How to Stop Shaming Yourself
This post will cover how to identify your thoughts about shame and what to do to stop the shame spiral in your life.
What’s wrong with me?
How many times have you uttered the words “what’s wrong with me” in the last day? What about the last few days? What about the last year?
From this mentality, do you feel hopeless or ready to conquer the world? If I had to take a guess, hopelessness is what you feel because there is so much shame wrapped up into TRULY BELIEVING that something is wrong with you.
This has now become your default story, and, along with it, default feelings.
Stopping the shame spiral
If this is you right now, I see you, feel you, and 100000000% get you. But, do you want to hear something amazing? YOU have a CHOICE to not think this way!!!!
Yes, you may have become so comfortable with that shame security blanket, that removing it may feel scary or even painful, BUT, it’s just a story that you’ve latched on to. That’s it, it’s not real and definitely not fact.
Shame keeps you isolated and alone to make you feel like no one else in the world could possibly feel the way you do. No one else in the world feels:
this stuck
this anxious
this depressed
this lonely
this disgusted with their body
this discouraged about their marriage
Shame keeps you suffering by staying silent. Your default way of thinking is to find evidence of everything in your entire life that has ever ‘failed’ and make you think that you are the ‘failure.’
Healing shame exercise
I want you to pause right now, and think about areas in your life that you have shame around. Here are some questions to really get you digging into shame:
What keeps you up at night?
What “should you be doing” but aren’t?
What “should you NOT be doing” but you are?
What makes you feel less than, inadequate, or worthless?
What makes you feel behind?
What is the one thing that you’ve never shared before with anyone?
“Shame corrodes the very part of us that believes we can change.”
~Brene Brown
What is your biggest shame? When you bring it to the surface and stop hiding in silence, it begins to lose its power.
Start with sharing it, first with yourself. Get curious with why it’s there in the first place. Then, when you’re ready, open up with a trusted coach, therapist, pastor, friend, family member, etc and allow its power to lessen its hold on your life.
Stop self-shaming for good
Now that you’ve identified your biggest shame area, you might be thinking, how can I get rid of this for good?
Know you’re not alone
In my life, shame has been something that has held me back, caused extreme levels of anxiety, and also kept me suffering because I was so ashamed that I couldn’t even talk about the level of shame that I was experiencing because I thought I was the ONLY one.
That’s why shame is a silent killer. It’s sneaky and has a way of holding you captive by stripping you of any signs of hope. It beats you down and also depletes your energy, because it’s able to run like a broken record in your mind.
2. Find resources to guide your journey
Early on, one of my greatest ways of moving through shame was finding resources that significantly helped me get out of my own way, simply by the sharing of shame stories and how they successfully beat them.
One of my first ever shame sharing tools were books. Geneen Roth, in her book “Feeding the Hungry Heart,” was so courageous, as she openly talked about her struggle with food. A decade ago, I had never openly talked about how MUCH of a struggle I had with food, from starving to binging, to controlling it, and just how my overall dysfunctional relationship to food truly was. Because of her bravery, I didn’t feel alone and embarrassed. I felt connected and it instantly gave me hope that one day I could be brave like her and it also lessened my levels of shame (because I didn’t feel alone anymore).
But, once this area of shame was healed, I kept finding more and more areas that were affected by shame. As I got more curious, I found more resources. That’s the key right there, curiosity to question WHY that shame is there to begin with, and then finding resources such as books, podcasts, videos, courses, coaching, etc you navigate out of shame and on to YOUR level of success.
It’s a beautiful thing when you continue to find tools to help you operate without the shackles of shame making everything 10,000x harder.
If you want to dive deeper into shame, and learn more of its impact and affect on your life, check out ANYTHING by THE SHAME QUEEN herself, Brene Brown. Her books are hands down some of the best, life-changing books I’ve ever read and have helped me tremendously. Specifically, I love Daring Greatly and I Thought It Was Just Me, But It Isn’t.
3. Have a coach walk alongside you
If you’re ready to take it up a notch, let’s set up a time to dive deeper into your shame, and discuss how my life coaching packages can help you get out of your own way, faster. I hold the space, we tackle the shame stories together, and free you from the stories that have kept you stuck.
Fill out this quick form and I’ll be in contact with you about setting up a time to talk.
Meg Smithson, Life Coach
Meg coaches women by identifying areas of self sabotage, helping them break up with the shame that usually accompanies that, and then shows them how to set boundaries around the emerging 2.0 version they want to become, and live that life, unapologetically.
Click to schedule a life coaching consultation with Meg.
