Episode 3: Rewiring The Shame Cycle - Shifting from Destruction to Curiosity

Empowering Yourself to Take Back Control

Join host Liza Tullidge on this episode of Humaning as we explore the complex and deeply personal topic of shame cycles and how they affect our thoughts, behaviors, and overall well-being. In this insightful episode, Liza breaks down why our brains use shame as a motivator, how it connects to anxiety, and why it feels so difficult to escape from these overwhelming loops of negative self-talk.

Drawing on personal stories, practical neuroscience, and simple but powerful exercises, this episode provides you with the tools to identify and break free from shame cycles, taking back control of your mental and emotional landscape. Learn how to rewire your brain to stop reinforcing shame and replace it with curiosity, self-compassion, and more empowering thought patterns. You’ll discover how to create space between shame and reaction, allowing you to make intentional choices and build a life that reflects who you truly want to be.

Tune in for a transformative conversation that will help you better understand the neuroscience of shame, how it can hijack our minds, and—most importantly—how we can reclaim our power by rewiring these destructive cycles.

If you enjoyed this episode, please rate and follow the podcast on your favorite platform, and subscribe to the Humaning newsletter at lizatullidge.com for exclusive content and resources. Check out the show notes for more information and join us next month as we explore how to take active ownership of your life and put yourself back in the driver’s seat.

To get every episode along with our monthly newsletter, which continues exploring the topic covered in that month's episode plus book recommendations, links to further resources, and helpful exercises, straight to your inbox—sign up here or at lizatullidge.com.

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Human-ing is a Maven + Co production.

To get every episode along with our monthly newsletter, which continues exploring the topic covered in that month's episode plus book recommendations, links to further resources, and helpful exercises, straight to your inbox - sign up here or at lizatullidge.com

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Human-ing is a Maven + Co production.

Transcript

Have you ever done something that felt so cringe -worthy, so deeply uncomfortable that you end up stuck in a cycle of endless negative thoughts? You find yourself ruminating, fixating on that one thing that happened. 

You replay it in your mind over and over again. Minutes go by, then hours, and sometimes you get lost in that thought pattern for days. And when you finally wake up to the present moment, you realize you've lost so much of your time, energy, and presence during that period. 

You've been running this cycle in the background of your mind that's been stealing up your brain space. And you've been running it while you're with friends, at work, relaxing, or even trying to do something you enjoy. 

And it just robs you from being fully there, or able to enjoy the experience. You've been completely swallowed up by this narrative of shame that won't let you go. It parades itself as that knowing feeling, telling you that somehow, somewhere, you've failed. 

Or maybe that you've been caught out, like the world finally will see that you're not good enough, or that you are, in fact, an impostor. And all that self -doubt that you've had, and been so afraid of the world seeing, is finally being realized in that moment, it feels. 

And so you focus, you fixate, trying to make sense of it all, analyzing it like a sports commentator watching a play again and again on instant replay. You try to figure out where you messed up, why you messed up, what is wrong with you. 

And it's not just this fleeting moment of embarrassment, of oops, shouldn't have done that. It's this deeper sense of unease. You start to question your value, your worth, your place in the world, and even your relationships. 

How could someone still love you after you've done this existential thing, this terrible thing that you've done? And what happens if they realize that this horrible narrative that you've been telling yourself is actually all true? 

And you keep spiraling and spiraling until you start questioning, do you even fit in here? Are you even worth it? What is the point of you? You start asking these huge existential questions, all triggered from this one moment. 

It feels like being pulled into this mental loop where you just can't stop replaying the past and picking it apart. And you can't seem to get back to the present moment, even though it's just inches away. 

If this feeling resonates with you, you're not alone. I call these... my shame cycles. And let me tell you, at least for me, my shame cycles are incredibly powerful and incredibly sticky. I've been there far too many times to count. 

And here's the thing for me about shame in my shame cycles. For me, it's not just a standalone emotion. It's the activator and enabler of my anxiety. When my shame cycles get started, and I let them keep running, they activate my anxiety eventually. 

They provide the fuel for it. And then once my anxiety is active, it pulls in everything like a hurricane from my life to feed it. Whether it's a silly mistake I made in the third grade, or something that's completely uncorrelated to the current moment or the situation at hand, my brain will latch onto it to justify the story that I'm telling myself in that anxious state. 

It's like my anxiety grabs onto anything that it can to keep that shame cycle spinning. And here's the catch. When my anxiety is fully active, it can take days and sometimes weeks to shift out of it. 

It feels like this Herculean task to get myself back to normal. Yet the most important thing that I've started to learn and discover is that in order to manage my anxiety, it's not actually about tackling it head on and getting lost in this epic battle with it. 

Actually, if I can start to recognize what activates it and what fuels it, then I can change the moments that lead me into anxiety and take the power and the fuel away from my anxiety. For me, shame cycles are a massive fuel for my anxiety. 

And I've recognized that not only or my shame cycles and my anxiety reinforcing broken narratives that I have about myself, they lead me to make reactive decisions that only serve to strengthen those broken patterns and narratives. 

It's a vicious cycle, and yet it can have real impact on our lives. I believe we are the architect of our lives. We choose what we build. And I realized I didn't want my anxiety to be the one designing my life. 

My life is too important to surrender to those destructive stories, broken narratives and false patterns. So instead of trying to wage that epic battle against my anxiety and trying to prove my worth or whatever other story I was telling myself in those moments, I went back to the building blocks, to the things that fueled that fire so I could take away its power. 

And that's what this episode is about. It's about recognizing those cycles, how they tie into anxiety. finding tangible ways to step out of them so we can reclaim that power for ourselves and for what we actually want to be and build in the world. 

But before we dive deeper I want to acknowledge something. I know I promised this episode would come out last month. I also promised that it'd be about dopamine cycles but as life would have it I got some really difficult news and that led to me having a seriously challenging hard emotional month that upended a lot of my world at the time. 

And honestly I just couldn't get it done. I saw the deadline looming and knew I was gonna miss it. I sat down a couple of times to desperately try and record this episode hoping that I could still make that deadline. 

But I quickly realized I wasn't in the right place emotionally to have this conversation with you. And classically I started to beat myself up over it. I told myself I had failed. That I had failed at the very first hurdle. 

Here I was so excited about this podcast and yet the first time I faced a challenge I fell. That's what I told myself. Not hey I made a mistake and I'm gonna fix it. Not I'll get back up again. Not hey you've already faced a bunch of challenges and even just making this thing real and it's okay you messed up once and I don't think people will even freaking notice that this is a month late. 

Some of you did. Thank you for holding me accountable and thank you for reaching out. I appreciate it. I didn't focus on anything else. Mine is the fact that I was a failure and that I fell. And only on anything that reinforced that narrative to me. 

I spiraled on it. I fixated on how I messed up. Replaying all the ways I could have done better. All the things I could have changed. And it started to exhaust me. But yet somewhere in the middle of all of that ruminating I remembered a path hadn't I chosen for myself that I wanted to work on. 

I remembered the change I promised myself deep in another shame cycle that I would make not that long ago. In that little moment of clarity, I realized this and this practice and these shame cycles are exactly what I needed to talk about with you in this episode because I can't be the only one who does this, right? 

The way I speak to myself, harsh, critical, and sometimes outright mean and often totally delusional is a way I would never talk to anyone else. I use shame as both a club to beat myself up with and yet also as this weird wonky motivator thinking that if I punish myself enough, I'll get it together, I'll be better. 

I'll finally fix that fundamental flaw within myself but shame doesn't work that way. So instead of recording an episode on dopamine cycles today, we're going to talk about shame cycles Why they happen how our brains use them and more importantly How can we rewire them and replace them with something more constructive? 

Let's really dig into that feeling of being stuck in a shame cycle It's not about feeling bad for a fleeting moment It's that heavy all consuming sense of not being enough Or having failed somehow It's this looping cycling conversation with yourself and a part of your brain knows this isn't where you want to be Nor that this is helpful or constructive or even Is the conversation that you're having with yourself? 

Merited based on what happened yet. You can't seem to shake that destructive little loop It's as though your entire sense of self -worth gets wrapped up in this one thing you did or didn't do It feels existential It keeps pulling you back relentlessly And each time you replay that moment in that conversation Over again in your head that feeling of failure seems to grow stronger You start telling yourself I should have known better or why did I do that? 

What's wrong with me? And it doesn't stop there Those thoughts start bleeding into other parts of your life Suddenly you're pulling out mistakes made years ago Something that might echo this situation or that fact or the one thing that one person said once upon a time that you're taking Life out of context to justify this broken story and your brain is convinced that it all makes sense See you've always been this way. 

It tells you For me what's really tough is that I unintentionally withdraw from the world around me when I'm in a shame cycle When I'm in a shame cycle Whether it's just for a few minutes, or for a few hours, or a couple of days, I get lost. 

The things I value and enjoy, whether it's spending time with friends, walking my dog, being with my partner, watching a great film, enjoying a good book, get stolen from me. I can't seem to allow myself to actually be present in these moments, because part of my brain is still stuck in that space of shame. 

And so it means that not only do I not get to enjoy them, I'm not getting the nourishment and recharge that I so desperately need from them. It's like that piece of my past that I'm ruminating on gets stuck as a painful thorn in my present. 

It keeps dragging me back there to itch at it. And then once my anxiety gets activated from that shame. It starts taking that thorn into a hurricane that pulls all of these unrelated things in my life. 

And now suddenly I'm not just worried about that one thing I said at work. Now I'm worried about something I did 10 years ago or something that I have to do this week or a place where I failed or a place where I did this. 

Or, oh gosh, do you remember that comment you once said to that guy you once like and how it blew up in your face? Like I start bringing up everything to beat myself up with this tsunami of shame all because of that one trigger. 

And when anxiety takes over it can feel like climbing a mountain just to get back to that place of peaceful presence. So in my own journey with these I'm going to share with you a bit of what I've learned. 

And well as I said before the best way for me to manage my anxiety is to take away its fuel. If I can stop the shame cycle before it gets a grip on me I can prevent that anxiety from getting out of control. 

I want to share more about this today through my own experience and be vulnerable with you and hope that it might help you too. Let's talk about why shame feels so overwhelming and why it's so hard to shake. 

Shame has deep roots in our evolutionary wiring. It's tied to the amygdala, that little part of our brain we spoke about in the last episode that's responsible for processing emotions. And in this case including fear and anxiety. 

The amygdala's main job is to protect us. It's constantly scanning for threats, warning us for when something feels dangerous. In early human societies this warning system was critical for survival. Shame was like a signal from the amygdala telling us, hey you're at risk. 

And for early humans the These red flags, if not addressed, could mean being cast out, which made it a life or death situation. Because we were involved in tight -knit communities where social belonging was essential for our survival, being cast out or rejected meant your chances of that survival plummeted. 

Being cast away from the community meant facing a night of filled with saber -toothed tigers and other very, very real threats. So shame developed as a survival mechanism, prioritizing belonging over our individuality at times, prioritizing survival over risk. 

It made sure we stayed in line with group norms, ensuring that we didn't do anything that would get us excluded, cast out, or put us in existential danger. But the trick is the amygdala doesn't know the difference between those actual existential threats to our survival. 

and a modern -day, non -existential mistake. Failing to meet a deadline at work, or making an awkward comment at a party, can feel just as threatening as being cast out into the wilderness. It triggers the same fight -or -flight response, making shame feel far more intense than the situation actually warrants. 

And that's where things get really tricky, because when the shame response is triggered, it starts that cascading effect we talked about before, which eventually leads to pulling in anxiety. And suddenly that one awkward comment you made at a party, because let's be honest, I think we've all done that, I sure have, I do it regularly, is no longer an isolated moment. 

It becomes the match that lights the fire. And here's where shame reinforces itself. The more we engage with those shameful thoughts, the more we strengthen those neural pathways in the brain that we talked about in the last episode. 

And that's where the synaptic plasticity comes into play. When we continually run through a shame cycle, we're reinforcing that pathway each time in our brain. Each loop we make is another signal fired. 

Another myelination of that negative pathway. We're teaching our brain that this is the best response. Hey brain, please take this response every time a situation like this comes up automatically. That's the message we're telling our brain. 

Our ruminating means that we're actually making this the default way of reacting to situations that are uncomfortable. Let me rephrase. Our choice to remain stuck in those loops, and yes, let me be clear, it is a choice. 

It might be an unconscious subconscious choice, but it is a choice. That choice to remain stuck in those loops means that we are choosing to wire that as our default way of reacting to uncomfortable or... 

ashamed, embarrassing situations. Each time we allow that shame to run unchecked, we strengthen that connection and we strengthen that message of please be the default. We make it easier and easier to fall into that cycle the next time we feel like we've messed up. 

But here's the good news. Just as synaptic plasticity allows us to reinforce those negative patterns, it also allows us to create new ones. We can literally rewire our brains and teach ourselves a different way to respond. 

Now before we dive into how we can rewire those patterns, I want to explore the reason why we have the sense of shame in us and to maybe demystify the fact that it's not necessarily just a villain or an enemy in our brains and in our lives. 

As we talked about before, Shame was a tool for evolutionary survival. But also, it's been a real tool for our own evolution in our lives. Shame, at times, has served as a teacher. It's been a necessary constructive element. 

Think about when you were a child, still figuring out the world around you. We relied on external validation to understand right from wrong, good from bad, what we liked, what we didn't like, who we might be, what might interest us. 

We needed that feedback, both positive and negative, to discover our place in the world. And so shame in this way helped us to grow. When we did something that was met with disapproval, rejection, or negative response, shame kicked in to teach us a very quick lesson of don't do that again. 

It was a guidepost showing us how to fit into the world, how to navigate social norms and expectations, but also how to get curious to look for other options when something didn't work out for us. For example, when I first moved to the UK, everything was unfamiliar. 

There was a steep learning curve, figuring out how to navigate a completely different society where I didn't really know anyone to use as a teacher. I had to learn new cultural norms, new social cues, and honestly, a whole new way of operating. 

And shame at first served as a bit of a compass and a really quick accelerator of my learning. When I made a mistake, whether it was something as small as saying the wrong thing or not understanding a social expectation, shame helped me to realize very quickly, okay, that wasn't right, let's adjust. 

It helped me to skyrocket my learning. But here's the truth. the problem. Shame works as a teacher until it doesn't. It's useful up to a point, but if we keep relying on it as our guide well into adulthood, where we have much more nuanced context available to us than the black and white good and bad binary narrative of our childhood, it becomes incredibly constraining. 

Let's accelerate a form of immersion, but was it actually accelerating a constructive path, or was it really constraining me? Sure, shame had been the facilitator of some amazing experiences in learning, but I realized that instead of immersing myself in this new life with joy and discovery, and most importantly trying to figure out who I wanted to be in it, I I started using shame to mold myself into what I thought I was supposed to be. 

It took me, as the individual, out of the equation. I wasn't living in a way that was uplifting me, or that sparked my curiosity, or fueled my dreams for the future. I was living in pursuit of my perception of what I was meant to be. 

What would enable me to fit in, based on what I thought others expected or valued. And that became really limiting. For a while, instead of creating a life full of wonder, exploration, and connection, or the things that mattered to me, I found myself stuck in loops of trying to meet some invisible standard. 

And shame stopped being a facilitator, or an elevator, or even a teacher, and it started being a jailer. I could feel myself diverging from what I valued and from who I wanted to be. And that's when I knew I had to break free from that cycle of using shame as a teacher, as a motivator. 

And to step outside of the constraints of shame in my shame cycles, to start to move towards something more authentically constructive. Something that would allow me to grow without tearing myself down in the process. 

Whether it was something as huge as moving to a new country, or just making an awkward slip up in a conversation, I wanted something that would actually be authentically uplifting and educational to me. 

And here's where curiosity comes in. As we know from the first episode, I am a big fan of curiosity. I think it's such a fundamental tool in life. Yet curiosity is also an antidote to shame. Where shame relies on judgment and external perception, curiosity doesn't thrive in it. 

and in some ways can't exist in a space of judgment. Sincere curiosity requires an openness. Where shame closes us off, curiosity opens us back up. Shame tells you, you've failed. Curiosity asks, ooh, what can I learn here? 

When I feel myself slipping into a shame cycle, I've learned to pause and ask questions. Not the self -destructive kind of questions that reinforce the shame. Like, oh, why am I so bad at this? But questions that come from a genuine place of curiosity. 

I'll tell myself, what am I feeling right now? What's really going on here? What's another explanation for the story that I have here? And here's the thing, these questions create space. They allow me to step outside of the shame cycle and to look at the situation from a different angle. 

More importantly, they shift my focus to self -discovery instead of self -destruction. I'm no longer lost in the existential debate of whether I'm worthwhile. We're trying to prove that I'm a decent human being. 

Instead, I get to be curious about this single moment, and to set down the extrapolated nonsense I've pulled into my mind, and to just look at this one moment. What happened? Why did it trigger this response, and what can I learn from it? 

It means that I don't have to do this Herculean task I mentioned before of trying to win that epic battle with my brain. I just get to set it down and step outside of the debate. And the wonderful thing about curiosity is that it doesn't require immediate answers. 

It doesn't demand perfection. It's open -ended. I can say, hey, I'm going to explore this without the pressure of having to fix everything right now or prove my worth. I'm not on trial. I can place a pin in it and signal to myself, I'm curious here, I'm going to listen out for what comes up, and I'll keep looking back to understand this more deeply. 

Unlike shame, which demands that immediate answer in order to be able to move on. It demands you figure out this fundamental truth or resolve this fundamental flaw about yourself before you can be set free. 

It is a trial of life and death, it feels in the moment. Curiosity gets to say, that's uncomfortable. Let's figure out why, but in our own time. And half the times when you get curious, you might not have the answer right then, but over time it creates this space for you to step outside the cycle and actually answers or things or resolutions start to come up to the surface that have been hidden in the darkness around this topic. 

And you actually get to heal the resolve and let it go. in a greater sense unlike where shame you actually are just compounding it. And so I think that's where the magic happens. Instead of battling shame and trying to force it away or bury it or conquer it in this epic battle like the battle for middle earth playing out the future of all humanity and goodness, I actually get to acknowledge it. 

I get to say to myself, I see you shame. You've popped up for a reason and I'm willing to explore that reason, but I will not get lost in it. This act of creating space is empowering because it gives you the ability to sit with discomfort, to see what messages your body and your brain are trying to tell you without getting overwhelmed in the validity of a sweeping debate or having to prove a point or win a trial. To me, that's a key shift. Moving from judgment to seeking understanding. Because it's an understanding that we can grow. I wanna clarify something really important here. I don't try to get reflectively curious whilst I'm still in the thick of a shame cycle. 

Because in that moment, I'm in a mindset that's destructive. I'm not in a place that's safe for real curiosity. And if I try to force myself into the curiosity or into reflection then, it just becomes another form of destruction or battle. 

Because the lens I'm choosing to look at, the world isn't one that's safe or happy or constructive. It's one that's seeking to confirm the ick about me. And so instead of bringing ease or self -compassion, if I try and reflect in the thick of that shame cycle, I end up reinforcing the cycle itself. 

So for me, curiosity comes after I've created some space. After I've mentally, physically and emotionally started to step out of the cycle. And that's where the process that I'm gonna share with you comes in. 

It's something that I play around with all the time. And I would love to hear your feedback on. If you've got a different process, please share it with me. Because I think that it's such an important thing to always get curious about different ways that we can help support ourselves. 

My practice is not a magical solution and it's not always seamless. But it's been a really helpful tool for me. And it's a way to move myself out of the shame cycle, to stop reinforcing those destructive patterns and to create new, healthier pathways in my brain. 

And let's be clear, I don't always get through all the steps in one go. It's not often seamless or smooth. Sometimes I get stuck at step one and have to repeat it a few times. Sometimes I make it all the way to step three or step four, and then that shame cycle pops back up. 

And you know what? I just let myself start over again. Because it's not actually in the completion of this that the magic exists. It's in the practice of it. Because you're basically picking a new synaptic pathway to wire. 

So even if you stumble at square one, that's okay. Don't fight shame with shame. Just let yourself figure it out and try again. And just remind yourself, I'm actually building a new pathway. So each time, you know what, if I mess up, I'm actually getting another chance to wire that pathway again. 

So more practice actually makes for better outcomes. So don't shame yourself if it doesn't go right. You're building that pathway. you're strengthening that muscle response. Right, okay. So Viktor Frankl, amazing thinker and author of Man's Search for Meaning, has been attributed with saying, between stimulus and response, there is a space. 

And in that space lies our freedom and our power to choose our response. And in our response lies our growth and our happiness. So what we're gonna do in this process is to create that space. So step one of this process is acknowledge the shame cycle. 

When I'm in a shame cycle, whether it's right at the beginning or when I'm deep in the hurricane of chaos, that is a well -mature shame cycle, the first thing I do when I realize I'm in a shame cycle is actually just to say to myself, I'm in a shame cycle. 

I see what's going on. I acknowledge it. I tell myself again, I'm in a shame cycle. And that's okay. I know what this is. This acknowledgement allows me to mentally step outside of the cycle. It's like hitting the pause or even better the eject button because you're not lost in the speed and the chaos of it anymore. 

You're actually putting yourself in a place to observe it. In order to be able to observe something, you automatically have to zoom out in order to be able to see it. You have to step outside of it. So I start with this acknowledgement and then I move on to step two. 

Breathe and shake it off. So next I breathe and I mean really breathe. I aim to take three deep, juicy breaths. I might throw in a good sigh or do a few. Lip bubbles, you know That sound One thing I really love doing here while I'm doing that is I shake my hands out Literally shake them like I'm shaking off an icky icky thing And it's shaking off the icky energy of that shame cycle So I'm just kind of letting myself know that It's off It's kind of like when you've cleaned up something gross Like that unknown substance at the bottom of your trash bin or worse. 

I'll spare you any imagery But afterwards you might have cleaned everything off But you can't help but go and shake your hands and maybe give yourself a little shiver because well it was icky and That's how I treat the shame cycle. 

I shake off that stuck energy I signal to myself that I'm done. Oh that I'm stepping out of it So that first step of not acknowledging the shame cycle allowed me to mentally step out of it the breathing and the shaking off allow me to start emotionally stepping out of the shame cycle. 

When you're in the middle of cleaning up that icky mess, for example, you're not sitting there shaking it off as you're cleaning up because you might want to, but you still have to clean it up, you're still in it, so you need to get through it. 

But the moment you finish, you shake it off. It's a signal to your body, oh, I'm done, I'm safe, I'm out of it. So we're trying to tap into that sensation because that small action can have a powerful effect on your body and on your mind. 

It creates more and more space that you need to start shifting out of the cycle. And then comes step three, which for me is move. Now this part is key. I take action. I don't stay physically or mentally stuck in the same environment where the shame cycle started. 

If I stay in the same environment, it's too easy for my brain to revert back to the same thought patterns or to get caught and dragged back into that epic battle that's waging in my mind. So I move. Sometimes I just get up and have a big stretch like, you know, one of those big satisfying morning stretches that kind of gets all the good things going in your body, or maybe I'll walk around. 

I might take a quick walk outside, go pet my dog, or just move around my desk. Sometimes I might just total off and say hi to a coworker. But the important thing is that I do something physically different from what I was doing before. 

Because this moment is a signal to my brain that I'm physically removing myself from the cycle. It's a way of telling my brain, we are not staying here. We're not staying in this loop. We're doing something different. 

It's like Mel Robbins' five second rule where she said, that you count down from five then you just move because in doing that you're making a different choice than what you've done before it breaks the mental inertia so it tells your brain hey let's put some other choices in the equation let's look at something else let's do something else because I'm not doing this anymore and as I said you might get up you might move and that thought process might pop back up again don't worry just start again go back to step one and that's okay so step four use curiosity with an asterisk once you're out of this cycle so now that I've created that space mentally emotionally and physically I can start to bring curiosity back into the equation the key is that it needs to not be while I'm still inside the shame cycle Once I've shifted out that destructive mindset, even if it's just a little bit, I don't have to be fully into my most embodied, best self. I can just be a little bit better where I'm not actively seeking to shame myself, or I've got some observational capacity that I can start to get curious. 

I'll often ask myself something like, if I were talking this situation through with a friend, and they were in my shoes and asking me for advice, what would I tell them? And this question for me is quite powerful because it helps to step outside of your internal dialogue. 

It forces you to see yourself with the same compassion you would show a friend. Think about it. Would you ever say to a friend, Wow, you're such an idiot for making that mistake. Were you always messing things up? You're a failure. See, the world is finally seeing how much of an imposter mess up, screw up, whatever it is that you are. Probably not. And if you do, we may need to have a separate conversation about your friendships. But why do we say these things to ourselves when it would be so unacceptable to say it to someone we love or care about? So when I reframe the conversation with myself through the lens of I'm speaking with a friend, it helps me to switch from judgment to compassion. 

And if I'm in a point where I still can't switch into getting out of that judgment and that destruction and that shame, I will actually call a friend and talk to them about the situation. Because then I'm not allowing myself to think, Yeah, a friend would say that to me or I'd say that to a friend. I actually then, instead of making an assumption about what a friend would say, I actually get to hear a friend's words and I hold myself really accountable to that. I do not let myself move past that question with destruction. 

If I recognize that I'm doing it back to step one or call a friend Use that lifeline like and who wants to be a millionaire and phone a friend. I Make sure that I don't move past that point with destruction still there I'm gonna hold myself accountable because if I'm doing that destruction still that's just me wanting an excuse For my little gremlin who just wants to wallow in my icky feelings and wants to beat myself up And you know what? 

That's not actually the point So once you've brought in that compassion whether with yourself or with a friend Follow it up with another question Okay, I didn't quite embody who I wanted to be in that moment What's one action I can take now no matter how small that embodies who I want to be That could be let's say I avoided something and I ended up upsetting or hurting a friend because of my avoidance It might be that I decide I'm going to apologize to that friend. 

It might be the fact that I'm going to own up what I did. Or it could be that I choose to undertake a micro task of me scheduling a specific time in my calendar for that very day, where I'm going to do the thing that I avoided. And it's those little actions that give you something accountable and actionable. It moves you out of the loop of potential or hypothetical or overthinking. And it moves you towards self -accountability. But in a way that's constructive, not critical. I'm not beating myself up for the mistake. Instead, I'm thinking about how I can move forward in a way that aligns with who I am and who I want to be. The point is, instead of wallowing in that shame cycle and letting anxiety fuel it, I'm taking a small concrete action. And that action doesn't have to be grand. It's a step that allows you to reclaim your agency, even in the smallest way. And that step starts to shift your brain away from shame and back into empowerment. 

And here is the real winner of a step. Step five, repeat as needed. I want to be really clear here. This isn't a one and done solution. Sometimes, as I said, I have to repeat this process a few times. Before I can fully shift out of the shame cycle. And that's okay. It's like building a muscle. It feels awkward and sticky at first. But the more you practice, the easier it gets. The important part is to be gentle with yourself. And if you find yourself slipping back into the cycle, don't add another layer of shame. Fighting shameless shame never works. Just start again. Acknowledge the cycle, breathe through it, shake it off, move, and then get curious. 

I want to come back as I say. something I mentioned earlier, how shame and cycles and anxiety are connected. For me, shame is the gateway to my anxiety. And when I let those shame cycles keep running unchecked, they fuel my anxiety. It's like a loop that keeps feeding itself. The longer I choose to remain in a shame cycle, and let me be very clear about that, it's not happening to me, it's not happening at me, I'm not the victim of it. It's something that I, whether subconsciously or consciously, am choosing. I always hold myself accountable in how I'm thinking about my shame cycles because it empowers me in doing so. The longer that I choose to remain in that shame cycle without doing anything about it, the more anxious I will become. 

And once my anxiety kicks in, as I mentioned before, it starts pulling in every other fear, worry, past mistake I can possibly think of. It doesn't matter if it's totally unrelated to the current situation. My brain will latch onto it. and use it to keep that anxiety going. Suddenly that small misstep becomes a mountain of self -doubt. I worry about things from years ago or get anxious about future scenarios that haven't even happened yet, and my anxiety thrives on that fuel. 

That's why it's so critical for me to recognize where it's activated and fueled. And given that shame cycles are one of those biggest activators and fuels, if I can stop them from taking hold or at least start to break them down, I can stop my anxiety from being able to spin out of control by stopping at the root of activation or of fueling. 

I think a lot of people are familiar with the concept or term anxiety, but not everyone might recognize the role that shame plays in kicking into high gear. Shame is sneaky like that. It works quietly in the background, reinforcing old narratives and keeping us stuck in patterns that might have served us once upon a time, but no longer serve us now.

Once it activates the anxiety, the cycle becomes harder to break because we've got two things happening now, not just the one. And this is where we need to try to be mindful, because shame cycles can have real consequences. They don't just make us feel bad in a moment or a string of moments. They can lead to real outcomes in our lives, reactive decisions, self -sabotage, reinforcing those broken narratives. We might miss an opportunity or make a choice that we wouldn't have made otherwise that can have a lasting impact on our lives. So remember, let's be the architects of our lives. Let's choose what we build, and let's not let anxiety define who we are, because that's like handing over the blueprint of who we want to be to someone else and hoping they get it right. 

We stop being intentional about our choices when we do that, and we allow those destructive cycles to roll the dice in our lives. I don't know about you, but I don't want that anymore. I love my life, especially when it's being built with intention. Each of our lives is too important to surrender to old broken stories. So set down the shield and sword of that epic battle against your shame and anxiety. And let's see if we can learn to step out of it and to give ourselves back that peace. So the next time you catch yourself in a shame cycle, try these five steps. Step one, acknowledge the cycle. Recognize it for what it is without adding any more judgment or criticism. Just saying, okay, I'm in a shame cycle and that's okay. 

Step two, breathe. And as Taylor Swift says, shake it off. Take three deep breaths and physically shake out the energy. Give yourself that little reset to mentally and emotionally remove yourself from the cycle. 

Step three, move. Get up and physically move out of the space that you're in no matter what it is big or small Change your physical environment so that you signal that you're also physically moving out of that cycle step four use curiosity Once you've created that space ask yourself if I were talking this through with a friend. 

What would I tell them? Let that question bring in the self -compassion or phone a friend and then ask yourself what's one small action I can take that aligns with who I want to be and Do it Step five repeat as needed Don't expect to get it right every time. 

This is a practice and like any practice it takes time and repetition Be gentle with yourself and keep coming back to these steps whenever you need them Remember the goal here isn't perfection. You're not going to start eliminating shame or anxiety from your life overnight But with practice you can start to change how you respond to these cycles You can take away the fuel that keeps them running and build new healthier pathways in your brain We all have moments of shame, but we don't have to stay stuck in them. We can choose curiosity We can choose compassion We can choose growth and in doing so we reclaim the power to design our lives on our terms Thank you for joining me today I hope this conversation has given you some insight or tools to help navigate your own shame cycles and anxiety If nothing else I hope you know that you're not alone in this We all experience shame and anxiety at times And we have the ability to break those cycles and to choose something better for ourselves when we are ready to Until next time take care Stay curious and be kind to yourself