Is there a relationship between our deepest, darkest secrets and self-worth? What should you do with old toxic shame? In this episode, I talk about the tendency to conceal or avoid certain memories and how shame erodes your self-worth. I give you a personal example of something that I carried with me for almost ten years, and how, within a matter of minutes, I was finally able to let it go. Learn how to acknowledge your past actions, come to terms with who you were (and who you are now), and use my 3-step tool to turn your darkest secret into something that can actually build self-worth.
transcript
So today we're gonna be talking about your deepest, darkest secrets, and I'm gonna be talking about my deepest, darkest secrets and how they actually work to either erode or you can use them to build self-worth. I know weird, but it does work so, When I'm talking about your deepest, darkest secrets, I'm talking about those things about yourself that maybe you don't want to remember. You don't want to claim. Maybe there was a time in your life where you did a little too much of something bad, or maybe not enough of something good, or maybe there was a time in your life where you did something that isn't quite moral or ethical. In your, you know, adult now or later on in life, or more mature standards for yourself. That's what we're going to be looking at. Or even you can look at something that you just see as like, that was a huge mistake and I wish I didn't do it that way. But typically these type of deep dark secrets are just electric with shame, and that's kind of what I want to look at today. So when you want to lie about yourself or hide things about yourself or conceal or avoid, Things or parts of yourself, they only get bigger.
Self-Worth Means Honoring Yourself
And self-worth is about honoring yourself as is, which means you must not only honor who you are now, but you also need to honor who you were then. Now hear me out. I'm not condoning bad behavior. This isn't about condoning bad behavior or things that you did wrong. It's really about acknowledging reality and coming to terms with who you were, what you've done, who you are now, and where you're going.
So let me give you an example of something that I did when I was a young mom and uh, you know, I can look back on it. Obviously, I was a young mom. I didn't know better. I was also very high strung. I was also really wrapped up in my ideal image. I was trying to be the perfect mom. I was trying to do things right and I definitely made what I would call mistakes. Now looking back, especially because I didn't really know my daughter yet, not in the way I do now, you know, I really just projected onto her, who I was as an adult instead of seeing her as this little being that had her own little personality. So, in this specific scenario, All my girlfriends were taken away the binky, you know, all of our kids were around one years old and that was like the cool thing to do. Like your kid can't still have a binky. And I felt a lot of pressure. My daughter really liked her binky and I thought, you know what, can it harm? I can just wean her off of it. I'll take it away and we'll do something else. Well, I didn't really know her in the way that I know now. How sensitive she was, how anxious she was. I wasn't even acknowledging even the. The life she was in the middle of, like my marriage at that time. Not good. My personal state not good. So here I am in a high strung type A, trying to be perfect and also pretending that my marriage is okay and in it I have a little baby who's taken in all of this information doing the best she can. And that binky, I think really helped her. Of course, I didn't know that. Then what I did know is that I took the binky away and within a day she started biting her nails and she bit, her nails so bad. I mean, she was like this little tiny baby and biting her little nails. And I tell you this because I carried shame, like you cannot believe, like for being the a terrible, terrible mom to her for about 10 years.
And that is what these deep, dark secrets can do. And it wasn't like I wouldn't have told somebody that I did it. It was just something that I was carrying around that I can't make up for. I cannot go back in time. I cannot give her her beanie back. She's 20 now, so she doesn't really want her beanie back.
But you know, it, it's just something that I felt like I actually harmed this innocent. Person or I made her life painful in a way that I never would've wanted to. So why do I tell you this? Because this is a great example for me of something that I carried around with this kind of toxic pain that I could do nothing with.
How to Neutralize That Secret Shame
And how it got helped and fixed just happened in this tiny little conversation that I had with my friend who was a coach. And I was telling him about this deep, dark, you know, thing that I wish I could go back and redo and I wish I could fix. And he kind of cocked his head and looked at me and he's like, are you serious right now?
Like your biggest regret is that you took a binky away? Yeah, you need to get over yourself. And just that was like, wait, what? What? Are you kidding me? And it hadn't occurred to me that I might be making too big of a deal out of this, and I, it hadn't occurred to me that I actually might be using this as a weapon against myself.
I didn't realize that I was using this as a tool to hurt my self worth and to keep me feeling like a bad mom, a bad person, not worthy, not good enough. So as a coach this is one of my favorite things that I get to do with clients is when they tell me this. Terrible, terrible thing that they're struggling with or this deep, dark, shameful secret that they have.
I always think of how Travis talked to me that day, just going, are you serious? And honestly, that is how it is. I have never been shocked. I have never been floored by somebody's deep secret. I'm always honored to hear it, and I can always hear the. Like there is always a brilliant or compassionate, or maybe not very mature reason for doing something, but when you look at who they were in that time with the tools they had, I often just see it as, oh, oh honey, you were doing the best you could and that's okay.
Let Go of Toxic Guilt
So this is what I want to offer to you is what if that thing that you're carrying around, what if that thing that you're using as a weapon against yourself that you're using as this toxic shame, guilt secret that you're hitting yourself with all day long? What if it was never that big of a deal? What if you're totally wrong about it?
What if there's a completely different way of looking at it that would help neutralize it and help you let it go? So that's what I want to offer you, because I promise you, if you were sitting here with me and you told me this deep, dark, terrible thing, I would not recoil. I would not think shameful things about you.
I just wouldn't. I would hear it and go, all right. Okay. Or I'd laugh and say, yeah, that's not really a big deal. Or I'd say something like, honey, you're just not that special. Like you don't get to carry this around like some terrible, terrible badge of honor that you're like the worst person. It just doesn't work like that.
3 Steps to Heal Toxic Shame
So since I'm not sitting with you and you can only hear a one-way conversation, I'm going to give you these tools that I use when I'm working with clients, but I also use them on myself.
Acknowledge the truth.
So first, number one step, you have to acknowledge the deep dark. Basically you have to name the thing. You do not have to name it to anybody but yourself, but you do need to name the thing. So in my example, the thing would be the binky disaster, something like that. You just name the thing.
Neutralize the story.
The next step is to neutralize it before you can bring anything from shame out to the light where it can help build your self-worth instead of sinking it, you have to move it to some sort of neutral territory. So this means you will reduce the emotional charge that you have around it. You reduce the judgment, you take away the resistance, or any attachment to this aspect of self or this memory. So it's helpful to remember that you've never completely lost this part. This part is still active in you. Even though you're trying to repress and deny it, it's active, it's toxic. You're still hanging onto it. So this neutralizing is really important. All aspects are part of you, whether you want them to be or not. So by repressing, denying, or shielding yourself from certain traits, you haven't actually eliminated them. You've only stopped recognizing your relationship to them. So you might feel an inner resistance where you don't want to own this or you don't want to actually recognize that this is part of you. You may find yourself wanting to shield yourself against this particular memory or. This behavior or this time of your life or this thing that happened, you might struggle with allowing yourself to be vulnerable or open to neutralizing it. And this hesitancy is normal and to be expected because reclaiming these aspects is really uncomfortable and sometimes it's actually very painful.So to reclaim what you've lost, this part of you, this part that has gone to the deep, dark shadows, you must be willing to experience this discomfort that is associated with the memory.
Own it.
The third step is to own it. This means you have to own what you did. Now that it's neutralized, you own it and you give yourself permission to accept this part of you. If it's particularly difficult for you, like I just can't own it. I can't. There's a magical word that you can use and the word is sometimes. Sometimes I. Am a mother that took a binky away. Sometimes I'm a woman who made bad choices. Sometimes I'm rude. Sometimes I've been unkind. Sometimes I've done something embarrassing. So you use the word sometimes to kind of bring it down and own it.
Recap
So first you name it. Second, you neutralize it, and third you own it. And this is how you can shift anything that is hiding in, lurking in those shadows and making you feel bad about yourself. You shift it over, you start owning it, and by owning more of yourself, you're actually boosting self worth.