What’s holding you back from living life to the fullest? How can you break free from the grip of toxic shame that keeps you stuck in negative patterns?
Overcoming toxic shame is a transformative journey that begins with awareness and leads to genuine connection with yourself and others. In Healing the Shame That Binds You, John Bradshaw provides practical steps to release shame’s hold on you and embrace authentic living.
Read more to learn how to overcome toxic shame with Bradshaw’s strategies.
Overcoming Toxic Shame
Bradshaw explains that, since toxic shame subconsciously controls us and manifests itself covertly, the key to overcoming it is being consciously aware of it, expressing it openly, and gaining connection with and autonomy over our true self. When you acknowledge and express your toxic shame, you dismantle its hiding place inside you, forcing it to evacuate. Once shame is externalized rather than internalized, it loses its power over you and you’re able to make changes that will allow you to live a happy and fulfilling life.
We’ll discuss Bradshaw’s advice on how to overcome toxic shame and achieve fulfillment in life.
| Combating Shame In I Thought It Was Just Me (but it isn’t), Brown argues that practicing empathy toward ourselves and others is the key to overcoming shame. Empathy has three components: 1) having the courage to be vulnerable, 2) having compassion for yourself and others, and 3) forming genuine connections with others. Brown’s methods of developing these three components align with Bradshaw’s methods of combating shame: Become aware of your shame, express it openly, and reconnect with yourself and others. However, she adds another crucial factor for overcoming shame: developing a critical awareness of it. Having a critical awareness of your shame means understanding why the sources of your shame are deemed shameful in society, how they impact society, who’s impacted most, and who benefits. This will teach you that most sources of shame are unfairly demonized and stem from unrealistic expectations that harm one group to benefit another. For example, shame over skin imperfections largely exists due to images of models with unrealistically perfect skin being praised in the media. This makes people want perfect skin and seek out cosmetics to achieve these results. This harms normal people with normal skin and benefits companies selling cosmetics. |
Phase 1: Externalizing Shame
According to Bradshaw, the first phase of healing shame is confronting it and sharing it with others. When we do so, we overcome the two biggest factors that allow shame to control us—the urge to hide it and the belief that it makes us inherently flawed.
Bradshaw explains that the first step of this phase is expressing your shame in your closest intimate relationships—sharing your shame with your partner, friends, and family members who love you unconditionally. This step is essential because your toxic shame was formed by your closest intimate relationships (with your caregivers), and therefore it must be healed by relationships of the same intimacy level. This will teach you that you are a worthy, lovable person regardless of your shame—there’s no need to hide it anymore.
The second step of this phase is forming a connection with a higher power—this can be God, the universe, or any force you believe in. Bradshaw says that forming a loving relationship with your higher power teaches you that only God is perfect—as a human, you make mistakes that are natural and forgivable by God. This shows you that mistakes don’t make you bad, they make you human.
(Shortform note: In Seeking Wisdom, Julia Cameron explains that the first step in forming a supportive relationship with a higher power is forming your own unique “God concept.” This is crucial because many people’s concept of God is one that was imposed upon them and is stifling rather than supportive. To form your God concept, consider all the attributes you think a loving, supporting, all-powerful being would have—what do they look like, act like, and talk like? What kinds of things would they enjoy doing and what characteristics would they have?)
The third step of this phase is connecting with a non-shaming support group of people who have experienced toxic shame. Bradshaw explains that for many people, joining Alcoholics Anonymous’s 12-step program is highly effective. The program heals addiction, and since toxic shame is the root of addiction, says Bradshaw, the steps heal toxic shame as well.
| Actionables for Identifying & Talking About Shame In I Thought It Was Just Me (but it isn’t), Brown reiterates the importance of acknowledging your shame and sharing it with others and provides some additional advice to help demystify the process. For example, before you can talk about your shame, you need to clearly identify it. One way Brown recommends doing so is by making a list of identities you value and identities you find shameful—for example, you value being seen as powerful and feel afraid of being seen as weak. This indicates that you need to focus on overcoming shame surrounding things that make you feel weak—for example, asking for help or being wrong. Further, Brown reiterates the importance of sharing shame in both intimate relationships and public settings; however, she adds that before you can do so, you need to learn how to effectively talk about shame and how to properly connect with others. To effectively talk about shame, explain 1) the identity that causes you shame, 2) how it makes you feel, 3) why it makes you feel that way, and 4) what kind of support you need. For example, “I feel ashamed of things like asking for help because it makes me feel weak. This happens because I was always belittled as a child when I needed attention or assistance from my parents. It would be really helpful to me if you could be there to listen and support me in areas that I struggle in.” To effectively connect with others, Brown says you need to be willing to do more than talk about your shame—you need to be willing to listen to others talk about their experiences and pain as well. This can be uncomfortable and many people avoid it, but avoidance prevents you from forming a genuine connection. You should also be willing to speak up when you see someone being unfairly shamed. Those based in the US can put these tactics into practice by finding a nearby AA meeting or contacting a local Mental Health America affiliate to find a support group, as Bradshaw recommends. |
Phase 2: Healing Your Wounds
Bradshaw explains that the second phase of overcoming toxic shame is to heal the wounds of your past that caused your toxic shame to form. There are three steps to doing so.
Step 1: Identify & Grieve Your Childhood Trauma
The first step in healing your wounds is to identify and grieve the childhood trauma that formed your toxic shame and gave rise to your shame-based behaviors—your shame barriers, false selves, and shamelessness tactics. Revisiting these traumas and feeling the pain they caused allows you to mentally process them and release their grief—they will continue to produce toxic shame as long as your grief remains internalized and unprocessed.
Bradshaw says the following factors must be present to process your grief: 1) validation that the trauma was real, 2) support, 3) emotional expression of trauma-related feelings like anger or loneliness, and 4) corrective experiences that fulfill the childhood needs which your trauma denied you. We’ll discuss how to do that in the next step.
Step 2: Discover & Support Your Inner Child
Step two in healing your wounds is to identify your unfulfilled childhood needs and determine how to fulfill them as an adult. This often requires you to build relationships with people who can help you fulfill these needs. For example, if you had a caregiver who never showed interest in you, you would benefit from having a relationship with someone who asks you about yourself and your interests and shows their interest in hearing your answers. These practices can also happen in support groups.
According to Bradshaw, one of the best ways to support your inner child is to rewrite shameful childhood experiences using Neuro-Linguistic Programming (NLP). NLP is a system of tools that help you understand how your brain works so you can rewrite past memories (like trauma) in order to alter your brain function and affect positive thoughts, feelings, and behaviors in the present. Essentially, Bradshaw’s use of this practice is to change how you perceive past traumas so they don’t produce shame and cause you to engage in shame-based behaviors.
Step 3: Nurture Your Self & Lose Your Shame
The final step to healing your wounds is reintegrating the shame-based parts of your identity that you’ve hidden and overcoming your shame-based behaviors.
Bradshaw says that to do so, you must first identify the internalized parts of your personality that you feel shame over—the parts that cause your shame-based behaviors—and learn to accept these selves. First, embracing these selves lessens their ability to control you because their control comes from your desire to hide them. Second, familiarizing yourself with these hidden selves allows you to recognize when they’re being triggered so you can gain control over yourself and your behavior before they do.
Next, you must help these shamed hidden selves become rational by de-escalating the shame-based thoughts, feelings, and behaviors they spark when triggered. One way to do this is to say the thoughts or urges of the hidden self out loud—saying a thought out loud often releases it from your mind. You can also replace these shame-based thoughts with positive ones using affirmations. For example, if your body-conscious hidden part is telling you not to eat, you can use an affirmation like “my body is strong and food is fuel.”
Finally, love yourself, including your flaws, and forgive yourself for your mistakes. One way Bradshaw says to practice self-love is to tap into the love you feel for someone else, then direct that love toward yourself and hold it there for a few minutes of concentrated focus. A method you can use for self-forgiveness is to think of your mistakes as lessons for the future rather than calamities—consider what you can learn, what you can do differently, and so on.
Phase 3: Achieve Fulfillment
According to Bradshaw, the final part of healing from toxic shame is connecting with your authentic self and higher purpose in life—what he refers to as having a spiritual awakening. Connecting with your authentic self facilitates a spiritual awakening because it allows you to receive guidance toward your destiny from a higher power. Bradshaw says that this happens because your authentic self is directly created by the higher power—when you’re in touch with yourself, you’re in touch with your higher power by default.
Undergoing your spiritual awakening leads to a life of fulfillment and happiness because it ultimately allows you to go with the flow, without resistance or the need for control, and love yourself unconditionally. It also enhances your connection to the external world—you’ll be more fit to help others and able to form healthy and mutually nourishing relationships. Further, your lack of resistance will enable you to embrace the beauty of the world without negative feelings—this allows you to be more in tune with opportunities and signs from the universe (or higher power) that are meant for you.
Ultimately, the combination of these factors brings you happiness and guides you toward your higher purpose in life, which brings fulfillment. Living in this way is akin to swimming with the current rather than against it, nourishing your soul in the process.
Connect to Your Authentic Self
To achieve spiritual awakening, you must first connect to your authentic self; however, Bradshaw explains that our “self” isn’t just one thing. There are many different and sometimes opposing parts of us making this feat difficult to achieve. Truly connecting to your self requires you to acknowledge and embrace all of your parts—even the ones you dislike.
To do so, Bradshaw recommends exploring a mental exercise where you create an imaginary room tailored to your specific taste—decorations, music, and so on. In this room, you also include all your favorite versions of yourself—for example, the version that wants to be an astronaut, the version who loves to cook, and the version who’s a mother. Finally, envision the disliked versions of yourself and imagine they’re requesting access to the room—forgive them and let them inside. This room is a sanctuary for all parts of yourself to exist and be loved.
Bradshaw also recommends connecting to your purpose by reflecting on the following factors: the people that bring out your best self and make you happiest, the activities that energize you, your life dreams, the passions you feel in your heart, and the places where you feel like you belong most.
Exercise: Express Your Shame
Bradshaw says that one of the crucial elements in overcoming shame is expressing it outwardly with people you trust. In this exercise, we’ll identify who you can share with to get the process started.
- First, name two or three people who you trust and share mutual love with.
- Now, for each person, identify a source of shame you’ll share with them. For example, if you’re talking to your partner, an important source of shame you may want to share is your shame around asking for help—this is likely significant in a romantic relationship, since you’re so emotionally close and may even live together or share finances.
- Prepare a short statement that you could share with each person explaining your shame. You don’t actually have to use this statement, but preparing it will get you comfortable and help you think about what you want to say.
