In today’s world, I think we all feel shame to varying degrees, and it can be the first barrier to being our true selves.
Toxic shame: What we DO vs who we BE
Healthy shame operates more like guilt, and its function was always to help us stay connected to the tribe through self-adjusting behaviour. It focuses on what we DO.
Shame becomes toxic when it morphs into becoming part of our identity - moving from “that action was wrong or unacceptable” to “something is fundamentally and inherently wrong with me and who I am” - at the identity level. It distorts our perception of who we are as a person.
Toxic shame is the internalisation of the belief that in some way “I am bad.”
The triggering or generation of shame often isn’t a one-time experience. Like most things in life, it can be cumulative, layered and unique to each of us.
Think of it like a backpack - each time we experience shame, we add another stone to the backpack, until it’s so heavy it’s sapping us of our joy, authentic self-expression, and is generally making life feel much heavier than it needs to be.
However, it also tends to have an origin or root - aka the first time we experienced it and decided (normally for our own survival) to make it mean that there was something wrong with us (rather than the environment or people around us).
(P.s. newsflash - YOU ARE NOT BAD)
Block of the Sacral Chakra
Shame lives in the second chakra: the sacral, or svadhisthana, chakra. When we’re stuck in shame, we might be getting our needs met (the arena of the root chakra), but we’re not getting our desires met - we’re not thriving.
Shame blocks us from believing we are worthy of receiving our desires, so we settle for the bare minimum, believing everyone else BUT US gets to have what they want. We don’t even bother trying to go after what we want.
“There’s been no objective failure because nothing has ever been truly attempted.”
Mami Onami
Clues that you might be carrying shame
A few sneaky clues suggest shame is running the show, at some level, in the body and psyche.
1. Behaviour
Do you tend to hide or self-isolate?
Do you reflexively apologise?
Do you notice yourself self-sabotaging good things in your life?
Does it feel unsafe to be vulnerable?
Do you notice perfectionism or hypervigilance in yourself?
Numbing and addictive behaviours
Codependency and poor boundaries.
2. Mind/psyche
Do you engage in constant self-judgment, self-criticism, or negative inner dialogue?
Do you constantly experience scarcity or fear abandonment?
Are you running anxious attachment patterns and clinging to things for fear they’ll run out or leave?
Do you struggle to truly feel or receive pleasure?
3. Body
Notice if you feel any charge in your body when you read any of the following shame statements:
There’s something wrong with me
I’m unlovable
I’ll never be enough
I’m a failure
I’m worthless
I don’t deserve to be happy
I don’t deserve pleasure
The impact of shame:
Shame can make us have a really low opinion of ourselves. It can block our authentic self-expression, creativity, pleasure and intimate connections.
It stops us from trusting what feels good and instead masking, hiding, numbing and self-sabotaging the shit out of what we really want, desire and enjoy!
Masking
It’s often paired with a harsh inner critic, self-blame, and compensatory mechanisms such as perfectionism or hypervigilance.
We use the compensation mechanism to mask the low opinion we have of ourselves by trying to cover it up and make up for it in other ways - controlling our environment and how we are perceived.
Hiding
Shame can also cause us to hide and isolate.
We want to connect, but think we’re worthless and fear rejection, so instead we isolate and hide away. This becomes a cycle and self-fulfilling prophecy, as our shame narrative then interprets the isolation as further proof that something is wrong with us!
Codependancy
It’s often easier to be needed by others than to face our own issues. Subconsciously, we believe we need to earn or prove our worth.
Numbing
Shame loves a silent spiral – it has us doing things that cause more shame, like comfort eating, binge-watching Netflix or doom scrolling for hours
Weak boundaries and self-sabotage
When we don’t believe we deserve to feel happy, we overstep our own boundaries for happiness and will self-sabotage things just as they start to go well.
Recognise yourself in any of these?
So what does life look like when we’ve cleared the shame?
We start going after what we really want because we know we are worthy of receiving it. We know that if others can have something, so can we.
We start having way more fun!
We become someone we like and honour ourselves in the decisions we make.
We begin to bet on ourselves.
We express our authentic desires and can risk being vulnerable.
We allow ourselves to experience pleasure and joy.
We can be responsible with our resources without falling into a scarcity mindset.
We allow our true selves to be seen.
We say no when we mean no, and yes when we mean yes!
Good things start to increase in our lives without us sabotaging them or destroying them.
We begin connecting to people we enjoy spending time.
We no longer need to rescue others or play the role of caretaker.
We focus on healing our own patterns and blocks - we know we’re worthy.
We honour ourselves in our actions and keep our word with ourselves
We trust ourselves!
We exit pain and drama cycles.
Does this sound like something you want more of?
Unravelling shame’s grip:
So how do we begin to address our shame, unravel the narrative, and allow our true selves to begin to be seen again?
Like everything, it begins with a combination of curiosity, awareness and some compassion.
The exploration deepens, and transformation happens when we have a tried-and-tested, successful process that incorporates the mind, body, nervous system, and integration tools.
I want to share a process that I’ve learnt to lead myself through time and time again when I notice shame-driven behaviours or beliefs playing out.
It’s a combination of core trauma healing, chakra healing, emotional processing and parts work + it’s trauma-informed :)
READY TO CLEAR YOUR SHAME?
Book a 1:1 deep-dive shame-healing session.
These are only available for Scopio season (23rd October - 23rd November)
£144 (payment plans or accessibility available)
This includes a 90-minute 1:1 online session, plus a take-home PDF guide for you to return to forever, along with steps for integration.
Clear the crap & start following your bliss x
