Welcome.
My name is Hannah Rose,
And it is so nice to be here with you.
I invite you to take a moment to arrive here.
Taking a slow breath in through your nose.
And an honest sigh out through your mouth.
Let's try that again.
Breathing in.
And sighing out.
Allowing your shoulders to soften just a little.
Releasing tension in your jaw.
Unfurrowing your brow.
And allowing your eyes to gently close.
If that's what's calling to you.
Today.
I wanted to talk to you about shame.
Shame is one of the most universal human experiences,
And yet it's something many of us carry in silence.
While shame and guilt are often grouped together,
They are actually quite different emotional experiences.
Guilt is the feeling that we've done something wrong.
Guilt says I made a mistake.
I regret doing that.
Guilt can actually be healthy and motivating us to change in the direction that we'd like to grow.
So while guilt says I made a mistake,
And I feel badly for doing that.
Shame says,
I am a mistake.
Shame says,
I am not a good person because I did that.
Shame says I don't deserve to be known,
To be loved,
Because I did that.
Can you hear the difference in the narrative?
I feel bad?
Versus I am bad.
Guilt is about behavior and wanting to change.
Shame is about identity.
Shame is like taking guilt and swallowing it whole,
Internalizing it as a finite identity about ourselves.
Over time.
Shame does have a way of becoming woven into the stories we tell ourselves about who we are.
I'm bad at this.
I am someone who.
.
.
These stories often exist beneath conscious awareness.
They live underneath our rational thoughts and logical explanations.
Sometimes we can hear our shame narratives clearly.
But other times,
They quietly influence our choices,
Our relationships,
Our confidence,
And our very sense of worth.
I'll share a few shame narratives that I've carried at different times in my life.
I am too much.
I am not enough.
I am not successful enough,
Smart enough,
Skinny enough.
I am an imposter.
I am undeserving.
I am undeserving of love,
Of belonging,
Of joy.
And those are just a few shame narratives that came to mind.
I am a firm believer that we accept the love we think we deserve.
I first read that in the book,
The Perks of Being a Wallflower,
And it has stuck with me ever since.
We accept the life we think we deserve.
If I have low self-worth.
And I'm in a healthy relationship with someone who loves me.
I will inadvertently sabotage that relationship because at my core,
I don't believe I'm worthy of it.
I believe I am unworthy of love,
I will inadvertently create situations that confirm that core irrational shame narrative about myself.
Now I'd like to invite you to become curious about your own shame narratives.
This is the first step on our path of deconstructing shame.
Take a moment and notice what begins to surface.
Not what you know intellectually.
Not what you can explain away.
But what lives underneath.
The story that follows the words,
I am.
Notice whatever arises.
When you think of shame,
When you hear I am,
What follows it?
What follows it.
Without arguing with the narrative,
Without trying to fix it or think your way out of it.
And most importantly,
Without judging yourself for having it.
Just notice.
It's seldom comfortable in my experience.
Awareness of our shame narratives is where this work begins.
Because shame thrives in secrecy.
It thrives when it goes unnamed.
The moment we begin to notice it,
To name it,
Something intrinsically starts to shift within us.
Not because the story immediately disappears,
But because we are no longer completely fused with it.
We begin our journey seeing that the narrative is something that we have learned,
Inherited,
Or absorbed.
Not something that is true.
And that is the first step in deconstructing shame.
Simply noticing it and being able to say,
Ah,
There's that story again,
With curiosity instead of certainty.
With compassion instead of judgment.
Over time,
We begin to question whether these narratives are actually facts or simply old stories we've been carrying for a very long time.
I plan to create future talks and courses that explore shame more deeply and offer practical ways to work with it.
But for now,
I wanted this to be an introduction.
An invitation.
And perhaps a small act of courage.
Because even while recording this,
My own shame has certainly had opinions,
Whispering things like,
Who are you to be on Insight Timer?
Who are you to be here?
To take up space.
And yet here I am.
Standing in the light anyway.
Because I believe in this work,
And I've watched enough people in my personal practice shed their shame narratives and completely transform their relationships with themselves,
And as a result,
With everything else.
Thank you for being here with me.
And until next time,
I invite you to hold whatever shame narrative surfaced today.
With a little more curiosity,
A little more compassion.
And a little less certainty.
