Episode #104

Shame & CBT

Shame is the feeling of something being fundamentally wrong with you. It can be painful and paralyzing to live with.

How is shame different from guilt?

Can shame ever be positive?

How can you cope with negative feelings of shame?

Join me, Dr Julie Osborn, as I share with you how to identify and deal with feelings of shame.

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Full Episode Transcript

Hi, welcome to My CBT Podcast! This is Dr. Julie. I'm a Doctor of Psychology and a licensed clinical social worker specializing in Cognitive Behavioral Therapy. I'm here to help you bring the power of CBT into your own life.

Thanks for being with me again. I always appreciate you guys listening. I wanted to share an Apple review that someone left, which I really am grateful for.

It says,

‘How did I survive before this podcast?!

The information Dr. Julie gives, all presented in her gentle, warm, but straight-talking manner, is absolute gold. I've been to multiple therapists, most of them specializing in CBT, and none of them have helped me as much as Dr. Julie through her podcast. These podcasts are a treasure trove of information and tools for life that all of us sensitive and trouble types can benefit from. Thank you, Julie! You're saving the planet one person at a time.’

So thank you, thank you, thank you. So grateful when you guys share and just remind me what a difference the podcast is making. I'm just so happy when I hear about your successes and how you're using the tools and I just love that.

So please keep it coming. I love that. I love that. So today I want to talk about a very sensitive issue, one I think I've covered in some podcast, but not directly, and that is shame. Shame is a mood. And actually, when I met my husband years ago, he gave me this pin. I don't know where he found it from, but it says, Shame is the lie someone told you about yourself. I thought, That is perfect. Because a lot of times we feel shame based on what people say to us, messages we've received from other people. When I say that shame is a lie someone told you about yourself, what shame is connected to usually is your identity. What's different between shame and guilt, guilt is that I did something wrong, shame is there something wrong with me, is we believe that we can't change when we feel shamed. Versus guilt, we can repair, make an amends, apologize. But shame, we believe it's not that it's true that we can't change, and we're stuck with this feeling of shame and thinking there's something wrong with us forever. Now, the thing that's difficult about addressing this is that it's often unconscious to us, but it can be so destructive that we're feeling shame and thinking horribly about ourselves, and it can be so destructive, but we don't even know that that's at the root of the problem.

We're blaming it on other things in our lives. I'm not sure what's going on. I'm not able to identify this. A lot of times, the word guilt is used so much more in our society. Do you feel bad about that? Do you feel guilty? Now, a lot of times people say, Do you feel ashamed? But it's something to ask yourself. It is a normal human emotion, though. It gives us permission really to be human because we all feel this at different times. And actually, healthy shame is the foundation for us to have humility in our lives. I always say there's good guilt, there's bad guilt, there's toxic shame, there's healthy shame. Healthy shame, again, it's the foundation to keep us human, to have humility in our lives, to think about the actions we're going to take, who we want to be. But when it's a part of your identity, that's when it becomes a problem. It makes you believe that you're flawed or defective. If you believe this about yourself, you're going to end up creating a false sense, which you believe that is not defective or flawed. What I'm saying there is, if you think you're defective or flawed, then I need to be somebody different.

I can't be who I am because that's not okay. So if you listen to my core belief podcast, I talk about we have core belief, so core belief could be I'm defective, I'm flawed, right? And then we have what I call behavioral strategies. Behavioral strategies would really be your false self. Who am I going to create myself to be? Because it's too painful to deal with being defective or flawed, and I don't think I can change that. I think that's just who I am. I'm stuck with that, so I have to be somebody else. But when you are a false self, you're unable to be an authentic human being, which is really the goal for all of us. We want to be authentic, be ourselves, have that humility in our lives. So a common core belief that a lot of my clients have, a lot of I'm sure you out there have because it's so common is perfectionism. Perfectionism is the major cause of having toxic shame. Obviously, toxic shame is the negative stuff, right? That you're not good enough, there's something wrong with you. What happens when you're a perfectionist, it sets you up to be measured, and then you're going to be perpetually disappointed because we never get there.

I mean, what is perfectionism? Perfectionism is based on how you see things. And if you're always striving, you're not able to enjoy the journey. You're not able to enjoy any accomplishments you are making because you're not there yet. So you're always disappointed. And a lot of times, perfectionism is taught through our families, some religions, our schools, even our culture is based on perfectionism. This is how you should be, right? Those shoulds, right? Where you're scolding yourself, right? Because remember, I've shared with you before that the root word of should is scold. So I should be perfect. I should always do it right. I should never make a mistake. This is the message that a lot of us are given. We're not born believing this. This is what we learn as we grow up and from a lot of dysfunction that we all, mostly, most of us go through on some level in our lives. What else is at the heart of feeling ashamed is your fear of being exposed for other people to really see who you are. And that's why you're having this false self, right? These behavioral strategies because I don't want people to really see this part of me because they're going to judge me and they'll see how terrible I am.

So I'm always running on this fear, right? Fear of exposure. But when you do allow yourself to be vulnerable and share your shame, you allow the most sensitive, intimate part of yourself. And this is how you truly can connect with others. So when I say share your shame, it's not that... Again, we do feel shame when we look back and maybe some choices we've made, or if we're taking on others' behaviors, right? Like families, dysfunction and things we've been through. But when I share that and I allow myself to be humble and to be authentic, others aren't going to judge you. Others that truly do love you and you can trust and have a good relationship with, they're going to just see how human you are and probably relate to you. But it's, again, a very vulnerable place to be. Am I going to really expose who I am because I don't want this person to judge me? And then all of the hot thoughts that come with that, right? That I'm going to lose this friendship, I'm going to lose this relationship. They're going to tell other people the world is going to judge me.

How can I be perfect when everybody sees who I really am? These are the thoughts that most of us will have that keep us from allowing ourselves to be fully ourselves, fully engaged, and having that authentic life that we're all actually striving for. It's so interesting when I was saying that it's unconscious, right? That when I talk about it out loud, I think to myself, how so many people tell themselves these things. If I'm just perfect, everything will be okay. But I'm not really going to be happy because I'm always just working to be perfect. For who? For who? For this false belief that that's what everybody wants me to be? Are people really attracted to perfectionists? No, because they're comparing themselves too. Look how perfect she is. She got her life together. Everything's going great. She's so disciplined. She can handle this, she can handle that. They may say it out loud, maybe because that's what they think they want to be, because we're all, again, thinking we need to be perfect, but it's not really attractive. I think most of us, if we really think about it, are really attracted to people that are real.

I know I am. When somebody's real and just puts it out there and doesn't carry that shame, I really admire that. When I see someone who's just perfect or puts themselves out there as perfect and just saying all these wonderful things they do, I get turned off and I think I stop listening as well. That it's like, Okay, I don't know really what to even talk about if this person is perfect and everything's going great. Where's the connection? Where's the human connection? Because I know I'm not perfect. How can I relate to this person? How can they relate to me if they're just focused on being perfect and I'm trying to be myself? What's the opposite of change regarding not being perfect and being yourself? The opposite of change is the courage to actually be imperfect, which we are already, but to own that and be okay with it. That's the opposite of perfectionism, is the change to be imperfect. It takes some work to get there, right? Because we all been running around trying to be perfect and putting out this false self to everybody that we're just thinking is working. I think a lot of people can see through that.

I think a lot of people don't get hypnotized by somebody that's perfect and all wonderful. Things happen and you're like, That's really not the way I perceive them or how they put themselves out into the world. Maybe I really need to think about that. And who do I want to be? When you can start accepting that mistakes are part of being human, you're going to feel freer. You're going to allow yourself to be more spontaneous and even more creative. When you notice that you're laughing more at yourself and events in your life, you'll know that it's just inevitable that you're being more of your true self, that you can laugh at yourself and say, Yeah, this is silly, or This is even a silly hot thought I got, but I just got to share it, or laughing at stuff when you make mistakes, or things don't work out the way you want, or again, events in your life. I'm sure most of you can think of one person in your life that's like this. They just laugh it off. They don't take it too personal. They go with the flow. Then how do you feel about that person?

Do you admire them? Do you feel like you can connect to them? Do you feel like that's someone that's not going to judge me because they don't judge themselves? And if that's something I'm attracted to, that's something I want to work towards. So remember, this is really sensitive stuff. I always tell everyone everything's easier said than done. So if you want to start exploring this, really for the first time, that's where having a therapist is really helpful. You're going in where it's non judgmental, someone who's unbiased to any of your stories, people in your life. They're just there for you and to help you walk through this really painful emotion, addressing your core beliefs, looking at how you haven't been your true self, which is really sad. A lot of people get really sad when we start working on, especially, it starts with the core belief, and then we figure out what's going on. I tell clients all the time, when you start working with the core belief, if you need to take a break, it can be overwhelming. You don't have to sit there and keep doing the work and doing the homework. Just take a break, go take a walk, breathe.

It's the heavy stuff. It's really getting to the root of probably many of the issues that you're dealing with. So have some self compassion and be gentle. And you're not going to do it perfectly. That's not the goal. How do I do a perfect thought record or core belief? It's not about that. It's just creating something for you that's going to allow you to start feeling better, to have more self love, again, more compassion and be more humble and being your true self. So there's all different ways to start exploring and seeing if shame is affecting your life. One is to ask yourself, are you carrying any secrets? Is there anything that you think, Oh, my God. If anybody ever found out, I just can't tell. Family secrets, personal secrets. Is there anything I'm not sharing? And why is that? Now, I'm not saying you have to share everything in your life. Sometimes you might say, Well, I don't really see the purpose. Or is it because I am ashamed? If I'm ashamed of it, that's what I want to think about. Is there one person I could talk to or explore this with so I can start letting go?

And if you are carrying secrets, that's when you can start saying, Okay, what are my hot thoughts and what are my core beliefs? And they possibly would be that, quote, if others knew my secret, they would judge me and be disgusted. That is how strong our hot thoughts are, how strong our core beliefs are when it comes to shame. It's very black and white for a lot of people, like, Oh, my God. No way, no way, no way. Nobody would understand. That's your hot thought. As I just said here, they would be disgusted. They would judge me. There'd be no going back. I wouldn't be able to repair things. These are the things you want to start asking yourself. Are these some of the thoughts I have about some secrets that I am carrying? What are some secrets that people have? A lot of times they're about family dysfunction. If there's alcoholism or addiction was in the family, sexual abuse, if you've ever been bankrupt. Other behaviors that you've done that now when you look back saying, I wouldn't do that again, but I'm ashamed of that and I don't want anybody to ever find out, if you've ever been arrested for anything.

I could go on and on and on about things that you might feel ashamed of and so many things that may be happened in our family. There's so many times people don't even talk about what they went through because they feel ashamed, or maybe their family is better today. They don't want you to judge how their family was before. If I tell you this, you're not going to like my parents anymore, or my siblings, or whatever that looks like. Think about where does that shame come from, also, going back to that being perfect? It is based on our culture. I've met people that are ashamed they don't have a college education because they think going back to that, I should. Our society puts that out there. I tell a lot of people, if you really do your research, you're going to see most people in the country don't even have a college education. But a lot of us that have college education have lived in this bubble or around other people or in areas where everybody seems to be going to college. So then there's this shame that I didn't when there doesn't need to be.

That's just a choice people make. Not college isn't for everybody and everyone doesn't need to go. But again, that's where to start picking apart, what are some things I don't feel good about myself? And is it really justified? Is it really justified that why do I have to be ashamed that my parent was an alcoholic? I wasn't. That was them. They don't have to be a reflection on me now that I'm older. I felt like that growing up. And then a lot of times growing up in families with dysfunction, there's a lot of verbal abuse as well. Parents telling children, You're worthless. You're never going to amount to anything. You're a pain in the ass to me. I wish I never had you. You're not good enough. All of those messages that sadly enough, a lot of people hear this growing up, that you really start to believe it because it's like, Wow, this is a person I love. This is my caretaker, and this is what they're telling me. I'm not wanted. I'm not lovable. It's like, it must be true because look who's saying it to me. I don't understand as a kid what alcoholism is or drug addiction or anything that happens.

I remember being in therapy, and I always... I talk about this in my core belief, but my big issue was abandonment when my mom left. I just went on with life because that's how I coped and my life was good and I had fun. But I was in therapy one time and I just said, Oh yeah, I was the only kid on the street without a mom. I just burst into tears. I was like, Where did that come from? I know that in my head. I never really understood how that really affected me. There was some shame that I was carrying that I had no idea because I was the only kid that I knew whose mom wasn't around. But I was like, Well, that's okay. I got a good dad. I can just move on. But I carried that and that really affected my life down the road until I went to therapy and got some help. A lot of times we're not even aware that's how I was saying in the beginning of this podcast, a lot of it is really unconscious until something comes up. Take some time in your life if you're struggling in any way, if you have depression, anxiety, anger, whatever is going on, social anxiety.

If you rage, if your life is now where it is... Is shame really at the core of what's going on? Do I feel ashamed? Am I exhausted about trying to be perfect? Am I exhausted about putting this false self? Am I sad that I know who I want to be, but I just can't seem to get there? Because I don't have the confidence to really be who I am? What's that going to look like in my life? So I would just start journaling. As you work on your hot thoughts, maybe identify the mood of shame and see what comes from there. What am I ashamed of? If you lost a job, how many people have lost jobs through COVID, right? And life has changed and losing jobs at any time in your life, t hat can be something that's shameful also because you're blaming yourself. So I could go on and on about things that can create shame for us because we're personalizing and internalizing what happens in our lives and how we think things should be. But the first step is to start figuring out, do I have issues of shame? Am I ashamed of things?

Using Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, there's five aspects to overcome shame. What I'm going to share with you here is also in the Mind Over Move book. In chapter 15, it's called Anger, Guilt, and Shame. There's some sections on shame. Again, it's connected. A lot of times people talk about shame and guilt together, but again, we want to understand shame is that there's something wrong with me and that I need to start changing. Let me just go over the five aspects. If you have the Mind Over Move book, you can read more into this. I'm going to share with you another book that I'd really recommend at the end of the podcast to help address this and start to just understand. First, I guess the beginning is right, understanding what is shame. I'm hoping that that's what I'm offering you right now. One big part of shame is you want to weigh your actual personal responsibility to whatever the situation is that you're feeling shameful about. Most likely you're taking too much responsibility, especially if it has something to do with the action of others. What does that look like? In chapter 15, in Mind over Mood, they have this responsibility pie chart.

It's really interesting. It's asking you to list all the people involved in the situation that's created the shame. Then how much responsibility did you have? In this exercise, there was an example one time I remember reading where one of the vignettes, the woman was sexually abused by her alcoholic father, and she just carried the shame for years and blamed herself for all these irrational thoughts she had. When she did the pie chart, she realized she had no responsibility. All the shame she was carrying all these years, she had no responsibility in feeling ashamed. It was all on her father, on the alcohol, on the situations going on at home, on her mother not protecting her. That's just an example. Again, you can use this for anything. Don't minimize your situation. Don't compare to others. If you're feeling ashamed, you're feeling ashamed. It doesn't matter if you think, Oh, that's not a big enough issue, or it's less than what other people go through. I always tell you guys, you're always going to find someone that has things worse off than you and people that have things better than you. It's your stuff. I want you to work on it.

If it's affecting you, then it's just as important as any level of difficulty people are going through. That's one aspect right there to overcome the shame. If you have caused harm and you can make reparation, that's one way to get over the shame. We do do things that we're like, I feel shame ful. I said this, I acted this way. That wasn't okay. That makes me feel bad about myself. I can go make reparation, and that can help also. Another aspect is to break your silence surrounding the shame to someone that you can trust, like I said earlier. Again, this is like, I just can't go there right now to someone that I know. Go find a therapist you can sit down and just be honest with and get it out. Then find the courage to say, Okay, who is it that I need to share this with? That would make a difference in my life. I've heard stories about people being married for 30 years and the spouse is like, I never knew that about this person. It happens all the time. You're like, What? How could you not know that? Because they didn't share it.

They thought, Why do I need to share that now? But it's a secret. Secrets, you know, we're sick as our secrets, they say, right? That our secrets do affect us, even if we don't think they are. So breaking your silence and having that self compassion and allowing yourself the humility to be you, you need to start sharing that with another human being. I think one of the most important aspects to overcome shame is to forgive yourself. Also in chapter 15 of Mind over Mood, there's a great section on forgiveness and there's a letter to forgive yourself. There's also a letter to forgive others. Self forgiveness is huge. If we can't forgive ourselves for something we feel ashamed about, it's just going to stay with us forever. You're too important and you're too deserving to carry that around. Things in life happen. Life's tough, you guys. Things happen. Every single day, we hear stories. You're like, I don't know how I deal with that. How does that person get through that? I mean, all day long, we can hear stories that are unbelievable. Life is hard. There's a lot of joy, too, but we have to be willing to be more authentic to get to that place.

When you're able to forgive yourself, this allows you to see yourself with the same kindness and compassion that you view others. So how can I give this to myself and be able to move on? Self forgiveness includes recognizing your good and your negative qualities, your strengths and your weaknesses. It's not about us being perfect. It's just about being the person you want to be and letting go of the shame that you're carrying that is so toxic and is not serving you whatsoever. When you can do self forgiveness and you can share with someone, I am telling you, you will be very surprised at the acceptance you receive from people you trust and people you love. All of these hot thoughts you have about how people will judge you, it usually isn't true if you're choosing to share with the right people in your life. Remember I talked about the double standard technique, right? Double standard technique is when you say, If someone told me this about them, how would I see it? Would I be disgusted? Would I never want to talk to them again? You might be like, No, that's ridiculous. I'd be okay with it.

I'd be happy they're sharing it. I would want to be there for them. That's all the same answers for yourself. All the same answers for yourself. When you receive that acceptance, I think it also helps you assess, am I being really hard on myself? And is it worth keeping the secret anymore? And I wanted to add, too, when you do sit down, whether it's a therapist or a friend, a loved one, whoever you're sharing, make sure you have enough time to really express your feelings and your thoughts and letting them know you're really anxious to even bring this up. And give yourself time for them to share back and really talk about the whole situation. It's not something to rush through. It's not something to just drop and then run because you're afraid of how they're going to react. You really want to honor yourself by telling somebody that there's something I want to talk to you about, but I really want to find the time and the privacy for us to talk where we won't be interrupted because it's really important to me and I really want to be able to express everything. I always encourage people, you know what, make notes, write down things you really want to share, have it in front of you.

These are some things I want to share. I'm so anxious and overwhelmed. I'm not really thinking straight, so I'm going to look at my notes because I want to be able to express this in the way that I've been able to put on paper because I took the time because this is so important to me and it's important that this goes well. I want to talk about the other book and the other author that I'd recommend you guys do some reading if you want to explore more about Shane. There was a famous author back in starting 1980s, his name was John Bradshaw, one of my favorite people. May he rest in peace. He has passed away now. So grateful me, my husband got to see him speak probably three or four times. One of the books I have where he actually signed for me, which is exciting. He has a book called Bradshaw on Healing the Shame that Binds You. Now, I'm telling you, this is the first book I ever got that was addressing shame. It just wasn't really brought up in the past that much. People were not doing research on it and really looking at how does this affect our lives and where does it come from and how can we make these changes.

John Bradshaw was just incredible. He also was the author and speaker that really introduced the inner child to the world. The inner child, if you've not heard about what the inner child is, is we all have our inner child, right? I have big Julie and I have little Julie. Little Julie is that little girl who felt abandoned when her mom left and sad. We have to get in touch with that inner child so that we can protect it now, make it feel safe. That inner child is what really allows me to be free and have fun and laughing. When I'm in my best place, it's the little child in me that's coming out. It's not the responsible adult, Julia, that does this and does that and takes care of things and is trying to think five steps ahead all the time. It's that child, right? When you think about all of us, of yourself as a child, you were free and happy and laughing. When you see a little kid having fun, they're not worried about anybody judging them or their silliness or whatever is going on, right? They burp loud, they start laughing. As an adult, we're like, Excuse me.

When you think about things like that, it's like that freedom is we're trying to get back to feeling that freedom again, to being our authentic self, to having fun. John Bradshaw's got lots of phenomenal books. I haven't even looked up, I'm sure he's probably out there on the internet doing talks, but he was a really authentic person who shared his toxic shame. He's got quite the story and really made a difference in my life and my husband's, too. We still talk about John Bradshaw and all the wonderful things we learned and how much we enjoyed meeting him and going to his talk. That would be the other book. The Mind over Moods got great stuff in chapter 15 on shame and exercises you can start practicing and different stories of other people's shames and how they were able to get the courage to share their stories. It gives you a framework of how to do that. Then this is just one book by John Bradshaw. Again, Healing the Shame that Binds You, but he's got all of his books I would recommend, they're all good. But this would be a great place to start. Really interesting read.

He gives you a lot of tools, too, on how to get past holding that toxic shame and allowing yourself to become more of your authentic self and your true self. We can all get to a place where we can laugh together. We can laugh more and we can just breathe. I think when we share our secrets and somebody shows that acceptance and love and we're like, Oh, I don't need to do this anymore. This isn't serving me. I want to get back to my true self and say goodbye to my false self. I appreciate my false self because it helped me get through some difficult times, but it's not really who I want to be. How can I truly be happy if I'm not truly who my true self is? Again, there's lots of layers and it's cyclical. As I'm talking to you in my head, I can tell you, I keep saying, Oh yeah, there's that perfectionism. There's the should statements. There's keeping the secret. I have lots of other podcasts that overlap what I'm talking about. My core belief, I have one on forgiveness, I have one on your cognitive distortions. The should statements are in there.

There's lots of other areas that we can address also. But when you can get down to your core beliefs, you guys, and really figure out what is it, what are my core beliefs about myself, maybe about others, about the world, and is it based on shame? And do I really need to be ashamed? Am I taking more responsibility than was mine, if any? And how can I work through this? And how can I cry and be real and start loving that inner child and letting my inner child know that it's going to be safe and it's okay and I don't need to carry the shame of others anymore. I have people in my life that love me for who I am and want me to be that person. I hope this was helpful. It's a heavy topic. I think you can probably hear that in my voice as I'm sharing because I'm like, Thinking about my own stuff, like, Yeah, that was heavy. That was really sad. I'm so glad that I don't carry that anymore. I'm more free to be me. It's always a work in progress, right? Progress, not perfection. But again, I appreciate you being here and listening.

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