Wow. Day 200 and I cannot believe it. Never, ever, ever would have thunk it. No way, Jose, but here I am, day 200, coming to you live from Prague. Should I start doing a Eurovision thing? [inaudible 00:00:22]. That’s a funny thing. Okay. So in the last couple of days, I’ve talked a lot about the end of days, the end of years, end of 2019 start of 2020, et cetera. And today I thought I would talk about something that’s come up for me a little bit.
Not for me as I’ve had to deal with it, but I’ve seen a few times online over the last couple of days. And that’s stuff about shame. Now, shame is a horrible feeling. It really is. And there’s a difference between shame and guilt. And sometimes we can confuse the two. Shame can kind of go a lot deeper. Guilt is more about the action, where shame is more about who you are. And a lot of the time, shame seeps into our lives from… Can slip into our lives, I should say, was that English? Can seep into our lives from a very, very young age.
And a lot of the time, it’s shame actually about other people. We can feel a little of shame about our parents or family situations or the money we have, or a lot of the time, the shame becomes about who we are, but it’s triggered by something external, like a status, your father getting drunk at a party and you feel shame. Oh my god, none of my friends fathers do that therefore I must be a bad person. Shame, shame, shame, shame, shame, and you can carry… Until you deal with it, you can carry that shame on forever.
Another great example and one that is personal to me, and Elladi is going to hear this, so Elladi don’t get any ideas. I used to carry this deep shame about being evil, naughty, criminal because I took 20 bucks, I can’t remember if it was 20 bucks or 50 bucks out of my mother’s wallet one day, handbag one day. And my parents were really good to me with if I needed money to go out or I needed money for something, we didn’t have a lot of money.
Let me stress that, absolutely didn’t have a lot of money. Sheriff’s knocking on the doors and was always… There was always a drama around money, but they were always generous to me with that kind of thing. So I vividly remember stealing this money out of mom’s handbag and for years thought it meant I was a criminal. Like I didn’t deserve any good in life because it just made me such a bad person that I’d taken, and truly, I can’t remember if it was $20 or $50 now. So it shows you how insignificant it was. I remember years later talking to mama about it.
And her going, oh yeah, I knew you took that. And it wasn’t a big deal to her. Maybe it’s something all kids do. I don’t know. But I carried it like a… I was going to say like a badge of honor, but a badge of dishonor, I guess is more to the point. Carl Jung has a really great quote, shame is a soul-eating emotion, and it’s so true. It’s so true. It just like sits in there like nibble, nibble, nibble, nibble, nibble, nibble, nibble. And you’re the only one that can then get yourself out of that place of shame.
There’s… But we don’t talk about it. Brené Brown talks a lot about how shame needs to come to the forefront of conversations because the more we talk about these things with like insignificance, comparison, fear, regret, courage, all those things. The more we talk about them, the more we learn that they’re not paralyzing and the shame is not shameful. Shame is an absolute killer, I totally agree with you. So I just wanted to… Because I’ve seen this a few times in the last couple of days, I wanted to… It triggered thoughts in me about shame and thinking, well, how did I kind of work through that stuff?
So I wanted to give you some tips on the shame. So one of the tips I’d talk about is, talk about it. As I just said, Brené Brown says, let it out people, like talk about it. And if you’re the kind of person that doesn’t want to sit and talk to a friend about it because sometimes, let’s face it, sometimes it can be people close in our life that can actually almost be shame triggers. I’d tread around that one carefully. So someone’s talking to a friend or family member might not be the best option. If you have a therapist, a coach, a shrink, psychiatrist, sorry, I don’t mean to be disrespectful.
And I mean no disrespect when I say that. Talk to them about it. And if you’re not at the point where you can talk to someone else about it, talk about it with yourself in a… I was about to pick up my journal, but I’ve already packed it. Talk about it with yourself, write about it, just get it out. Don’t let it be sitting in your heart, eating away at you. Just get it out there because knowing the story of why you’re feeling the shame will help you move forward. Because sometimes you just feel it and you don’t necessarily go, oh, it was that moment where that shame was connected to me. Okay?
So working out what has caused it and the story behind it can often really, really, really help you. And sometimes that can be enough to actually move forward, just understanding. Another important thing to do is separate the behavior that caused the shame from who you actually are. So… Okay, I’ve been watching Friends with Elladi, the shame of Joey throwing his girlfriend’s wooden leg in the fireplace. That’s the behavior, there’s a behavior there that’s made them feel the shame. It’s very different to who he is as a person. But sometimes if it connects the two, so you’ve got to disconnect them.
You got to disconnect them. I mean, nicking that money from mom’s wallet does not mean I’m a terrible person. The behavior was a bad behavior, okay? It doesn’t mean I am a terrible person and don’t deserve good stuff because I’m a criminal. I wonder what the statute of limitations is on stealing money from your parents. Should I Google it? Another one is know what triggers those feelings of shame because sometimes it can be the most… Something you consider so insignificant or to other people might be really insignificant and you might go and it just makes all that shame boil up. Okay?
An example of a behavior that may cause you feelings of shame would be cheating. Okay? So cheating on a lover or cheating on a lover and then you might see a person that reminds you of the person you cheated on or you cheated with. And that triggers that, oh, I’m the world’s worst person feelings. So knowing what triggers how you feel is a really good way to stop actually putting yourself in that situation. Another couple of things just to make sure you continually work on… Hey guy, I think we all did it, but it’s paralyzing. Oh my god, I don’t deserve anything because I stole $20 from my mother.
And I know I make that sound really silly, but it’s a really big thing. Like it’s… Elladi and I were joking yesterday about lying as kids. And I remember my sister asking me if I’d eaten chocolate and me staring her blankly in the face, no, I have not eaten chocolate. I 100% have not eaten chocolate. And then her holding up a mirror and I had chocolate on my face. And those feelings of being a liar, especially around food, it stayed with me for ages, ages, and ages and ages. So it’s so important again, because I lied about eating the chocolate, it doesn’t make me a bad person.
It just means I lied about eating the chocolate. And maybe I shouldn’t be fearful of speaking the truth about things. That we carry it forward and it becomes… Shame is one for someone like me who’s dealt with weight issues all her life, I can handle in my heart, say a lot of feelings around shame. And I’ve mentioned a couple of things today. I have literally worn shame like a layer of lard. Every added kilo has been a badge of shame honor that I have walked around with. And I’m 45 and slowly but surely, and I really wish I’d dealt with this stuff years ago.
Those of you who know a bit of my story anyway, weight loss, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. I wish I dealt with a lot of this stuff before really kick-starting my weight loss journey. So… Because if you don’t deal with those horrific emotions like shame, it’s like padding. It is mental and physical padding that we carry through life. And that padding just like… That padding if you’ve got enough padding, it stops you being able to put on a seatbelt or a safety belt on one of those rides at Disneyland or anything like that. Those layers of padding stop you walking into something in life, like completely physically and mentally.
So we’ve got to deal with it. We’ve got to deal with it. One of the ways to really help you deal with it is just self-talking yourself compassion. So every time you’re having that negative self talk about being a terrible person or I don’t deserve X, Y, and Z because I did X, Y, and Z. Separate, as I said, separate that behavior. And yes, I did a bad thing. That was a bad moment. That was a naughty thing. That was an illegal thing. That was an immoral thing. Whatever it is, that’s a thing. It’s not you. I am a good person who did a bad thing.
That’s how we need to move that circle of conversation around and that will gradually, it’s not going to happen overnight, but we’ll gradually let that shame just dissipate because we have to, you’re not going to get anywhere in life if you’re carrying it around. So the self talk and the self compassion, looking after yourself. So when you’re having those moments of feeling like I’m a terrible person, I deserve shit because I am shit. And I know I’m oversimplifying it when I say things like that. But I think you get what I mean. Look after yourself, massage, bath, practice gratitude.
Treat yourself to something to show yourself some love because the one thing when you’re feeling in a constant circle of shame is you’re not showing yourself… What is my problem with speaking? You’re not showing yourself any love and the less love you show yourself, the more shame you will feel. So teeny tiny things like buying a magazine you like and sitting down and spending half an hour reading it will make you feel that little bit of love, which will help clink away at those feelings of shame. So it’s really important. And whatever, it’s going to be different for everybody.
For some people, that’s going to be buying something nice. For some people it’s going to be a walk in the park, for some people it’s going to be meditation, for some people it’s going to be a bath and a glass of champagne. So whatever makes you feel deserving and loved by yourself. This is the really important thing, you cannot get rid of shame just by feeling love from others. Really, really important. You can have the most amazing partner in the world, you can have the most amazing friends and family in the world, you can have a kickass circle of lovers, whatever it is, is not… That external love is not going to help you to remove shame out of your… Shift the shame out of your life.
Shift shame. I like that. Honesty, being honest with yourself about where you were, what you did, who you really are, is important and continuing that honesty in everyday life. I’m more honest now than I’ve probably ever been in my life, especially with myself. And you’ve seen my life before about lying to yourself, holy moly, I was an expert. So that honesty, really, really important. Again, gratitude, really, really important to practice. And if you’re not like me at the point in your life when you can practice gratitude on a daily basis, just every couple of the days if you can think of something that you’re happy about or grateful for, honestly it will help.
Again, just kindly just remove a little bit of that shame. And the big, big, big, big, big one. Forgiveness. Now I’ve done a whole live on forgiveness, so if you go back into the lives, you can have a look at it or if you go to samanthaleith.com, I think you can search in the search bar, forgiveness, and it’ll probably come up with that live for you or have a look through it. Because we have got all the transcripts of all the lives in there. You have to forgive yourself. You have to forgive the behavior to be able to move on from feeling shame. Really, really important. And the last one I think, yeah the last one I think, would be to look at your strengths and the stuff that’s good about you.
The more you can immerse yourself in the positive things about you, the better you’ll feel. Yeah, I may have taken 20 bucks or 50… I wonder if I’ll ever remember how much it was, but I think got these other strengths. I have a vision. I’ve got these things I’m good at, I’ve got these strengths, I’ve got wisdom. I’ve got love. I’ve got all these great things. And the more I can think about those things, the less I can dwell on shame. So I hope that’s helped some of you. I might do more on this. I don’t know.
I think it’s a really, really big topic, shame. So happy 2020 again. So I know this is a deep one for day two. Sorry about that. No, I’m not going to say sorry about that. I needed to talk about this today. So if it’s helped one person deal a little bit more with shame, then my job is done. So have a great day and I will see you all tomorrow from… Where are we going to be tomorrow, Elladi?
Brussels.
Brussels. We’ll be in Brussels tomorrow, so bye.