Latest / Echoes & Edges / Shame and the Hidden Narrative: Pt. 3 - Reclaiming What Shame Buried w/ Daniel Herron

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Shame and the Hidden Narrative: Pt. 3 - Reclaiming What Shame Buried w/ Daniel Herron · Echoes & Edges

• 0:03
  Speaker 1: Hey, it's Patria. If you're noticing a desire to understand
• 0:07
  Speaker 1: yourself and your patterns more deeply, or want to feel
• 0:11
  Speaker 1: more grounded, more at home in your own life, I
• 0:15
  Speaker 1: want to invite you into something I'm offering. On June thirteen,
• 0:20
  Speaker 1: I'll be hosting a live workshop called Coming Home to Yourself,
• 0:24
  Speaker 1: a Journey into Secure Belonging. This is a space where
• 0:29
  Speaker 1: we'll gently explore what it means to move out of
• 0:33
  Speaker 1: survival patterns and into a more secure, connected way of
• 0:38
  Speaker 1: relating to yourself and to others. It's not about fixing yourself,
• 0:43
  Speaker 1: that's for sure. It's more about understanding what shaped us
• 0:49
  Speaker 1: and learning how to come back to who we are
• 0:52
  Speaker 1: so that our connections are more solid and stable. The
• 0:57
  Speaker 1: workshop is eighty nine dollars, with an expanded option available
• 1:01
  Speaker 1: for those who want to take a deeper dive, and
• 1:03
  Speaker 1: if you register before May twenty eight, you'll automatically receive
• 1:07
  Speaker 1: a discount of ten percent. If you'd like to join us,
• 1:11
  Speaker 1: you can find all the details and register through the
• 1:14
  Speaker 1: link in the show notes. I'd love to see you there.
• 1:26
  Speaker 1: Welcome back to Echoes and Edges, the Broken and Beautiful Podcast.
• 1:30
  Speaker 1: I'm Patria. And this is a space where we explore
• 1:33
  Speaker 1: the stories that shape us and the healing that helps
• 1:36
  Speaker 1: us come home to ourselves. In our last conversation, Daniel
• 1:41
  Speaker 1: and I talk about how shame forms, how it attaches
• 1:45
  Speaker 1: to identity, hides inside secrecy, and teaches us to believe
• 1:50
  Speaker 1: that parts of us are simply too much, too little,
• 1:54
  Speaker 1: or too wrong to be loved. We also began exploring
• 1:58
  Speaker 1: how healing starts as shi loosens its grip through compassion, curiosity,
• 2:04
  Speaker 1: and safe connection. In this conversation, we take the next step.
• 2:08
  Speaker 1: We ask what happens when the parts of us shame
• 2:12
  Speaker 1: tried to bury begin to come back to life. Daniel
• 2:16
  Speaker 1: shares the powerful shift of moving from seeing his wildness
• 2:20
  Speaker 1: as destructive to understanding it as dangerous, not harmful, but
• 2:25
  Speaker 1: no longer controlled or controllable by systems that depended on
• 2:30
  Speaker 1: his silence. Welcome back. I'm so glad you're here. A
• 2:38
  Speaker 1: lot of people listening grew up being told that parts
• 2:41
  Speaker 1: of themselves were problems right, their emotions were too big,
• 2:45
  Speaker 1: their questions were too threatening, their instincts were too disruptive,
• 2:51
  Speaker 1: or like we were just kicking around, like thinking out loud?
• 2:56
  Speaker 1: Is it rambling? Or is it just being in community.
• 2:59
  Speaker 1: You know, there's these ways that shame teaches us how
• 3:04
  Speaker 1: to bury important parts of us. So I'm curious what
• 3:16
  Speaker 1: did it look like for you to begin reclaiming that wildness?
• 3:20
  Speaker 1: And maybe even a better first question is what talk
• 3:23
  Speaker 1: a little bit more about the difference between what you
• 3:26
  Speaker 1: mean by wild and dangerous and then about that reclamation.
• 3:32
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean that was a big That was a
• 3:34
  Speaker 2: big perspective switch for me, that going from destructive to dangerous.
• 3:40
  Speaker 2: And the way that that worked for me was I
• 3:43
  Speaker 2: was labeled as wild, which really, really what they were
• 3:46
  Speaker 2: saying about me as a kid was that I was
• 3:49
  Speaker 2: out of control. I was too much, I was a troublemaker, rebellious,
• 3:55
  Speaker 2: so I wasn't fitting within whatever the system was, and
• 3:58
  Speaker 2: so I was this wild child. And what happened to
• 4:03
  Speaker 2: me there was then I am trying not to be wild.
• 4:07
  Speaker 2: I'm trying to be in control because that my attachment
• 4:10
  Speaker 2: is threatened if I act out, and so I want
• 4:15
  Speaker 2: to be in control, but so I'm stuffing all of
• 4:17
  Speaker 2: my emotions and stuffing my feelings, stuffing that, and then
• 4:20
  Speaker 2: what happens, of course, is it boils over and then
• 4:22
  Speaker 2: I act out and then I get punished for that,
• 4:26
  Speaker 2: and then the cycle is okay, well there's something wrong
• 4:29
  Speaker 2: with you because you just can't get control. You've got
• 4:32
  Speaker 2: to get control of this. You've got to be better.
• 4:34
  Speaker 2: You can't lash out, you can't be violent. And so
• 4:36
  Speaker 2: it's just this cycle that is really destructive because the
• 4:41
  Speaker 2: way I would act out was violent often or yelling
• 4:45
  Speaker 2: or something like that. So it was a very destructive
• 4:50
  Speaker 2: acting out. And that narrative of that I am wild
• 4:55
  Speaker 2: and that wild means destructive stayed with me through all
• 5:01
  Speaker 2: the way into my thirties, and mostly that was turned
• 5:05
  Speaker 2: inward because that was a way I could control it.
• 5:09
  Speaker 2: It was being violent with myself, being violent with shame
• 5:13
  Speaker 2: towards myself to try and control what's happening, to try
• 5:17
  Speaker 2: and stop me from acting out or stop me from
• 5:20
  Speaker 2: feeling too much or being too much, and every once
• 5:24
  Speaker 2: in a while it spills over into violence or rage
• 5:28
  Speaker 2: towards other people or towards acting out towards other people
• 5:31
  Speaker 2: like my wife or my kids, or friends or other people.
• 5:36
  Speaker 2: And so when I started to heal, what I realized
• 5:41
  Speaker 2: is that wild is dangerous because it's not controllable, like
• 5:51
  Speaker 2: wild animals are a threat. People see them as a threat.
• 5:55
  Speaker 2: People see the wilderness as a threat because it feels
• 5:57
  Speaker 2: out of control to them. And so we live in
• 6:01
  Speaker 2: these environments, you know, these urban environments where everything is
• 6:04
  Speaker 2: controlled and everything is safe, and then it's not a threat.
• 6:09
  Speaker 2: But anything that's wild, anything that lives outside of the system,
• 6:13
  Speaker 2: is a threat because of the destruction that it could cause.
• 6:17
  Speaker 2: And so we live in this fear of the animals,
• 6:20
  Speaker 2: or we live in this fear of bears. But what
• 6:22
  Speaker 2: happens is when we understand that the symbiosis that we
• 6:25
  Speaker 2: all live in together, that a bear just because you
• 6:29
  Speaker 2: see it, it's not destructive. Yeah, there's some danger there
• 6:33
  Speaker 2: if you don't if you don't know, if it's got
• 6:35
  Speaker 2: little little bears with it and it's a mama bear,
• 6:39
  Speaker 2: there's danger there. But the bear is not wanting to
• 6:43
  Speaker 2: be destructive. It is just wanting to live its life.
• 6:47
  Speaker 2: It's just wanting to protect its babies. It's just wanting
• 6:52
  Speaker 2: to find food. And so that right, and there lies
• 6:56
  Speaker 2: the difference. Things that are outside of control are dangerous.
• 7:01
  Speaker 2: And when I accepted this place that I, yes, I
• 7:05
  Speaker 2: am wild, that makes me dangerous to systems, especially systems
• 7:12
  Speaker 2: of oppression because when I find my safety inside myself
• 7:17
  Speaker 2: and I don't need to be regulated by a system
• 7:20
  Speaker 2: or by a rigid system of beliefs. When I am
• 7:24
  Speaker 2: outside of that, then I'm out of their control. And
• 7:27
  Speaker 2: when I'm out of their control, I'm a threat. I'm dangerous.
• 7:32
  Speaker 2: So I can live from this wild place. Which is
• 7:36
  Speaker 2: the truth about it, is that I don't like to
• 7:38
  Speaker 2: follow rules. In fact, if somebody tells me a rule,
• 7:41
  Speaker 2: then that my automatic reaction is I'm not going to
• 7:45
  Speaker 2: do that. Now that I have some agency and choice
• 7:48
  Speaker 2: in my reactions in those places, who I get to
• 7:51
  Speaker 2: choose whether I'm going to follow the rule or not.
• 7:54
  Speaker 2: But the way that my mind works, the way that
• 7:57
  Speaker 2: I work, as I've learned about myself, is that I
• 7:59
  Speaker 2: see things that don't work. I see things that are
• 8:02
  Speaker 2: in just I see things that are inefficient, and my
• 8:06
  Speaker 2: want is to have justice and to see things work
• 8:11
  Speaker 2: in the most efficient way. And that's the gift of
• 8:14
  Speaker 2: the wildness, is that I don't just automatically follow whatever
• 8:17
  Speaker 2: is happening. And if people could understand that, then they
• 8:21
  Speaker 2: can that gift is available to them. But for my
• 8:24
  Speaker 2: system that I grew up in, it was very rigid.
• 8:27
  Speaker 2: It was like it has to be this way or else.
• 8:31
  Speaker 2: It's very destructive.
• 8:35
  Speaker 1: I'm hearing something about your way of seeing the world
• 8:41
  Speaker 1: was a threat to that system that you were in.
• 8:46
  Speaker 1: And so a kid as you were, had these and
• 8:51
  Speaker 1: of course you developed and formed around this these circumstances,
• 8:55
  Speaker 1: so even as an adult you pushed harder. Again, it's
• 9:00
  Speaker 1: the system. Then maybe you use that really important word
• 9:04
  Speaker 1: of choose, then maybe you could choose or not to
• 9:08
  Speaker 1: choose if you had containment or welcome for the way
• 9:13
  Speaker 1: that you are.
• 9:14
  Speaker 2: Well, I think you said it really beautifully. I think
• 9:17
  Speaker 2: the way that I think about it right now, which
• 9:20
  Speaker 2: is helpful to me, is that the two things that
• 9:24
  Speaker 2: we need Gava Matte. I love the way he says it.
• 9:26
  Speaker 2: Two things that we need as kids are attachment and authenticity. However,
• 9:33
  Speaker 2: if our attachment requires us to be something, we will
• 9:36
  Speaker 2: give up our authenticity in order to stay attached, because
• 9:40
  Speaker 2: our attachment equals survival, and it's that attachment and belonging.
• 9:43
  Speaker 2: You know, they're right there together. And so I would say,
• 9:47
  Speaker 2: what was happening to me is that in order to attach,
• 9:51
  Speaker 2: I had to give up my authenticity, which I can't
• 9:55
  Speaker 2: remember exactly how you said it, But I love the
• 9:56
  Speaker 2: way you said it there because that's exactly what would
• 10:00
  Speaker 2: happened to me. And giving that up is like, I
• 10:02
  Speaker 2: can't not be who I am and I'm trying desperately
• 10:06
  Speaker 2: to conform to what I need to stay attached.
• 10:11
  Speaker 1: Yeah, So what what I was kind of drawing out
• 10:14
  Speaker 1: of that was the over expression of the rage or
• 10:18
  Speaker 1: the anger which rages, an over expression of venger. Perhaps, yes,
• 10:23
  Speaker 1: was because of the of the lack of containment. How
• 10:27
  Speaker 1: you were exactly and so that authentic you is dangerous,
• 10:31
  Speaker 1: is wild You're like, that's what I hear you saying
• 10:34
  Speaker 1: is You're just a person like that, Mama bear. You're
• 10:38
  Speaker 1: just a person trying to be a person as you
• 10:41
  Speaker 1: were designed to be. And so that overformation of anger
• 10:47
  Speaker 1: response was part of what you've had to process and
• 10:51
  Speaker 1: kind of reclaim without also, and you didn't say this,
• 10:55
  Speaker 1: but I would just guess without because coming smaller, you
• 11:01
  Speaker 1: know that there's a way that we have to find
• 11:03
  Speaker 1: containment for our wildness, which I think of as our authenticity.
• 11:09
  Speaker 1: I think of those I think that's what you're saying, Yeah,
• 11:14
  Speaker 1: And it's not it's not exactly like the animals. I
• 11:17
  Speaker 1: don't think we have belly buttons, and most of them don't.
• 11:20
  Speaker 1: But you know, but it's really similar, and it's and
• 11:24
  Speaker 1: that's and that's just such a great view that you're
• 11:28
  Speaker 1: offering to switch. You know, It's like it enlarges the
• 11:32
  Speaker 1: space for people to be authentically who they are and
• 11:36
  Speaker 1: be able to stay attached. That's what you're learned. And
• 11:40
  Speaker 1: so when you say dangerous, that's what you mean is
• 11:44
  Speaker 1: there is there is an abilitic capacity to be dangerous here,
• 11:48
  Speaker 1: like there's a capacity to harm and to hurt. But
• 11:51
  Speaker 1: that's not the deepest truth about who we are.
• 11:55
  Speaker 2: No, it's I don't think I don't think authentically that's
• 11:59
  Speaker 2: what we want to do. I think authentically what we
• 12:02
  Speaker 2: want is connection. What we want is attachment and secure attachment,
• 12:07
  Speaker 2: which requires connection and love and all those things. And
• 12:10
  Speaker 2: so that's what I would say is the core of
• 12:11
  Speaker 2: who we are. And we have to move in to
• 12:14
  Speaker 2: violent places when we are not allowed to be authentic.
• 12:26
  Speaker 1: Many people, many people, we as you and I know
• 12:30
  Speaker 1: through our years of work and just through our own
• 12:33
  Speaker 1: experience as we've got to kind of discussed in the
• 12:35
  Speaker 1: previous episode and written about, and like we have. You know,
• 12:40
  Speaker 1: we both have some platform in the world, so we
• 12:43
  Speaker 1: know that many people grow up in systems, families, churches, schools,
• 12:49
  Speaker 1: cultures where certain parts of them are labeled as problems
• 12:54
  Speaker 1: like yours was, and for me it was emotions. As
• 12:57
  Speaker 1: I shared in the last one, it was just really
• 13:00
  Speaker 1: having emotions at all. And so sensitivity, intensity, curiosity, emotional
• 13:07
  Speaker 1: depth are all potential targets for you know, things that
• 13:12
  Speaker 1: don't tame well. So what do you think systems are
• 13:16
  Speaker 1: actually reacting to when they label those parts as too much?
• 13:22
  Speaker 2: I think systems, especially our familial and our cultural and
• 13:28
  Speaker 2: our religious systems, are primarily about creating regulation for us
• 13:36
  Speaker 2: because we long for that, we need it, and so
• 13:38
  Speaker 2: it's provided through a system. And so when a system
• 13:43
  Speaker 2: says someone is too much, it's because they're outside of
• 13:49
  Speaker 2: their control. They're outside of the system's control.
• 13:52
  Speaker 1: And in order would you say, can I interrupt you
• 13:54
  Speaker 1: right there, because I want to hover over regulation.
• 13:57
  Speaker 2: For just sex, that's so important.
• 13:59
  Speaker 1: What you just said. When a child, in this case
• 14:04
  Speaker 1: we're talking about a child is too big or too
• 14:08
  Speaker 1: much or like labeled that way, the system or the
• 14:13
  Speaker 1: person is dysregularly, the adult isgulated so everyone becomes disregulated, that's.
• 14:19
  Speaker 2: Right, and so because the child's relying on the regulation
• 14:23
  Speaker 2: of the.
• 14:23
  Speaker 1: Parent of the parent, Yeah, okay, So I just wanted
• 14:27
  Speaker 1: to put and then if you could just say a
• 14:29
  Speaker 1: couple sentences about what you mean by regulation, because again,
• 14:33
  Speaker 1: I think the world could be saved through regulation, So
• 14:36
  Speaker 1: I just kind of want to hover over that. Yeah.
• 14:39
  Speaker 2: Yeah, So what I mean by regulation is that as humans,
• 14:42
  Speaker 2: we have emotions, and so we have experiences in life
• 14:46
  Speaker 2: that raise those emotions or are stressful, and our stress
• 14:50
  Speaker 2: response is heightened corterisol levels, our heart rates go up,
• 14:54
  Speaker 2: our emotions go up, and what our system needs in
• 14:58
  Speaker 2: those moments is to be regulated from those hyperactive places.
• 15:03
  Speaker 2: And so the stress stress goes down the quarters, all
• 15:06
  Speaker 2: levels go down, part rate goes down. That's what regulation
• 15:10
  Speaker 2: is at its core. It's just a it's a down
• 15:12
  Speaker 2: movement of stress, and so life is full of that.
• 15:17
  Speaker 2: And if we don't if we aren't able to regulate ourselves,
• 15:21
  Speaker 2: we need something to regulate us. And that is primarily
• 15:27
  Speaker 2: what systems provide, is a place of regulation.
• 15:31
  Speaker 1: So maybe you already said this, but yeah, just to
• 15:35
  Speaker 1: revisit that question, particularly, what do you think those systems
• 15:39
  Speaker 1: are actually reacting too when they label those parts as
• 15:43
  Speaker 1: too much. And I do want to just add a
• 15:45
  Speaker 1: quick caveat for the hypo aroused among us, because I
• 15:49
  Speaker 1: think you and I both are identifying as hyper. We
• 15:54
  Speaker 1: go hyper, and a lot of people go numb or
• 15:57
  Speaker 1: quiet or hide, so they might be too all. So
• 16:00
  Speaker 1: this is the same answer. I just want listeners to
• 16:04
  Speaker 1: hear them.
• 16:04
  Speaker 2: Yeah that's right, Yeah, that's right. Well, you're dysregulating the system,
• 16:11
  Speaker 2: and so the system is reacting to its own dysregulation.
• 16:15
  Speaker 2: My philosophy professor described it as everything is built on
• 16:18
  Speaker 2: a three legged stool. If you threaten one of the
• 16:22
  Speaker 2: legs of that stool, you're threatening everything that's built on
• 16:25
  Speaker 2: top of that. So we each have a leg. Each
• 16:28
  Speaker 2: have three legs of our stool that our life, our ideology,
• 16:31
  Speaker 2: our belief systems are built on. If I threaten one
• 16:35
  Speaker 2: of those pillars of the stool, everything comes crashing down,
• 16:39
  Speaker 2: and most of us, if we walked some sort of healing,
• 16:42
  Speaker 2: we've had that happen to us already, Like our life
• 16:45
  Speaker 2: system and belief system crashes down and then we have
• 16:48
  Speaker 2: to kind of rebuild it. But systems are built on
• 16:52
  Speaker 2: those same pillars, and so when you are when you
• 16:56
  Speaker 2: are out or you're too much for a system, it's
• 16:58
  Speaker 2: because you're threatening one of the pillars of the control
• 17:02
  Speaker 2: and if they can't let that happen, because if the
• 17:06
  Speaker 2: system loses that, then it loses its regulation, and that
• 17:11
  Speaker 2: is such a powerful survival mechanism.
• 17:16
  Speaker 1: Right, it feels final and fatal, you know. So the
• 17:18
  Speaker 1: image that came to my mind right there was like,
• 17:20
  Speaker 1: what is the worst that happens if a system loses
• 17:23
  Speaker 1: its regulation and if it has a lot of power,
• 17:26
  Speaker 1: really bad things can happen, Like there are good reasons.
• 17:30
  Speaker 1: And at the same time, you might just fall off
• 17:32
  Speaker 1: the chair, you know, like it might just be a bump.
• 17:35
  Speaker 1: It might not be final and fatal. But the contraction
• 17:39
  Speaker 1: of the system is what you're describing to maintain control,
• 17:44
  Speaker 1: which then over controls right, the little person.
• 17:48
  Speaker 2: That's right. And I think if a parent is relying
• 17:52
  Speaker 2: on a system to regulate themselves and then your too
• 17:56
  Speaker 2: much as a child threatens their regulation and it's not conscious,
• 18:02
  Speaker 2: This is not a conscious thing that's happening. It is
• 18:04
  Speaker 2: just it's unconsciously. They cannot let that happen, and in
• 18:09
  Speaker 2: order for them to be able to find their own
• 18:11
  Speaker 2: place of regulation. They have to heal, and so if
• 18:13
  Speaker 2: they haven't healed, they have no ability to even let
• 18:19
  Speaker 2: that happen. Let you tear that down. If you do,
• 18:22
  Speaker 2: then you know you've completely taken them out out of
• 18:26
  Speaker 2: control themselves. And if they had their own trauma, we
• 18:29
  Speaker 2: what we all know is that out of control is
• 18:31
  Speaker 2: that is a terrifying place to live.
• 18:34
  Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, Yeah, puts you in touch with that feeling
• 18:37
  Speaker 1: of powerlessness, which is anapema to feeling okay. You know.
• 18:44
  Speaker 1: So that's that's so helpful, Daniel, Thank you. And I'm
• 18:48
  Speaker 1: thinking about shame so yes, as a bridge here if
• 18:53
  Speaker 1: you could kind of share a couple thoughts about how
• 18:56
  Speaker 1: does shame show up them for the the little one
• 19:01
  Speaker 1: who's being called too much or too too little, you know,
• 19:08
  Speaker 1: or maybe some of both.
• 19:09
  Speaker 2: Right or both? Yeah or both? Right? Well, I think
• 19:14
  Speaker 2: when a system is breaking down, it needs a powerful
• 19:17
  Speaker 2: tool to bring things back together. H And shame is
• 19:22
  Speaker 2: the most powerful of tools to control a human being.
• 19:27
  Speaker 2: And so shame enters the equation whenever that whenever that
• 19:31
  Speaker 2: like you're you're not okay because you're too much, that
• 19:36
  Speaker 2: becomes an identity place. So we take on the narrative
• 19:41
  Speaker 2: that is being taught to us about who we are. So,
• 19:44
  Speaker 2: for example, I'm being taught that I'm wild, and but
• 19:48
  Speaker 2: I'm not being taught that I'm wild in the good
• 19:50
  Speaker 2: way that I've found. What I'm being taught is that
• 19:53
  Speaker 2: my wildness is destructive, and so my identity becomes I'm destructive,
• 19:58
  Speaker 2: and so the shame aime keeps me away from being destructive,
• 20:03
  Speaker 2: like it helps to control this place of who I
• 20:06
  Speaker 2: think I am. Does that make sense totally? Okay? Yeah?
• 20:12
  Speaker 1: Yeah, you want to keep going and kind of restate
• 20:15
  Speaker 1: so that it feels more finished to you, Yeah, because
• 20:19
  Speaker 1: I hear Yeah, I'm following.
• 20:20
  Speaker 2: Okay. So the question again was how does shame enter
• 20:23
  Speaker 2: the equation? Is that what you said?
• 20:25
  Speaker 1: How does shame? Yeah, how does shame enter the equation?
• 20:30
  Speaker 1: And and then and I'll just give you the follow
• 20:32
  Speaker 1: up question too here, which is, if shame teaches us
• 20:34
  Speaker 1: to disconnect from our instincts and emotions, what does it
• 20:39
  Speaker 1: look like for someone to begin reconnecting with those. So
• 20:41
  Speaker 1: that's where I want to head with it.
• 20:43
  Speaker 2: Okay, So identity, Our identity is really really important because
• 20:47
  Speaker 2: that's the piece of us that's that either leaves us
• 20:51
  Speaker 2: controllable or makes us uncontrollable. And so a shame based
• 20:57
  Speaker 2: identity is a control is a controllable identity because it
• 21:02
  Speaker 2: needs it needs external input to be okay. If there's
• 21:06
  Speaker 2: something wrong with me, then I need something outside of
• 21:10
  Speaker 2: me to tell me that I am okay. So that shame,
• 21:14
  Speaker 2: that shame equation is powerful because it keeps you controllable
• 21:19
  Speaker 2: by whatever the system is.
• 21:24
  Speaker 1: Hey, it's Patria. If you've been listening to this podcast
• 21:28
  Speaker 1: and find yourself recognizing pieces of your own story, the
• 21:32
  Speaker 1: patterns of secrecy or shame, the questions about your worth
• 21:37
  Speaker 1: or purpose, or maybe you see clearly the places that
• 21:41
  Speaker 1: feel stuck. I want you to know that you don't
• 21:45
  Speaker 1: have to navigate that alone. Courageous Pathways is a nonprofit
• 21:50
  Speaker 1: we created as a space for individuals walking through healing.
• 21:55
  Speaker 1: Courageous Pathways offers support for you to be in a
• 21:59
  Speaker 1: place where your story is taken seriously and where healing
• 22:04
  Speaker 1: happens through skilled, safe, compassionate care. We offer a number
• 22:10
  Speaker 1: of sessions to qualifying individuals, and what qualifies you is
• 22:14
  Speaker 1: not necessarily income information. Often the times of financial strain
• 22:21
  Speaker 1: aren't because of lack of income, and we deeply understand
• 22:26
  Speaker 1: that if you're looking for support or even just wondering
• 22:30
  Speaker 1: what your next step could be, you can learn more
• 22:34
  Speaker 1: by going to the Broken and Beautiful website and clicking
• 22:38
  Speaker 1: on the link to Courageous Pathways. And if you're looking
• 22:42
  Speaker 1: for a place where integrity and honesty lead the way
• 22:46
  Speaker 1: to put the greatest use to your donation dollars, please
• 22:50
  Speaker 1: consider supporting Courageous Pathways. We double every dollar you give
• 22:56
  Speaker 1: by supporting both the recipient of care and the caregiver,
• 23:01
  Speaker 1: who are all people that have personally walked the walk
• 23:04
  Speaker 1: of healing and have turned back to extend a hand
• 23:07
  Speaker 1: to others, To you, the person thinking about checking this out,
• 23:13
  Speaker 1: You are not alone in this reach out. There is
• 23:17
  Speaker 1: a way forward. So in some ways I hear you
• 23:33
  Speaker 1: saying that acting out quote unquote for children rage is
• 23:41
  Speaker 1: anti shaming, like it's trying to push against the shame
• 23:46
  Speaker 1: to some degree, Like I you know, and I don't
• 23:50
  Speaker 1: know if that's exactly following you, but it's it's an
• 23:53
  Speaker 1: idea that's coming to my mind that because shame shame.
• 23:58
  Speaker 1: Actually I don't and I think we talked about this
• 24:00
  Speaker 1: in the first episode a little bit as well, But
• 24:03
  Speaker 1: I don't think that it's bad by nature. It's an emotion.
• 24:08
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it's an emotion, and it's a powerful control. It's
• 24:12
  Speaker 2: a powerful emotion that can be used to control people.
• 24:16
  Speaker 2: And when your system doesn't offer freedom because it's too
• 24:22
  Speaker 2: rigid or it's oppressive and it needs that control in
• 24:27
  Speaker 2: order to survive or to keep its narrative going that
• 24:29
  Speaker 2: regulates the people that are living in it, then shame
• 24:34
  Speaker 2: is a very powerful tool to weaponize against people. Because
• 24:39
  Speaker 2: I agree with you, I don't think shame is bad,
• 24:41
  Speaker 2: and I think in fact, we often pick up on
• 24:44
  Speaker 2: the shame that we were told about ourselves and then
• 24:47
  Speaker 2: we use that against ourselves to help us protect ourselves
• 24:51
  Speaker 2: from the harm. Right. So, for example, for me, that
• 24:55
  Speaker 2: would be protecting myself from the punishment because if I'm
• 24:58
  Speaker 2: if i'm myself, if I'm a to myself, then I'm
• 25:02
  Speaker 2: going to be punished, and so I'll pick up on
• 25:06
  Speaker 2: the shame that they were giving me and then I'll
• 25:08
  Speaker 2: use that shame to control myself so that I don't
• 25:11
  Speaker 2: get punished, help to keep myself safe there. Yeah, so
• 25:17
  Speaker 2: shame enters that equation, and I think when we talk
• 25:20
  Speaker 2: about shame like we did last episode. We're talking about
• 25:23
  Speaker 2: instead of between the difference between guilt and shame is
• 25:26
  Speaker 2: this shame is I am bad at the core of
• 25:29
  Speaker 2: who I am? I am there's something wrong with me
• 25:33
  Speaker 2: that that keeps us in a spiral of shame.
• 25:39
  Speaker 1: Mm hmmmmmm. And so like it's like a snowball effing.
• 25:42
  Speaker 2: Exactly exactly like the same kind of thing as the
• 25:46
  Speaker 2: snowball effect for me was I act out, I get punished.
• 25:50
  Speaker 2: I double down on trying not to act out. Then
• 25:53
  Speaker 2: I act out and I get punished. And part of
• 25:56
  Speaker 2: what you were saying was that the acting out, the
• 26:00
  Speaker 2: acting out is like a fight against the system. But
• 26:03
  Speaker 2: I think the acting out is also because we're repressing
• 26:08
  Speaker 2: ourselves so much that we can't help but explode. You know,
• 26:13
  Speaker 2: like if you push so much, you can only push
• 26:15
  Speaker 2: so much into a container before it's full, and then
• 26:18
  Speaker 2: if you keep trying to push into the container, the
• 26:20
  Speaker 2: container explodes. And that's how I would see it for myself.
• 26:24
  Speaker 2: It's like I'm living in this eternal angst and frustration
• 26:28
  Speaker 2: that my entire life. It feels like that, it feels
• 26:31
  Speaker 2: like that's my state of being is angst and frustration.
• 26:35
  Speaker 2: Because I'm never allowed to be who I am. I'm
• 26:37
  Speaker 2: always getting in trouble for these things that I'm like,
• 26:39
  Speaker 2: I don't even know what I did, I don't know
• 26:41
  Speaker 2: what happening, and I can't stop. I just can't stop
• 26:46
  Speaker 2: doing it. And so my acting out would come from
• 26:49
  Speaker 2: these places of I can only keep it at a
• 26:52
  Speaker 2: frustration level for so long before it just explodes. That's
• 26:57
  Speaker 2: what my acting out was. It was like repressed, repressed, repress, explode,
• 27:02
  Speaker 2: and then I have space again to repress repressed repress.
• 27:06
  Speaker 2: So you know, I can like white knucklet for two
• 27:08
  Speaker 2: or three weeks or two or three days and then explode.
• 27:12
  Speaker 2: So I think it can be It can be that
• 27:16
  Speaker 2: it can be just the explosion of what we're repressing.
• 27:18
  Speaker 2: But I also think it can be call it can
• 27:20
  Speaker 2: be like a desperate plea for attention, the acting out.
• 27:23
  Speaker 2: It can be a like chess, give me some attention.
• 27:26
  Speaker 2: And especially especially if you're on that other side where
• 27:30
  Speaker 2: it's hypo arousalal and you're never seen and you're never heard.
• 27:36
  Speaker 2: But the other the people that you're seeing over here,
• 27:38
  Speaker 2: they're always getting the attention because they're dramatic, and you know,
• 27:42
  Speaker 2: whatever is happening. That happened to my brothers and sisters too.
• 27:45
  Speaker 2: It's like Daniel's getting all this attention, So how do
• 27:48
  Speaker 2: I get attention? Well, then I'm going to act out
• 27:50
  Speaker 2: to get the attention. Mine's coming from a place of explosion,
• 27:54
  Speaker 2: from repression. There's just coming from a place of That's
• 27:58
  Speaker 2: how we get attention, That's.
• 28:00
  Speaker 1: How we get attached or maintain attachment. Yeah, and of
• 28:04
  Speaker 1: course we're putting we're retrofitting adult language, high level adult
• 28:08
  Speaker 1: language to a child experience.
• 28:12
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 28:12
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it's a very simplistic, kind of one dimensional experience
• 28:17
  Speaker 1: as a child because everything is their fault, you know,
• 28:20
  Speaker 1: again developmentally. And so I think I think you really
• 28:24
  Speaker 1: touched on these things I really wanted to explore with
• 28:28
  Speaker 1: this particular aspect of like where where does the shame
• 28:32
  Speaker 1: start showing up and how and where does that usually begin?
• 28:36
  Speaker 1: And I think you really put really good words to
• 28:39
  Speaker 1: that good and Yeah, so we talked about secrecy as
• 28:44
  Speaker 1: one of the ways that shame protects itself, and so
• 28:48
  Speaker 1: that's maybe the one aspect I'd like to talk a
• 28:51
  Speaker 1: little bit more about here, is that, like how does
• 28:56
  Speaker 1: secrecy keep that cycle that you just describing in place?
• 29:03
  Speaker 1: Why do we keep a secret? And what role does
• 29:07
  Speaker 1: compassion and safe relationships then play.
• 29:09
  Speaker 2: So that the secondary question that you were asking is
• 29:12
  Speaker 2: what's the start? Where do we start? And we know
• 29:16
  Speaker 2: that shame, we have that shame core, or we know
• 29:19
  Speaker 2: that shame is a big, big part of it, and
• 29:21
  Speaker 2: I think the important place to start is building in
• 29:25
  Speaker 2: ourselves a grounded identity and that begins with treating ourselves
• 29:30
  Speaker 2: with delight and honor, and then when we don't, we're
• 29:33
  Speaker 2: able to repair with ourselves and it sizes right into
• 29:37
  Speaker 2: the next part, which is compassion, because compassion is the beginning.
• 29:42
  Speaker 2: When we start to have compassion for ourselves in places
• 29:46
  Speaker 2: where we've always had these shame messages, that that's the
• 29:51
  Speaker 2: beginning of how compassion plays out, because we need safety
• 29:58
  Speaker 2: to start to come out hiding, and we need trust
• 30:02
  Speaker 2: to come out of hiding for those places in us
• 30:05
  Speaker 2: to even have a even have an opportunity to say, Okay,
• 30:08
  Speaker 2: it might be different, maybe there's not something wrong with me.
• 30:12
  Speaker 2: We need safety and trust to start to see that
• 30:16
  Speaker 2: life could be a different way. Because one of the
• 30:18
  Speaker 2: foundations of our stool has been something's wrong with me.
• 30:22
  Speaker 2: Because when something is wrong with me, I can control something,
• 30:28
  Speaker 2: so it takes me out of powerlessness if there's nothing
• 30:34
  Speaker 2: wrong with me, and it's other things that were the
• 30:38
  Speaker 2: problem that leaves me powerless to change. And we just
• 30:43
  Speaker 2: can't live that way as children, and so we automatically
• 30:46
  Speaker 2: take on that message of Okay, it must be me.
• 30:50
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 30:51
  Speaker 2: So then to come out of that, we have to
• 30:53
  Speaker 2: have this gentle move towards well, maybe it's not you,
• 30:57
  Speaker 2: Maybe you're not the problem.
• 31:06
  Speaker 1: As we come to the end of this part of
• 31:09
  Speaker 1: the conversation with Daniel, there's something that feels really important
• 31:14
  Speaker 1: to name. What we've been talking about here isn't just
• 31:18
  Speaker 1: healing in the sense of repairing something that was broken.
• 31:22
  Speaker 1: It's also about and mainly about recovering what was always there.
• 31:30
  Speaker 1: Those parts of you learned to adapt, and in that
• 31:36
  Speaker 1: adaptation sometimes we can actually over attune, which is also
• 31:42
  Speaker 1: called hypervigilance. We can become hypervigilant in order to protect
• 31:48
  Speaker 1: ourselves and to survive something necessarily. But in that adaptation
• 31:54
  Speaker 1: we maybe got separated from our gifts, or the gifts
• 31:58
  Speaker 1: became so tangled with the adaptation that we don't know
• 32:01
  Speaker 1: what's up and what's down and what I hear. So
• 32:05
  Speaker 1: clearly in what Daniel shared is that healing isn't about
• 32:08
  Speaker 1: becoming someone new, and I agree with that. It's about
• 32:11
  Speaker 1: untangling what was shaped by survival from what was always
• 32:16
  Speaker 1: true about you, so that what once functioned as protection
• 32:22
  Speaker 1: can begin to function as an offering of your gifts
• 32:26
  Speaker 1: to the world. You can feel purposeful, or you can
• 32:30
  Speaker 1: feel loved because of your sensitivity, or your awareness, or
• 32:38
  Speaker 1: your creativity, or your ability to mediate conflict, or your wildness,
• 32:46
  Speaker 1: your inability to be controlled. These aren't things to learn about,
• 32:51
  Speaker 1: to control or hide anymore, but as something that brings
• 32:56
  Speaker 1: life to you, an abundance of life, living life, and
• 33:01
  Speaker 1: not hiding or experiencing the need to hide. And that's
• 33:07
  Speaker 1: where this conversation really shifts, because once we begin to
• 33:10
  Speaker 1: experience ourselves that way, not as problems to fix, but
• 33:15
  Speaker 1: as people, human people carrying something really good and even
• 33:23
  Speaker 1: essential for one another, then things begin to change. Join
• 33:30
  Speaker 1: me next time for even more of this conversation. See
• 33:34
  Speaker 1: you there. If this episode resonates with you, follow or
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• 33:44
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• 33:47
  Speaker 1: who might need a gentle invitation to self Understanding. Echoes
• 33:51
  Speaker 1: and Edges is produced and edited by Stephen R. Sanders.
• 33:54
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• 33:58
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• 34:02
  Speaker 1: healing finds its voice.