Understanding Shame, Especially When Triggered by Loved Ones
This week’s guest is Denita Bremer. She identifies herself as the Shame Coach for Christian women. Denita shares the personal story of her mom’s abortion and how it affects her personal life and beliefs and coaching practice. Her coaching tools are a simple solution to get you out of feeling like you are never enough, because they look at the root cause: your thoughts and beliefs.
Visit her website at: https://denitabremer.com/
Show Notes:
1:16 Denita’s Introduction
1:42 When the “I’m not good enough” thought is one of the first to pop up
2:09 Mom had an abortion as a teenager before she was born, Denita shares her story of finding out and her adult perspective of her mom’s experience
7:13 Parallel mother daughter experiences
9:12 When shame interrupts how you function, especially with family
9:21 “A lot of emotions can escalate and turn into anxiety or anger if you ignore the actual shame”
9:35 “My guess is that a lot of people walking around in the world are operating out of shame; it looks like anger and frustration because that feels more powerful to us”
10:53 “first step is naming whatever emotion it is, and naming it; there can be layers”
11:19 “The first step is always letting yourself be in the negative emotion. Not judging it, not trying to push it away, not resisting it, not buffering away from it, not numbing out…”
12:47 “Sometimes it’s easier to notice thoughts; it’s harder to recognize the belief system.”
13:24 “We don’t think of the questions to question our own brain, because our brain is producing it.”
13:58 “I think there are only about 5 core emotions”
14:18 “I find that shame, and embarrassment, and inadequacy, and guilt, they’re all slightly different but very related”
15:20 Permission to Feel- Mark Brackett, nuances between emotions
16:19 “What’s the sentence that goes with your feeling?”
17:15 How do emotions show up in our body?
18:30 What are the things that drive people beyond shame?
18:39 Brene Brown on Shame
18:58 “Shame is rooted in how you identify yourself” “Guilt is I’ve done something wrong” “Shame is I am wrong for doing that”
19:51 “I was so tired of judging myself and feeling bad about myself”
20:03 “I think it’s human to want to live in your authenticity and be you”
20:27 “I’m too broken for that; I’m beyond that”
21:41 The vision of what’s possible is what drives you to move through it
22:02 “Shame is almost a wedge between you and yourself… underneath that is a drive”
22:58 When shame interferes with celebration. Fear that other people can see and feel your shame
23:50 “My first step is always to process your feelings” “name is, then get in your body and describe it”
24:54 “The second step is to try to figure out, why am I feeling this way, without judging it”
25:24 “As soon as you can recognize it as a thought then you have power over it”
26:22 “There’s always a good reason that our brain gives us for every thought, every feeling, every action”
27:29 “Process your feeling, see where it’s coming from, then you get to decide”
28:10 “The decision is where your power comes from”
28:33 “We can make a plan, equip ourselves ahead of time for what we anticipate will come up”
29:50 “The feelings are just vibrations in our body”
30:07 “If the shame wasn’t there, what would you want to do?”
30:41 “Now the true me have some shame, or some anxiety, or some fear coming along for the ride”
31:48 “Everyone gets to have their own thoughts and feelings and they don’t have to mean anything about me”
33:15 “Anticipate some of the things that might trigger you and decide ahead of time what you’re going to do”
34:31 “Self-judgement is so human” Separate the primal part of you from the cognitive part of you
35:52 “I’m Christian and I live in this very anti-abortion world, and then I have this mom who had an abortion”
36:56 “Whatever has happened in the past or even whatever happens in the future… nobody gets to tell you that wasn’t the right thing for you”
37:41 “Being able to suspend judgement is such an amazing skill”
39:50 “Judgements are all just thoughts”
