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When Your Past Shadows Your Present: The Evolution of Healing Childhood Shame

• Terri Wilson

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Have you ever felt tears streaming down your face and suddenly realized you're crying about something that happened decades ago? That's exactly what happened to me recently, triggering a profound realization about how childhood shame continues to shape our adult lives.

In this raw, vulnerable episode, I share my personal breakthrough moment that occurred while I was door dashing, when a simple interaction with my husband unleashed decades of buried emotion. At 64 years old, I found myself confronting the same patterns of emotional eating and shame that began when I was just seven years old, sneaking bread with butter and sugar in my parents' pantry.

The journey of healing from childhood trauma isn't linear or neat. It comes in waves – there's the crash of realization, followed by calm where you think you've conquered it, only to be hit by another emotional storm when you least expect it. God, in His wisdom, seems to understand we can only process so much at once, sending these healing opportunities in manageable doses.

What makes shame particularly insidious is how it differs from guilt. While guilt tells us we DID something wrong, shame convinces us we ARE wrong. When my father would ask, "Why can't you be more like your sister?" he wasn't criticizing a specific action but my entire being. Those words embedded themselves in my psyche, creating a narrative that I was fundamentally flawed and unworthy of love.

Whether you're dealing with your own childhood trauma or watching your adult children process theirs, this episode offers hope and practical insights for breaking generational patterns. I share the techniques I'm using to counter shame statements with truth, and why having healing conversations with parents while they're still alive can be so valuable.

Listen now to discover how recognizing your shame patterns is the first step toward true freedom. Your worth isn't something to earn—it's your birthright, a truth within waiting to be reclaimed. Join our community of fellow healers as we journey together toward becoming who we were always meant to be.

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Speaker 1:

Sometimes my childhood memories sneak out of my eyes and roll down my cheeks and yesterday was one of those times and get thrown into places that, quite frankly, you didn't want to go. Welcome to the evolution of our souls. And I welcome you back to Free to Just Be the podcast empowering humanity to courageously step out of those old patterns and matrix programs and false beliefs that were often developed in our childhood and give a big old hug to a new, healed way of being. And I hope this finds you in the greatest of health, with vibrant energy today, because you have chosen to accept full responsibility for your body, mind and soul. And here we're going to inspire each other to truly be who we came here to be, which starts with authenticity and often, especially on this show brutal honesty with ourselves, which leads us to true freedom, and then we can be aligned with our highest potentials. So join me, teresa Marie, on this transformative journey to rewrite our narratives and live lives of purpose and passion, and I welcome you on this fantastical Friday and hope that you are doing absolutely fabulous today.

Speaker 1:

As I've said many, many times before on this podcast, this evolutionary journey, this journey of coming back to our highest self, is absolutely no joke. It is the most difficult adventure that we'll ever have on the planet, because we who came here as pure love and light and put on these human being costumes, have had to deal with every single emotion, every thought pattern. We've had to deal with the whole gamut, all the while with the backdrop of longing and desiring to be free of it all, to be back in bliss, to be back in unconditional love and safety. And we think that we have arrived out of it. We think that we've dealt with some of the stuff that we collected as we traveled this path of earth school. And then here comes another wave. See, god is really gracious, you know, he doesn't the old adage of you know, god doesn't give you more than you can handle. And most of us are like, really, really, well, he doesn't know what I'm going through, right? But the truth of the matter is it does. It comes in waves. There's a big wave and then there's a swell, then there's the calmness and then there's the storm and then the tide goes out and then it comes forcibly back in, right? Well, you know, I thought that I had dealt with a lot of my childhood trauma issues, thought that I had dealt with a lot of my childhood trauma issues.

Speaker 1:

But I have to say, in retrospect, as I've been thinking about this the last couple of days and as I got hit again yesterday, so yesterday I'm out door dashing and I was behind the eight ball. I had a financial goal that I was trying to make and my husband had called and I was sharing that and I was kind of. You know, in hindsight what I was doing was I was going into victimhood conversation. Oh, what You're going to admit. Yes, I am going to admit to the world that I recognized. In fact, by the time I got off the phone call I recognized wow, was I playing the victim or what?

Speaker 1:

But it was after about five minutes and my victimhood play acting was telling my husband oh, I really like to be home with you but I have to be out here because I need to be diligent and I need to pull my weight. And these were all truths and these were all things that my husband and I had already had conversation about. I was telling him a couple of weeks ago how grateful I am that he is not continually rescuing me, because finances and time management are my weak points and I will overcome and conquer them. So here I was, speaking about my goal and how I was so far off the goal and just eat by yourself tonight and I'll see you when I see you. And at that moment I was really hoping that he would say oh, babe, just come on home and I'll just throw the X amount of dollars in the bank account for you tomorrow. But he didn't.

Speaker 1:

Instead, my husband, who remained detached because, see, we are both learning each other's triggers. We are both learning to detach and not control other people, because the truth of the matter is we have finally both recognized, individually and as a couple, that we are in control of nobody but ourselves, and the only job of changing anybody is to change us. I have to change me. I can't change my husband, my husband can't change me and I can't change him, my husband can't change me and I can't change him. So he was detached and instead of saying the rescue lines I wanted him to say, he said okay, babe, see you when you get here. Bye.

Speaker 1:

And man, oh man, for about two or three minutes, the sting of that, the sting of once again feeling like I was going through something and I had no support. Now, that is not the truth about my husband. In fact, my husband and I are doing great but that's what it felt like. It felt like I wanted to share my feelings and I didn't feel safe to do so because he just shut me down. And after that first 30 seconds, when that phone hung up, it just welled up in me and all of a sudden the tears were coming down my cheeks again and I just let them come.

Speaker 1:

I got in my observer seat that I always talk about, that little mini me that hangs out above my right shoulder, and I was thinking to myself all right, just breathe, just let it go. The energy just wants to go in and through my body. Wow, wow, terry, what is this about? What is going on? And so this whole thing set up this thought pattern in my head, because I still deal with the same addictive behavior. And, lo and behold, it really is still still to this day. I am 64 years old 64. Let's just do a little bit of math here real quick, shall I? Let's see If I am 64 years old.

Speaker 1:

And I was about seven when I was put on setting the table and I snuck my first piece of bread, butter and sugar. I've told the story many times and I, sneakily, was in the pantry stuffing that bread in my mouth because for two or three moments it made me feel better. And to this day, 57 years later, I recognize that I'm still dealing with that same addictive behavior of eating when I don't like the way I feel. Now, why am I bringing this all up? Well, because shame is a biggie. Childhood shame is so incredibly damaging. Amy Boiler quoted this and this is part of the reason those tears were coming down my eyes. She says shame makes people abandon their children and drink themselves to death. It also keeps us from true happiness. An apology is a glorious release.

Speaker 1:

Now, I don't know about you all, but as we are transforming, as we are going through the crucibles of life, as we are allowing some days to let this energy of love and light rise up in us and illuminate the things that we need to get rid of, we need to lose them. They need to die. Just like we were talking about yesterday, that fire, we need to burn it away. Right, but unfortunately, before we burn it away, we have to recognize what it is we're going through and, as it's happening within ourselves, dare I say, it's also happening with those we love around us. Now I have seven children and every one of my children is going through this very same process. Although the details are different, they are transforming, love and light and energy is rising within them, and they're having to deal with their own shite at the very same time that their mama is dealing with hers.

Speaker 1:

Now I am very grateful that my guilt and shame as a parent I finally, after 40 plus years my oldest daughter is 45, now years. My oldest daughter is 45 now. Right, let me just check my math here. I have too many children. Um, it is 2025 and she was born in 1980. Yes, I was correct. Um, so she turned 45. Five. So I have been living with guilt and shame of bad parenting decisions for many, many, many years. I can remember, even five, 10 years ago, my husband was saying Terry, you need to put this to rest. You did the best you could. I can't believe you're bringing this up again. You know, as he was dealing with not dealing with his mom, right? So I have my children going through these things and I know that.

Speaker 1:

I know that, even though I felt emotionally abandoned, and you can look back on way past episodes from two years ago where I talked about reading the book about childhood emotional neglect and it was like bells and whistles going off because I was like, oh my gosh, that's me, that's me. Well, dare I say, all of us have some sort of childhood trauma. But an underlying trauma is shame. And even though I didn't want to do the very same thing that I felt was done to me and I'm sure that was done to my mom and dad I did it to my children. I emotionally abandoned my children because I was emotionally abandoned as a child, abandoned my children because I was emotionally abandoned as a child. And then you put in you know my husband's going through it and my husband, a couple of weeks ago, had opportunity to make things right with his mom. They said those forgiving words and I got to tell you. It made me feel kind of jealous, right, because I didn't get that glorious release of asking for forgiveness or receiving forgiveness from either of my parents.

Speaker 1:

I can remember years and years and years ago when my kids were growing up and many times back in my house in Grandview I had these attic steps and the way to get into my attic was these pull-down steps in our garage that was attached to our house and you'd pull the steps down and then you can, you know, traverse the attic. Well, when you have five children and your house is, you know your house and they know where you are. I can remember a couple of times where I'd pull those steps down and, no, I am not ashamed of saying this because, you know, sometimes it's survival of the fittest. And I was a single mom for many, many, many years and I remember one particular time that my kids were playing out in the yard and my daddy issues came sweeping over me again and I went up into that attic and I pulled the steps up so nobody could access me and I sat looking out that little tiny attic window you know the kind that it's just a vent so nobody could see me looking down on my own children.

Speaker 1:

I'll never forget this day and I cried and cried, buckets and buckets of tears, just trying to have a conversation with my dad. I just just want to talk to you. I just want to tell you what your words and your lack of words and your lack of empathy and hugs, what it did to me and I, I want to rail at you and I want to, I want to hit you and I want to hug you and I want you to tell me you love me and that's never going to happen, and I'm so mad you left the planet. I remember having these conversations and now, as the mom of adult children, who is well aware of the damage done to me and the many, many aspects of healing that's done to me, I don't feel that same guilt and shame anymore. And lucky for me, you know, because now my children are waking up to their childhood traumas.

Speaker 1:

Mom, do you remember this? And you know I don't want to come around for a while. I need to take a break from the family because I need to deal with my issues. A break from the family because I need to deal with my issues. And your heart flip-flops and your heart wants to break because you've always loved your children. Well, I can't speak for anybody else in Humanityville. I've always loved my children. Did I do it perfectly? No, I didn't. But my love for them has never gone away. In fact, it's grown my pride of watching them transform and become wonderful adults. And yet I know that they have to do whatever they have to do to come across the other side of their childhood traumas that I inflicted. Now it's a different story for me because I'm alive and I am well, and I am witnessing them waking up. My mom and dad are already gone. I can't have those real face-to-face conversations with them. I'm so happy for my husband that he had that wonderful healing, restorative time with his mom as dementia and or Alzheimer's and we're not speaking any of that over Francis, my mother-in-law, but 86 years old and she literally couldn't remember why Roger was mad at her.

Speaker 1:

The grace of God, as you're coming into your last stages of life, you just let all of that go. And now, in the midst of this evolution, we are being tasked with learning to let that stuff go. Now, as we're alive, as we're viable people, as life is still going for us. Why? Because God, in his graciousness, wants us to live abundant lives. He wants us to literally enter into the real purpose and our mission, why we're here on the planet. But we can't do that until we deal with the shit of our past, and so it's a real difficulty. Now think about how many people don't wake up to their childhood traumas until their parents are well past, leaving the planet, and we are given the opportunity Everybody that is listening to me that have their parents alive. Thank God for that. And if you have issues or questions, oh my goodness, do not hesitate to go and sit with them. Record it on your phone. Get the healing between your parents and yourself. What a gift that would be.

Speaker 1:

So I look at my children and I look at my husband, and so here I am, the sting of again. Here it was. It came back around again. I'm always going to be like this. I'm always going to struggle. God, why am I struggling again? I just thought I can't do this anymore. See, that's what the evolution will do.

Speaker 1:

It comes in, just like I said earlier, it comes in incremental waves and then, when the waves come in too fast, it's kind of like laboring. You know, when you're in labor, you have these breaks. When you're in labor, you have these breaks and then, as your baby is getting ready to literally take that trip from your uterus into the birth canal, guess what? Those labor pains get harder and closer together until, boom, the baby is born. Well, that's what happens with the things in our lives that need to be dealt with.

Speaker 1:

You might have known I've known that my daddy issues were my issues for probably the last 20 years, 20 years Now. My children in their early 30s to 45 are all waking up now, much earlier than me, and I am so excited for them. They are beginning the process of deconstructing their childhood traumas so that they can be free, so that they can have the true happiness that has evaded me for over 60 years. So now, having gone through this process many, many times, with many, many, many matrix programs, this daddy issue one with Teresa Marie, I can only speak for me, and each of us have our own set of traumas that we're dealing with. It's an opportunity to deconstruct. So I'm like, wow, okay, so why does this keep coming up? So you can use AI folks to your advantage. You don't have to be afraid of technology, you guard yourself from being controlled by it. But, oh my goodness, you can literally, literally throw in different things like research, childhood shame and see what it comes up with. And it's amazing. What you can discover. Well, I looked, and what does it say? What you can discover? Well, I looked, and what does it say.

Speaker 1:

Emotional neglect in childhood often manifests as a deep-seated feeling of worthlessness or an inability to form secure attachments in adulthood. And, oh, baby, worthlessness and feeling like my feelings never mattered. That is the backdrop of my life, right and forming secure attachments. Well, I completely understand that one too, having been married four times. A key sign of emotional neglect is a pervasive sense that your needs or feelings don't matter, leading to difficulties in trusting others and expressing your emotions. Oh, because you know. You know what the world tells you. Oh, you know that happened in your childhood, it's your past, but what they don't want you to remember is it's still affecting them, and the longer you stuff it, the harder it is to unravel and deconstruct it.

Speaker 1:

So I started looking at my shame issues. You see, shame is worse than guilt, because guilt is nothing more than believing that something that you have done was bad, right, oh, you spilt that milk, bad girl. Whereas shame is believing that you are bad and wow, it really, really, really affects us. You know, shame is that painful emotion stemming from the belief that something is wrong with you as a person, which leads to feelings of inadequacy, worthlessness and a desire to hide and, in the case of Teresa Marie, not only to hide. I mean, I'm literally replicating my pantry days as a seven-year-old child with food, and I don't want to be that person anymore. So, oh my gosh, I can't believe. You're taught of what our own childhood did to us and are well aware of just how damaging those beliefs can be when they're carried into adulthood. So, yes, I am being vulnerable and wide open today because this is what occurred again to me. Here they are again, so I'm not sure how I am going to fully heal Physician, heal thyselves, right. That's what the Word of God says and I've just thought about it a lot and that's how the process starts. It's like, wow, okay, you know, you lay it all out on the table in your mind and I'm thinking about it All right.

Speaker 1:

So when I used to get shamed, and what are some of those lines Well, I can't speak about your life, but I remember trying so hard to please my dad. I can remember Bohack's grocery store and my dad did all the grocery shopping and most of the cooking and if you were lucky, you would get to go grocery shopping with him. And I can remember going with my dad and my sister and grocery shopping and my sister was four years older than me, so obviously she was going to be more adept at at helping grocery shop and four years younger I, oh my goodness, I wanted his attention so badly and you know, I don't know what the what, see, that's. That is the part that I'm trying to tell you. If your parents are alive, ask all those questions Because, see, I can't tell you what was going on in my dad's head. All I can do is assume that I was baby six and they had busy lives and whatever. But all I know is that my sister, man, she could put groceries in the cart better than I could, she could bag up the groceries better than I could and anytime I asked, and that faithful line that still, even as I'm about to share it, even thinking about sharing it, I can feel the sting, even now, 60 years later. Why can't you be more like your sister?

Speaker 1:

Oh, so that was my personhood. My personhood was shamed. I wasn't good enough, I wasn't as good as Marianne. Now, again, I want to blanket this with the full knowledge that my mom and dad love me. I know this and everybody does the best they can, just like I did the best I could with my children. But these are the things that were said and these are the things that affected me. What affected you?

Speaker 1:

So what happens after you get shamed as a child Between infanthood to seven. Those are the years that you really get imprinted. Well, you comply, I did. I did everything I was told. I got real quiet. I suppressed my emotions. I learned how to stuff things real early, stuff things real early.

Speaker 1:

And then there came a time, when I was about 12 years old, that I started just not caring anymore. You know, kind of putting your thumb to your nose and waving your fingers oh, you know what you don't like me. Well, f you back. That's kind of what was moving into my life. And then my dad passes away at 13. And now I have lost all ability to ever gain that love that I never thought that I had from him, right? Oh, and then that anger. I just went nuts. So I got shamed. First was was compliance and then was complete rebellion. My dad was a police officer, so anything that my dad wouldn't like to have happen I did the alcohol, the drug abuse, the sex, the drugs, the rock and roll, all of it. I got so good at being so bad and that's how I dealt with shame.

Speaker 1:

And shame is a big one and it affects most people on the planet. Shame targets the whole person. So I am not exactly sure, other than where I got yesterday after my little episode of teariness. But see, as you continue on this evolutionary journey that we're on, you begin to see not only your patterns of trauma but you begin to start taking notes on how you're working yourself out of the trauma. So I'm very aware that this is how it starts.

Speaker 1:

Okay, so I finally get to the place where I can't handle it anymore. Something's got to give. I'm sick of tired of being sick and tired, right? So that's when you start trying things. You start looking up information about whatever the topic is that you're trying to be free of, you start trying different modalities or what have you. So where I got yesterday was I wrote down a list of all those shaming verbiages that are in my head. Oh, you know, wrong way, lost mom. You know this, this and that you know. So I have a whole list.

Speaker 1:

So now, when I am able because see, again, it comes in waves. So that was the wave. I got all of the gunk out, but then I was done. I couldn't go any further. So when I approach that page of my journal again, I'm going to put the counter, the antonym, the crowning glory, whatever shame statement that I wrote down I'm going to put the opposite, because you see, those shame statements, oh they are. They are packed so tightly in my psyche. I know that. I know that they're going to come rapidly up again, and this time I'm going to be ready.

Speaker 1:

Now, all this week, as I started having those stinking thinking thoughts come up, all I was able to do is say, no, I'm not that person anymore. You are the hippie freak of the South and I am not that hippie freak of the South anymore. See, that was who I titled that actor in my play, the actor prior to healing. That is Terry Wilson, the hippie freak of the South. A hippie is, you know, dirty and all those negative connotations that a hippie is. See, that's who I felt. I was worthless, nobody was going to listen to me, nobody cared about my feelings, and so, without even realizing it, subconsciously, for years I called myself a hippie freak. And then, when I came here to the south in Tennessee, and lo and behold, I start my podcast almost three years ago now, four years, a long time ago, and like my second or third episode, it just fell out of my mouth I'm Terry Wilson, the hippie freak of the south.

Speaker 1:

Wall, because that's who I always thought I was, you know, because that is the picture that I had painted and that was so imprinted in me that that's who I was. But now in my head and in my spirit, I know that. I know that I am not that old version of myself anymore. I have evolved out and I'm standing on the other side of that rut and I am Teresa Marie, an ambassador of Chi, and most days I'm upbeat, I'm happy, I'm encouraging people, and some of the people who know me now and didn't know me in my past see that clearly, my family members, my own children, not so much they still see the mom that damaged them. They still see the sister that, oh yeah, that's Terry. You know, oh, what kind of escapade is Terry in? And you know. But I'm evolving, just like you are humanity, and it's so important for us to bring these things to the surface.

Speaker 1:

It's one thing to read about shame, but it's another to hear somebody going through it and recognizing it right. So I just want us to think about shame for a second, because our true selves wait for us on the other side of our guilt, of our shame and our fears, and I want to encourage you that we're going to get there. We are going to get there, and it's okay to let your shame roll down your cheeks. On occasion, dr Gabor Mate said shame is the deepest of the negative emotions and that is why we keep it pushed down, because it is the most damaging, most deeply rooted, because you see the enemy of our souls, the darkness, the devil, whatever you want to call it or him, that entity that hates the creator and hates the creator that's in us, wants us to feel worthless. It wants us to feel like we are the mistake. And shame is the feeling that we will do almost anything to avoid. Oh, just even thinking about it, I continually see my kitchen and I continually see that pantry and feel that debilitating desire for love and acceptance. And when it doesn't come, oh, it's crushing. But unfortunately, the very thing that we'll do anything to avoid, our abiding fear of shame, literally impairs our ability to see reality, impairs our ability to see reality is what Dr Gabor said. And, oh, baby, we want to see our reality crystal clear. We don't want to have any kind of colored glasses on. Trauma keeps us from true happiness and we want to be happy.

Speaker 1:

So, as I continue down this path of trying to figure out how I am going to heal myself from this. I want to ask you what aspects of shame are affecting you as an adult, my dear brothers and sisters, and are you ready to let them go? Are you ready to stop doing the same programs that were done to you on your children? So I will share as I evolve forward. I don't know how I'm going to get rid of all of the shame because it's obviously still here in my life and I'm aware of it, and that is a big part of it. So today I want to close these ponderings about shame and childhood traumas with a little poem of encouragement that my AI friend gave me.

Speaker 1:

So it's unknown, it's a poem written by AI and it says this in every soul, a story resides. Don't let the whispers of shame define what's inside. Your worth is not a thing to earn, it's a truth within a light to burn. You are a masterpiece, perfectly designed, a tapestry of experiences wonderfully combined, each mistake, a lesson, each scar, a sign of a spirit that's resilient and, yes, truly divine. I love you, humanity. Have yourself a glorious weekend.