Episode 24 - Part 2: Shedding Shame and Embracing Authenticity: Krista Oakes' Journey

What are you hiding to stay loved, and what is it costing you? In this episode, Courtney Schoch explores the connection between shame, authenticity, and healing in this powerful continuation of her conversation with mindfulness coach and author Krista Oakes. Krista opens up about her path—from growing up with gay parents to reclaiming her voice after divorce—and how mindfulness helped her shed the shame. If you’ve ever wondered whether your true self is enough, this episode is for you.

Connect with Krista Oakes

Krista's Website - Retreats, Yoga, Events, Speaking and so much more!

Krista's Book - Shedding Shame: Finding Freedom to Live an Authentic Life

Facebook @yogawithkristaoakes

Instagram @daytonayoga

YouTube @DaytonaYogawithKrista

Learn more about your host Courtney Schoch

Transcript

EPISODE 24 - Part 2

Courtney: Welcome back to Life After Fear. Redefine your limits with Courtney Shock. This is where you confront your fears and transform your life. This is episode 24. In episode 23, we ask some tough but transformative questions. Are you holding onto something you're ashamed of? What would happen if you shared your secret?

Our guest, Krista Oaks, who's a mindfulness coach, author, speaker, and yoga instructor, opened up about her courageous journey of releasing shame and stepping into authenticity. She shared the story behind her book, Shedding Shame, Finding Freedom to Live an Authentic Life, and what it was like growing up as a child of two gay parents during a time of deep societal stigma.

In part one of our conversation, Krista took us through the emotional process of writing her truth, the healing that came with it, and how sharing her story helped others begin their own. Now, in part two, we go even deeper. Let's continue the conversation.

Krista: And then discovered that yoga as a physical practice is just one aspect, and discovering that from the philosophies, from the teachings, from living, that really the goal is to live mindfully. Yoga on the mat is one tool to help us do that. Because it's great to be able to do that stuff on the mat, but you don't wanna leave your mat, go out the front door and be a jerk, or forget everything that you just paid attention to, never take a deep breath, right? Mm-hmm. It's a practice that we do on the mat so that we are better when we're off the mat.

Courtney: How do you respond to someone who tells you yoga is not for them? If you were having a conversation, what would you say to someone who felt like that? Yeah, about spirituality in general 

Krista: I always recommend that you can't understand it until you try it. Yoga on the mat is something I often describe as magical in the sense that it's difficult to articulate and understand until you experience it.

So I really encourage people to always just, you gotta try it just once, and if it's not for you, then you never do it again. Once you come onto the mat for the first time, you're never the same, even if it scares you.

A lot of times people come to the mat and have an experience of, oh crap. . I'm feeling too much, I have too much time to look within, and that's not something I'm ready to do. And, you know, don't see them again. But I really believe that everybody is impacted by yoga. It's really just a decision about what we do with it. I often find people have an understanding that yoga is somehow in conflict with a religious belief that they have. That's something that I hear a lot. It's cultish or it's devilish. And it's against what I have grown up believing in my religion, and I always want people to understand that yoga is not a religion. It doesn't really teach religion, but it teaches a way of being.

That is in alignment with every spiritual practice that I've ever learned about—the talks of gratitude and the philosophies of being kind to others. We call yoga Ahimsa, not being violent to others or ourselves. These philosophies are teachings in all the major religions I'm familiar with.

They just give us a framework, almost like a handbook, for how to show up in the world to live well and mindfully. 

Courtney: It's a great tool to deal with some things like shame or stress, holding on to things such as secrets, and not being able to be your authentic self, which has an impact on your life. What would you say to someone if you were trying to talk to them about the stress of holding onto shame or not forgiving themselves or someone else?

Krista: I think the practice of yoga gives us the opportunity to practice being ourselves. And whether it's on a yoga mat, whether it's through journaling, whether it's through meditation, or whether it's through therapy, helps you get to love yourself.

And I do my best to remind people that truly, who they are is enough. Just like you mentioned, most of us feel shame. To remind people that others are having a similar experience, even if the details aren't the same. That was one of the most valuable things about writing the book, having all the different people who came to me and said, Wow, I identified so much with your book and I'm like, really? You know? And even the story might be completely different. 

I think that practicing showing up as yourself. It is a practice. It's hard work, but it's like trying on clothes; it's like finding when you fit. So you have to keep figuring out who that is for yourself.

You know, showing up, in ways and having experiences where you go, okay, was I really being honest in this moment with who I am, and is there a way that I can show up differently? I've sort of adopted this mantra where each and every morning I wake up and tell myself, show up as yourself today. Just be your authentic self. I'll catch myself throughout the day, maybe pretending to put on a little facade or be with somebody, and I think they must perceive me this way. So I wanna act a certain way. I've dealt with this a lot within yoga because there's a perception of what yoga teachers are supposed to look like or act like. Right? 

We have this idea of them being super thin and lighting all the incense, you know, all the hippie things that we talked about. I am definitely not those things. I am not a size two. I don't love to do inversions. Like it's never been about the physical practice for me, and I'm very down-to-earth.

I have kids. I've been divorced. I have all the same challenges everybody does, but sometimes I've caught myself sort of feeling like, oh, I have to play this part, or this person's gonna expect me to have all the answers, or never drink a beer, or, you know, oh, be vegetarian.

I'm not a vegetarian. I love to drink beer. But I'll catch myself throughout the day and this is the practice. Sometimes I don't realize it until after, and sometimes I can be in the middle of it and feel like, okay, are you really being yourself here, or are you acting the way you think somebody wants you to act because you want to feel accepted by them?

Courtney: Mm-hmm. I agree with that. 

Krista: I feel like -  I don't know if I lost the tangent of the original question. 

Courtney: No, no, no. That’s what this is about, and we're exploring. It's a conversation. You know, and wherever it leads us, it leads us.

Yeah. I completely understand how that is, when people have a perception of how you're supposed to be. I'm not a size two either, and everybody thinks marathoners are teeny tiny and they just glide over the ground. It prevented me from signing up for some races I could have easily qualified for, but I was intimidated and didn't show up. I held onto that. I'd say, gosh, I need to lose, you know, however many pounds and you're just not being yourself. And I totally get that side.

Krista: I think professionally, the term Imposter Syndrome is big.

Courtney: Yes. Mm-hmm.

Krista: But that exists personally, too. Absolutely. You know, with friends, with, you know, as a mom, you go around, be around other moms, and you think, oh, well, if my kid has tantrums, that says something about me and nobody else, kids must tantrum. Right. Whatever it is, it's a lifelong practice as something that I'm still working on.

Certainly, things like meditation, therapy, and mindfulness have helped me learn to catch myself sooner when I'm doing those things. Again, I try to work, I wake up every morning with the intention of showing up as myself. 

Courtney: And that's the best any of us can do, I think.

Krista: For anybody that's listening, I don't want it to make it sound like that's easy or that this has been an easy road, but it is just a consistent practice and it's an intention that I put out there.

I do my best. I have personally had the experience of holding secrets and then coming out with them and seeing that the world didn't come to an end. There are things that were very, very difficult. The second part of my book really talks about my divorce and the challenges in my marriage, raising my children, and all of those things.

I now have the perspective of talking about my parents, Courtney. I would say this was maybe five years ago. Maybe six or seven years ago now is when I really started being able to say whenever my parents were around me, my mom, Linda, because obviously Dad and Resa passed whenever Mom and Linda were around or with friends, or they'd come to visit.

It was still this really strong fear. Even though times have changed to a degree, that was like this ingrained knee-jerk reaction that I have to be afraid when my parents are around. 

I have to make sure it's safe before I introduce them as my parents. It really has been only very recently that I've been able to do that, and certainly sharing my book catapulted me into practicing being honest. However, there's still a moment of hesitation before I share that with somebody because it is so ingrained in me. 

I learned to keep secrets in my marriage and I kept parts of myself hidden. I kept things that were going on in my marriage hidden from other people in my life because I had gotten really good at keeping these secrets. 

Feeling that shame and wanting to keep it all in. But now I have that perspective of talking about it, of being open about it and really realizing that it's okay and that in fact, what happens is when I talk to people about my story, they immediately go to a place of compassion because they have secrets that they're holding onto.

Now I have the awareness that we all have things that we're hiding. We all have things that we feel ashamed about. I haven't met a person yet who doesn't have that experience to some degree or another. 

Courtney: Do you still experience shame?

Krista: Definitely. 

Courtney: So it's something that we'll always have to work to overcome?

Krista: Yeah, and I think sometimes it's residual shame from the past, and sometimes new things come up that I have to work through. So I definitely have a different perspective on it now. 

Talking about the things that went on in my marriage, I've had to work through a lot of shame. One thing I have a lot of shame for is staying as long as you did, and what my kids might have been spared if I had done things differently. When I think back to the things that happened at the moment, I don't know of any other choice.

Looking back, I wish I had realized I had other choices.

As I went through the process of getting divorced, it was like the veil slowly became lifted until I could have a clearer view of what was really going on.

And now with that clear view, it's really hard to think back to that time. How did I allow myself to be in that situation? How did I allow the things that happened to my children? The stories that I told myself. The secrets that I hid to justify what I was going through, what was happening. So that's really hard.

I think that's the hardest part. It's almost like a past life. It's hard to reconcile that with who I feel I am now, which is just a different version of who I've always been, but how I'm living my life now. How I try to show up in the world, the relationships I have now with my family and my partner, all those kinds of things.

So, it's challenging for me in that way. 

Courtney: Have you gone back and read your old journals, or do you have some other ritual? 

Krista: I have struggled with journaling in the past. It is a practice I've adopted really since writing the book. I don't know why, but saying that, there will be moments in time when I will journal. So I have come across things I've written that are very hard to read. And for the most part, if I realize that's what I'm looking at, I try just to set it aside. 

Courtney: When you read your past, why do you feel uncomfortable? 

Krista: My biggest reaction is Who was that and How did you do that? I think there's a little bit of a shock, I guess, when I read it, because I do feel like I'm a different version of myself now that gets thrown to the forefront of my awareness when I read something that I journaled in the past.

That's why I don't like to read them, because it puts me back there, and I don't wanna go back. When I changed my name, I had my maiden name, and then I had my married name. After I got divorced, I kept my married name for a while. But at some point, it became, this isn't me anymore.

I don't identify with this, and I discovered that you can change your name to anything you want. 

I didn't want to go back to my maiden name because I felt like I was not that person anymore. This is a new beginning, so I wanted a new name to take me into that. I love my name now, which happens to be my mother's maiden name, which is kind of funny because my mom still holds my father's name. 

Courtney: Oh, that's interesting. 

Krista: She's never changed it back because, when you have kids and all that, it's complicated. But anyway, I strongly identify with my mother's side of the family, and just the imagery of the oak tree. I feel like that is the right name for me at this stage of my life. 

Courtney: I think it is, too. Let's fast-forward in your book to the part where you write about the retreat and your feelings of community and belonging. Yeah. Can you tell me a little bit about your experience?

Krista: I mean, I'll do my best to tell you a little bit. Yeah. It's easy to tell you a lot about it. It was a powerful experience, and it's one of the reasons I now offer retreats because I recognize how powerful it can be to take time away just to focus all on you in a community of people doing the same hard work as you are.

Mama Gina is a very powerful teacher. She's a very powerful woman, and she just has a, an energy and a power that is undeniable. So when you're in her presence, you can't help but grow from that.

It was certainly an out-of-my-comfort-zone experience. I talk about in the book how I learned about her from a friend who went to a weekend retreat with her, came back, and she was a different person. Like she was glowing, her confidence, her aura, you know, just how she carried herself was changed. And I said to her, What have you been doing? Like, what happened? And she told me about her experience, and I was like, okay, this is kind of contagious.

I think I've got to check this out, even though I was scared to death. There's an evolution. I have certainly been in circumstances before where I was less open, so I think we can take baby steps. It's the same with a yoga class or anything else. When we first go, we might be looking for something, and the next time it's something else.

But that particular experience opened me up because she's a brilliant teacher. She had us go within and just ask the hard questions, and then feel fully supported by the other women. It was like nothing I had experienced before. It was like being held.

Those women who were also having their own experience were holding space for me at the same time, and I had full permission to let go, to be ugly, to be mean, to be, to cry, to thrash, to scream. All the things that I had never been in a space where I felt comfortable enough to do that. And it was powerful. It was powerful stuff. 

Courtney: It's deep within your soul. Something primitive, almost, about it, and being able to unleash that. 

Krista: Yeah. I do think when women come together, they're special. There's value, of course, in men and women being together, but when women come together to do that work, there's such an understanding. To see women from so many different places, so many different experiences, so many different walks of life, all colors, all races, gay and straight, all the things right? I was amazed to see and experience so much beauty in every single person because of how they showed up in the room.

It was powerful. It gives you that experience when you see another person struggling, sharing their shame, having a hard time, and recognizing the beauty in that. You start to realize, oh, maybe if I share my secrets and let go, I'll also realize I'm beautiful and enough. You're sort of supporting and role modeling for each other how to heal and how to go through the process. 

Courtney: Do you think when people are holding onto shame, they're looking for permission somehow to let it go or to express it and coming together in a retreat is like, they've got the permission, they've got the safe space, they've got the understanding, and do you think that so many people. I just feel like they don't have the permission. 

Krista: Yeah. I think, I think that's probably so.

I have found that it's one of the things that, again, came to me after writing my book, that there's power in telling our story. And when we speak the words and we share the shame and tell our stories, there's compassion, it's vulnerability, we're just opened up, and then that's reflected on the person that you're sharing it with. There's just this contagion that causes that person to automatically wanna go, oh, well, I have a story too. It's full of fear and shame and misunderstanding.

The permission comes from seeing another woman share the story, be vulnerable, and bare their soul, even if it is ugly. Obviously, I don't mean exterior sense, but like letting all the yuck out, showing all the unpleasant parts of ourselves. That is what gives us permission to do that ourselves.

I think it's the right time, the right experience, the right people that you're with and surrounded with that allow that to happen. And being ready and in the right place to allow that. You can be in that circumstance and say, mm-hmm. I'm not going there just like in a yoga class or anything else.

That's why people run—too uncomfortable, not ready for that right now. Yeah. You know, I got a glimpse, uh, I don't want any more. And you know, sometimes, when they're ready, they come. 

Mama Gina has a lot of online teaching now.  She shares just some really powerful stuff that, as a woman, can help you connect to the power of being a woman. 

Courtney: A big takeaway in your book was when you asked yourself, when you're sort of navigating, and assessing what you're holding onto, you ask, whose problem is this? I find myself using that quite frequently now,

Do you still practice that, or do you still ask that question? 

Krista: I do. I do it because we take on so many things that are not ours to take on. That's not our problem. Whose problem is this? We do things for other people because we think it's our job to solve them, and I think it's the nature of many people.

I think women tend to do that in general. When we recognize that we need to come first, that's the most important thing. Once that's taken care of, we can help other people with their problems. 

Courtney: Do you believe that to love someone else truly, you have to love yourself first?

Krista: I do because this is kind of what happened in my marriage. I didn't really know who I was enough to claim it and own that I wasn't my authentic self with him. Therefore, there was a disconnect with what I truly wanted, and once I started to do the work and learn more, I realized that the relationship wasn't for me because it didn't serve who I was at the core, who my authentic self was. I was young when I got married, it takes time when we have these evolutions of ourselves. So absolutely, I think the whole oxygen mask thing is a hundred percent true. I'm not saying that we have to have it all figured out necessarily, but we have to recognize we are important.

Courtney: I also think that we're important, and so is the language we use, in terms of how we talk to others, but also how we talk to ourselves. One rule about speaking that I try to be aware of is asking myself, Is it truthful and necessary? We should not only use that rule to speak to others, but also the way that we speak to ourselves, too. We are our worst critic, and we can cut ourselves down so quickly.

 Krista: Absolutely. It's one of the reasons why I started this Authentic Living Circle, which is brand new. We've been meeting for about a month, but I felt this desire to support people with the mindfulness practice. Not on the mat, but off the mat, either because the physical aspect of yoga isn't available or desired.. It's an ever-growing process of paying attention to how we speak to ourselves. I find that mindfulness, meditation, and these practices teach us to respond rather than react. To make a conscious choice in the words that we speak, the actions that we take, and the thoughts that we have.

That we choose to give attention to and ones that we choose to let go of. It's one of the things I want to share in the Authentic Living Circle, with consistent practice, we're not reacting out of fear and hurt and blame and shame and all of these other things. We learn to take a beat. To take a breath to consciously choose how we show up.

Courtney: That's beautiful and I hope you can touch many more people. Tell me what else, tell me more. Tell me more about what you've got going on, projects, or things you want to share. Where can we buy your book? How can listeners connect with you on social media? Tell us all of it!

Krista: Well, I definitely am excited about this Authentic Living Circle, and it's online. Membership. Basically, we meet once a week online, and I offer teaching, and then we have a discussion. We just get in the weeds together and support each other.

There's a Facebook online community connected with that, and I'm really, really excited about that. So please, please, please check that out. And actually, what I'll do is if you mention this podcast, I will give you two months for the price of one. 

Courtney: Oh, that's awesome! Thanks Krista. 

Krista: That will give you a chance to really try it on, immerse yourself in it, and see if you're ready to do the work at that point.

I have regular yoga classes that I teach in person and online, making it accessible for everyone. Here in Florida, we have many snowbirds, so people can practice online when they're not here locally. I do have an Aligned Life Yoga membership with that as well. 

I offer retreats, so if you go to my website, yogawithkrista.com, you can find out about the newest retreat. I offer several a year. Right now, I've been doing them at my home, keeping it small and intimate. I feel like I get to just hold space for you, I take care of you, and I feed you, and we do this work, and we do these practices, and you have this experience with the other women there.

I have one coming up, but by the time this comes out, it will probably pass. But I am typically doing retreats several times a year, so you can find the newest one on the website. And of course, I'd love for you to read my book. Shedding Shame. It is certainly a passion project, and I feel like I'm just so proud of it, and I thank you for sharing the things that stood out to you, because it just gives me so much joy to know how it's meaningful to people. So I would certainly love to share the book, and you can get all that information through my website, yogawithkrista.com. I'm on Facebook, I'm on Instagram, and I'm on YouTube. I have some videos that you can check out, some yoga videos. Every week, I share a mindful Monday, which is a tip or an inspiration for living a mindful life. Sometimes it's about work on the mat, and sometimes it's about work off the mat. Just share your email and every week you have that, and that might be what you need right now. The perfect thing for you to begin to explore this life of mindfulness. Lots of opportunities.

Courtney: Yeah, lots of options. If you just wanna take it all at once and just really consume it, or if you just wanna like mix and match. Yeah. Or just take one and sample. 

Krista: I'm so passionate about this work that I think that in the evolution of my career, I'm always looking for a new way to help people discover this practice of mindfulness. And so it began on the mat with yoga, and I've been doing that for a long time. I started doing retreats. I wrote my book, the Authentic Living Circle, and I'm also doing speaking. So that's something that's opened a whole new world. So it feels good to serve people in any way and in any place that they're ready to explore. 

Courtney: What's one thing you hope the listeners will remember from our conversation? 

Krista: I hope you will remember that you are enough and that whatever you feel like is making you believe you're not, that it's not real. That it's not real, and that just as you are with all the stories and the challenges and struggles that you've experienced, big or small, real or imaginary, that it all makes you so uniquely, perfectly you, and that is enough. That is enough. 

Courtney: It is enough.

Courtney: Well, thank you for being with me today, Krista, and with everybody. 

Krista: Thanks for having me. This was a really great conversation. 

Courtney: Yeah, it was. It was awesome! This is like what we chat about over coffee. 

Thank you for listening. I will include all of the resources, projects, retreats, the book, and social media, everything in the show notes. If this episode resonated with you, please share and subscribe. If you have any comments or suggestions, feel free to drop me a message.

We wish everyone the best. We hope you have an awesome day. Thank you again for joining us. Until next time, keep reaching for the sky and never settle for less than what you can be. Take care, everyone.