Confronting Shame - Insight Timer Live

Shame lives in silence and wants you to believe you are alone in your experience. The antidote to shame is talking about it. In this previously recorded Insight Live session, clinical trauma & PTSD researcher, Megan Kirk Chang, shares a 75-minute informative talk on the neurophysiology of shame and how to confront, process and heal from deep-rooted shame. We end with a self-compassion meditation.

Transcript

Today's session is about confronting shame and let me tell you this is not the light and breezy topic that maybe you might be hoping for but as a clinical mental health researcher and a trauma healing specialist I've always made a vow to myself that I would speak the unspeakable when it came to trauma healing that I would not skirt around or avoid certain topics because they are difficult to talk about and so today we are diving in to what I think is one of the root causes of suffering which is this idea of dealing with the emotion of shame and so some housekeeping rules because it's really important to me that we create a safe emotional container around this topic today and so I wanted to that's why it's 75 minutes and I really wanted to do my due diligence at the beginning to set up our talk together to be safe to be healing focused and to really get the most out of our time together because like I said you have probably a hundred other things you could do and so I'm just really grateful that you're choosing to spend time here so first and foremost the nature of the word shame carries such tremendous energy think of words like joy and peace and then think of words like shame and think of words like guilt and anger words carry different emotional energies to them and so just the very nature of this topic today you may find that you're feeling a bit activated or triggered in some capacity so it's really important that you take some time right now to just assess your level of readiness to dive into this topic like I said I'm not going to skirt around the the topic of shame so we are diving into some pretty heavy concepts today and if for whatever reason you need to pause or you need to take some time to leave maybe grab a sip of water and return please honor that there's no it doesn't indicate anything about your capacity to have this conversation just sometimes we might be in the middle of navigating a trigger or having a pretty off day and so I really just want to acknowledge that and invite you to make an empowered choice for yourself in what that looks like for you today and really being mindful of what you're posting in this space as well so you'll see that comments come up and up and these are public forums so we have no control over what people choose to share in the comments but really making a choice for yourself if you want it to be really about learning and me and you right now you can tap the comments on your tablet or your phone and the comments will minimize and then you tap it again and the comments will reappear on your laptop there'll be an eyeball icon in the bottom left that you click on and the same idea happens so the comments will minimize and then you can bring them back up again that being said we're all responsible here too to really make sure that before we post anything that we really take note and be mindful of what is the emotional tone of what we're sharing publicly here so the idea and I say this a lot in our circle on insight timer is we need to take responsibility of ensuring that we aren't coming from an activated triggered state when we are making comments because we may unknowingly and unintentionally trigger somebody else along their healing journey so just being mindful of that before you post when we talk about things like shame this overwhelming feeling of wanting to overshare or potentially divulge some things is very natural and so just making sure that we speak generally we don't overshare explicit potentially triggering details just for the safety of the group we've got 52 people here already and we're all at different phases stages and levels of comfort so exactly Carla just really making choices that you can minimize the comments and also you know really think about what you're posting if you find somebody is in distress or if they might have a cry for help you can flag the person that right beside their name it's very very tiny you can press the flag and lots of options will come up in terms of flagging this to insight timers and so or staff at insight timer are here also monitoring so you can flag and it'll go to the team at insight timer okay so it's really really important to to know that that option is available and there is a help now link on insight timer which will give you access to global global services for crisis care it's an impossible standard for one person like myself from a small town of very Ontario Canada to know globally what all of the crisis 911 suicide hotlines top hotlines are so insight timer has created the help now link and you can find that on their home page you can also search it up and on Google and it should pop up and finally if you are struggling with healing from past trauma or you have some unresolved trauma in you or you're looking after caring for somebody I just recently launched a 15-day trauma healing course for individuals like yourself it's self-guided you can do it at your own pace and time and we do a deep dive into the neurophysiology of trauma and how it shows up in our physiology and different regions of our brain and what that means in terms of how we show up in our lives and so I really encourage you to check that out if that is something that you you'd like to think about okay so that's a long-winded intro but because we're talking about such a you know really raw and vulnerable topics such as shame I just wanted to set us up for success so that we can get as much benefit out of our time together so really the antidote so the way that we actually heal shame is by talking about it and that's why we're here today the way that we navigate and push through the difficult sensation of shame is by naming it is by showing up anyways in the face of what shame is trying to tell us shame lives breeds and fuels in silence and in secrecy that is like how we fuel its fire and so it's really really really important that we remember right now collectively in community 62 of you here right now we are naming shame we are talking about shame so naturally together we are reducing the power that shame has over us so I think that's pretty pretty incredible and I thank you because without you we wouldn't be facing shame right in the face so thank you for that so what I'm going to do today is we're going to just do a quick arriving mindfulness practice then I'm going to dive into just some education around what shame is and what it isn't I've already seen somebody ask the question of what's the difference between shame and guilt I am going to dive into that we'll talk a little bit about the neurophysiology of shame and we'll talk about what shame means in terms of how we show up in our lives in terms of our relationships in terms of our work lives in terms of relationships with ourselves and then we'll end with a guided practice to really honor and tame our shame within us so hopefully that sounds beneficial for you all okay so as we arrive really important that we take some time to settle into the present moment so wherever you're at right now if you're on your commute if you are at home if you are walking take a couple of moments right now to find yourself in a comfortable position you can choose to sit if you need a little more support you can choose to lie down and see if it's comfortable for you to unwind both feet and perhaps see if you can plant both soles of the feet onto the floor maybe rocking the heels up to the toes and the toes back to the heels and just sensing in your body this connection with the entire surface of the soles of both feet connecting to a solid surface beneath you so often when we live with shame we live above the neck we are going through the cycle of thoughts going through the tremendous sensation of confusion and pain and so taking a moment to just draw the awareness all the way down the body into the soles of the feet if you'd like you can gently interlace your fingers on your lap or place the palms at your sides and notice what it feels like to imagine creating just a touch of space through each of the vertebrae slight lifting of the spine not pushing to a point of pain or discomfort but lifting up out of the pelvic girdle maybe noticing what it feels like to lead with the heart just a gentle lift of the space just behind the heart up towards the sky check in with your shoulders see if you can find a little more space between the shoulder caps and the earlobes and if you'd like you can take the eyes to a close or just soften the gaze downwards and coming to settle into the awareness of your flow of breath in and out of the body just sensing and noticing the breath flow in through the nose maybe you feel the breath hit the back of the throat and travel down into the lungs and noticing the sensation of breath leaving the body on the out breath maybe you feel heat as the breath leaves the body maybe you feel the breath come in and out smoothly or it's a little jagged rushed not trying to change the breath in any way but just noticing in this moment what your natural flow of breath is the beautiful thing about being aware of our breathing is that we naturally subconsciously breathe a little deeper the moment we bring our breath into our awareness without even trying just taking a moment to scan up and down the body from the tips of the toes through each of the major joints seeing if you can identify the emotional tone of your physical body right now just observing where emotion may live maybe you feel tightness in the abdomen or butterflies maybe you feel constriction in the upper chest or throat maybe you feel a buzzing or tingling sensation in the upper neck or even in the head or forehead maybe you feel nothing remembering we're just observing what is true for us in this moment without rushing to evaluating what is there as we observe we notice without judgment there's no right or wrong sensation that you should or shouldn't feel in this moment we're just tuning into our experience with curiosity acceptance and non-judgment and as we begin our session on confronting shame just notice when you hear those words if anything shifts in your body when you hear the term shame just observing what is true for you through your observation maybe you notice some tension rise maybe you notice certain thoughts come to the surface or you may even have a memory of a time where you felt shame so the idea rate in this moment is to just observe without engaging or hooking to whatever is coming up you just accept what is there and allow it to be there just as it is knowing that as we come together in community we are not alone in dealing with shame in this moment we're here together I'm here for you and you're not alone taking a few moments to bring some subtle movements to the fingertips and the toes bringing yourself back to this space and just taking a few moments to assess right now how you're feeling and whether this is the right time for you to continue if you need to take a pause if you need to grab a sip of water please feel free okay so confronting shame as I mentioned we are diving in together and we are here together holding space for this concept so I wanted to start off by talking about the irony of shame as I was preparing this session over the last few days my own I call it my shame monster my own shame monster surfaced loud and clear telling me every single reason why I should cancel this session I'm not even kidding you even at 3 23 p.

M.

Like less than 45 minutes before this started my shame monster was like you just need to cancel this gotta cancel this session you're not the right person to be doing this and so I share this because I want you to know that I don't think it's possible that we master shame I think it's possible that we learn to roll with shame if that makes sense and I've been researching trauma and the impact of trauma and shame and guilt for years and years and I'm here to say that I am still learning when that shame monster rears its ugly head and what that means in terms of my healing so my shame monster was telling me to cancel this session telling me who do you think you are Megan you haven't mastered handling shame so why are you giving this talk on shame and so I again shame is a voice that is speaking the very words that we are trying to never hear if that makes sense shame tells us this dialogue that if it actually were to happen publicly it would feel life-threatening so that's what shame does it's this voice that wants to pull you out of shining pull you out of being seen and shame can be personified shame can have the personification of a parent it could be a coach or a teacher it could be somebody who we believe has everything together their life is perfect so our shame voice is really speaking about how we don't measure up to that person shame can be that complete stranger that we're hustling for our worthiness for that we don't want anyone to say certain things about us so we hustle for their worthiness or for our worthiness and so what I've realized over the past few days in terms of prepping for this session is how much shame wants us to play small how much the experience of shame wants to pull us out of the things that we feel called to do so maybe shame in your life means you didn't apply for that job maybe shame in your life means that you didn't speak up for yourself or hold a boundary maybe shame in your life means that you don't share the fullest part of who you are that you felt like if you shared a certain part of who you were that it would mean that you were unlovable and so I really want you to think collectively what is the missed opportunity or opportunities in your life as a result of that shame voice overriding your essence voice your deep down true voice of who you are so an example is I really I really could have canceled this session I really could have listened to the shame voice and come up with you know it's the pandemic I don't have to face you I can just cancel it and be done with it and then shame would have won so I just wanted to start off and share with you what happened for me leading up to this so what is shame okay what is the actual definition of shame how do we understand what it is how do we differentiate it from other emotions so everyone first and foremost experiences shame there isn't one person in this world that won't have an experience of shame in their lives it is universal so I really hope you find peace in knowing that collectively here together 86 of us we can all identify in some way shape or form with the experience of feeling shame our experiences may be different but the universal feeling of shame is very common across cultures across individuals across genders my girl Brené Brown one of my favorite authors and researchers I'm bringing up her definition says that shame is the deeply rooted belief that we are inherently flawed in some way and therefore that we are now unworthy of belonging and connection so I'll say that again Brené Brown refers to shame as the deeply rooted belief that we are inherently flawed in some way and unworthy of belonging and connection and this results in self-condemnation this results in maladaptive behaviors this results in making ourselves small and pulling ourselves out of being in the arena in our lives shame is identified as a self-conscious emotion okay so other self-conscious emotions include guilt include embarrassment include pride and what I mean when I say this is a self-conscious emotion is that it involves self-reflection and evaluation we're evaluating ourselves we're reflecting on our behaviors who we are how we show up shame is deeply painful and it can imprint in our subconscious so it can operate and rule our lives without us consciously being tuned into it and that's where it gets scary because then we start to think that this is just an innate part of our personality and so we have to raise our awareness of when a shame operating and hopefully by the end of this session you'll have a few ideas of what that looks like because shame lives in our subconscious it can cause us to develop unhelpful patterns because the idea is to avoid shame at all costs and so we develop these protective patterns that I'll get into that really are maladaptive typically not always shame is linked to an early experience in your life of feeling exposed feeling embarrassed failure not measuring up it's also deeply linked to our innate human desire to be seen to belong and to be attractive and I don't mean attractive in the sense of like Barbie doll attractive I mean we want to seem viable and like a contributing member of society that's an innate human need to feel a sense of belonging and that you're valued and so shame is linked to this idea that we're not shame is not the same as guilt they can be differentiated theoretically and they also lead to different psychological and behavioral outcomes so guilt and shame are not one of the same they are completely separate entities where they differ is that the object of focus differs and guilt says I did a bad thing or I made a mistake so the object of focus is on the external behavior whereas shame says I am bad or I am a mistake so the object of focus is something inherently within you that is bad okay so hopefully you can see the difference there guilt actually can be very helpful very productive guilt really refers to our inner moral compass and you know what are the ways that we need to behave in society in order to create relationships that are thriving so guilt actually serves to help us correct behaviors based on a consequence or our own moral compass and whether we feel we cross that line or not shame on the other hand is implicated in the presence of other people so we guilt is not guilt can be something we deal with on our own it doesn't have influence from other people whereas shame is directly linked to what are other people perceiving about me what are they going to say about me it's linked to the presence of other people and the prime function as I mentioned just have a few notes here of guilt is to adjust our behaviors to align with our moral compass and it serves to enhance relationships so guilt can lead us to create more harmony in relationships by motivating ourselves to treat people better or to show up in a more conducive way to harmony in a relationship shame on the other hand does not have prosocial effect shame serves to create withdrawal shame serves to create separation estrangement from families conflict avoidance of social interaction shame wants us to hide shame wants us to hold on to our secret and play small in our lives to avoid at all costs being exposed so shame is maladaptive and actually encourages dysfunctional behaviors like responding to rage or responding in rage anger or avoidance instead of empathy and apology so guilt can lead to empathizing with other people and shame leads to reactive impulsive behaviors and then it's almost the cycle where that we feel badly about our outburst of rage or our emotional extreme reaction and then we add more shame on to that and that can eventually lead to numbing behaviors or avoidance tactics like substance misuse or addiction and so there's a lot of maladaptive ways that shame shows up so we have to be mindful of that okay so that's the difference between guilt and shame so hopefully that has helped in some way shape or form so then the next question is well where does shame come from so we need to unpack a little bit about how does shame start to develop because when we can understand the developmental nature of shame we can start to practice more compassion more empathy towards ourselves in terms of you know giving ourselves grace and patience and understanding of why why it surfaced so shame really does have roots in our earliest developmental years so infancy in terms of how our needs were tended to by our caregivers if during infancy and we're not this is pre cognition pre-language if we were neglected if we were met with frustration or anger by our cares if we were abandoned if we were a scapegoat for somebody else's unresolved shame we can pick this up energetically before we even develop conscious awareness and language and this is developmentally how shame can imprint long before we even can understand how to put words to our experience so how also thinking about how were we communicated with when we did have an unmet need thinking about your earliest memories of when you can remember back were you made to feel validated were you ignored were you dismissed were you held tenderly and cared for were you ridiculed okay and it's not to say that you know I really do think people do the best they can with what they know and what they have in that moment and so it's not to say you know people were necessarily bad they could have been it's just sometimes unresolved shame in somebody else can trickle down and impact us as well as this intergenerational impact as we continue to grow and evolve and develop across the lifespan shame can arise when we realize that we might have a shortcoming or we fail at something or this is emphasized in the presence of people we care about so some examples I came up with is perhaps when you were little you spent a lot of time on an art piece maybe you painted maybe you drew something and someone in that moment that you gave it to either laughed at it or criticized it that can actually lead to an impact that spans across our lifespan where we'll never do that thing again because we don't want to experience that same experience anymore or maybe you were overemphasized on how you were bad or how you were wrong okay we see this often sometimes in sports parents in terms of how they coach their children in sports sometimes the coaching does come across as shaming and that can live in somebody's psyche and physiology long across the lifespan shame arises when we're exposed to certain traumatic experiences at an age where we're not fully developed cognitively as well so thinking of that age 9 to 14 age for example if there was divorce or if there was domestic violence or if there was sexual assault in the home at that age we may cognitively think that we are the reason as to why that happened mommy and daddy got divorced because I didn't make my bed enough times for example and so we ingrain this cognitive development in our psyche at that age and we then carry it through our lives and think if anything bad happens that we somehow are responsible for that just by being who we are somehow some way we've created that negative outcome for other people so really thinking about what is your earliest experience of shame what is your earliest memory and thinking of the age you were this is why inner child work is so powerful for people who are ready for it because we go back to these moments in our lives and we be for ourselves who we didn't get at that time we needed it we learn to extend compassion we learn to extend grace and you know tell ourselves that we're not responsible for that so I'll give you a quick example I was born prematurely in my life I was three pounds little tiny three-pounder and my mom had preeclampsia and her blood pressure skyrocketed she almost stroked out while delivering me and you know I didn't like my parents made the choice to have me as a child I wasn't I wasn't involved in that decision right and yet in my life I have carried this idea that I've caused such a burden to my family just by the very nature of me being born and at the time in my life I don't recall being born I don't recall the first couple of years of my life but I've carried this shame of I caused bad things to happen to people and so that's just a small example of what I mean by developmentally how we can carry and hold so tightly to these stories about ourselves that are rooted in shame so I hope that was helpful there's lots more examples but I wanted to share one so we need to recognize how shame shows up in our physiology so how do we actually detect when shame is occurring what do we know so if you feel so inclined feel free to type in the comments some of the ways in your body you might know or you might get a cue that shame is operating so Karen says shrinking oh Karen beautiful work I couldn't have said it better shrinking shaking says Nancy yes heart racing Stacey feeling hot and sweaty lack of motivation turning away man good one invisibility see a yes your throat cuts off feeling hot that freeze state best says hyperventilating see y'all know this y'all know this shame makes us think that we don't know but look at all of these answers these are absolutely your voice shaking nausea avoidance feeling hot blushing all of these things you all know are indicators that we might be experiencing shame so really great job wanting to go hide yeah Brian looking down absolutely so I'm gonna reiterate exactly what you said shame shows up in our collapsed posture so what I mean by that is our our posture begins to shrink that was the first word that was said we shrink we get small so there's usually a downward movement of the head and Brian just said that we the shoulders curl inwards and we compress and constrict through our upper torso okay for the very reason that you're that a few people have said we want to feel invisible the shame response in our body is actually quite adaptive and intuitive it's actually protecting us from that feeling of oh we might get exposed here and so really thinking about posturally what happens we make ourselves small we look downwards we want to really just crawl into our own little shell and not come out and you know the antidote to that is just very simple roll the shoulders back lead with the heart lift the heart just subtly even just feel in this moment right now go in between making yourself small and then expansion it might actually stir up feelings of vulnerability when you open the chest because being in constriction is actually more more safe right opening up can feel triggering so just notice that there's nothing wrong if you open up and all of a sudden you want to recoil right shame creates that feeling in our body wanting to recoil to hide to make ourselves as small as possible and so the quickest way we can work with shame not get rid of it but work with it is by opening up just a little bit and if it's for one breath that's enough okay we practice we start with one breath and rebuild from there lots of people are saying you know their throat feels constricted or they lose their voice you know from a physical sense yeah that does happen but from an emotional psychological sense we in shame we do lose our voice we give our voice up so some of the ways that we can work with shame is by singing your favorite song humming along to a song creating noise in your larynx and your vocal cords reestablishes that you do have a voice there's an amazing teacher here the long Janice who does incredible chakra cleansing with her cello music and I often you know really love sitting with her music when it comes to my throat chakra because that's where shame lives as well our our solar plexus our heart and our throat are deeply impacted by shame so a really great teacher she does a lot of live sessions the long Janice so I just wanted to pass that along so shame increases our likelihood of engaging in self-destructive behaviors we talked about how it creates this recoil effect in the body we want to play small in our posture shame also can have a another effect which is the attack effect where the moment we feel shame our impulse may be to aggressively attack somebody else whether it's physically or verbally because we want to beat somebody else to the punch so that the focus of shame isn't on us so it's not uncommon to yell out in rage have an outburst you know say things in the impulsive moment to attack somebody else to make sure the shame doesn't you know open up for you and that's a protective strategy so if you're here and that's something that you've done you know I want you to know that that's a very natural common response there's nothing wrong with you that that has happened it's a very common response with shame and so we're here to just identify it to name it shame is linked to aggression shame is linked to depression shame is linked to addiction shame is linked to eating disorders shame is linked to bullying okay so there's all these links in the literature about shame just briefly you know I wanted to talk a little bit about does the brain get impacted by shame yes it does so research shows that there are different areas of the brain when we are in shame versus when we are in guilt okay so that's why they're also neuro physiologically different so shame actually lives longer in our physiology than guilt does guilt can be that assessment of what what is the behavior I need to change here and shame is more complex shame lives a little bit longer it activates in different regions of our brain that involve a lot more complex processing so shame activates in our prefrontal cortex this is unique to human beings and particularly in the parahippocampal gyros and the insula and the anterior cingulate cortex don't worry there is no test on those names but what I do want to say is that our parahippocampal region is involved in our memory encoding and retrieval of memories and it's also involved in our episodic memory so we can have a very small sensory information that shame might occur it could be listening to a song it could be a tone of voice of a complete stranger and we will activate that parahippocampal region and create the memory that that is linked to in terms of shame and then we will send a cascade effect in our body to say yep shame is happening and we go into our automatic shame response and so it happens yes carl it happens you know in a matter of seconds but what happens with shame is that sometimes we get it wrong we don't we don't process that memory properly we go based on instinct of oh this is similar to that past experience of when I was called out or when I was humiliated so this is going to be the same but we don't take that time to actually assess is this true can I do something here to respond or am i reacting so I just wanted to mention that shame does show up in our brain the insula in our brain is also another critical area and this is where we evaluate the consequences of our actions and this is the area that guides our social or our anti-social behavior so again insula gets a little disorganized and we might say hmm the world is better off without me being a part of this community or a part of this job so I'm going to vacate and that's an anti-social behavior so it's just it's interesting I love this work I love figuring out okay what's the physiology behind what we're feeling because then we can actually start to make sense of our experience rather than sitting in the mind saying you know something's wrong with us we actually can understand well actually there's an area in your brain that's being impacted right now which is leading to this response which means we can fix it which means we can work with it we can make new neural pathways in our body and we can work with it so that's the positive thing so we talked a little bit about what is shame how do we know it's showing up in our physiology how can we detect it now I want to move into the psychology of shame and talk about what is the voice of your shame what's the voice saying so I'll give you some examples so the voice of shame may say things like I'm a mistake I should not have been born people are better off without me around I'm a failure I'm unlovable if people knew this about me they'd run as fast as they could in the other direction I'm unworthy of happiness okay so the shame has this very critical self-condemning voice to it so we checked in with our physiology now I want to check in with the dialogue what is the self-talk that shame shows up as so I see here see a says I don't belong yeah so it's the storyline shame has that storyline that's operating and behold we grip on to it as truth Carla I'm bad yeah exactly I'm always messing up yeah so it's very absolute so shame is that very absolute matter-of-fact voice that is self-condemning okay this idea I'm always messing up right I don't belong this always happens to me I'm not lovable yeah I can't do anything right it creates this all-or-nothing approach that a hundred percent of the time we're messing up a hundred percent of the time we are a mistake okay I see somebody saying with chronic illness I have nothing to offer anymore yeah that's a shame voice right there it's always my fault shame boys I'm inherently flawed shame boys so let's collectively for a moment just sit with the reality the truth of what shame is trying to tell us that's not true okay the the reality of shame let's sit with all of these things that people have said and think about all the missed opportunities that have happened because we believed the shame story close saying I'm not worthy of being seen so I think of all these things you know Sheila saying I'm a burden Simona I'm inherently flawed think about what are the missed opportunities that you didn't take or the things you didn't say or the things you didn't do because you held to this shame voice as your truth that is to me one of the greatest privileges of the work that I do to get to work with people through their shame but also one of the deepest sadnesses of the work I do because I I hold space for the missed opportunities that my I add myself in that mix of what we haven't done or what we haven't gone for or said or did because we've listened to that shame voice as our truth yeah so it is sad Vicki it is sad and the idea here is to hold space for the sadness without adding further shame or guilt to that so just notice as we hold space for each other to get real about what's that shame voice saying and what does that mean in terms of the missed opportunities in our lives let's hold space for the sadness and the loss but let's not hook to it as just one more example of how we're not good enough yeah Kim miss being you by not coming out and I think that first part of that sentence is you know universal this idea of not feeling fully self-expressed I don't think there's any greater feeling in this world than feeling like we can be fully self-expressed fully who we are whether that's through art whether that's through our relationship choices or our religious preferences or yeah just being completely self-expressed and so shame doesn't want us to think that we can be self-expressed it's not true it's not true so in order to now navigate okay we've recognized our shame voice so now how does that show up as we're operating and navigating the world so I refer to this as the masks that we wear okay so if we have this storyline of I'm not worthy of being seen or I'm inherently flawed what is the mask the armor the shield that we put on that we now navigate our lives with that we now show up at work with that we now show up in our families with that we now show up you know in romantic relationships with what are the the masks that we put on so I'll name a few some of these may resonate so I see a few people sharing and probably gonna share some that I've mentioned so the perfection is a mask so as long as I'm perfect I can never be exposed for my flaws okay the eternal caregiver my needs are not worthy of my attention I'm going to care for other people to look good and you know I don't I'm not worthy of my own attention okay narcissism or victim mentality everyone else is the problem so as long as everyone else is the problem I never actually have to look inwards at what might I be contributing okay the mistake catcher so if I highlight everyone else's flaws if I point out everyone else's flaws it will make mine less intense the ticking time bomb that hard shell that tough shell look at me sideways and I will explode the controller so the person that takes control doesn't let anyone else create or do if I control everything I'll never have to deal with my shame paralyzed or learned helplessness I can't trust myself I need someone else to tell me what to do so as long as I listen to someone else as long as I take someone else's guidance I never have to take responsibility I'm gonna look through and see what some other people have said so hyper awareness Brian oh no you found me don't worry we're all here collectively to own it like let's own what are the masks that we wear the more we can name it the more we contain it okay the more we name and share and say oh wow you know I see Lisa saying being super attentive to others needs holding space making sure everyone else feels safe me too Lisa me too and you're not gonna be the only one and this is the power of confronting shame is reading through these comments and like whoa somebody else just named something that I do too and now shame has a little less a little less hold over us because we're talking about it we're not letting it operate in silence so you know I just I love y'all we're just taking this on we are taking this on together so I just want to read through a few more let's see Meg says I freeze up in face-to-face conversations yeah because that storylines coming up and all of a sudden just freeze and then you probably leave that interaction and like with an instant you're like oh I could have said this this and this or you know what happened to me and then you're adding the shame to the shame so it's a cycle that can get really really big and I won't be hurt by you Mindy humor good one yeah humor sarcasm you know laughing when we're trying to say something serious as a protection strategy pretending cat says lies yeah as long as we tell little white lies and not the truth of who we are it'll come across as better so if we were truthful you know we wouldn't be we wouldn't be respected or valued or whatever the story is yeah you guys this is amazing I'm just reading through I'm just like collectively right now having a moment of you know I didn't know how this was gonna go this is a tough conversation because we're holding ourselves accountable and we're also in community holding space for what's true and so I didn't know how this would go and it's I'm really grateful for the honesty the vulnerability the just the willingness to actually own like what what are we feeling when we're in that shame response so thank you okay so we talked about the irony of shame we've talked about how do we recognize shame in our physiology we've talked about the psychology of shame what are we telling ourselves what's the narrative going on and we've talked about what are the protective masks that we wear to avoid shame at all costs okay and there's lots more too we're not gonna you know magically confront shame in just an hour together but certainly you know really taking into consideration of recognition physical and mental that mind body connection there's always a mind body response we've got the physical response that happens quickest and first without us even having to choose it and that's gonna be different for everybody and then we have this psychology we have the mind what are the thoughts what are the narratives what are the beliefs what are the things that we're telling ourselves so now I want to move into okay we've done such a good job identifying how do we heal this how do we work with shame okay so I invite you first and foremost and Brian can you power through shame no flat-out no you can't I I use the term working with shame because I really think across our lives if we really take inventory of what have we been exposed to in our lives how have we been treated in our earliest formative years when we really needed something and what are the experiences we've had in adulthood I think that there's always a capacity for shame I think there's always a capacity that our shame voice will be the voice that we listen to so I always talk about this idea of working with shame how do we work with shame so even today before I did this my shame voice was coming up loud and clear so it's not about getting rid of it so if you're here to ask how do we get rid of shame see if you can ask a different question how do we work with shame when it rears its head okay because I'll be I don't know what other people say on this topic but I'll be the first to say that I don't think it's about getting rid of it I think it's about learning to recognize it learning to sit with it and learning to work with it so that it doesn't overtake us so healing shame so we recognize it with curiosity so everything that you've done here everything that you've read everything that maybe you've contributed maybe you're journaling is we're actually exploring this in community together from a place of curiosity we still might feel the difficult sensations in our body like sweat heat flushing rapid heart but there's a little less of the hook that we're bad because we're talking about it so we got to recognize it we got to name it okay shame really magnifies when we're not exploring it it gets scarier and scarier when we're trying to avoid it okay so we want to dip our toe in we want to step in with small incremental steps and any kind of mindfulness practice I won't sit here and say this is the practice you need to do but any type of mindfulness practice whether it's being on insight timer and listening to your favorite teacher or being out in nature or I know in our insight circle a lot of people shared today that they have pets you know spending time with your pets like really just being mindful and in the present moment can help okay and asking yourself are you willing to get to know your shame a little bit better are you willing to approach your experience with shame with a beginner's mindset to see if there's something new that you can take away right now rather than operate as if that narrative is 100% truth because when we observe shame when we observe our thread and our voice of shame we start to realize that we're not the shame we're the observer and then we start to realize wow we have a little bit of distance between the thoughts that are operating and our observation and that's so liberating it's so freeing because then we can say we're not our thoughts we're so much more like we're so much more than our thoughts we're so much more than our shame dialogue so I just want you to sit with that so I'm going to do a meditation for processing shame so I want you to decide to decide are you ready for this we're at the one hour mark and this is about another 10 minutes and then I'll take questions I know there were some great questions but I really wanted to share some of the research that I've done so I'm going to lead you through a meditation pertaining shame and it will result in you calling into your mind an experience where you did feel shame and so maybe today you can pick an experience that might not be like the core rooted shame experience that you went through maybe it's something a little less intense right so maybe you practice you know with a workplace example that happened this week or something like that so something maybe a little less intense may be helpful as you start to get more comfortable doing meditation practice for dealing with shame okay so let's begin by doing that and take a comfortable position in your body really tuning into if you need a little more energy maybe you sit forward on your seat with your back and spine lengthened if you need a little more relaxation if you feel like whoo that was a lot you know you might feel more comfortable lying down allowing the weight of the bed or the floor beneath you to support you so choose the option more energy or more calming okay see if you can gently draw the eyes to a close or soften the gaze downwards and just notice where your body makes contact with a solid surface maybe you notice the feet on the floor maybe you notice the shoulders being supported allow your jaw to soften notice the space between the eyebrows and the forehead see if you can soften these areas slide your shoulder blades down and away from the ears I'm taking a long slow breath into the body see if you might sigh out through the mouth any tension anything you're holding on to let's go ahead and take another slow breath in and exhale sigh it out drawing your attention now to the sense of breath flowing into your abdomen if you'd like you can gently place one hand to the heart one hand to the lower belly sometimes it's helpful to notice the sensation of breathing in between these spaces when we bring gentle contact they don't have to whatever feels right just sensing the movement of the body on the in breath and sensing the movement of the body on the out breath remembering that this is your anchor for your practice you can keep this gentle contact and return to this awareness at any time as you're comfortable gently bringing to mind an experience or a memory a time in your life in which you felt shame maybe it was something you did maybe it was something you didn't do maybe it was something that someone else said about you or to you whatever it is just seeing if you can turn towards this memory gently with curiosity as best you can remembering at any time you can return your awareness to hands to heart hands to low belly but as you're bringing to mind this memory or experience just check in with the thoughts that are present what are the thoughts swirling about yourself about your experience about this moment what are the emotions that you feel and what are the bodily sensations that arise remembering that we are here together you are not alone right now I am here with you and that this is temporary this is momentary without needing to change or fix anything that's coming up for you just explore what is arising to the surface right here right now maybe you want to stop this experience maybe there's tears maybe you're angry at me it's okay I've got big shoulders for you I'm holding space if there are specific thoughts emotions or feelings as best you can just observe as they come and go naming them or labeling them to make them known saying to yourself shame is here saying to yourself fear is here pain is here anxiety is here whatever it is for you labeling it naming it just for a few moments remember when we name it shame loses its power over us as you're ready shifting your attention now to the sensations in your body just investigating where in your body do you feel a sensation even if it's unwanted or intense just getting curious and noticing and labeling I feel a headache in the back of my head I feel tears behind my eyes I feel clenching and tension in my job I feel sick to my stomach naming it getting to know what the sensations are in your body in this moment if the sensations are strong or intense just gently saying to yourself this is a moment of difficulty right now I can be with this I'm not alone Megan is with me our community is here I can be with this it's already here so I'm going to be with that if it's helpful breathing into the sensations drawing the breath into the jaw or tracing the breath into the abdomen or up into the mind maybe even on the out breath just a simple word like soften or release just staying with the sensations with curiosity and inquiry as they capture your attention remembering if this is too difficult it feels overwhelming there is always the choice to return back to your hands your gentle contact or to open your eyes or to let go of this practice you can choose as you return to your sensation of breathing into the abdomen notice the rise and fall of the belly belly rises on our breath in the belly falls on our breath out and expanding your awareness to the entire body bringing into your mind your entire body from the tips of the toes right up through the mind and the crown of the head just resting in this spacious awareness of what is in our experience in this moment what are we sensing maybe you notice a particular sensation grabbing your attention or maybe you notice a thought that keeps returning maybe you notice the intensity has moved through you just subtly and as we move this memory this experience of shame a little bit to the background of our awareness just gently asking yourself what is here to be seen by me that I haven't yet seen how can I approach this experience with a different perspective what is my shame response and how does it impact how I show up in different areas of my life is there a more peaceful perspective or helpful response when I notice the shame response surfacing how can I extend myself more grace more patience more compassion when I notice shame arise spending as much time as you'd like here gently connecting hands to heart reminding yourself that you showed up for yourself today something called and led you to this discussion today and let's believe that what called and led you was the deepest truest part of who you were the essence of you the essence of you that knows you are not your shame you are so much more the deep down part of you that knows you are not alone in your shame hundred and forty five people here together collectively coming together to confront name and hold space for shame taking a few moments to bring yourself back to the space making any intuitive movements in your body little twist side to side or big stretch and seeing if you can switch it up now you've spent 75 minutes talking about and thinking about shame so it's really important that you allow that to percolate allow that to settle into your body so my recommendation is to not continue to dive into this right now go switch it up go dance it out go spend a moment of fresh air outside make your favorite meal take a cold shower wash your face switch it up okay you've done a lot of work right now so switch it up let this be revisit it at a different time so I want to thank you for connecting in this space about shame there's a tough topic and you were amazing

Reviews

Thank you for this really uplifting and comprehensive talk. You’ve broken this insidious feeling down so well so that it becomes easier to look at it ✨The blend of different disciplines and tools make this talk even more valuable. The only minor suggestion I have is to perhaps improve the audio quality a bit next time so that your voice doesn’t sound so far away. Much gratitude 🙏✨🌟💫

Thank you so very much for providing a safe platform for me to show up with my inner self today ….with much, much gratitude ❤️🙏🏼

Almost every word she said resonated. Very very heavy deep dive into inner child work. Beautiful and painful and powerful. So eye opening. And heart opening. Well done, well delivered, excellent flow, covered so much dark heavy info in a kind gentle safe space.

Wonderful. Very lovely and helpful walk through. Full of useful information and a helpful mediatative practice on exploring and responding to feelings of shame.

This was the most therapeutic talk/meditation I have experienced so far on IT 🙏. For me I felt held, supported, safe with Megan's intro on Shame then the talk continued with Megan holding the space, being attentive, supportive and informative along with the meditation providing real relief and I got a feeling of intergration of my shame and then I am not my shame, so grateful for the guidance as I went deep and painful but came through with love and holding myself lovingly 🧘‍♀️. Looking forward to a cold shower and then some gardening, thank you for this talk and also recommending how to let the session be for the day❤

Brilliant! I was concerned that there would be a lot of intellectual talk but not at all. A fantastic, down to earth guide for working with shame. Thank you 🙏

Fantastic! Thank you. 🥰🙏

Wow SUPER informative and delivered with tender compassion. 🙏

Well done

Amazing thanks so much 🙏

Thank you Megan. This is the second time I've listened to this and it's helping me understand why I do somethings. I appreciate the support and the shoulder to cry on🙏🏼🙌🏽

Words fail to express my gratitude for landing on this talk/meditation today. I have faith that I can continue to work with shame and peel back all the layers. So much yet to learn but grateful for the journey. Thank you. Sending love to myself and to all. ❤️🙏🏼

Suck a weary of info here! I only wish I’d heard this 30 years ago! I’ve spent years figuring so much out on my own.
This is amazing! So grateful to hear it now. Will re listen for sure! 🙏🏼💕✨

Highly recommend for anyone dealing w shame issues. Amazing talk

Phenomenal. You truly pour your heart & soul into your work, & it is very much appreciated 🙏

Thank you for your bravery.

Excellent! I needed to hear this. Thank you for the presentation and the insights. 🙏

Whoa, this was amazing and on point with my personal experiences with shame. So helpful for the work I am currently doing to work with shame so I can stop hiding myself and running from my dreams. The concepts of shame with a mind body connection were very understandable and accessible. Felt like a safe, compassionate space. Thank you.

Dear Megan, thank you so much for this amazing session and for sharing your important work, it really hits the spot for me as I'm right in the middle of my healing journey - this is gold!💛

I feel like a whole field of stadium lights just went on. I have been doing (and feeling) a LOT of personal excavation going on lately, and just last night was telling a dear friend that I felt like my anxiety (which has gotten more intense in the last few years despite, or maybe because of, the work I’ve been doing) has it’s roots in my preverbal years. I have feelings I can’t put words to. This talk has taken a weight off of my shoulders. I’m not going crazy! Thank you so very much.