm not independent. Maybe I'm hyper independent. Why do I feel like I have to carry this world alone? Why do I inherently have no trust for everyone? Digging deeper into that may come childhood traumas, relationship traumas. All of these things sit behind that shame. So if we go, okay, I have to face it, and what if on our spirals we hurt other people? Now we have to face that guilt, we have to start making amends, and all of those things are extremely difficult. It is much easier to go, I'm going to keep spiraling. It doesn't feel good, but it isn't easier choice. And it doesn't help too that the public conception of what empowerment is, is I'm gonna go sit behind a big tree, an oak tree, and there's gonna be flowers planted everywhere, and I'm gonna sit and I'm gonna meditate for a couple of hours, and all these answers will come to me, and it's so mindful and wonderful, and that's empowering. And that isn't reality. Because you know what, sitting down and facing those answers is extraordinarily painful. And it doesn't just happen one moment. You can't sit down like I can't go to the gym for 7 hours and get fit. I have to go for 7 months for half an hour, you know. And it's the same with healing shame and working through those traumas. It's hard and it's consistent and it isn't delicate. And it isn't always pretty and comfortable. It is painful and it is messy. And those are the truths that we should be given. And we also have this idea that we reach empowerment and then we're done. And again, that isn't the case. The work is never done because you might go, you know what, I feel empowered. And then for some reason something happens. Have a job loss or a breakup or a new situation, or you just feel stuck and things change, society changes and you have to change with it and grow with it. So you, you realize that's why I called the book Work in Progress. I won't ever say, hey, if you do this, you'll get to empowerment and then you're done. It's now you've got to keep doing the work forever, forever and ever, every day, whatever it is. And that's both good and bad, right? Because you can always be better, but it always means there's work to do.

I know, I know, it's so true. Can you explain to everyone how shame can play into mental health?

Yes, yes. So when we have that feeling of toxic shame and we're saying, okay, well, this says something inherently about myself, this says that I am— instead of I failed, I am a failure. Well, we get this idea that I'm not good enough, and it causes us to behave in ways that are conducive to depression and anxiety. Because if I'm not facing that shame and I have this idea that, okay, well, it means I'm a bad person, I have all this intense emotion coming up and I don't know what to do with it because I refuse to look behind shame. So I say when it comes to our emotions, there's 3 things we can do, and 2 of them are conducive to extremely poor mental health. So when we feel emotions, we have option number 1 is we can escape it. It comes our way, we go, no, no, no, no, no, no. And the way we escape it, I might get into bad relationships, which caused me to have low self-esteem. I might drink, which caused me to behave in ways that I regret, and I might You know that in general, when we're drinking, alcohol creates holes in activation in our brain. It is so damaging for our general well-being, our cognitive function, our mental well-being, our physical well-being. But it's a very common way that we deal with stress and deal with emotion. I might start engaging in really unhealthy behaviors in general. I might escape it in the complete opposite. Instead of going out loads, I'm gonna isolate myself because I don't want to be near the world. I'm gonna throw myself into my work so much that when emotion comes my way, I can't deal with you. I'm too busy, too much to do. All of these things, they just make it go away, go away, go away. And we're not really dealing with it. And all of these things are conducive to us lowering our sense of self-esteem, lowering our sense of self-worth. And all of these compile to make us feel like we're too much or not good enough. Now the second way is suppression. It comes up and I'm not trying to run away from it. I'm saying, I don't feel you. And the brain is saying, feel me. And you go, no, you're not escaping it because you're not using something to avoid it. You're registering you're there and you're going, go away. You have this feeling like I wanna cry and you go, no. And you won't allow it to come through. And if someone says, are you okay? And you know, if you give them a hug, you'll break down. So you go, no, I don't want this. I don't want social help. I don't want anything. I want it to go away. And you keep pushing it down and pushing it down. And then what can happen is if the brain says, feel me, and you say, no, enough, the brain goes, okay, fine. I won't let you feel it then. So it reduces activity in the part of the brain. Responsible for the negative feelings related to that trauma. The catch is the parts of the brain responsible for negative emotions are responsible for emotions in general. So that's why you get this numbing effect. It's called emotional shutdown. You go, I'm so desperate not to feel this pain. And then the pain goes away and you can't feel anything. And you go, what I would give just to feel again. That's why you start to feel empty and cold and numb. And it's almost like you become a passenger in your own life because you don't have these waves of emotion. You're just very numb. That's a really, really horrible way to be. And feeling on that numb plane, that is so conducive to depression. And then the final way that we can deal with emotions is to heal it. And to heal it means feel it. And that's why it's the path to better wellbeing. But we have to go through suffering because heal it to feel it means face the shame. There is no backdoor to shame. We go right through the middle. We go through the pain. And not only do we go through the pain, we have to stand in it and say, why do you hurt? And we have to listen and we can't just run through it. We have to really engulf ourself in it to understand. Where are you coming from? And how do I stop making that decision in the future? That's a very difficult thing to do. That's why we see people repeat behaviors and repeat them, repeat them, because maybe you heal them in that moment. Okay, well, I'm gonna heal from the pain, but I'm not dealing with the cause. So I'm only gonna artificially heal and then I'm gonna go into it again because I haven't dealt with the root of it. And that's why shame, it allows us to get to empowerment because it allows us to face the root of those problems and change. But it's just a very difficult journey.

So I think that our natural inclination is to protect ourselves, right?

It is.

So we wanna protect ourselves from feeling that.

Yeah.

So how do you get to a place where you can face it?

We have to take responsibility. And I get asked this a lot of, um, well, what are the steps to take? And I said, I can't tell you. I can't tell you exactly, do A, B, C, D. So I can say this is the general path, but I can't make you walk it. You have to pick up your two feet and you have to do it. And it's like people go to therapy hoping that their therapist can fix all their problems. That's not what a therapist is designed for. A therapist is designed to show you the route of you fixing your problems, but they just show you the route that you otherwise wouldn't have known. Isay, you have to do the hard work. And the way that I think is best is that education, because when I was healing, I had an understanding of how emotions actually work. Now, emotions can make us feel like they're going to last forever. So when we feel pain and grief, one thing that stops the healing is I feel like this is going to last forever. And when we go in with difficult relationships and we don't fully understand how emotions work and they make us feel like I'm never going to find someone like this again. I had learned a lot about the science of emotions, so it was when I had finally decided to start dealing with the pain of the, the rape. And it was shortly after my dad, who was my whole world, had had a stroke. And I was dealing with some PTSD after witnessing what I thought was him dying. And luckily he's okay and he's plodding along despite all the obstacles. I still have him. He's a fighter. That's where I get it from. And I was dealing with all of that at the time. So I was just a broken person. I was coming out of a very, very dangerous relationship and dealing with all the drug abuse that I had never really faced. I had just pretended once I got myself through it that I was— it never happened. So everything was all in this big pile, but it was the science of psychology The Science of Emotions, it really helped me heal because I remember in the mornings I would get up at 6:00 AM and I'd say, my emotions say, stay in bed. And I, I took this idea of fake it till you make it, but flipped it. So feel the emotion, fake the behavior, because I knew the path to healing is, well, my body needs to wake up as the sun comes up because I need that sunlight to help me regulate my cortisol levels. That's why when we sleep in because we're depressed. It helps the depression grow because waking up as the sun comes up is really important to the regulation of our hormones and to our cortisol. So it helps keep our body in check. So I said, okay, I've gotta get up early because these things will help me biologically. Biologically will help me psychologically. I had to take myself to the gym because I was like, the endorphins will help me. And actually when our muscles grow, And when we move our bodies, we now know that our muscles secrete these feel-good chemicals. So we feel better, we, we gain more serotonin. And I knew I had to change the way I talk to myself because when I say I can't do this, I can't do this, we increase cortisol, which actually blocks cognitive function. When I change that and say I can do this, I reduce the cortisol. So I said all these things to myself and I would cry every morning on the bus. But when I was crying on the way to work and crying on the way home and I was eating good food too. So I had that. I had to know that I had to nourish my body. And that was hard because sometimes I felt like overeating or didn't feel like eating. But I had to say, this is what I know that I need. And in those moments where I would be crying, and I just wanted to be done, I said to myself, it feels like this is never ending, but that's just how it feels. I know that emotions lie to us. And when I kept saying that and I kept doing the things that I knew my body needed biologically and psychologically, eventually I started to get better. And then what happens is all of those things increase mental wellbeing and they help this growth process. And then by proxy, we start to achieve more. We start to feel more confident in our body because we're working out and because we're nourishing it well and we're getting up early. So we have a sense of achievement and then all of these compile. And then it took me a couple of years and I look back and I'm like, I love my life. And 2 years ago I was sat on my bedroom floor thinking about all I wanted to do was commit suicide, but I knew I had to stay here and fight. And I, I remember having a conversation with my dad, and I had said to him, you know, I'm done with my PhD. But what I was saying is, I'm done, I don't want to live anymore. But I didn't want to let him know. And he said to me that No, you're not. You're not done. You're gonna get up and you're gonna fight because it's who you are. And I have it tattooed on my rib cage, it's who you are, because that, that saved me. But that's the lesson that we should all take. We choose who we are. We don't have this core sense of self that is enduring and never changing. That's a myth. Our sense of self is constantly changing, and it's not about finding ourselves, it's creating ourselves. And if you sit and say, it's who I am, that I'm someone who is strong and I'm someone who is vulnerable and I'm someone that grows and I'm someone that can get through this, then it becomes who you are because it is a choice. And that choice is making the small healthy choices that we know are conducive to wellbeing every single day. But that starts with education. Because to do the things that help us, we have to know the things to do that help us.

That was so amazing and helpful. And I can, I can hear when you started, I could hear the woman saying to me, I'm weak, I'm not brave, I can't do this. And I hope that if she's listening, she feels a little bit different after hearing everything you just explained. And I hope she can say something different to herself today. And I want to ask you about all the parents listening.

Yes.

Who, who need help with their children and their children are feeling shame. Can you give the parents a little bit of help?

Yeah, I see shame a lot in parents, and most of the time the shame comes from, I'm not a good enough parent. Now, why we have that is, I say That shame comes from where what we're doing isn't in line with who we are, who we want to be, but it also comes from who we think we should be. Now we're in a world of social media, so a parent, all they do is put on— go on Instagram or TikTok or the news or anything, and they are bombarded with, this is what you should be doing as a good parent. This is how your child should be acting. In order for you to be a good parent. So everywhere they look— now, I'm not a parent myself, so I can't relate to how that emotionally feels, but I can understand it from the science perspective of you reflect it and you feel like you're not good enough. Feels like everything you're doing is failing because this is who I should be and it isn't in line with that. And it's also not in line with how you feel you want to be or who you feel you are. And if you are trying to behave in a way that is conducive to who you want to be, how do we know what to listen to? Well, what's comfortable for me and what I really want is to do this, but Instagram is telling me I should do this, so I do it and it's not working, or it doesn't feel good, it doesn't feel authentic. So it's so confusing. And that's a huge part of the problem. And I think we should just get away with shoulds. Get away with should. Stop listening to people saying this is the kind of parent you should be. Now, it's really important to understand that we need to get an education of parenting, but not so much in do ABCD always, because kids don't work that way. There is no guide of how to be a perfect parent because every child comes with unique problems that have to be handled in a unique way. And it's up to you to figure that out. No one is going to know your kid like you. But what we can do that is so important is we need to understand emotions because kids are emotion monsters. They are just emotion and they don't have the critical thinking because they do not have the brain development to understand how to deal with them. That is your job as a parent now. To help them learn that. So again, that starts with understanding how emotions work and reading developmental books, not books on how do I be a perfect parent, no, books on how do children develop, how does the children's brain develop, how do, how do children learn to engage in social behavior. That's where the learning should come in because once you understand those basics of how do kids think, And if your kid suffers with any physical disability or mental disability, or if they have a social disorder, then learn about that disorder, you know, get them the support they need because again, they're going to have unique challenges. So for example, I'm dyslexic. So when I was trying to learn through education, I thought very differently than the other kids, and because I didn't have that support early on, it made me think that I was stupid. And it was when I got what we called phonics and I got extra help and my psychology teacher taught me how to learn in a different way, I propelled in the complete other direction because I learned a tactic that worked for me. So if your kid has unique challenges, learn about those challenges. Stop putting that pressure to be step by step the perfect parent. Perfect parenting doesn't exist. And that— it's that should. That should is always going to make you feel like a failure. There is no should.

I just cannot believe how helpful that you were today. I mean, I could go on and on with questions. Is there anything that you think that I didn't ask you that you want to share?

No, but I mean, my final message is always we need self-compassion because— and I am guilty of this too. I am so— I'm very hard on myself. And usually it comes with this idea of being independent that we need to hold ourselves to these really strict standards.

Yeah.

Parents, I imagine you suffer with that to an enormous degree because not only you're responsible for yourself, you're responsible for another life. But we need to give other people the compassion, and we need to give ourselves the compassion we give to other people. And I say, when you find yourself being critical, imagine the way you talk to yourself. Imagine someone talking to a child that way. And if you wouldn't be happy with someone talking to your child that way and someone you love that way, don't talk to yourself that way.

Couldn't agree more. Tell everyone where they can find your wonderful book and find you.

So I can be found on drabbieofficial.com, or— and that's Dr. D-R-A-B-B-I-E official.com, or abbymorono.com. Um, and my book can be found in any major bookstore, but of course good old Amazon absolutely has my book. You can find on Amazon, be delivered to your door within days of ordering.

Well, I cannot thank you enough for your time and expertise today. This was so wonderful.

Thank you so much for having me.

This is Rebecca Green, and I want to remind everyone to spend every day laughing, learning, and loving. Thank you for tuning in to the Whiny Palooza podcast. If you like what you you heard, please be sure to subscribe so you never miss an episode. While you are there, leave a review. I love to hear your feedback. Thank you so much for listening. Until next time.

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