Dr Emily - Tough Love vs Shame

Is tough love to blame for our shame? 💌Join 9,200+ people getting a Dr Emily values worksheet and takeaways from this week’s episode in our newsletter - http://bit.ly/45NyQDy We all know that parent or coach on the sideline who takes under 10’s basketball a liiitttllleee too seriously. And occasionally, tough love might seem to work in the moment, long term, the shame train isn’t going anywhere good. Dr Emily, our resident psychologist, is here to name the shame to tame it, and teach us how we can be shame strippers too (get your head out of the gutter. Shame on you). We go into the difference between shame, humiliation, guilt and embarrassment, bow down to the queen Brene Brown, and introduce ourselves to our own Healthy Adult. Shamelessly, this is one of our best episodes to date. 0:00 – Ever heard of a shame stripper? 6:27 – Bow down to Brene Brown 12:25 – The other self-conscious emotions (they’re shy) 20:51 – Humour and humiliation 29:21 – Shame is a full body experience 36:16 – Beware of who you share (with) 40:43 – Manosphere + behaviour change 46:59 – Tough love + kids sport 57:07 – Working with shame 1:06:10 – Bring on the compassion! 1:10:07 – Introducing the Healthy Adult If you’d like to watch the full episode on YouTube, follow this link - 🫖 Imperfects episodes mentioned on this episode Ryan Shelton - Shame, Jealousy & Purpose - https://bit.ly/4qgEqrO Dr Emily - Compassion of The Self - https://bit.ly/4hqWa1k How do you know you’re in a thinking trap? - Maria Ruberto - https://bit.ly/4ze4eJh 🎧 Things to listen to Between Two Beers with Steven Adams - https://bit.ly/4g3wipS 📚Things to read Daring Greatly, by Brene Brown - https://bit.ly/45VT2Dx The Compassionate Mind, by Paul Gilbert - https://bit.ly/3UewPOq Movember study of the Manosphere - https://bit.ly/4wZxtOs Proneness to shame vs proneness to guilt research by Tangney et al. - https://bit.ly/4g4lQyl 📖Things to do The Mindful Self-Compassion Workbook, by Kristin Neff and Christopher Germer - https://bit.ly/4zg353K Othership (breath work app) - https://bit.ly/4g7Q03E 🩷To host your own Vulnerabilitea House, purchase here - theimperfects.com.au/shop 🩵To purchase our journal (or your novel) My Imperfect Life, click here - theimperfects.com.au/shop 🩵To join our subscriber community, A Little More Imperfects, follow this link - patreon.com/theimperfects 🩷 AND you can subscribe to A Little More Imperfects through Apple Podcasts http://apple.co/theimperfects The Imperfects is not a licensed mental health service and is not a substitute for professional mental health advice, treatment or assessment. The advice given in this episode is general in nature, but if you’re struggling, please see a healthcare professional, or call lifeline on 13 11 14. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

• 0:00Speaker 00

  Guilt says, I've done something bad. Shame says, I am bad.

• 0:05Speaker 01

  And embarrassment says?

• 0:07Speaker 02

  Yeah, when I wet my pants at show and tell.

• 0:09Speaker 01

  Oh, what a shame. And shame is exactly what Dr Emily is here to talk about.

• 0:14Speaker 02

  I saw a coach, an opposition coach, under 10s. Their dad slash coach subbed them off and like yelled, what is wrong with you? Switch on.

• 0:22Speaker 00

  So instantly with that comment, what's wrong with you? We get shame. From that place, how do we perform well?

• 0:30Speaker 02

  Yeah, you can't.

• 0:31Speaker 01

  So what do we say instead?

• 0:33Speaker 00

  Shame cannot survive in the face of empathy and compassion.

• 0:38Speaker 01

  To me, it felt like immediate humiliation transitioned into shame straight away. And it wasn't until I told it on the podcast that it got a very different reaction from you guys of empathy. And that was the beginning of me actually starting to write music again.

• 0:54Speaker 00

  This is the key aspect here of shame is that it tells you to hide. Do not share that with anyone. Imagine.

• 1:01Speaker 01

  Everyone feels shame at some point, even Dr Emily.

• 1:05Speaker 00

  It felt like a soccer punch. Oh, a punch right in the gut.

• 1:11Speaker 02

  Soccer punch?

• 1:12Speaker 00

  Is that the right word?

• 1:13Speaker 02

  Soccer, maybe soccer punch. But soccer is.

• 1:15Speaker 00

  Is it? All this time I thought it was soccer.

• 1:18Speaker 01

  It's a less used phrase, but it's still correct.

• 1:21Speaker 02

  Sorry, I didn't mean the soccer punch, the soccer punch.

• 1:24Speaker 01

  Quick, is anyone here a doctor? Yes, her name is Dr Emily and she's a psychologist. Please welcome to the Imperfects, our very own psychologist. Dr M.

• 1:39Speaker 00

  Hello.

• 1:40Speaker 01

  Is back. Speaking of backs, Hugh, how's your back? Cause I know it's been a bit troublesome. Something's happened to your back.

• 1:50Speaker 02

  This is the most middle aged man thing to maybe ever happen.

• 1:53Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:54Speaker 02

  I wish it was like a cool story, like I was doing weights or I was wrestling Ryan. I don't know.

• 2:00Speaker 01

  That would be so cool.

• 2:05Speaker 02

  Bad example, but I was quite stressed. I had a few stressful meetings at the end of the day yesterday and I got in the car and I was going home to, kids are going through a bit of a rough patch. I knew it'd be stressful at home and I thought, I'm going to do some deep breathing in the car. And I went, I'm going to do box breathing as I'm driving and I took one breath in and just went, ah. And then I did my back doing that breathing.

• 2:23Speaker 01

  Breathing. Must've been a big breath.

• 2:25Speaker 02

  It was just a, yeah, it was a big breath. It was my first of box breathing.

• 2:28Speaker 01

  Oh.

• 2:29Speaker 02

  I did my back breathing, trying to relax. That's how middle aged I am. It's ridiculous.

• 2:34Speaker 01

  But you've breathed before.

• 2:35Speaker 02

  I have so many times for a long time, for 45 years I've been doing it. I did one big one and my back has been spasming non-stop and I am in so much discomfort.

• 2:46Speaker 01

  Have you tried not breathing?

• 2:49Speaker 02

  I've tried lots of things this morning to make it better and nothing is fixing it.

• 2:53Speaker 01

  Well, there you go. Well, good luck.

• 2:55Speaker 02

  Thank you.

• 2:56Speaker 01

  Good luck for the future. Are you okay now, sitting down? It's going to get a bit sore sitting down for a long time.

• 3:00Speaker 02

  Yeah, that's okay.

• 3:01Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 3:02Speaker 02

  That's okay. I wouldn't miss Dr M, especially with what she's talking about today because it is.

• 3:06Speaker 01

  Breath work.

• 3:10Speaker 01

  No, you're not talking, you're not talking about breath work.

• 3:12Speaker 00

  I am not.

• 3:12Speaker 01

  It would have been really helpful for someone.

• 3:14Speaker 00

  Exactly.

• 3:16Speaker 01

  You're talking about shame today, which is such a, oh my God. It's, it's a, it's a topic of great discussion.

• 3:23Speaker 02

  It comes up in almost every episode we do with someone. It's like everything comes back to and we hear a lot of talk about shame.

• 3:29Speaker 00

  Exactly. And I was thinking about how the Imperfects arrived, really in some ways it was born out of the response to shame and that is in this practice of vulnerability.

• 3:40Speaker 01

  Yeah. And definitely like the, one of the first episodes, which is an episode where I told a story of, of mine, like of the thing I was going through, which kind of was the story that I told Hugh before the podcast. A lot of that was around shame and it was the reason that we started the podcast in the first place. And we can link back to that, but it's, but yeah, it's, it is, it's present. It's been present throughout the last eight or nine years of this podcast.

• 4:02Speaker 00

  Yeah. And that's because it's present in all of our lives. So in, in that sense, I, I didn't really want to bring in a previous episode because it is part of everyone's experience as a human. And I also am aware that I, I don't want to be, it's fun, it's a funny thing, shame. And I've kind of bought into it here a little bit, but I didn't want to shame anyone by bringing in their episode.

• 4:26Speaker 01

  Yeah, fair enough.

• 4:28Speaker 00

  So, and, and I will be honest that I have, have steered clear of shame because, and I bow down to her now because Brené Brown is, you know, for, for so many of us.

• 4:41Speaker 02

  The most shameful woman in the world.

• 4:45Speaker 00

  You know, the preeminent voice on this topic. And I haven't wanted to pretend that, you know, I would have more expertise than her, for example. But I will certainly be referencing her work here, but also bringing in the therapeutic lens, how it might be exhibited or how it's shown in the therapy room, but also how it's felt and experienced day to day. So at the top of the episode, I'm absolutely giving an immense nod to the incredible work of Brené Brown and how that has, I think for all of us, particularly in this podcasting world too, so profoundly influenced how we share and how we talk about our experiences that might feel shameful.

• 5:25Speaker 02

  Like it must be so much of really what you and good psychologists do is like your shame removers of shame. I was going to say shame strippers, but that sounds a bit different. And like stripping people of like, you help strip people of their shame. You help strip people of their shame. And that's kind of like what you tell people. That's what you would do so often is like remove the shame for people. And that's like, I guess when someone sits down with you and you meet them for the first time, there must be a part of your brain going, well, I need to find out where the shame is and I need to help them.

• 5:53Speaker 00

  Yeah, well, the shame walks into the room. You know, the shame often is, is, is here because you're here in some ways. So shame is an inherent aspect of healing, the healing work. It requires a turning towards, which is what we don't want to do when we experience shame. So I'll explain, I'll explain all of that.

• 6:15Speaker 01

  Love that.

• 6:15Speaker 00

  So it's really important that we can understand what it is because the more we know about the experience, the more we can identify it and therefore the more we can work with it. Okay. So I will reference back to, to Brené Brown's operationalized definition of shame. And she says that it's the intensely painful feeling or experience of believing that we are flawed and therefore unworthy of love and belonging. It is the fear that something we have experienced, done or failed to do makes us unconnectable.

• 6:52Speaker 01

  Whoa, yeah.

• 6:53Speaker 00

  So shame is inherently the fear of disconnection. And disconnection, isolation, loneliness, rejection, abandonment, are core fears that we hold being a human.

• 7:12Speaker 01

  Mm-hmm. It kind of brings up that the fear that I've definitely had and I know a lot of people have, which is that you're, the shame that you have, which is that you're not good enough at the thing that you value. And as a result, you'll be rejected by society. To be more specific, it's like people will think that I'm not funny, you know? People think I'm not funny or I'm not the funniest or I'm not special in any way. That I believe that if that's what people think, then they'll reject me. They, they won't want to be friends with me. They won't want to hang out with me. And as a result, I'll feel disconnected from them.

• 7:50Speaker 00

  Exactly. Yeah. So there are, in some ways, when, when you explain that, there are two feelings or two experiences here. The first is I get exposed to this sense that I'm unworthy, that I'm not good enough, that I'm inherently flawed. That's the first experience. And then if I am that, there's a threat here of, of rejection and exclusion. Because what if people discovered this part of me? If people knew this about me, they would leave me. So that's those two parts here is the first experience of the very profound,

• 8:32Speaker 00

  heavy, full contact experience of feeling flawed, not good enough. And then if that's the case, then there is the threat here that people will leave me.

• 8:43Speaker 01

  Mm-hmm. Hi, it's Ryan from The Imperfects and I'm reaching out to you now because we need your help, gosh darn it.

• 8:51Speaker 03

  What, why do we need?

• 8:52Speaker 01

  Sorry, no, we're, I'm just making a plea to the listeners and viewers to ask them to subscribe to the show in whichever way they see fit because it really helps. The more subscribers, the better we can make this show, am I right?

• 9:05Speaker 02

  Yeah, but I don't think we need to, I think we could just ask them politely.

• 9:08Speaker 01

  Yeah, but if I use the emotional music.

• 9:11Speaker 03

  I think the music's a bit much.

• 9:12Speaker 01

  Is it?

• 9:12Speaker 02

  Who's playing that music?

• 9:13Speaker 01

  Doesn't matter who's playing the music. The important thing is we're pulling at the heartstrings and asking them to do us a solid.

• 9:19Speaker 03

  Can we not just ask, like just ask them straight? Like, oh, it'd really help us if you guys subscribed because we would be able to make more of the show and make the show better.

• 9:28Speaker 01

  Oh, and not use emotional manipulation.

• 9:30Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 9:30Speaker 02

  Yeah, I reckon.

• 9:31Speaker 01

  Well, you can give it a go, but I doubt it'll work.

• 9:34Speaker 02

  I'm trying to work out when the best time to bring this up is, but I think I have really good examples that are from my, that have come up for me recently because I've been doing, as you guys know, breath work. I didn't work from the car yesterday, but I do do, I'm doing like two or three times a day at the moment. And there's one I'm doing on the app that I use, Othership, which is, I think it's called Inner Child. And it's like 30 minutes. And during quite extensive breath holds, it says, go back to a time in your life when you needed support and to feel loved and like, imagine yourself giving that version of you a hug and telling you that things will be okay and you're okay. And I realized as you're saying that, there was, that was the exact feeling I was having. So the one that keeps coming up for me when I was in year eight on the tram going home.

• 10:19Speaker 02

  I remember I noticed there were two girls who were sitting like opposite me, but sort of off diagonally. And I realised they were trying to like impersonate what my face looked like, like they were like pretending to look like me and pissing themselves laughing. And I was so shattered. Like it was the most painful, like they were genuinely teasing me for what I look like and weren't trying to hide it too much. And I remember getting off the tram and that walk home was just, I was just devastated. And so in my, like, that was the feeling I had of like absolutely flawed, not worthy, like actually a joke. Um, and it was so horrific, but I keep in the birth work, that's one of the times I go back to where I literally pitched myself being like waiting for myself getting off the tram, like an adult version.

• 11:04Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 11:04Speaker 02

  And like, like just say, mate, you're fine. Like, trust me, you're fine. Like, it's okay. Um, this is awful, but it kind of, you're gonna be fine, I promise.

• 11:14Speaker 00

  Hmm. I think that's, um, that's such a powerful reflection and such an incredible example of, of that. Like the, the sheer desperation and collapse that we fall into when shame is here. Um, there is a self-loathing and or sometimes for some people a disgust, um, and a sense of hating who I am.

• 11:37Speaker 02

  Yeah, that was a very strong thing.

• 11:39Speaker 00

  Yeah. Um, and so I'm kind of curious, do you remember if you told anyone?

• 11:45Speaker 02

  No.

• 11:45Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 11:46Speaker 02

  No, definitely not.

• 11:46Speaker 00

  Yes. And this is the key aspect here of shame is that it tells you to hide. Do not share that with anyone. Imagine. And yet, when, and this is, you know, been so clearly articulated in the research. Um, and in practice too, is that when we speak shame, it loses its power. We'll come back to them.

• 12:07Speaker 01

  Hmm. Which, which is, it's so hard because it feels like the scariest thing to do.

• 12:12Speaker 00

  Mm hmm. Yeah. The reason I wanna, I'll come back to that because I wanna come back to how we work with it. And you're already really on the right track there. You know, this is like, how do we, how do we offer what we needed at the time, um, to ourselves now? Um, but I think it's really important that we differentiate shame from the other self-conscious emotions. So the other self-conscious emotions are things like embarrassment, humiliation and guilt. Um, so just starting off with guilt because they're often used interchangeably but incorrectly. So guilt says, I've done something bad.

• 12:45Speaker 01

  Mm hmm.

• 12:46Speaker 00

  Shame says, I am bad.

• 12:48Speaker 02

  Right. Well, the example would be potentially the girls, when they get off the tram, one of them might be like, I feel guilty. That was, I did something quite bad there.

• 12:55Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 12:56Speaker 02

  And I had the opposite experience of like, I'm bad.

• 12:58Speaker 00

  Yes. And if we go one step further with those girls, perhaps one of those girls says, um, oh, look, that was really poor form. That's, you know, that's kind of not the kind of person I wanna act, you know, like, um, because that moment there is a violation of potentially her values. And that's where guilt emerges. Is that there, I have acted inconsistently with what I value.

• 13:20Speaker 01

  Hmm.

• 13:21Speaker 00

  Um, it's a nudge usually to make amends guilt. It's very adaptive. So guilt would be, I've done something that has violated my values. Um, I've done something bad here. Okay. But perhaps another girl after that goes, that was so bad. I am such a bad person.

• 13:42Speaker 01

  Hmm.

• 13:42Speaker 00

  I'm such a bad person for saying that out loud.

• 13:45Speaker 01

  Hmm.

• 13:45Speaker 00

  And you can see how that girl's experience would have moved her into a spiral of negative evaluation of criticism and self-loathing.

• 13:53Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 13:54Speaker 00

  Um, and so the two pathways are very different.

• 13:57Speaker 01

  Can they lead into each other though?

• 13:58Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 13:59Speaker 01

  Like guilt can, cause I think about my life, I think guilt often leads to shame.

• 14:03Speaker 00

  Hmm. Yes.

• 14:04Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 14:04Speaker 00

  It's, and I think that's really important to know. And that is that whilst they are separate emotions, they can absolutely be co-occurring or lead to one another. Usually it's guilt leads to shame.

• 14:17Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 14:17Speaker 00

  Mm hmm. Um, so I'll give you an example, and this is really very obvious in trauma work. But it might be something like, let's just say, um, someone was involved in a car accident.

• 14:30Speaker 00

  And, uh, perhaps that person took a different route, um, home that day. And that person says, I should have known better. I shouldn't have taken that pathway. I never go that way home. Um, I should have known better. That's guilt, should. So we can tune into guilt usually with shoulds, woulds, coulds. Okay. I should have known better. Then I'm such a terrible person.

• 14:57Speaker 01

  Mm hmm.

• 14:58Speaker 00

  So we can see the interlinking there, that guilt is the pathway to shame.

• 15:03Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 15:03Speaker 00

  I shouldn't have gone that way. This is all your fault. You're an awful human being.

• 15:10Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 15:11Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 15:12Speaker 01

  For me, the guilt is like opening the, the crack

• 15:17Speaker 00

  Hmm.

• 15:17Speaker 01

  to revealing the true

• 15:19Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 15:20Speaker 01

  person that I am

• 15:21Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 15:21Speaker 01

  underneath.

• 15:22Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 15:22Speaker 01

  And it's like a, it's like the bad part of me

• 15:25Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 15:26Speaker 01

  coming out.

• 15:26Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 15:27Speaker 01

  Um, and I feel guilt about something that I've done, but it's actually a, a example of the unlikable flawed

• 15:36Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 15:37Speaker 01

  person at the core of me.

• 15:39Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 15:39Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 15:39Speaker 00

  Exactly. Um, I think that feels like a really beautiful reflection there. It's like opening the door Hmm. to this deeply held sense of almost like a defectiveness.

• 15:51Speaker 01

  Hmm.

• 15:51Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 15:52Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, absolutely.

• 15:53Speaker 00

  Yeah. They can absolutely also not occur together. I really wanna be clear about that. Um, so that's guilt and shame. If we look at embarrassment, do you guys have a sense of how embarrassment would be different?

• 16:05Speaker 02

  Yeah, when I wet my pants at show and tell, in grade two.

• 16:09Speaker 00

  Uh huh.

• 16:09Speaker 02

  Highly embarrassing.

• 16:10Speaker 01

  Hmm.

• 16:10Speaker 00

  Yeah, I'm curious as to why that wouldn't be shameful.

• 16:15Speaker 00

  Like, how do you distinguish that from something that would be shameful?

• 16:19Speaker 02

  Uh, I just remember I went very red.

• 16:21Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 16:21Speaker 02

  I was very red and ran to the toilet.

• 16:23Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 16:24Speaker 02

  And then mum kind of picked me up and mum was a genius with emotions and she just, we talked about how I felt all the way home.

• 16:28Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 16:29Speaker 02

  And we talked, yeah, we talked about the feelings.

• 16:31Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 16:32Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 16:32Speaker 00

  That's amazing.

• 16:33Speaker 02

  Yeah, so I was very lucky.

• 16:34Speaker 00

  Uh huh. So it's a really interesting, uh, example in contrast to that previous one where you didn't go home and tell anybody. That's shame.

• 16:41Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 16:41Speaker 00

  Yeah. Yeah. Um, whereas, you know, what's, what's interesting about embarrassment is that usually um, embarrassment is a swiftly, um, experienced emotion. So, and it's usually a mistake that we've made publicly that all humans can do, like wetting your pants when you're a kid.

• 17:00Speaker 01

  Hmm.

• 17:00Speaker 00

  Like, we know that this is something that kids can do.

• 17:03Speaker 01

  What, what age, what age you're not a kid?

• 17:07Speaker 01

  What's the cutoff in your, in your, clinical opinion?

• 17:11Speaker 00

  Yeah. Yeah. Well, that's the interesting thing too, is that, um, isn't like, at some point, your brain is gonna go, this is no longer just an embarrassing thing. This is a really shameful thing.

• 17:21Speaker 01

  Hmm. Yeah.

• 17:22Speaker 00

  Right? And there's a lot of stuff in there around, you know, bodily functions. I won't go down that track, um, today, but.

• 17:28Speaker 01

  Cause there's, there's a part of that, and I'm just thinking about like a, a, a time that, um, I don't wanna say it. Um, this is the time where I know what you're about to say, I think. Yeah, well, the other time where I, I pooed my pants, um,

• 17:45Speaker 02

  Pardon?

• 17:47Speaker 01

  I said, don't make me say it again.

• 17:50Speaker 01

  Um, it was, it was a time when I was, I was working at, fine, may as well say Channel Seven. And I was like in, uh, I was in the building. The building has now been destroyed, so that's okay.

• 18:02Speaker 02

  I was in the

• 18:03Speaker 01

  Has it actually been destroyed? Not because of me.

• 18:08Speaker 01

  But it was, it was just like, obviously an accident.

• 18:12Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 18:12Speaker 01

  Didn't see it coming.

• 18:13Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 18:14Speaker 01

  And I, and it was, and I had thin pants on and so it affected the chair as well. So I had to secretly

• 18:21Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 18:23Speaker 01

  Destroy the chair. We'll remove it from that level at least.

• 18:26Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 18:26Speaker 01

  Uh,

• 18:26Speaker 02

  How, I'm not like, I'm just curious, how old were you?

• 18:30Speaker 01

  I would have been early twenties.

• 18:32Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 18:32Speaker 02

  Wow.

• 18:32Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 18:33Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 18:34Speaker 00

  Yeah. And so that, you know, even as you're saying that, I can, like, I can hear the shame. I know that you're laughing and, and all that stuff. And, and you can talk about it now in, in that kind of sense.

• 18:43Speaker 01

  I use humour as a shield, but yeah.

• 18:46Speaker 00

  But, you know, you can hear the shame because there's a part that says this is not meant to happen. That humans, adult humans are not meant to do this. So there's like this kind of, um, part that feels defective. But yet, when we zoom out and have a look at an experience like that, it's like, how do we bring on board a compassion that gosh, you're just a normal human being?

• 19:06Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 19:07Speaker 00

  And this is a normal thing that can happen.

• 19:08Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 19:09Speaker 00

  Um, because then if we're moving into a compassion about like, oh, yeah, this, like this thing happened. And it was like, like I don't feel great about it. But I'm also a normal human being.

• 19:19Speaker 01

  Hmm.

• 19:20Speaker 00

  Um, how, how much of a difference does that make in comparison to holding like this sense that like, oh, I'm so ashamed that that happened. Does that make sense?

• 19:31Speaker 01

  Yeah. Yeah. And I, I guess it's like, I mean, it was, it, in the, in the moment, it was, I was, it was stressful.

• 19:39Speaker 00

  Hmm.

• 19:39Speaker 01

  Cause I didn't wanna be found out.

• 19:41Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 19:41Speaker 01

  Uh, I'm, I'm not, I'm, I'm, to be honest, I'm not sure if it was, if I, if it entered a shame place. It might not be appropriate for this conversation. Cause I, cause I think I was like, I knew it was like embarrassing. It's like obviously really embarrassing. But it actually probably didn't enter a place of like, I'm a

• 19:59Speaker 00

  Hmm.

• 19:59Speaker 01

  I'm, I'm a

• 20:02Speaker 01

  I'm a shit person.

• 20:06Speaker 01

  But, but, but it was, but it was like, it's, it was probably more embarrassing

• 20:10Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 20:10Speaker 01

  in, in, in all honesty. Yeah.

• 20:12Speaker 02

  Did you tell people?

• 20:14Speaker 01

  Well, I told Tim

• 20:16Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 20:16Speaker 01

  Uh, Bartley, I'm pretty sure, cause I had to go home and change. Um, but I, but I, to be honest, where I was, what I was really nervous about was, cause I was working with Hamish and Andy as well at the time, and they had a radio show at the time.

• 20:30Speaker 02

  Oh.

• 20:30Speaker 01

  And in, in that era of being friends with them, you cannot show any vulnerability because they will turn it into a six week story.

• 20:38Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 20:40Speaker 01

  So I had to be really careful actually of not them not finding out.

• 20:44Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 20:45Speaker 01

  So I was then like embarrassed on a national stage.

• 20:50Speaker 03

  Can I ask about humour? Cause I know you said sort of tongue in cheek that it uses as a shield. And I can see how in the case of it being turned into a story arc, there is how shame could develop for you. Possibly, but also I feel like humour, when you've done something embarrassing or if you had an embarrassing moment can be really kind of therapeutic. And for me, it can be the thing that like play, it gives it the relevant

• 21:12Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 21:13Speaker 03

  size of stress or something like it takes up the right amount of space in my brain and can actually reframe it as I'm kind of glad that happened because I got to laugh about it so much.

• 21:21Speaker 00

  Yeah. So that's the usually the differentiating piece with embarrassment is that with time, it's usually funny.

• 21:27Speaker 03

  Hmm.

• 21:28Speaker 00

  So yes, um, and that's how we can distinguish it often from shame because shame doesn't feel funny. And you know, we'll talk about kind of different coping modes that show up when in response to the experience of shame. But when we think about embarrassment, usually it's short-lived experiences that we recognise would be embarrassing for anyone.

• 21:47Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 21:47Speaker 00

  Um, and that with time they become funny.

• 21:50Speaker 03

  Yeah. Okay. Good distinction. Yep. Okay.

• 21:52Speaker 00

  Um, so that's embarrassment. The, the last one I want to mention is humiliation. Because shame and humiliation are often also used interchangeably. Um, and the thing that I find really fascinating about humiliation and how it's different from shame is that it's usually based upon a sense of deservingness. So let's just say, you are told off in class as a kid. And the, the teacher says something really punitive and, um, and shaming, right? So says like, Billy, you're such an idiot. You should have known better about that. And if that child's internal response is, how dare she?

• 22:37Speaker 00

  If there's an anger response, a defensive, I don't deserve this treatment. That's not shame, that's humiliation.

• 22:45Speaker 03

  Hmm. Ah, right.

• 22:46Speaker 00

  So it's how we're internalising.

• 22:48Speaker 03

  Tell you respond to it.

• 22:49Speaker 00

  Yeah. And what the internal dialogue and what the internal feeling and sensations are. So if someone is treating me in a way that I think is undeserving, that will be more likely that, that I have felt humiliated.

• 23:05Speaker 03

  That's interesting because it, you know, say I made like a TV show and it got one, a one star review. And the difference between shame and humiliation is me going like, I don't deserve that one star.

• 23:18Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 23:18Speaker 03

  This is humiliating because everyone thinks it's a bad show, but I don't deserve that. I know it's, I know it's at least a two.

• 23:24Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 23:24Speaker 03

  Whereas like, if I responded in a way of like, they're right.

• 23:29Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 23:29Speaker 03

  It is one star.

• 23:30Speaker 00

  Yes. That's absolutely spot on.

• 23:33Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 23:33Speaker 00

  So shame is, I deserve that.

• 23:36Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 23:36Speaker 00

  Now, I think the research initially was suggesting that, that shame is more, a more dangerous experience than humiliation. But recent research and Brené Brown has spoken about this not long ago, is that recent research is suggesting that humiliation uh, and shame can both be extremely destructive. And if you were to look at the research around, um, like for example, um, mass shootings and perpetrators of mass violence, that there has often been a history of bullying and humiliation in their past.

• 24:13Speaker 03

  They're angry. Yeah.

• 24:14Speaker 00

  And so we can see the power that these emotions can have to be immensely destructive, both to other people, but also to ourselves. There's very clear and an immense amount of research about the role that shame plays in almost all psychological conditions.

• 24:36Speaker 00

  And also in terms of perpetration of violence, aggression and hostility.

• 24:43Speaker 00

  So it's really so important that we can, um, have a language around shame, that we can understand it and also learn how to respond to it when it shows up.

• 24:53Speaker 03

  Sounds like, yeah, the how to respond to it is so key.

• 24:57Speaker 02

  That and working out what it is. Like, what am I feeling here?

• 25:00Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 25:00Speaker 03

  I can imagine the same incident as we've just sort of, um, displayed, that the same incident can bring out shame or humiliation. And I think in my life, I felt a lot of shame. I'm not sure I've actually felt that much humiliation. Maybe a little bit, but not a huge amount. But I feel like that says something more to the core of who I am. And it feels like it, can something be extrapolated about that person, whether they, how they interpret a certain incident?

• 25:27Speaker 00

  Yeah. Absolutely.

• 25:29Speaker 03

  The story that you've told before about when the guy pulled the book out of your jacket is sort of a good example. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. So years ago, I told this story, but a long time ago, I was at a party with people I didn't know. I had a book in my jacket pocket and a guy pulled it out and started reading it out aloud and taking the piss out of me. And they were lyrics to, I was trying to write songs. And they passed it around at the party and everyone had a go at reading them. And then from that moment, I kind of don't think I ever really tried to write lyrics again. I sort of stopped until doing the show and talking about it on the show. But for a very, very long time, I barely wrote anything.

• 26:10Speaker 03

  And to me, it felt like immediate humiliation transitioned into shame straight away. Yeah.

• 26:16Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 26:16Speaker 03

  And a confirmation of that you're not good enough, sort of thing. Yeah.

• 26:21Speaker 00

  And there's, there's some really important things I want to acknowledge in what you've just said there. The first is that, yes, we all will have different shame triggers. So that's a really important process in, in developing shame resilience is getting really clear on what you're going to get triggered by. So what are your points of vulnerability? And one of the, um, the entry, entry ways into understanding that is actually an exercise that Brené Brown, um, has developed. And it's to do with the notion of what's called unwanted identities.

• 27:00Speaker 00

  So when they were ridiculing the lyrics,

• 27:06Speaker 00

  what identity or what part of you was it attacking?

• 27:15Speaker 03

  The, I guess, me as a creative person.

• 27:18Speaker 00

  Yeah. Yeah. So if I said to you, the identity that I want to be perceived as would be what?

• 27:28Speaker 03

  Certainly back then, definitely want to be perceived as kind of creatively brilliant.

• 27:32Speaker 00

  Yeah. Okay. So I want to be perceived as creatively brilliant.

• 27:36Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 27:36Speaker 00

  I do not want to be perceived as.

• 27:40Speaker 03

  I don't, could I, maybe this is breaking the exercise, but I don't want to be revealed

• 27:44Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 27:44Speaker 03

  as creatively incompetent.

• 27:47Speaker 00

  Yes. Yes, exactly. So that we can see there is, um, an unwanted identity as being not brilliant, as being not creative. Maybe there's another word in there. Maybe it's being, um, boring or, you know, something akin to that.

• 28:02Speaker 03

  Or a failure.

• 28:03Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 28:03Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 28:04Speaker 00

  Yeah. So I don't want to be perceived as a creative failure.

• 28:08Speaker 02

  Well, there's something else in there. I feel like it's like, you're trying to be creative. Like you're, you've been found out for trying, like.

• 28:16Speaker 03

  Yeah, that's true. Yeah. Yeah.

• 28:18Speaker 02

  That was also being laughed at, the effort that you went to, I feel like maybe in that moment or.

• 28:22Speaker 03

  Yeah, I think potentially I held on for way too long, this idea that truly brilliant, creative people, it just kind of pours out and it doesn't need effort. It's like they, it's a revealing of the, of how great this is. And it's not.

• 28:38Speaker 01

  You're a genius or you're not.

• 28:40Speaker 03

  Yeah. And it's not about a sort of step ladder of trying and trying and getting better and failing and which I understand now. But I think I didn't understand that at the time.

• 28:48Speaker 00

  Exactly.

• 28:49Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 28:49Speaker 00

  It's like all or nothing in some ways.

• 28:51Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 28:51Speaker 00

  So the identity, like I want to be perceived as being creative. I do not, I deeply do not, and perhaps even fear being perceived as not creative enough.

• 29:00Speaker 03

  Yeah, that's true. Because in my belief, it's, um, it's either one or the other. And so if I'm perceived as not creative, then I'm in the

• 29:09Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 29:09Speaker 03

  in the bucket of not creative people who will never do anything.

• 29:12Speaker 00

  Yeah, exactly. And then there's probably a cascading of a whole host of negative beliefs or negative thoughts that follow that. So that is a shame trigger.

• 29:22Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 29:23Speaker 00

  So, you know, potentially for you, Josh, um, situations or experiences that expose you to the feared identity, the unwanted identity will trigger a shame response.

• 29:35Speaker 03

  Yep.

• 29:36Speaker 00

  And that shame response can look like a number of things. So usually it will look like, um, very reminiscent of the fight, flight, freeze response. So when we get exposed to shame. We can go inward, which means that we withdraw. So that's kind of what, what happened to you. You went, it sounds like you went quiet.

• 29:58Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 29:58Speaker 00

  Um, you also then subsequently avoided, um, approaching, looking at, talking about anything creative.

• 30:06Speaker 03

  Yeah. Certainly that specific area.

• 30:08Speaker 00

  Yeah, yeah. So there's withdrawal. Um, so that's kind of representing here, this response that is threat driven. So there is a physiological response that is getting activated when we feel shame.

• 30:23Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 30:24Speaker 00

  Okay. This is what's so important to understand about shame is that it's not just a feeling. There's a whole vast array of research which suggests that it's what's called a multi-dimensional construct. So that basically means that it's not just one thing, it's not just a feeling. It's an experience that's happening, um, physiologically, neurologically. It's happening in the socio-cultural environment and it's also happening across institutions. So it's really multi-dimensional. Okay, it's not just one feeling. But if we come back to that moment when you get hit with shame.

• 31:03Speaker 00

  So we have these potential responses that are being driven by this sympathetic nervous system, whose primary goal is to keep you safe. Okay. So we've gone out of our kind of rational, regulated, balanced, um, nervous system functioning into this threat response. And yes, one of those threat responses is get me out of here as soon as possible. Withdraw, shut down, um, freeze. Um, very, very common and very normal response to feeling threatened. Okay. Or we can have a reactive response. Um, and this is the fight response.

• 31:47Speaker 00

  So when someone, um, triggers a shame for me or is shaming me, I become explosive. I react or I become defensive. I might, um, kind of act out in some way. So this also is a really normal response, um, and an understandable response to this attack on the self.

• 32:11Speaker 00

  So if you had in that instance, Josh, um, said, you know, he grabbed the book from you and you were like, started swearing at him, like, what the F are you doing? Like, what's wrong with you? We can see that it's coming from, we can see that it's coming from the same initial, um, activation of a shame experience, but it's manifest very differently.

• 32:34Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 32:35Speaker 00

  Yeah, okay.

• 32:35Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 32:36Speaker 02

  But if I, just knowing Josh's personality in that moment, he's gone, I will make everyone have a good time here and I will facilitate, I will be part of everyone having fun. And it doesn't matter, it's my expense, like, we can, I can still turn this into a fun thing when no one knows it's about me.

• 32:50Speaker 03

  Yeah, yeah, sort of hide. And then I participated in reading the lyrics and taking the piss out of myself. Because I told the, the important detail is that I told everyone the story that it's not my book. And it, it wasn't mine.

• 33:02Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 33:03Speaker 03

  And so therefore they, that's why they did it. They weren't like saying you're, they didn't know that it was my attempt to be great.

• 33:10Speaker 00

  Yeah, and that's actually really, um, another really interesting example of what's called the fawning response.

• 33:15Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 33:16Speaker 00

  Um, which is really kind of people pleasing response. So I'm, I'm smoothing the waters, I'm, um, participating in, almost in the ridicule.

• 33:25Speaker 03

  Hmm.

• 33:25Speaker 00

  Um, and this is again, like, it has a really adaptive function from an evolutionary point of view. If I am fawning, if I'm being submissive, if I'm pleasing, um, if I'm not attacking, then that ultimately is ensuring that I don't get attacked again or that I'm as safe as possible. So again, it has this immensely adaptive function, um, of attempting to, um, either keep us safe or reduce the likelihood of being attacked again.

• 33:55Speaker 03

  Interestingly, I, I have told that story, I told that story to many people many times before telling it on the podcast. And I would tell it as a amusing anecdote, something really funny and embarrassing that happened.

• 34:11Speaker 03

  Um, and for years I told it and got a good reaction. So it was like one of the stories you've got in your sort of armoury of stories to tell. And it wasn't until I told it on the podcast that it got a very different reaction from you guys of sort of sympathy and empathy. And that was the beginning of me actually starting to write music again. That response from you guys on, on that time. So it's, it sort of speaks to that thing I brought up before about humour. How humour in that case was probably a really negative way of, or not negative or unhelpful way

• 34:51Speaker 03

  of processing that story and that shameful moment for a very long time, for like 15 years almost, or 10 years.

• 34:57Speaker 00

  Yeah, wow, that's such a great catch. I think that that will speak to a lot of people's experience that, um, the humour, yes, it might allow it to be spoken, but it's not allowing us to touch the feeling.

• 35:10Speaker 03

  Hmm.

• 35:11Speaker 00

  So when you shared it with the boys.

• 35:15Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 35:15Speaker 00

  And they responded with care, nurture and empathy. It almost allowed you to feel and to be held in that shameful experience.

• 35:25Speaker 03

  Yeah, yeah.

• 35:26Speaker 00

  Which meant that you were turning towards this part of you that you had not wanted to actively face.

• 35:32Speaker 03

  Absolutely.

• 35:32Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 35:33Speaker 01

  Is, is there a chance, Em, that like Josh is, is maybe even unconsciously telling, like through, over his life, telling people that story, kind of like throwing the line in? Like, you know, just to see if you get the response that you need. But protecting yourself with humour, knowing that like you probably won't. And that's fine because you're protected and treating it as a funny story. But you just keep throwing the line in, sharing the story with people until you do get the response that you need.

• 36:06Speaker 03

  That's interesting. Yeah.

• 36:08Speaker 00

  Yeah, I mean, it's quite possible that that's what's happening. I think it's really, it's really interesting when we talk about speaking shame. Um, and I think even Brené Brown attests to the, the way in which information can be misunderstood or misheard. Um, about working with shame. And that is that, you know, the obvious kind of brand came out that, um, we need to be, uh, vulnerable. We need to be vulnerable, um, to deal with the shame. But the piece that was missing in there is that we need to be really discerning about who has earned the right to hear our story.

• 36:49Speaker 03

  Hmm.

• 36:50Speaker 00

  Um, because that expression of vulnerability, um, needs to be held so carefully and held in a, obviously in an empathic and nurturing way. Um, and we don't always know who is, you know, who that person could be. So the fact that you shared it with your brother.

• 37:10Speaker 03

  Hmm.

• 37:11Speaker 00

  Would tell me that you already inherently knew, and with Ryan as well, that they were safe. And that they had earned the right to hear that piece of vulnerability.

• 37:21Speaker 03

  Yeah, and I'm also thinking about times where I've shared it. And it felt, I actually could feel, it feels awful now. Cause I remember thinking like with people, you're laughing a bit too much.

• 37:31Speaker 00

  Hmm.

• 37:32Speaker 03

  Like, this is not nice. Like you're almost re.

• 37:35Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 37:36Speaker 03

  Relitigating or re.

• 37:37Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 37:38Speaker 03

  Putting me through it again because you're laughing just a bit too much about this. And this is, I think, confirming to me that you think I'm ridiculous as well and you think I'm not worthy. There's like an appropriate level of.

• 37:49Speaker 00

  Really interesting.

• 37:50Speaker 03

  Laughter.

• 37:51Speaker 02

  Yeah, the appropriate response, even if you're saying it finally in a funny way, the appropriate response for anyone is to like, look behind that laughter and go, that would be so painful. And just, yeah, it feels like a strange misread from someone to that.

• 38:05Speaker 03

  To laugh heaps. Yeah, yeah. And almost retell it with excitement to other people.

• 38:10Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 38:11Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 38:12Speaker 00

  That's a whole other thing.

• 38:14Speaker 03

  Okay.

• 38:15Speaker 00

  Yeah, I could do a whole episode on that, on like gossiping.

• 38:18Speaker 03

  Oh, we should do gossip.

• 38:19Speaker 01

  Would it be, would it be judgment as well?

• 38:21Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 38:22Speaker 02

  Just recall the episode fuckwits, like we could do that and like back in episode about fuckwits. We can do that. So today's topic.

• 38:29Speaker 01

  Uh, but yeah, but can we, yeah, can we like gossip judgment?

• 38:33Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 38:34Speaker 01

  My god.

• 38:35Speaker 00

  Yeah. And what sits on the other side of that is trust, right?

• 38:38Speaker 03

  Oh, yeah.

• 38:39Speaker 00

  Um, so it's, and, and shame and trust are going to sit alongside each other here in some kind of way. That you had had enough evidence with these two boys here to know that they're, that they're trust, they're trusting, right?

• 38:55Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 38:56Speaker 00

  And so that is the platform from which you can go, I'm willing to show this part of, of myself here and know that you won't ridicule me.

• 39:04Speaker 03

  Hmm.

• 39:05Speaker 00

  So this is the thing is that there's a step into, I'm exposing the part of me that I am, I, I deeply believe is flawed. And I'm willing to take a risk here that you're not going to leave me or abandon me because of it.

• 39:17Speaker 03

  Hmm.

• 39:19Speaker 00

  And so we have a platform already that says, these boys are not going to leave me. Or I'm pretty certain they're not going to. Like there's at least like, it's likely.

• 39:29Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 39:29Speaker 00

  I've built up enough evidence to say that they're trustworthy enough.

• 39:33Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 39:34Speaker 00

  Yeah. Um, so that, I think I just wanted to really emphasise that when it comes to how we're experiencing and then sharing shame is that we have to be really discerning around who we are willing to trust with these parts of ourselves that we may have held back for so long.

• 39:51Speaker 02

  It's like a fun activity to, or like a revealing activity to write down the names of people in your life that you would feel. You could trust with, something like that. It'd be such a revealing thing of like, these are the people that are very important in my life.

• 40:05Speaker 00

  Yeah, like my people.

• 40:06Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 40:07Speaker 00

  Um, and they are the people that will affirm that you are worthy of love and belonging.

• 40:12Speaker 02

  Yeah, and if they don't have the language on it, they may not say, I just want to affirm. But like, their response will be one that makes you feel that. Like you will feel like, oh, they're not going anywhere, they get it, they don't judge me.

• 40:23Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 40:23Speaker 02

  Um, and they feel, um, probably like a sense of like, I feel really special you shared that with me.

• 40:29Speaker 03

  Hmm.

• 40:30Speaker 00

  Yeah, exactly. And we can talk then about the upward spiral of connection that occurs when we do share. Um, but I wonder, I just want to kind of bring in some other things before we then move on to how we do work with it. Is that okay?

• 40:40Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 40:41Speaker 00

  Um. So I mentioned earlier that there are these kind of this notion of unwanted identities. Um. And I want to mention a few really common ones because I think it's really important to name um what they can be. So um things like being a good mother.

• 40:54Speaker 01

  Mm hmm.

• 40:55Speaker 00

  Um. Anything for in like in terms of masculinity, being strong enough, not being weak, being good looking enough, anything around body image, um around sex, around money, around um career. So these are kind of these core domains where we can have a vulnerability towards feeling shame. Right. Body image is a very, very big one. And I would say that it goes particularly now with Instagram, social media. That has been amped up immensely, right?

• 41:26Speaker 02

  Add to that for men, we talk about a lot of here and we're after we're talking about it when you came in today. Like hair.

• 41:31Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 41:32Speaker 02

  Hmm. I was literally talking about how I'm half jokingly thinking about getting a hair transplant.

• 41:36Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 41:36Speaker 02

  But that's a big thing from a young age for men who like that's a.

• 41:39Speaker 00

  Yes, exactly.

• 41:40Speaker 02

  That's absolutely right. Yeah.

• 41:42Speaker 00

  And this is not my area of expertise and I'm going to point here to the incredible research um from the Movember Institute. But there is very clear information about the role of shame in the manosphere.

• 41:54Speaker 01

  Hmm.

• 41:54Speaker 02

  Oh, yeah.

• 41:55Speaker 00

  Yeah. Um. And that shame is being um weaponized to create um a sense of belonging.

• 42:03Speaker 01

  Hmm.

• 42:04Speaker 00

  And so I really, you know, really encourage people to go and have a look at the the research that is out there. But also just to have an awareness that um shame is not just an experience that we have individually. It's also it sits in the zeitgeist. So it sits as a socio cultural experience. So we are constantly being fed messages about what we should feel not good enough about, what we should feel shameful about.

• 42:30Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 42:30Speaker 00

  Um. If we bring this back to the repercussions of uh shame, um the research. I say the research a lot, um.

• 42:41Speaker 01

  It's probably an important part.

• 42:42Speaker 00

  I know.

• 42:44Speaker 01

  God, I'm always banging on about research. How annoying.

• 42:46Speaker 00

  I'm like, I need another word for it. Yeah, yes. My suspicion is um that on the surface, we have been taught through centuries perhaps of messaging that if I shame someone enough, it will change their behaviour, right?

• 43:02Speaker 02

  Yeah, I have examples in my mind at the moment, just because I'm literally catching up with a friend from primary school who I haven't seen in thirty two years. Catch up with her tomorrow. So I've been thinking a lot about primary school and we're reflecting on how our teacher in prep, who was kicked out of the teaching profession, but she used to put kids in the bin. Like she would literally pick them up, put them in the bin if she was unhappy or something, and she would say that's where you belong. And she would often say, it was it was horrific. I remember as a five year old just being like that.

• 43:30Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 43:30Speaker 02

  What the hell's going on? But there was a boy that she, he thought he ate too much and she just kept, she wouldn't let him have lunch and say, you can sit in the bin while everyone has their lunch.

• 43:40Speaker 00

  Oh, so there's two parts there that are shaming.

• 43:42Speaker 02

  But it was, yeah, it was like double shaming and it was it was horrific. Mum actually got a kick out of teaching, but um. Yeah, what a mum. But she.

• 43:51Speaker 01

  Good for mum today.

• 43:54Speaker 02

  Um. But that that was like her approach, like clearly like this is horrific shaming that will change this person's behaviour. When I think about it, it would have made them go to that behaviour more to soothe themselves from the absolute pain of.

• 44:07Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 44:08Speaker 02

  That hum, no, I want to say humiliation of that shame.

• 44:10Speaker 00

  It's immensely misguided because actually what we know is that shame and shaming behaviours create um more dysfunction, um more maladaptive behaviours and poor, much, much poorer outcomes. So there was this incredible um longitudinal study um conducted by Ta- I'm not going to pronounce her name properly, Tang Nai, um and I'll get the date for you on that one. And they followed three hundred and eighty children across adolescents and looked at the concept of what's called shame proneness. And so that's a tendency to feel shameful across a whole host of situations and experiences.

• 44:51Speaker 00

  So not just in one area. Um. And so there's a real vulnerability here to feeling shame often. Okay. And then they also um looked at kids who were experienced guilt proneness. So the sense that I'm going to feel guilty about my behaviour, right?

• 45:09Speaker 01

  Hmm.

• 45:09Speaker 00

  Um. And in this study, what they found was that the kids that had experienced greater shame proneness um experienced far poorer outcomes in terms of delinquency, increased use of drugs, um much riskier behaviour, much younger sexual behaviour and unprotected sex, risky sex behaviours. Um. In contrast to the guilt proneness group that actually experienced the opposite. They had much better outcomes. They were less likely to engage in risky behaviours. But the kids that were experiencing shame really profoundly were much more likely to experience um those negative outcomes.

• 45:54Speaker 01

  So how but how do you are you saying that like i- instead of shaming someone, we're better off guilting them?

• 46:03Speaker 00

  Because. I mean, no.

• 46:04Speaker 01

  I mean, I know you don't mean that. So it's like, how can you, are you just saying, just like, generally speaking, it's interesting to to note that you're better off.

• 46:14Speaker 00

  It's not a, yeah, it's not really a better off. It was more just a contrast.

• 46:18Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 46:18Speaker 00

  That that shame is in some ways more profoundly and pervasively impactful.

• 46:23Speaker 01

  Okay, yeah.

• 46:23Speaker 00

  Than someone that might be prone to feeling um excessive guilt.

• 46:27Speaker 01

  Mm hmm.

• 46:27Speaker 00

  Now, as we know, anything that is experienced excessively, frequently and um and profoundly will of course have really detrimental outcomes um and a detrimental impact on your sense of wellbeing. So I'm not saying let's all go down the guilt pathway.

• 46:43Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 46:44Speaker 00

  But more recognizing that that shame proneness in particular is really, really painful and results in a lot of suffering unless we're intervening in particular ways.

• 46:57Speaker 01

  Would would you, the idea of tough love?

• 47:00Speaker 00

  Mm hmm.

• 47:00Speaker 01

  Is that kind of in the ballpark of shaming?

• 47:04Speaker 00

  Yes, it depends and it depends what it looks like. Okay, so

• 47:10Speaker 00

  when we look at the origins of shame proneness um and the people that are more likely to experience shame and have a lot of difficulty with it. That of course our early experiences with our primary caregivers and also experiences with teachers, coaches and mentors during that kind of childhood period um are going to influence how we experience a sense of worthiness and belonging. Okay. Um. So what the research suggests is that experiences like um abandonment, abuse and neglect

• 47:52Speaker 00

  will most likely or is highly associated with a tendency to feel more shame. Interestingly, neglect has been shown to be a very strong predictor of shame. And if we look at that, you think about a little kid that is being neglected by their parents or their primary caregivers. What's the core message that shows up with that?

• 48:22Speaker 01

  You're not worthy of.

• 48:23Speaker 00

  Attention.

• 48:24Speaker 01

  Attention, love.

• 48:25Speaker 00

  Hmm. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 48:27Speaker 01

  And you're not one of us.

• 48:29Speaker 00

  Exactly. Yeah, yeah.

• 48:31Speaker 01

  Hmm.

• 48:32Speaker 02

  Hey, Ryan and Josh.

• 48:33Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 48:33Speaker 02

  Yes. Permission to advertise my own thing.

• 48:36Speaker 01

  Oh, what is your thing?

• 48:37Speaker 02

  Yes, please. The Resilience Project.

• 48:38Speaker 01

  Oh, cool. Oh, I mean, permission to get excited about your thing.

• 48:42Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 48:42Speaker 01

  You know what I love? When people come up to me and go like, hey, I just want to say the resilience project has completely changed my kid's life. It's saved us. Thank you so much. And I just choose not to tell them that's got nothing to do with me. Did the exact same thing. Oh, thanks.

• 48:57Speaker 02

  Well, that that makes me very happy to hear that. We have now partnered with fourteen hundred schools around Australia. So I think for a lot of people, it's like, yeah, we would love to do a wellbeing programme. But my first question, as a principal in the school, they were, do we know it's going to work? And Monash University found that after six years of doing the resilience project, um the chance of a child developing an anxiety disorder is has decreased by thirty four percent. And the chance of developing depressive symptoms decreased by forty seven percent.

• 49:23Speaker 01

  It's so incredible, not surprising, but amazing to have the numbers.

• 49:27Speaker 02

  So if you want to see how the resilience project schools wellbeing programme could work for your school in two thousand twenty seven, please head to our website, theresilienceproject.com.au and you'll find um everything you need to know about our wellbeing programme there.

• 49:40Speaker 00

  How's this sitting so far?

• 49:42Speaker 02

  Well, I'm just thinking about, um, I'm, uh, we now do kids sport, our kids have now done kids sport and we've got basketball on the weekends. I mean, if ever, I'm sure it's the same with all kids sport, but if ever, one of the great social, I mean, it should be, I'm surprised there's not hundreds of researchers and psychologists sitting around with notepads, writing down stuff and taking notes, but um, there's all types of appalling behaviour. But um, I saw a coach the other day, the opposition team, whose child went the wrong way, like ran the wrong way, got the ball and then their dad slash coach subbed them off and like yelled, what is wrong with you? Switch on. And I remember seeing that and I was like, that is, and the kid just looked shattered. But I remember, I was looking at

• 50:23Speaker 02

  this dad and I was thinking, I have no doubt those words were said, those exact words were said to you. Like I have no, are you, you are, you know, what it shouldn't be, it's kids basketball, but stressful situation. And so you're, I mean, it should be the least stressful in the world.

• 50:38Speaker 03

  Under seven, under eight's basketball, whatever it is.

• 50:40Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 50:40Speaker 02

  Yeah. Um, but he's in that stressful situation. He's like, um, I'm going to say what I've heard, what was said to me, because that was good for me and look at me now. And it was, it was awful, but you see it all the time. And that like, you see shaming happening in kids sport and it's kids sport. I cannot believe the summer stuff I'm saying.

• 50:57Speaker 00

  I think, I think this topic needs so much attention. It actually gives me a very strong visceral reaction.

• 51:04Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 51:05Speaker 00

  When we talk about how we're taking, how we're caring for our kids in these situations.

• 51:11Speaker 03

  Like in sports situations particularly?

• 51:13Speaker 00

  Particularly. I think it's very prevalent and there are so many reasons as to why um, shaming comments and behaviours are occurring. Um, that's a topic for, and probably another time. But it's a great example of why we think that kind of comment is going to produce better performance. So if we kind of come back for a second, if you imagine that a parent is yelling at their child about their performance, you've got to do better. It could be a coach, that's not uncommon either. Um, it could be any kind of mentoring, teaching role that they've got. Um, you can do so much better than that. What's wrong with you? Why did you miss that pass? You should be over there. In that tone with that, um, almost

• 51:57Speaker 00

  like a threat piece, when you think about, okay, so this child is hearing this and in that moment, it's activating the stress response. So instantly with that comment, what's wrong with you? We get shame. Shame is here, activation of the fight flight response. From that place, how do we perform well?

• 52:22Speaker 02

  Yeah, you can't.

• 52:23Speaker 00

  Yeah. Yeah. So in that, in that second, that kid is going to feel immense pressure to perform because they don't want to have this experience again of feeling unworthy of their parents' love. In some instances, for that game potentially, or maybe some future games, that kid might perform really well. Like, it's like the whip kind of motivating them. They're motivated by this fear of punishment. Okay. So yes, maybe in the short term, it looks like it works. It looks like this kid is now performing because I've given them the, the tough love. I've given them the hard word and they can do better and look, they're doing better. But what are the long-term consequences or even midterm consequences?

• 53:07Speaker 02

  There's such a big cost to that kind of behaviour.

• 53:10Speaker 00

  Yes. So you can look at, if we look at, there are some very well-known elite athletes who have spoken about, like Andre Agassi is one of them, who's spoken about the role of a punitive parent.

• 53:23Speaker 02

  Tiger Woods, Linna Drucker.

• 53:24Speaker 00

  Yeah. Yeah. It's endless.

• 53:26Speaker 02

  Yeah, it's so sad.

• 53:28Speaker 03

  Not to mention the millions of people who don't actually, because I feel like, I agree with you, those are classic examples, but you could look at those people and say, well, look at all the success they've had too. But I think of the millions of people and I can think of specific sports people I played junior sport with who were so talented and so brilliant, who just stopped enjoying it and gave up and missed out on so much fun at like 14 or 15.

• 53:54Speaker 02

  Or, I mean, yeah, if you want to drop like that for the ones who are successful, they might be good at their sport, but they're deeply troubled human beings, deeper, who have, who have come, all of them come and done at some point. I'd, I'd, I mean, it's probably a topic for another thing, but kids sport is, it's a, it's a mess the way it's done. I feel like there should be two people that could coach a kid's side. They should do a survey and ask all the parents involved, out of a hundred, how much do you care? And the person who does the least, who cares the least?

• 54:20Speaker 03

  Gets to coach.

• 54:22Speaker 02

  They, they're the ones who are qualified to coach because they're so compromised if you care too much about an under 10's game of football. And the other one's teachers. Teachers should, I mean, teachers don't want to spend their Saturdays coaching kids sport, but they.

• 54:33Speaker 03

  I thought you were going to say the people who care the least should also be the teachers.

• 54:38Speaker 02

  But it should be someone who's, if you are emotionally invested to the point where, I mean, why, I should, I just want to say this, I don't know where we'll put it in, but we hit the jackpot with our, with our child's basketball team. We have an incredible, wonderful man who is, he is like the absolute prototype of what a good kids sports coach could be. But um, yes.

• 54:57Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 54:58Speaker 00

  Yeah. But I think that that's what, so it really highlights the potential for either great um, healing, nurturing and encouragement or great harm. So those, like for example, you maybe had to remember, um, really important teachers, really important coaches, that there will be memories that you might hold of there being this one person, maybe outside of your family, for example, that deeply impacted your sense of worthiness, your sense of potential, your sense of belonging. So these roles have the capacity to be either incredibly helpful and nurturing or incredibly harmful.

• 55:43Speaker 03

  Because is it right and think, I'm thinking that like the, the parent who gets really angry at their kid and shames them, like the, you can, what, what's wrong with you? You can do better. Are they just sort of doing the best they can at exercising their own shame? And sort of like the shame that they have about loss and like, you know, like the, the coach that you're talking about, like maybe his great fear or shame is that he's not good enough and he can't, and this kid, my kid is going to ruin it for me. Or do a, repeat my mistake.

• 56:18Speaker 02

  Yeah, that, that's what I say.

• 56:20Speaker 03

  All right.

• 56:20Speaker 00

  Yeah. Yeah. There's, there's so much attached to why we want our kids to do well, so much attached to that.

• 56:27Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 56:28Speaker 00

  Um, and this great challenge that we, you know, we have as parents is to actually let our kids be who they are. And so there is this really for me as a mum and as a psychologist that comes intertwined often, um, like how do we cultivate a, a space of feeling free to learn, free to make mistakes and free to grow? Like that's, that for me is the biggest, um, most important piece.

• 56:59Speaker 03

  And is that would, I mean, it's hard for me to make, I'm not a parent, obviously, but like, like the coach, there's maybe no interest in trying to understand what the kid is, what the kid cares about. Like the kind of the Andre Agassi example, it's like, like I've read his book and it's like, got to a certain point where he hated tennis as a kid, hated it. But because his dad wanted it so much for him, he felt like he couldn't quit.

• 57:24Speaker 00

  Yes. Yeah, exactly. And interestingly, when you listen to Andre Agassi's story, he, you know, he admittedly kind of goes off the rails at one point in time during the height, almost the height of his career. And he then contemplated, and then he goes down in the ranks and he essentially has this kind of um, come to Jesus moment where he connects to the meaning of him playing tennis and that that meaning was actually around the possibility of doing a greater service to, um, actually to the philanthropic work he now does.

• 57:55Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 57:56Speaker 00

  And so it was the moment there that he connected to, um, you know, something bigger than myself, rather than being driven by the threat of failure. So being, rather than being driven by the whip, um, we're now being driven by values-aligned behaviours. Does that make sense?

• 58:14Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 58:15Speaker 00

  Yeah. Yeah.

• 58:17Speaker 03

  No one chooses their parents or their sporting coaches as a kid. And I feel like there's be a lot of adults who are stuck with this shame and don't know what to do with it. Um, so what can you do as an adult for yourself and also will only benefit any children that you happen to, to fall into your care at any point?

• 58:39Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 58:39Speaker 03

  So what can you do once you're?

• 58:41Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 58:41Speaker 03

  Once you're in this position?

• 58:42Speaker 00

  You know, I think that there are some really well, um, well-discovered and well-named resources and intervention strategies that we can use. But the first, and it will sound so boring, and I feel like a bit of a broken record when I say this, the first is we have to know it's here. So it's about being able to identify when I'm getting, when I'm being almost like attacked with a shame.

• 59:08Speaker 03

  Name it, detain it?

• 59:09Speaker 00

  Yes. But, but even before, yeah, even before we use language, actually it's often the body. So because, because shame is such a full, um, I think Brené Brown calls it like a full body contact emotion, um, or a full contact emotion, it's, it's often felt very profoundly, very obviously in the body, sometimes more so than other sorts of emotions. So if you imagine like the moments that you felt shame, where do you think that shows up in the body? Or what's the feeling in the body?

• 59:39Speaker 02

  Gosh.

• 59:39Speaker 03

  Yeah, gosh.

• 59:40Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 59:41Speaker 03

  I have hands and arms everywhere. But I feel, often I feel like tingling, like tingling in the hands or something as well. Yeah.

• 59:51Speaker 00

  Yeah. So I will share with you that the other day I had a shame moment, um, when someone questioned how much travelling I was doing and whether this was, um, taking away from time with my children. And when I heard the comment, it felt like a soccer punch, like a punch right in the gut. And I actually audibly went, oh.

• 1:00:15Speaker 00

  It was involuntary and I didn't have any other responses other than in that moment feeling again, like my unwanted identity is bad mum.

• 1:00:24Speaker 01

  Hmm.

• 1:00:25Speaker 00

  And that's where I went. I went travelling, time away from kids, bad mum.

• 1:00:30Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 1:00:30Speaker 00

  And immediately soccer punch in the gut.

• 1:00:33Speaker 02

  Soccer punch?

• 1:00:34Speaker 00

  Is that the right word?

• 1:00:35Speaker 02

  Soccer, maybe soccer punch. But soccer is.

• 1:00:37Speaker 00

  Is it? All this time I thought it was soccer.

• 1:00:40Speaker 01

  Oh yeah, it's a soccer punch. It's a soccer punch.

• 1:00:42Speaker 00

  Really?

• 1:00:43Speaker 02

  We call it soccer. I knew what you meant. We all knew what you meant.

• 1:00:45Speaker 01

  I don't know what soccer.

• 1:00:46Speaker 02

  Soccer ball in the gut.

• 1:00:47Speaker 00

  I was thinking like a literal soccer ball into my gush.

• 1:00:50Speaker 01

  In that case, it's right.

• 1:00:51Speaker 02

  Yep, in that case, that's what you're thinking.

• 1:00:53Speaker 01

  It's a less used phrase, but it's correct.

• 1:00:57Speaker 00

  I'm hoping to learning. I'm not going to feel shameful. That can be a trigger for me.

• 1:01:00Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:01:01Speaker 00

  That's so funny. Also unwanted identity, dumb.

• 1:01:04Speaker 01

  Oh.

• 1:01:04Speaker 00

  Definitely. Yes, definitely. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 1:01:08Speaker 02

  So I didn't mean to soccer punch your soccer punch.

• 1:01:11Speaker 00

  This is so good. So now I'm talking about, I'm not going to feel shameful about it. Um, but yeah, in that moment, felt a very literal like sense of like literally feeling punched in the gut. And an audible sigh comes out of my mouth. Um, and yes, in that micro moment there, it, it totally identified this shame, this shame trigger.

• 1:01:33Speaker 01

  Hmm.

• 1:01:34Speaker 00

  Um, and I didn't really respond in the moment, um, with anger or actually even assertiveness. I just kind of, um, went a bit quiet mostly.

• 1:01:45Speaker 02

  Prote, sister.

• 1:01:45Speaker 00

  Mm hmm. Yeah. But then I will say that what I did do afterwards, um, was I said to my husband, I said, you know, I have to tell you, I just felt really hurt. It wasn't him that made the comment, by the way. Um, I felt really hurt by that comment and he gave me a hug and I was like, that, that to me helped me move with that shame.

• 1:02:10Speaker 02

  He's a shame, shame stripper too.

• 1:02:12Speaker 00

  Yeah, exactly. Um.

• 1:02:15Speaker 01

  Now we heard you the first time.

• 1:02:18Speaker 00

  Yeah. So that moment there was me speaking the shame with someone that I trusted. Okay. Um, and so it didn't take away the feeling. And this is the really important piece is that shame, like any emotion can act as information. We need to be wise about how we listen to it and how we respond to it. Okay. So the first is, um, really being able to tune into knowing it's here in the moment. And that's going to be most often the first thing is your physical sensations, like the soccer punch. Um, the feeling of hate often is a big one. The sense of shrinking or the sense of puffing up even.

• 1:03:02Speaker 00

  Um, and urging, like it can bring with it an urge for, um, you know, physical reactions, for example.

• 1:03:08Speaker 01

  Mm hmm.

• 1:03:09Speaker 00

  Um, so we really want to in some ways map our response to this feeling that's arising. That's the first thing. Do I have a language to know or do I have, um, and almost like an interior language to know that shame is here? That's the first thing.

• 1:03:25Speaker 01

  I'm, I'm going to do it in real time because I feel, I'm feeling that now. Cause what I just said to Hugh before, which was like, you've, we've, you've said it before, you've said that, you've already said that once, whatever I just said before, when you said the

• 1:03:35Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:03:36Speaker 01

  shame stripper. And then, then I felt immediately guilty that I was like, oh, that's, that's not a nice thing to say. He's like, you know, it's a joke. It's, it's whatever. And then I'm just like, said that. And then I felt guilty and then I started thinking, I'm mean to you. I'm a mean person.

• 1:03:50Speaker 00

  Oh.

• 1:03:50Speaker 01

  Like that, that's what I start. Cause I have that worry all the time whenever we have our, you know, banter. And I like, you know, you say something silly and then I'll, you know, whatever. But I, but then just to, just to name it, like I was, as you were describing those feelings and emotions and hate, I was feeling those exact same things as you were saying it. So just to say.

• 1:04:10Speaker 02

  Okay. Well, this is amazing.

• 1:04:12Speaker 01

  I'm not sorry though.

• 1:04:15Speaker 02

  This is an amazing example to work through because I was thinking the exact same thing after you said that, but in the opposite way. I was, I was noticing that I don't get in the slightest bit.

• 1:04:22Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:04:23Speaker 02

  Hurt or upset with that because I don't have, I don't have an unwanted identity about the fact that I'm not intelligent or not like what I say is, like I'm quite confident that I'm, I wasn't as a kid, but I'm quite confident that I'm an intelligent person. Not in, not in a booksman academic way, but I know that I'm, so that doesn't, making jokes about that wouldn't. Yeah.

• 1:04:43Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:04:43Speaker 00

  Hmm.

• 1:04:44Speaker 02

  No, just smut, smut. I've got smut, smut. So that, so you said that doesn't, it, it didn't trigger anything at all. I didn't feel anything. And I noticed I was like, I was like, I wonder why, just very quickly, as you're thinking, I was like, I wonder why that me being like, um, my joke shop and this podcast never affects me in the slightest.

• 1:05:01Speaker 01

  It's because I'm humiliated.

• 1:05:02Speaker 02

  Yeah. I don't, I just, I'm so confident in that. I don't have an unwanted, what is it again? Sorry.

• 1:05:07Speaker 00

  Unwanted identity.

• 1:05:07Speaker 02

  I don't have an unwanted identity around that. I'm so confident that's not me. There would be other things that I'd have unwanted.

• 1:05:14Speaker 01

  What is your unwanted identity now that on the subject? Just so I know.

• 1:05:18Speaker 02

  Just to not go there.

• 1:05:18Speaker 01

  Just to not go there.

• 1:05:20Speaker 00

  Well, you could start off with your wanted identities first of all. So like that, like some in it, when we're exploring this, because this is part of shame resilience is being able to name what your triggers are and, and naming what your wanted or unwanted identities are. So, um, they might be, sometimes they can be linked to your values. So if you think about, um, you know, your maybe core values, let's just say it's being caring, um, and, and maybe being creative, all that sort of stuff. When you're in violation of that, that might be an unwanted identity.

• 1:05:53Speaker 01

  Yeah. So this is the opposite of what you want.

• 1:05:55Speaker 00

  So being perceived as uncaring, that for me would be a shame moment. Yeah.

• 1:06:00Speaker 01

  Mm hmm. Hmm. Can you think of one?

• 1:06:02Speaker 02

  I've done so much work on nature on this. Like I don't, I feel pretty good.

• 1:06:06Speaker 01

  You're a psychologist. Yeah.

• 1:06:07Speaker 02

  Yes, my psychologist. I, I feel like I'm sure there are some, but I don't know what I have to say right now.

• 1:06:15Speaker 00

  Yep.

• 1:06:15Speaker 01

  Hmm.

• 1:06:16Speaker 00

  Well, I think what's important to note in there to really emphasize is that we're not trying to get rid of shame. Shame is very instructive and has the capacity to be really helpful. Um,

• 1:06:29Speaker 00

  with any, you know, in, in working with any unpleasant painful emotion, we can never stop them from happening or stop them from arising. They're part of being human. So the, the way we work with it is actually how we first of all notice and name that it's here. Um, explore it. So bring, we can bring a critical lens to this. Like what's my mind saying here about this? Or what does this feel reminiscent of? And often in shame, it will be reminiscent of a younger you. So when you're being triggered, it can be, um, a reminder of a little part of you

• 1:07:10Speaker 00

  that felt unworthy, that felt ostracized, that felt excluded or felt not good enough. And then, and this is the, um, well, there are two parts that are really hard, but they're the most important. And that is sharing and speaking the pain or the shame.

• 1:07:28Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 1:07:29Speaker 00

  And bringing on board compassion and empathy.

• 1:07:33Speaker 00

  So technically speaking, we could say that compassion and empathy are the antidotes to shame. And that shame cannot survive in the face of empathy and compassion.

• 1:07:44Speaker 01

  Hmm.

• 1:07:45Speaker 00

  But they're very tricky to do. Very, very tricky. Yeah.

• 1:07:49Speaker 01

  Did you bring compassion, empathy for yourself?

• 1:07:52Speaker 00

  Well, yes. And also when someone is sharing something with you too. Yeah.

• 1:07:57Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 1:07:57Speaker 00

  So because we can, so we can absolutely, and we know that when we share our shame with a trusted person, that that is a, a very helpful pathway to working with this and to moving with it and to developing a resilience around this emotion. But oftentimes you will be by yourself or oftentimes it's not just going to end after you've shared it. It's still getting activated. Um, and so how is it that we bring on board a compassionate response to this pain that's here? Um, and I will tell you that in the work that I do as a therapist, um, I can, I mean, shame is so, um, it is felt so viscerally when you're in the presence of it. Um, and in my early career,

• 1:08:41Speaker 00

  I used to kind of naively believe that if I offered someone enough nurturing or care or compassion, that that would take their shame away. And what I know now is that's not how it works. I can absolutely, um, uh, provide, um, a sense of safety, of nurturing, of compassion and kindness, but it's not the only ingredient that's needed to help someone shift particularly long-term held, deeply engraved shame experiences. Um, we need to go to another level there where at some point in time,

• 1:09:19Speaker 00

  through a number of different pathways, that individual is able also to take on their own self-compassion.

• 1:09:27Speaker 01

  Hmm.

• 1:09:28Speaker 00

  Me giving them is not always going to be enough.

• 1:09:32Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:09:32Speaker 00

  It's genuinely in my experience, particularly with childhood sexual abuse, complex PTSD. Me offering a warm, nurturing, safe place is simply not enough.

• 1:09:43Speaker 01

  Mm hmm.

• 1:09:43Speaker 00

  But I guess even in saying this, I really want to emphasize that it's, that working with shame, particularly for in the place of trauma, is not a, there's no quick, simple fix here.

• 1:09:55Speaker 01

  And, and, and also just like that, that for a lot of people listening who've like lived with shame for a long time, that's probably a really hard thing to hear.

• 1:10:05Speaker 00

  It, yeah, I think it is really hard. And I think, uh, like.

• 1:10:11Speaker 00

  It makes me emotional because for so many of the clients that I have worked with in the past, and you see the shame, you see the shame, and all you want to do is just take it away from them, but you can't do that. You can't do that. And yes, this is a long process. It's absolutely doable, but there is no quick fix, there's no quick pathway from a place of not feeling worthy, from a place of not feeling good enough, to feeling suddenly good enough. It is a absolutely doable process, but it certainly takes time and it's complex. It's complex work. So I just want to give a really big,

• 1:10:55Speaker 00

  important empathic nod to those that are struggling there with this, you know, deeply held, what we might call a defectiveness schema. So the belief that I am somehow defective and therefore unworthy of love, it's just a really hard pathway to tread.

• 1:11:14Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:11:15Speaker 02

  Can I, can I, because I always feel the need, especially as like any episode we do, I always want people to have something they can go away and just try. Like, because I feel like people who resonate with this are going, yep, this is something that I want to work on and I want to start now. I just heard this, there's an NBA basketball talk in this interview, talks about this exercise he does every day. And I feel like it would be so powerful. My first thought was, gosh, this would be really good to deal with shame. Can I play it to you? And we may not put this in the final episode, but just play it to you and then, and then you can talk about it if you think it's a good activity.

• 1:11:47Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:11:48Speaker 02

  So for context, this is an NBA basketball, he's actually a Maori New Zealander called Stephen Adams. And I just heard him do this. He's an incredible man.

• 1:11:58Speaker 01

  Wonderful man.

• 1:11:59Speaker 02

  If you, to get a sense of him, there's all this footage, you can look at videos of him making sure people don't hurt themselves during a game of basketball. Like when someone's about to fall over, opposition, he'll catch them. He's such a big man. He's one of the biggest men in the world.

• 1:12:11Speaker 01

  I would love to have him here. Like if anyone listening knows how we could get Stephen Adams on the podcast, please come forward now.

• 1:12:17Speaker 02

  We will, we would happily like redo our door so he could fit in. We're so happy to do that. But yeah, this is him talking about an activity that he came across. It's on a New Zealand podcast, a brilliant podcast with two guys. Their podcast is called Between Two Beers. And I sat down and spoke to Stephen Adams and he said this, which I think was just so beautiful. And I thought it's a trans video here.

• 1:12:40Speaker 03

  That's okay.

• 1:12:42Speaker 02

  That is okay. Hang on.

• 1:12:43Speaker 04

  It's like technique. I don't even know where I got it from, bro. But I just started doing it randomly. All I did was I write down exactly how I feel and it's just raw emotions. And like, whatever it is, the word, bro, I'm just writing it down. Even if it's like a, not even a fully made sentence, it doesn't even have to make sense. But I put that all down. And then what I do is just like, I'll stop and I'll reread it and then I'll respond in a different font, like a different color, sorry, different color. The one that I read, the raw emotion, I imagine that as like a 10 year old Stephen. And then my response is an adult Stephen. So then I'll do more of like, okay, this one's like going crazy. Again, that's more like the self hate, like, oh, you suck and blah, blah,

• 1:13:27Speaker 04

  blah. The response is more, bro, I'm actually really proud that you acknowledged this, this and that. I understand this is a stressful moment. You're doing a good job. It's like I'm giving advice to an actual kid. Because it's something that you actually do. Because a lot of us, we probably would, like if your mate comes to you and asks you for advice, you'd be very, very nice to that person. Same scenario for yourself, you probably won't, you know, because it's just, I don't know, just how the brain works, I guess. Yeah, it's kind of like that. I just like remove myself and like I'm talking to a younger Stephen.

• 1:13:58Speaker 01

  Right or wrong? Dr. Emily decides.

• 1:14:03Speaker 00

  Oh, look, I think that's such a, I mean, it's so beautiful to hear that. It feels, it's very moving. But I think, you know, he's absolutely talking about this notion that we have the potential and the capacity to bring on board what's called this healthy adult. The healthy adult that is, that is able to regulate emotion, that is able to see things clearly, that is able to be flexible and compassionate. And that that healthy adult can come on board to soothe the younger part of you that is feeling so shameful.

• 1:14:36Speaker 01

  I think that, and it's also actually really nice, the way that he puts it when, if someone else came to you for advice. Because even if, even if now as an adult, you don't feel, you still feel in, in the mud and you still feel like you're not that much, you know, you're not through all the stuff you were dealing with as a child. You're still able to give, to, to rise to the occasion for someone else. Yeah.

• 1:15:00Speaker 00

  Yeah. I will say that the, and I've spoken about compassion before. And so I probably encourage anyone who's interested to go and have a listen to that episode, because it talks about this much more specifically. But what tends to happen with compassion, when you've not experienced much of it as a child, and then someone gives it to you, it is not met with the same response that someone who has had a very compassionately held life. So what it will do is often reveal pain. And actually, there will be a painful response to the compassion. Okay. Because it's revealing what I've not had ever. And

• 1:15:42Speaker 00

  so in some ways, it can, it can give over to a grief, to what I've never experienced or never had. It's called technically, the term is backdraft. And it's akin to the firefighting principles. I'm sure I've mentioned this before. So if there's a fire in a house and you open the door, the oxygen flames the fire, right? So it's like when you open the door with compassion, it flames the pain that's already here. Now, that's not necessarily wrong or bad. It's actually just revealing the pain. But it's not going to feel necessarily good. It's going to feel like you're not going to like it or want it. And you might want to push it away. So it might sound like, Emily, you're having a really hard time.

• 1:16:26Speaker 00

  The internal dialogue might be something like, what are you talking about?

• 1:16:30Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:16:31Speaker 00

  Like you're not having a really time. Like other people have got it worse than you. So it kind of can, can activate that critic that is going to not allow you to take on the full feeling of a loving kindness, for example. Does that make sense?

• 1:16:47Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:16:48Speaker 00

  So that's why it's just not as simple to say, be kind to yourself. It's much more complicated. But there are some incredible resources that are available to help with developing like a compassionate mind and a compassionate lens, to help that healthy adult come on board to soothe the part that's feeling so deeply defective or abandoned or shameful. And I want to give a big nod here to Paul Gilbert, who is the founder and developer of Compassion Focused Therapy, and also to Kristin Neff and Christopher Germer, who are the founders and researchers around mindful self compassion. They have

• 1:17:32Speaker 00

  great online programs, incredible research that they've conducted. And that at the bottom of everything, what we know is that compassion doesn't lead to laziness and indulgence and inaction. Compassion actually leads to productivity, to creativity, to much, much better outcomes. Rather than that whip that we've got, that is, you know, tending to attempt to drive us forward.

• 1:18:00Speaker 01

  We'll link to all of that stuff.

• 1:18:02Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:18:03Speaker 01

  In the show notes. Yep.

• 1:18:04Speaker 00

  Yep.

• 1:18:05Speaker 03

  I also want to give a shout out to myself here.

• 1:18:07Speaker 01

  Hey, Josh.

• 1:18:09Speaker 03

  And our subscriber show, because we recently, Bridge and I have started a new show called A Little More Questions. And we talk.

• 1:18:19Speaker 01

  Within, this is within A Little More Imperfects on Patreon or Apple Podcasts. You can subscribe.

• 1:18:22Speaker 03

  Yeah. And in the first ever episode, we spoke to Maria Roberto, and we went into compassion focused therapy a little bit and talked about its benefits and how incredible it is. And exactly what you're just saying. So there's more there on that if you want to hear it.

• 1:18:36Speaker 00

  Yeah, wonderful. I will also note that shame is such a huge, huge topic. And there's so much that I haven't spoken about today. And so maybe I might carry that over into another channel.

• 1:18:48Speaker 01

  We'll do shame the sequel. Shame resurfaced. Coming soon. Thank you, Em.

• 1:18:56Speaker 02

  Yeah, well done. I feel like, as you just said, it's a huge topic. And it's, I think, yeah, I think you've done such a great job of trying to condense as much as you can helpful stuff into, into what is really a short space of time, considering the topic. So thanks, Em.

• 1:19:09Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:19:10Speaker 01

  Thanks, Em. Great to see you. Let's catch up again soon.

• 1:19:13Speaker 00

  Indeed.

• 1:19:14Speaker 03

  If you love this episode with Dr. Em, then there's a little bit more of it on our subscriber show, A Little More Imperfects.

• 1:19:21Speaker 00

  Experiencing shame is not always a function of someone shaming us. Shame, particularly in adulthood, is often more likely an echo from the past.

• 1:19:31Speaker 03

  Which you can find at patreon.com/theimperfects or in the Apple Podcast app. And if you'd like to join our newsletter, you can do so at theimperfects.com.au. And while you're there, you'll be able to see the names and faces of all the incredible people who help make this show. A show made on the lands of the Wurundjeri Wurundjeri people, and we pay our respects to elders past and present. The Imperfects is not a licensed mental health service and is not a substitute for professional mental health advice, treatment or assessment. The advice given in this episode is general in nature, but if you're struggling, please see a healthcare professional or call Lifeline on 13 11 14.