Living with & healing from Toxic Shame

Such a high quality comment section

Love the part at the end about vulnerability. Sharing shameful feelings with others risks compounding the feeling of shame, so one has to be ready to be vulnerable and possibly feel additional shame before sharing. It really depends on the person with whom one shares. When it’s received compassionately with validation and support is when the healing happens. Self compassion practices are also quite helpful for healing, in my opinion. Thanks for sharing on this topic - I completely relate!

Thank you! Great topic, and, yes, allowing oneself to be open and vulnerable is a strong antidote to the toxicity of shame. I'd add one point that David Loy makes in his book "Lack & Transcendence." So long that many thoughts and actions are driven by a strong unconscious (or even conscious) belief and attachment to an independently existing, autonomous self, "not-good-enoughness" and shame will be inevitable outcomes. That's because such self cannot be found anywhere--any introspective search for it comes up empty. The ensuing feeling of confusion and deficiency is then often exacerbated by the (erroneous) belief that others have a self and have it "much more together" (I struggled with this for most of my life). One possible strategy can be to build a healthy sense of self/ego first before (gently) deconstructing it ("You have to be somebody before you can be nobody" --Jack Engler).

Thank you for making these videos. They give much food for thought and I'm sure you're helping many people just by explaining things clearly so they can recognise the patterns in their own minds. When I'm up all these things seem far away in the past and trivial and not worth bothering people to discuss. But this video made me reflect that for me the toxic shame thing is bound up with feelings of hopelessness, so when I feel down and want to reach out and share with someone, I find myself unable to speak with the effort it takes not to cry incoherently. And it's hard to do that in front of the few people I hope might bear to listen, because of fear they'll be appalled and run off. Maybe it's worth just writing it all down, that'd probably be a start wouldn't it. Like giving the rat just a little lick :) It's literally all in my mind

Your perspective on toxic shame is thought-provoking (especially because you offer an idea - be vulnerable - as an antidote). I'd love to dive deeper into this topic with you. Would you be interested in joining @STEERus for Toxic Tuesday 7pm ET livestream as a guest to share more of your insights? Your voice would add so much value to this conversation!

what are the resources?