Episode #161

Shame, Trauma & CBT

A while back I attended a workshop from Dr Claudia Black on shame and trauma associated with addictions within a family.

Today I want to share with you some of the incredible insights and tools I learned during that workshop that can help break the cycle of shame and trauma.

Join me, Dr Julie, as we examine trauma more closely through the lens of cognitive behavioral therapy and how the CBT tools can help you.

Click to listen now!

 
 

Full Episode Transcript

Hi, it's Dr. Julie. Welcome to My CBT Podcast. 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.

So I hope everyone's doing well. I want to start off sharing a really cool email I received from a listener named C. I got his permission to share, and it says,

“Dr. Osborn,

“I listened to your podcast regarding passive-aggressive behavior. I never I thought I was passive-aggressive, but after analyzing, I realized I definitely am passive-aggressive. Then I listened to your podcast related to core beliefs, and I realized I have no idea what my core beliefs are. My issue is I cannot express my thoughts and emotions, specifically to the ones I love, because I do not want to hurt them or create conflict. This prevents me from being vulnerable and growing closer to the ones I love. Your podcast has helped me to identify areas I need to work on. I've always been under the impression that you just have to listen a podcast or do something once and it is done. But it is a process of it continually reaffirming your worth and beliefs.”

So thanks again, Steve. I thought that was really articulate and I wanted to share it with all of you. And again, I always encourage I'd like to ask you guys to reach out and send me your thoughts and ideas and how the podcast has helped you, because I like to share that with everybody, and I always find it super helpful. So my podcast today is I wanted to share with you a workshop I did. It's been quite some time. But to be honest, I came across my notes and I thought this would be a good thing to share. So there is a very famous author, therapist in the field who's been around a very long time named Dr. Claudia Black. I first was introduced to her work years and years ago when I started learning about adult children of alcoholics, which I have a podcast on. And I've just always admired her work. And She had a workshop, again, about a year ago, I think it was. Just talked a lot about shame and trauma and how we deal with all of that. So I'm just going to go over my notes, and I think you guys will be able to take parts of it, relate to parts of it, things that fit for you.

You can always look up Dr. Claudia Black. She has a lot of fabulous books out there, so you can read more about her work and how it can help you. But she just mentioned a lot of great stuff that I felt really compelled to want to share with you because I've really benefited from her work as well for different things in my life and working with my clients. She had a new book come out, which I think is her latest. I can't swear by that, but it's called The Hidden Life of Shame, Reverberations of Trauma in the Addicted Family. And that's something she's always really specialized in with Addicted Families and Understanding, the dynamics that go on with that. And she made a comment that she says, Today, you may feel the vulnerability of your childhood but experience the strength of your adulthood. I love that. I'm just going to repeat that. Today, you may feel the vulnerability of your childhood, but experience the strength of your adulthood. I love that. So I'm just going to repeat that. Today, you may feel the vulnerability of your childhood, but experience the strength of your adulthood. So you may feel that vulnerability that inner child, when situations come up and you're feeling like, Oh, this is uncomfortable.

I need to protect myself. But then you can experience the strength you have that now you're an adult and you can take care of yourself and you can set boundaries and not allow others to hurt and abuse you. So that's a really powerful statement to make to yourself, to remind yourself that vulnerability of your childhood will always come up and be triggered in different ways, but you don't have to react to it. And something else she said that I liked was that trauma is not a disease, but it's a condition. And it's the response to the event that creates the trauma, right? And usually when traumatic events happen, they're unexpected. We don't see them happening. It's just all of a sudden we're in a situation. And people respond differently to traumas. That's why some things are traumatic for people and some things aren't. It could be the same situation. I've talked to people that have been in similar dysfunctional homes, and some people were able to move on, and some people are still struggling and never got past what they went through. It's just a really personal individual experience. But it is a condition. It's not a disease that you have.

And how you respond to it is what creates the trauma, and I think I would say the severity. And remember, it's not something you saw coming. It just happened to you, and that's why it's so jarring. It can also be severe or it can be persistent in some cases, but it doesn't have to automatically lead to chronic misery or dysfunction. So again, getting help soon after your trauma can have really profound effects on how well and quickly you recover. A lot of people don't want to deal with the trauma. They don't want to talk about it. They think they can just move on. But actually reaching out and getting help as quickly as possible can really make a difference in your life to be able to get past it. And a lot of people, again, there's a million stories out there. Some people's traumas get retriggered later in life. They didn't even remember what they went through. So I'm just saying that if you went through a traumatic event, you are aware of it, you are capable of going and getting some help and reaching out, that's what I would recommend that you do, to get some help.

And even though it's painful and you're thinking, I'm just hoping it's going to go away. The sooner you deal with it and walk through it and get the treatment you need, the better you can be. And it doesn't, again, have to be this chronic misery or dysfunction in your life. The people that are resilient, Dr. Black was talking about, are people that have had fewer previous stressors when it comes to the trauma, if they've had support at the time of the stressor, and also if they're older. So Resilience is a really important aspect of who we are. And I think we can all find areas that we've been resilient. It doesn't have to be huge traumas, it can be small things in your life. But The more stressors we have, the more difficult it is to keep bouncing back. Not that you can't, but that's why, especially if you're in a place in your life where you're like, I keep repeating the same things. I've got to stop. I've got to decrease these stressors in my life so that I can have more resiliency and I can handle more things going forward because things are going to happen, right?

Life's messy. But the fewer stressors you have, the better. And that's something that you can do about to go get some help and address the things that you've been ignoring, avoiding, things you've been trying to control that you don't have control over. Definitely having enough support if you're going through stressors in your life. So that can be a therapist for sure, but also having friends, family, whoever is in your life to have some support, you're not walking through this alone. Another thing about trauma she was saying is that it can be repeated, it's unpredictable. Again, it happens a lot in childhood and usually perpetrated by a caregiver, which is what makes it so difficult, right? So usually we have some level of trust with our caregivers or we're hoping we can trust them. So So when it's a repeated behavior, when it's unpredictable and it's happening in your childhood, that definitely is going to create some trauma for you. So I'm not into just labeling everything, but more understanding things. I do believe we use the word trauma too often in our society. Not everything is traumatic, but there are a lot of things that are, and we want to understand what that is and just say, Yeah, if that was traumatic, I need some tools on how to be able to walk through that.

So just wanting I wanted to educate you guys today and understand a little bit about was it traumatic? Was it not? How is it affecting me? When people deal with when they talk about you might have heard the term dysregulation, where it's really hard to manage your emotions, and they're all over the place it feels like, and you don't feel like you have a lot of control about how you're reacting to things. It's usually something that you've learned from your past. If you did go through trauma, especially in your childhood, you didn't have that your ability to regulate your emotions because you were living in an environment that was unpredictable, right? And it was repeated over and over again. So it's really hard to know how to manage my emotions without getting some tools and understand what you're going through to be able to start feeling like you can have more control in your life and how you're reacting to things. So when you are going through trauma, especially when it's in your childhood and it's going on for a while, the continued state of being in this hypo mode of just trying to be calm and not deal with things or this hyper arousal, over over time can begin to have these symptoms of trauma.

So that's why getting more regulated and being able to... So you're not always on high alert or numb to the world. You don't want to be at those two polarities. You be more in the middle and being able to know how to manage things. So these are things over time, over time, over time, it ends up having these symptoms of trauma where it's hard to trust, you get triggered easily, a lot of anxiety, that thing. And when you feel shame, which definitely comes from a lot of trauma that you've been through, it ends up making you feel powerless. Because the definition of shame is there's something wrong with me. So what am I going to do with that? You're It's not powerless, but that's what it makes you feel like. So it's important to be able to identify what is that feeling. I've talked about shame in other podcasts. It's not something that's spoken a lot. I think we hear more about guilt, right? And guilt, by definition, is we did something wrong. Shame is there's something wrong with me, and we want to really separate those two because shame is a huge burden to bear, and it's something you really want to work on.

I think a A lot of people carry shame but never identify it, and it can just really affect their life in so many different ways. Understanding shame and the level of it is really where it began at what age. And the younger the more deep it will feel. Toxic shame is when you feel or think to yourself or tell yourself, I should say, I'm unworthy, I'm not good enough, I'm inadequate, I'm stupid. If you listen to me long enough, these are also core beliefs, right? How you feel about yourself, what you believe about yourself, these very absolute thoughts. Again, I'm unworthy, I'm not good enough, I'm inadequate, I'm stupid. That comes from toxic shame. And I also want to say when people are raging, this accumulation of anger, that's when someone is transferring their shame onto someone else. So you're like, Oh, my God, that person rages. Stay away. You know, It's anger, anger, anger is what always is coming out. They have this unresolved shame that they haven't even identified. And because it's so painful to look at yourself in that way, a lot of people will take it out on someone else. Also, people that are dealing with a lot of toxic shame have difficulty setting boundaries because underneath, they really feel like a victim.

Instead, they succumb to the pain and the shame that they're feeling, and they really don't know how to handle it. So if you really struggle with some boundaries, ask yourself if you feel like a victim in relationships and that you can't speak up or set boundaries with other people and feel like you have more control in your life. So a couple of things Dr. Black shared on the class that I went to is trying to Gain power over your pain. So this is all dysfunctional stuff. Power of your pain is the raging, can be perfectionism, right? I'm just going to be perfect, and then I'll feel like I have some control, and I don't need to feel ashamed if I'm perfect. Also, when people succumb to the pain, they procrastinate, they feel like victims, they get depressed, they can even be suicidal. And to erase the pain, that's where addiction comes from. So I don't I don't want to feel anything, so I'm just going to numb myself out. Then I don't have to feel the shame. I don't have to think about all the things that happen. I don't have to think about the fact that I think I'm unworthy, not good enough, inadequate, stupid.

So there's lots of different layers of healing that she spoke about. One is grounding. So grounding is where if you're feeling overwhelmed in the moment, feel the ground under your feet, touch something, be aware of your room that you're in, smells, looking at one thing. Maybe if you're in your room, like a painting, if you're outside of a tree, just grounding yourself that this is where I'm at. So you're not running away with, or avoiding, I should say, the feelings that you're having. And you want to explore your narrative. What is the story that I'm telling myself? And also addressing your emotions, right? And what are your fears that are really controlling your life? If you are working with a therapist, I just want to share that you really want a therapist that knows how to pace the therapy session so that he or she isn't going too quickly with you. It's really important that you're with someone that you trust and you don't feel rushed, like whatever those emotions are, let's explore them. How are you feeling? Teaching you some grounding exercises so when you leave the session, you feel like you know what to do when you're feeling overwhelmed.

And you also want to connect your past to your present. How is your past affecting you presently? And what do you want to change about that? And making that connection like, Oh, that's why I have a hard time trusting people, or that's why I'm codependent, or that's why I don't like being alone. Again, people can go through traumas, the same traumas, but have completely different reactions and how it affects their life in their relationships. So it's just as a therapist, I just... Again, this stuff intrigues the heck out of me. And I find it so interesting being able to see all of us, not all of us going through different situations, but some of us have some similar situations, right? And how do you react to it? My core belief I shared before was, I thought I was bound to be abandoned. I reacted to it in one way, other people reacted completely opposite in another way. So just because we We have that similarity, our differences might be how we react to it, how we protect ourselves, how we try to fill that hole we fill inside ourselves. So everyone is an individual, and I want you to start to understand yourself better.

And having a good therapist can also help you have that insight as well. Another thing that she shared, which I thought was really important, was the acronym SAFE. And this is what a lot of people create in their lives when they've been through traumas. So the S stands for secretive, so you don't talk about it and you don't want others to know. A is abusive, harmful or hurtful to you or others. F is feelings. You use substance to not have your feelings or feeling them too much. Sometimes people under the influence and all these feelings start coming and they're crying. So with your feelings, she was saying how you can use a substance to have them or also to numb them out. I don't want to feel them at all. And then E is escalation. An example would be, do I need to engage with alcohol or drugs more? How am I escalating? Am I using more? Am I getting more dependent on them? And when you escalate, you end up feeling more empty quicker, and you end up using alcohol or drugs to a greater extent because the secrets, the abuse, all these feelings are just so hard to manage.

And now when you have no tools, you just go to what is easy, You go to what maybe is familiar. You go to what was an example for you. A lot of people had parents that were addicts or alcoholics, so that's just what they go to, even though they don't want to. They didn't like their parents being that way. But you know what? I can just go have a drink. I can smoke. I can whatever I'm going to do, I can eat. I'm just going to numb myself out, and it just gets worse and worse until we address these issues. So it's really important. Also, she recommended, which I thought was interesting, is doing a shame genogram. So a genogram is a diagram where you do your family history, right? So you would identify shame about your parents, about yourself. It's really interesting. You can do genograms with any situation, and you can definitely make connections with addiction, again, with shame. That where is it in the family and how has it been passed down to you? And how is that message created that you took that you end up feeling ashamed about yourself as well.

You also can do a letter addressing to say goodbye to whatever your defense mechanisms would be. So has it been addiction? Has it been rage? Has it been perfectionism? You want to write a letter thanking your defense mechanism because it probably kept you safe for a long time, but now it's not serving you anymore, and that's why we want to make some changes. When We just don't serve us anymore, that's the issue. I've also talked a lot about that when we grow up in whatever our home environment is, we all create these coping mechanisms to address the issues and get through the difficult parts of our childhood. And that's fine and good, whatever that might be, as long as it's obviously not too harmful to you. But however you learn to cope. The problem is that once we move out of that home, out of that environment, we don't stop and say, Oh, I'm good. I don't need to do that anymore. We just continue to live our lives like that. So these defenses that we've created don't serve us anymore and are really causing more harm than not. So we want to be able to make those changes.

But you can write a letter to whatever that defense is that you've been using for years. Thank your defense and talk through about how you don't it anymore, right? How you are resilient, how you are learning tools, how you are going to get the help that you need, how you are going to set boundaries in your life, that you're going to be okay and you don't need that defense mechanism anymore because now it's not serving Serving You. So just to review a couple of some other books from Dr. Black. One of her first ones, one of my favorites was It'll Never What Happened to Me, which is about adultery of alcoholics. She had another one coming out called The Undaunted Hope, and Unspoken Legacy was another book she spoke about. So she has a lot of books. Again, you can just look her up, Dr. Claudia Black. I highly recommend it. I talked about her work with a lot of my clients. I recommend her books. I've read them. They're all really great, very loving, very caring, and can teach us ways to continue to grow and be our best selves instead of identifying, again, the shame.

And that's why I wanted... I did a podcast a long time ago on shame. You guys can listen to, and I probably mentioned her there. But I thought it was worth bringing up again because, again, I hear people identify so many emotions, and shame normally doesn't come up, and we always end up, I don't say always, most of the time, we end up finding that under the layers when we really start dealing with these core beliefs. And again, the shame is is there's something wrong with me. And there isn't, and we need to work on that. If you're working on the Mind Over Mood book in Chapter 15, it's called Understanding Anger, Guilt, and Shame. So if you're using the Mind Over Mood workbook by Dr. Podesky and Dr. Greenberger that I use. That will be a good chapter to start with. And there's lots and lots of tools. So I hope this was helpful. It really impacted me when I listened to this, so I thought, I'm going to share this with you guys. And I know it was a little bit all over the place, but I'm hoping you could pick up some things that maybe you can relate to and start working on that and exploring that on a deeper level.

So you can have the life that you deserve because you are loving and beautiful and resilient and courageous and strong. I know that. I just want to make sure you know that. And you can get to a place where you believe that about yourself as well if you're not there yet.

So I hope this was helpful. As always, please share with anyone that might benefit from this topic.

You know where you can find me at mycognitivebehavioraltherapy.com website, lots of information on there. I got videos and newsletters, my shop’s on there. If you want to have some fun, do a little retail therapy. I have my mantra on a whole bunch of merchandise there. On the bottom of the page, a shop or store, I'm sorry, it's called, are the books that I recommend to you guys, The Mind Over Mood and Dr. Burns, some other things are on there. So it's really easy to find the resources I talk about.

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And as always, based on what's best for you, not how you feel.