Overcoming Toxic Shame

Welcome to the Overcoming Sexual Abuse podcast where you get the tools and inspiration to help you overcome childhood sexual abuse. I’m your host, Christina Enevoldsen, certified coach, author and incest survivor, and I’m here to help you heal and live your very best life!

Toxic shame and abuse go hand in hand. I’ll share the purpose of shame, the difference between healthy shame and toxic shame, and how it comes in. Because chances are, if you have toxic shame, you’re vulnerable to more shame. I’ll help you process the shame you’re carrying and protect yourself from more coming in.

Before we talk about shame, we need to talk about equal value. All humans are equally valuable simply for existing. We don’t have to do anything to earn our value and we can’t do anything to lose our value. That’s a model of the world that makes it impossible for abuse to happen.

Abuse is the assertion, “I’m more valuable than you are so I have a right to do this to you.” That’s likely not overtly spoken but the act of abuse implies that and victims understand that message very well.

In abuse, there’s no paradigm for equal value. There is only under or over someone else. And value isn’t inherent, it’s earned and lost.

When people deny inherent (and equal) value, they replace it with a system of superiority and inferiority. A hierarchy of value determines who is first in line to be loved or treated with honor. Value is viewed as a limited resource and must be earned, competed for, fought for or stolen. You have to DO or HAVE something to become worthy:

• money or possessions
• appearance
• knowledge or intelligence
• skin color, race or ethnicity
• authority or position
• strength or size
• talent or skill
• achievement

In this system of earned value, it’s survival to believe that something you do or have increases or decreases your worth–the more you work, suffer, sacrifice, take care of others, fix something about yourself, achieve, accumulate, or know, the more worthy, important, and valuable.

As children, we don’t yet have a solid sense of ourselves. We’re particularly sensitive to the values and judgments of our parents.

Any society works because people follow certain expected standards or ideals of behavior. Healthy shame is what keeps your place within society and creates an environment that offers stability and a sense of certainty.

We are wired to be sensitive to and to adapt to the standards. Usually, that’s a good thing. An example of that is running naked. As a child, you likely didn’t think anything of running around without clothes and you didn’t care who saw you. As you get older, you develop a healthy shame that restrains you from exposing yourself to everyone. That’s because of our cultural norms.

Each group of people has its own standards or ideals. What a group values are not necessarily right or wrong, good or bad. They are simply a reflection of what is important to those groups of people.

Shame is triggered when you sense you’re not accepted or you fear you won’t be accepted. It’s the warning that your place in the tribe could be at risk . That’s terrifying because throughout human history, belonging to a group has been necessary for survival. Added to the danger, until our very recent past, there was very little chance of being accepted into another group. So shame has served an important part of both individual survival and the survival of our species.

Because shame has been a vital tool for survival, shame is one of the most intense emotions. When you experience shame, you might believe that that intensity of the shame reflects the intensity of your defectiveness or  unworthiness. However, the truth is, the intensity of the shame you sense is only a reflection of your desire to belong.

Shame senses the disapproval of the group, necessary for survival, Shame tells you there’s something you must say or do to regain acceptance.

Healthy shame may feel all encompassing, as though you are completely bad but it’s only addressing a part of you.

Standards or ideals are important for a community of people but become destructive when they are used as a way to rate a person’s value. That’s when it becomes toxic.

Toxic shame comes, not from doing something wrong, but from the sense that there is something wrong with you.

It can come from someone else doing something wrong to you. being devalued. Love is withdrawn from you and that disconnection feels bad so you think you’re bad. You feel worthless or defective.

With healthy shame, there’s an action you can take to redeem yourself but with toxic shame, you are inherently unacceptable and unlovable. There’s nothing you can do to rid yourself of the shame so you stay on a hamster wheel, trying and trying but never quite earning the status of “worthy”.

An adaptive response to toxic shame is to cover it or earn acceptance another way such as appearing the smartest, strongest, prettiest, richest, most fun or most helpful. Those are based on earned value, and since they aren’t based on the truth, those masks eventually become heavy burdens.

No matter the form of abuse—emotional, verbal, physical, sexual—the main weapon is toxic shame. Shame tells you there is something wrong with you at your core.

There are passive and active origins of toxic shame:

Passive:

• neglect
• inattention
• non-responsiveness
• unavailable care-giver
• absent care-giver
• distracted care-giver

Active:

ridicule

berating mockingphysical abusesexual abuse

The belief in your inferiority came from someone else. Someone mistreated you and you thought it was about you. You thought it meant you were somehow defective or deserving of it.

It makes sense you might think you could feel better about yourself through someone else or through some other external thing.

But the work of lifting shame is internal work on your own thoughts and beliefs. As long as you focus on external ways to earn your sense of worth, you remain in a perpetual cycle of “never enough”.

Ideals can serve you when you use them as aspirations. They can enslave you when you use them as required achievements. Do you say these things to yourself:

“If only I ________________________, then I’d love myself.”

“If only I___________________, I’d consider myself important.”

“I only deserve love if I ____________________________.”

“I’ll be worthy if I _______________________________.”

Can you imagine withholding your love from your child? Would you tell your own child he or she isn’t valuable unless they earn it?

What are you saying to your inner child? Do you think it’s any less harmful if you withhold love from yourself?

When Don and I moved to L.A., we joined a group that had an orientation for people new to the city. I was 39 and even though I looked 29 and had a healthy looking body, I felt old and fat. In a city of beautiful people, I felt like I didn’t belong. I felt like people were pointing at me, whispering, “What is SHE doing here in OUR city?”

At that newcomer’s orientation, the person running the meeting said something that was shocking to me: “Everyone here feels like a poser.” She said that the entertainment industry is run on insecurity.

I started to look around and see it. People pour in from all around the country and the world. They want to be famous or rich to cover for the feelings that they aren’t enough. It’s an attempt to hide or distract from feeling worthless and defective. The gloss and glamour are all a facade.

That was eye opening for me but I was still full of shame. I was afraid to let my own facade slip for fear that I’d show how unworthy I was. Other people only felt unworthy; I actually was unworthy.

We lived in L.A. seven years and the last year or so was rough. We ended up losing just about every material thing we owned and had to sleep on the floor of our friends’ one bedroom apartment.

I’d been covering my shame by wearing the right clothes, driving the right car and living in the right zip code. I couldn’t pretend anymore. I was completely exposed. On top of that, my marriage was in trouble and I received notice that my parents were suing me.

Everything felt like it was stripped away, I felt like the rest of the world was going on with life, happy and successful. I imagined people passing me, gawking at me in judgment, saying, “You don’t deserve to be anywhere but where you are. You’re being punished for pretending to be one of us.”

At my lowest, I had a life changing moment. I had a vision of myself in a kind of underbelly of the world. It was FULL of people who were in just as much pain as me.

They weren’t trying to cover everything up, claiming they were fine. They weren’t pretending to be anywhere but right where we all were. There was just raw vulnerability and authenticity. It was a comforting sense that we are all in this together.

Without our habitual facades, there wasn’t any separating us. We could just be present in this shared experience. I felt such a connection with them.

That felt sense of connection transformed the pain. I still had the sensation of pain but I didn’t feel like I needed to escape it. It felt tolerable and even meaningful.

I saw something else. Those people I felt so connected with were the parts of people still walking around in the world, trying to appear perfect, fearing exposure, fearing not belonging, covering it with so many pretty distractions. And I felt so much compassion for those people who still thought they needed to pretend. They didn’t know that real belonging comes from being real. They didn’t know that when they showed their imperfections, they could be loved for who they are.

I began to connect with people in their pain, even if they weren’t directly expressing it. Even if they were still trying to hide it. I want to say to them, “You’re worthy of being loved exactly the way you are.”

Shame feels as though you’re all alone and nobody else experiences it. Whoever your group is, you might think, “They’re not broken in this way.” And the sense that you’re somehow not part of the human family is excruciating.

Actually, shame is a common human experience that everyone feels. That means shame is the feeling of being separated, but it actually binds us together. Shame connects us because we all want to belong.

When I read this, pay attention to how your mind, emotions and body respond:

Every human is 100% worth and 100% lovable.

I am already as worthy and lovable as possible. My worthiness is already at capacity.

There’s nothing I can do to add to my value or take away from it. There is nothing I have ever done to become less worthy or less lovable.

I have the same worthiness if my parents were unspeakably abusive or if my parents cherished me.

If I lost all my money and all my friends, I’m still worthy. If I cheat on my spouse I’m still worthy.

No matter what my parents told me, no matter what other kids told me, no matter what the teacher told me, no matter what my boss told me, I am, and always have been, 100% worthy.

Better looking can’t increase my worthiness. Skinnier can’t. Richer can’t. Smarter can’t. More generous can’t increase my worthiness.

Changing what I do will never make me more “good enough” than I already am. I am already good enough and there is nothing I can do to increase or decrease that. I am enough.

What did you notice in your body?

What did you notice in your emotions?

What did you notice in your mind?

What specific line(s) resonated with you?

What specific line(s) did you resist?

You can use that to gauge where you’re at. We’re not going to try to convince the brain of anything. The more you try to convince, the more it resists.

As I read this again, adding “What if” to each statement, pay attention to how your mind, emotions and body respond:

What if every human is 100% worthy and 100% lovable?

What if I am already as worthy and lovable as possible? What if my worthiness is already at capacity?

What if there’s nothing I can do to add to my value or take away from it? What if there is nothing I have ever done to become less worthy or less lovable?

What if I have the same worthiness if my parents were unspeakably abusive or if my parents cherished me?

What if I lost all my money and all my friends and I’m still worthy? What If I cheat on my spouse and I’m still worthy?

What if no matter what my parents told me, no matter what other kids told me, no matter what the teacher told me, no matter what my boss told me, I am, and always have been, 100% worthy?

What if better looking can’t increase my worthiness? What if skinnier can’t? What if richer can’t? What if smarter can’t? What if more generous can’t increase my worthiness?

What if changing what I do will never make me more “good enough” than I already am? What if I am already good enough and there is nothing I can do to increase or decrease that? What if I am enough?

Did you notice anything different?

What did you notice in your body?

What did you notice in your emotions?

What did you notice in your mind?

What specific line(s) resonated with you?

What specific line(s) did you resist?

As I was dealing with toxic shame, there were three things that it helped to tell myself:

• I accept that I’m human. (I make mistakes and learn from them.)
• I accept that I belong with other imperfect humans.
• I accept that life involves both joy and pain.

During experiences of shame, you can support yourself:

•  Name the emotion, “I feel shame”. You might also acknowledge to yourself, “This is painful,” or “This is difficult.” or “I want to belong.” or “I don’t feel like I belong.” Allowing yourself to name it begins to relieve that suffering. Creating this space around it can help you deal with it in the same way that a loved one paying attention to you can.
• The second step is reminding yourself of common humanity. It’s acknowledging that you aren’t alone. Say to yourself, “I am not alone in this. I am not the only one.” Or, “This is part of what it means to be human and this connects me to all other humans who also know what it’s like to feel left out.” Ask, “How does this experience connect me to others? How can I use this experience to connect with others?”

Thanks for joining me today. Remember to collect your free Healing Breakthroughs guide that’s a workbook and journal to take you through the steps to set you up to heal. To download that for free, go to the show notes page at overcomingsexualabuse.com/003.

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