Shame Is Lame

What if the most painful belief you carry isn’t about what you’ve done, but who you are? In this episode of Lumen, hosts Christopher Mooney, LCSW and Kenyon Phillips, LMSW explore the often misunderstood and deeply isolating experience of shame—separating it from guilt to reveal how differently it lives in the body and shapes our behavior. While guilt can motivate repair, shame tends to drive hiding, shrinking, and disconnection. Through clinical and personal examples, Christopher and Kenyon unpack how shame is learned through early experiences of emotional invalidation—and how it quietly shows up in adulthood through people-pleasing, perfectionism, humor as defense, and even rage or withdrawal. The conversation examines the hidden cost of carrying shame, including chronic loneliness, self-abandonment, and the fear that being truly known would lead to rejection. It also offers grounded, practical ways to begin loosening shame’s grip—from naming it in safe relationships to reconnecting with the body and embracing our shared humanity. At its core, this episode is an invitation to step out of secrecy and into connection, which is where shame begins to lose its power. 

To book a free consultation with Christopher, Kenyon, or the other providers at Lumen Therapy Collective, visit lumentherapycollective.com. 

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Lumen is for educational and informational purposes only and is not a substitute for therapy, diagnosis, or treatment. If you’re experiencing a mental health crisis, please contact local emergency services or a trusted mental health professional.

Transcript

Tempo: 120.0

SPEAKER_01 0:00

Welcome to Lumen, a podcast that sheds light on mental health, relationships, and what it means to be human. I'm Christopher Mooney, LCSW.

SPEAKER_00 0:08

And I'm Kenyon Phillips, LMSW. Each episode we unpack psychological patterns that affect our relationships. No jargon, no judgment.

SPEAKER_01 0:16

Just thoughtful conversations to help you understand yourself and others a little more clearly. So today I want to talk about shame. Shame. Shame. Should have already mastered everything. That's a good way to think about it. That's like that perfectionism thing. Yep. But well, so we did a video on shame a while ago, not a podcast, but one of our one of the I think the first videos that we put out was all about like the toxicity of shame. So I wanted to talk about it today. And this idea that, you know, it's kind of determined the difference between shame and guilt, and then maybe some of the other things that happen as we're feeling shame.

SPEAKER_00 1:00

Although I think we're only as sick as our secrets when it comes to shame, it's not a secret exactly. It's more like a judgment that we've made about ourselves, a verdict that we've made about ourselves. Probably we made it a long time ago and we carry it secretly. Yeah. And it's not so much about I did something I regret. It's more like I regret the kind of person I am.

SPEAKER_01 1:25

Yeah. So that's that's an interesting. So just to start, like the difference between shame and guilt, actually, that's you're talking exactly about that. Shame is I am a mistake, and guilt is I made a mistake.

SPEAKER_00 1:38

Exactly. It's it's differentiating action, something that I did versus something that we are.

SPEAKER_01 1:46

Exactly. And shame is one of those things I think when I when I go back to like work in addiction and substance use issues, like that's the the constant that I always hear about is this underlying pit of shame. This something that we feel in deep within our core. It's it's sometimes people talk about like that that hole, that that dark place in their stomach. But it's really, I think, at their at the core, like that's where we experience shame.

SPEAKER_00 2:15

There's somebody I love in in recovery who describes shame as this the feeling of being disqualified from connection with another human being. Tell me a little bit more about that, like what the being disqualified. This well, we in past episodes we talk a lot about how we're we're humans, our herd animals, we're pack animals. Right. We care very deeply about being part of a herd and being persona non grata, being cast out is profoundly painful. And I think with shame, it's a sense shame brings a sense of I'm not worthy, I'll never be worthy no matter what I do. So I am not going to connect with anybody. And the sad irony of it, and we can get into this more as we discuss it, is that that's really the antidote to shame. The antidote to shame is being seen by another human being without being judged, right? To be seen in a loving, supportive, unconditional way, and yet shame prevents that from happening. If I feel ashamed, as my friend in recovery says, I feel disqualified. I feel like I'm I there's absolutely no way I can show who I am to another person without being severely judged, cast out of whatever tribe I'm trying to be a part of.

SPEAKER_01 3:44

You don't you you don't meet the criteria to join the club. Exactly. And that club happens to be humanity. Right. And and so what we yeah, that that makes a lot of sense, right? This this sitting with shame or the having this underlying feeling. And I think everybody has some level of something they're shame they feel shame about, something they're shameful about. And when we think back to just kind of that idea of something that we never, there's things that we never feel comfortable sharing with another human being. By the way, if we shared those things with other human beings, they might be like, yeah, that's okay, like I did that too. Or it might, there might be actually some normalized, you know, experience with it. But but we we internalize it in such a way that it becomes this toxic kind of cancerous feeling that I think contributes to that that thing that you're talking about being other, like that that painful experience of not being allowed into the group, disqualifying ourselves from it already before we even get there. And then from there we just it's the depression, the anxiety, and all of the other kind of like uh alienation, yeah, loneliness, isolation, which just makes exacerbates shame.

SPEAKER_00 5:00

Yeah. The more alone we are with our shame, the sicker we are with those secrets.

SPEAKER_01 5:07

Yeah. And so shame, shame isn't something we're born with. This isn't some like natural like kind of like experience that like, oh, well, I just I have you know 20% shame when I was born. There's not a genetic marker for shame, at least that we know of. I'm sure someone might disagree. But you know, when when we think about it, shame comes from a learned experience. And I think shame, shame really comes from when we're younger and this, like maybe this when we're trying to express our needs and our feelings, and we're kind of met with punishment or disregard or ridicule or silence. So if we think back to like, you know, our own childhoods or you know, someone else, like a little kid, every time we express something, and it can be anything, it can be happy, sad, it could be any feeling that we express, any interest. If we're shut down or disregarded or or told that that's not right in any context, consistently and over time, it starts to contribute to shame. Like feelings become dangerous. Expressing ourselves becomes dangerous. And if we think about like you were talking before about being heard and being present with people, when we express ourselves, if if we can't express ourselves, if we can't, if if we can't allow others to experience us without being punished, then we're gonna hold it inside and think about that we're broken.

SPEAKER_00 6:35

Totally. Yeah, and it also comes from I think shame often comes from this being told at the young age you're talking about, that stage of development, being told that our feelings are wrong. Yes. That happens, shame is also something it as you mentioned, it comes up a lot with substance use. Yeah. Comes up a ton in anybody who's been assaulted or abused, childhood sexual abuse, so many times the child a child's job is really to love. Right, right. I mean, that's like the child's job. And those who perpetrate abuse, especially sexual abuse, any kind of abuse on children, they betray that and they distort it. And so the child is left with a feeling of like, well, wait a second, my feelings must be wrong. Here I am, programmed essentially to just love and receive love, and I'm being abused, I'm being assaulted, this hurts. Sometimes, you know, in the worst cases of shame that I've ever worked with or encountered with clients come from the clients who've been abused, and they're like, but it felt good when I was a kid. And the perpetrators will often it's like they have a code, they'll use that against the the victim against the survivor. And so that deeply, deeply increases the sense of shame.

SPEAKER_01 8:04

Right. There and and like you were saying, there's there's attention, there's you know, focus, there's all these things that kids might be craving, right? And that becomes exploited. Absolutely.

SPEAKER_00 8:13

Yeah. And then the child is made to feel bad for wanting that kind of a connection. If it's a male, a boy who's who's abused, who's molested, and his body responds to it, it makes the child feel unsafe in their body. It makes the the person hate their body. Sure. Which also exacerbates a sense of shame.

SPEAKER_01 8:36

Right. And so all of a sudden these these feelings, like they people start to look at it as these these things are not safe to show. Absolutely. I can't I can't show this feeling, I can't show this reaction.

SPEAKER_02 8:49

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 8:50

Even if it's natural and physical, or if we just like whatever it is. It's oh, I if if I express this feeling, if I express this idea or this interest, you know, this doesn't have to just be about feelings, right? This is about interests or things that we we like. It's about clothing, it could be about clothing, about sexual preference, right? It can be about anything, like you know, the kind of food you eat. Right. So it's suddenly this becomes a this isn't safe to show. So it goes, it doesn't disappear. It's not like, well, I'm just gonna set that away and I don't care about it anymore. It becomes this, I need to now push this underground and not share it. And but it's still mine. But I'm gonna but I'm gonna keep it down there, but everything around it, like the bubble that's surrounding it, becomes very dark and toxic. And so anytime you get near it, it's suddenly you start to look at all the other maladapted behaviors that come up around it. Totally.

SPEAKER_00 9:46

It's it's brutal. Shame is it's it's smart, it's cunning. It you know, it it'll it'll mask itself in a way. There's some great ways that it sort of shows up, even you know, going back to what we were talking about last week with people pleasing, that's one way that shame sort of disguises itself or tries to tries to hide, tries to deal with itself.

SPEAKER_01 10:14

Yeah. So what would be an example of how people pleasing is masked through or shame is masked.

SPEAKER_00 10:20

Shame is masked through people pleasing. Yeah. In the sense of like perfectionism, hey, if I can be as accommodating as possible, then you're never going to point a finger at me and sort of like search or you know, interrogate me or find the thing that I'm trying to hide.

SPEAKER_01 10:41

Yeah, you're not gonna ask for more.

SPEAKER_00 10:43

No. If I'm just as accommodating as I can be, then you know, i i it's also in a way you can look at it is like self-abandonment or self-erasure before anybody has a chance to disapprove of you. Hiding. It's definitely hiding.

SPEAKER_01 11:00

All just hiding. Yeah. Right. Make yourself as small as possible so that nobody, nobody can see. Absolutely.

SPEAKER_00 11:06

I have so many friends who were in the closet. They were, you know, gay men knew they were gay from the time they were children or teenagers, felt like they had to be frat boys, literally, in college, and be like toxic males, you know, toxic, straight acting males in order because of this shame about their true sexuality.

SPEAKER_01 11:32

That's it's that is so common amongst men that shame comes out as rage, as overachievement, in or total withdrawal, right? And instead of any visible vulnerability.

SPEAKER_02 11:46

Right.

SPEAKER_01 11:46

And exactly what we talk about. Like, I oh, I'm gonna have to, you know, jump into this this persona or fit this role so that nobody sees the thing that's really underneath. Totally. And that is well, we've talked about how men already have a have an issue with sharing their feelings and sharing emotions and verbalizing it. And I would say lack a lot of the vocabulary around sharing those emotions and and coupled with any kind of shame about something you may be into. Maybe maybe you like a certain kind of music that your friends are gonna rag on you about, but that builds up over time, right? You're or you're called certain you know things because you you you like a certain lifestyle or you just have an affinity for certain things. Totally. Or you have, you know, you know, just certain preferences that people you're afraid that people are going to judge you or physically harm you because of it.

SPEAKER_00 12:42

And in some cases, there was, you know, there is physical harm for be for people who don't conform. Growing up in the 80s, definitely that, you know, you if if you if I let people know, you know, I remember like showing up to school wearing Reeboks, they were like the arro, this was probably 84, 85, the Reeboks that were that were high tops. And I remember the I was so excited to wear them to school. And the first thing I heard when I got to school was, why are you wearing girls' shoes? And guess what? I never wore those schools, those shoes to school. Of course. No, I didn't want to get ridiculed. I was already getting ridiculed for being overweight. And it was like, oh man. And then later on, when I thank God, you know, when I when I started really loving prince music and putting like prince posters on my walls at boarding school, there were some people who came in and you know made comments. And I at that point, thankfully, I was just embracing my identity and who I was, and I would just give them a look, a prince look. I'd raise an eyebrow or sneer the way Prince would, because he he could definitely throw shade better than anybody. Oh, totally.

SPEAKER_01 13:57

You know, it's interesting because it it's this it's this idea of we've talked about authenticity a little bit before and having, you know, having our insides match our outsides. Totally. And that's so somewhere along the line, right, you you you got some confidence or something where it was like, you know what, screw it, I'm gonna put prints posters on my wall because and I'm okay with like there's a there's a courage in that along along the way. Yeah, but then you start to think about it, your your insides begin to match the outsides, and and I think this is for when we're experiencing a ton of shame, are there's there's not that genuine, authentic balance. No, and I think that's one of the ways that we have to look at shame is that when when that balance is offset, when we have when our insides don't match the outsides, that's when we start to experience more mental health issues and struggles and relationship issues and communication issues. So we should we're we're constantly, I almost said should we we have the started? I started with it. We we're constantly striving to to balance that uh the authentic like inside, like how I feel about myself and what I know about myself and how I present that to the world. Right. It's the presentation. When I say insides match the outsides, I mean how we feel about ourselves and what what goes on internally balances with how we present to the world that we're not putting up a facade. Absolutely, and shame is shame makes us put up a facade.

SPEAKER_00 15:32

It does, and it's lonely behind that facade. It is, it there's no chance of connection. And I have to say, unless you are insanely courageous and strong and have just the this an incredibly solid foundation of self-confidence and self-esteem, you're not gonna get to that place where you can have your insides match your outsides unless somebody in your life is making it safe for you to show who you actually are. Correct. So many people find it, you know, we mentioned people with struggling with substance use, they find it in recovery. They're you know, absolut after years and years and years of degradation and self-judgment and judgment from their families and judgment from everyone in their circle, they can go to a place where people identify with what they've gone through and they can kind of workshop being vulnerable. Yes. Without and you know, it's what we do with therapists. We hopefully welcoming. That's the idea where somebody where somebody can can sh start to show their true colors without fear of reprisal, without fear of judgment in a safe way and normalizing that process. But I think again and again and again, that's what I see, unless somebody has the opportunity to get in the sandbox and try showing who they are and and not be shut down for it.

SPEAKER_01 17:13

Yeah, there's this it is difficult because I think when we experience shame, and and for those listening, when you think about moments in your life when you've experienced shame, it's natural to withdraw and hide and become invisible. So you you almost remove yourself from when we talked about this as a start, you remove yourself from being able to be seen. Right. And so you almost need people in your life to to to actively be looking for you in order to start to undo that or you know, allow yourself to be seen. But the the shame I think is so toxic because it causes us to retreat and and become so small that we we won't allow ourselves to be seen. And once we do that for a while, we hit the point where, well, now we're just not seen. Now no, and then it starts to it's like the self-fulfilling prophecy of I've become so small out of fear and not allowing myself to be and not wanting myself to be seen because it's dangerous, to now nobody sees me. Now I'm worthless. Now I'm a mistake. Now I'm I'm not worth having the relationship. Like you said before, it it it discredits us in in from actually being allowed to participate. Right. But that that becomes its it feeds itself. And so once we we pass a certain point, it just kind of becomes this self-fulfilling prophecy, this self-feeding kind of loop that that we live in. Absolutely. And that's that's really that's when we start doing those masking behaviors. You know, you might see humor, like, or or like the a lot of humor, like all these things that we deflect, we deflect compliments, yeah, accomplishments.

SPEAKER_00 18:56

Oh, I yeah, no, absolutely. You see that all the time. Try to pay a compliment to somebody who has shame, they will not accept it. No, even if you just say, like, oh, I really like that shirt, I got it on sale. Yeah, exactly.

SPEAKER_01 19:08

Uh, it's just something old, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 19:09

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I got it on sale. You have to yeah, you have to kind of like, yeah, this is a good thing. You have to discount it. And it's interesting, there there's a there have been a few studies now on, and Bessel Vanderkook mentions it in the body keeps the score. People who struggle with obesity, many of them, not all of them, but many of them are actually trying to sort of they're they're they're struggling with shame. And for a lot of women who are severely overweight, it's a choice they make to avoid having to deal with the shame of in many cases having been sexually assaulted. And in in many cases, they will lose weight and start to, you know, have this experience of men looking at them, people looking at them, and they feel so unsafe that they need to hide again so they gain all the weight back in order to appear invisible. That's one sort of permutation of shame that is terribly, I think, tragic because it promulgates this intense isolation. Absolutely. Absolutely.

SPEAKER_01 20:19

So we we want to talk about some of the ways that we we need we deal with shame. Like we talked about like maybe how this looks, some of the ways that it comes out. What are some of the ways that we can start to to deal with shame? You mentioned having safe places, having a person in your life that is safe that where you can feel okay expressing yourself.

SPEAKER_00 20:46

Who can normalize it for you? It was so important to me to have a really good friend who is kind of popular say, Oh, I really like Prince 2, you know, when I was like 12. Made it safe. Made it safe.

SPEAKER_01 20:59

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 21:00

It gave me permission, it normalized it. I could identify with somebody else. Somebody else was identifying with me. Oh, this person's cool.

SPEAKER_01 21:09

You know what just struck me, Kenyon, was this idea of how sometimes that that becomes maladaptive before we get into the hey, let's look at like how to do this. I was just thinking of how how the bar works. Like goes to the bar. Or, you know, and and you're or if you're around other people who are abusing substances. And I know we keep coming back to that, but there's this, there's there's other areas in in life where I think this there's examples, but this is kind of the the easy one to look at, which is I feel this way about myself. I'm closed off. These other people feel this way about about themselves, but there's that equal that equalizer, there's the the substance use is something that it kind of balances it out, and we've talked about We talked about where there's that it evens the playing field. And so if we're walking around with these negative feelings and and this shame and these things that we don't want to show people, there's still this it's it's not even a false sense of connection. There is a connection there over something, but it's it's harmful. And I think that's what we have to be really mindful of and and careful of is that when we're trying to connect with other people because we're we're so afraid and and you know we've got all the shame or these and these negative feelings that we're not seeking it out from maladaptive or harmful places. When I say maladaptive, I just mean harmful, like harmful behaviors. Things that, you know, we we talk about like gambling, you know, substance abuse, you know, shopping addictions, most of the things we think of as addictive behaviors.

SPEAKER_00 22:51

Yeah, but I mean, you know, I also worked with young people, young men who identify as incel and they're, you know, with which is this it started online, an identity that's characterized by like extreme misogyny and anger towards women and propensity for violence and certain kinds of music, yeah, certain kinds of games, and it really adds up to a very toxic male identity. And these people are often super reclusive in finding each other online, and it reinforces a highly maladaptive, not only a maladaptive behavior, but like a maladaptive identity.

SPEAKER_01 23:36

Yeah. And super toxic, yeah, right, and and dangerous. Right. Because this is where where a lot of abuse of there's been a lot of abusive behavior and and violence coming out of that that community. Some of the like school shooters identify as you know, I think of that is it it happens so quickly. So when we think about how fast the that ident if if we're pining for connection, just as human beings, right? So this is human nature that we need to be connected. We need to be part of the herd, we need to be part of the the the group, otherwise we don't survive.

SPEAKER_02 24:12

Right.

SPEAKER_01 24:13

And you're you're cast out, you feel separate, you feel like you're a mistake, right? You feel broken, right? And suddenly you have somebody who just pays attention online. And this is all predatory behavior if we look at it online, right? Hey, let me let me tell me more about that. Like, come on, like, you know, all the you know, when you think about like all this all this stuff about kids' safety online now and and the predators just posing as somebody else, catfishing people, like this the examples are endless, endless. And it really, I think, I think if we look at that, comes from this if if somebody's feeling insecure and they're feeling shame, it's so much easier to exploit that. And and there are a lot of people who are predatory in that way, and they can pick up on it and they can read that and they will exploit that.

SPEAKER_00 25:03

Absolutely. Absolutely. And that old it's it feels like a cliche, but it's used by perpetrators, you know, people who molest children, you know, don't remember, don't tell anybody. This is our secret. And if you tell somebody, you know, something terrible is gonna happen to your parents, or something, you know, you're you're gonna be you're gonna be punished.

SPEAKER_01 25:26

Yeah. Or I'm going to do something. Or I'm gonna do something. Which they'll often they'll threaten as well, but or just make it, but they will will exploit that fear and that and that shame.

SPEAKER_00 25:37

Absolutely. You see that with domestic violence all the time. You know, it's not just children, it's adults too, who are living under these severe, you know, sort of bonds of shame. How many women who are battered by their partners then don't want to admit it. Oh, I ran into a wall, I fell down the stairs, and you know, meanwhile being told by their abuser, hey, if you tell anybody about this, if you go to the police, if you tell your parents, I am going to kill you. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 26:11

I think I think there's even more subtle uh signs that to look for too, which is just nobody's gonna believe you. If you if people and and this goes back to even childhood when we were talking about like the the roots of shame, right? This idea of things aren't safe or the these things that I'm feeling aren't aren't okay, which is nobody's going to pay attention to you, nobody's gonna listen to that. So when you think about how how often in these situations people are put down or or made to feel insignificant, and I think that's where where shame just really unfortunately flourishes, it just kind of grows in that in that environment.

SPEAKER_00 26:53

It in that's one of the ways in which silence can be violence, because shame flourishes in silence, it begets silence, and you know, we I've said it already in this episode, I'll say it again in recovery. We're only as sick as our secrets, right? Shame shrinks when it's spoken. Yes, you know, to be to name it, you know, for me, hey, I'll I I love destigmatizing things, you know. I I have you know, things that I've gone through, experiences I've had that have that people have told me to feel ashamed about, you know. Somebody like my I have a profile on psychology today, I guess we all do, right? And I'm smiling in my photo. And I had somebody say, like, you know, you really need to replace that headshot with a professional therapist headshot. And I was like, actually, that's a professional headshot. What what's the problem with it? And they're like, Well, you're smiling. And I have had multiple clients reach out to me from that profile, and I'll say, Hey, what just curious, why did you reach out to me? And they'll say, Because you're smiling.

unknown 28:07

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 28:07

And it gave me hope. And it's an authentic smile. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's not.

SPEAKER_01 28:12

It wasn't the the it wasn't the yeah, the profile smile. The profile smile. It wasn't the profile. It wasn't the Ola Mills smile. But that's so telling about where that person was coming from versus the other people who are looking also like, oh no, I I I want the person that has that. Because there was a safety in that.

SPEAKER_00 28:32

But we're told, you know, don't smile, keep your head down, don't wear clothes like Kenyon wears. You know.

SPEAKER_01 28:43

I um hide your tattoos. That's right. I I was thinking about this with my with my kids recently, like talking about things that embarrass them. Yeah. And, you know, they're they're young. They're in that age though where they're they're embarrassed of you, right? Not fully. Uh, when I pull up to the school to drop my daughter off, she she turns down the music and sinks down in her seat. And I'm like, I'm the coolest dad here. What is your deal? Like, uh like Tribe Call Quest, like blasting, or it'll just be like some like other metal. I'll go into school, like blasting rage against the machine. She's like, Dad, stop. I was like, what? These kids, this, they're they're blessed to have this experience right now. But when I talk to them about embarrassment, other than my me intentionally trying to like embarrass them, you know, it's it's this idea of owning owning the embarrassing moment, oh owning the thing that you feel shame about because when you name it, it you can't feel like you're saying, you it's no secret. So, you know, and I I've I've tried to practice this over my life, and sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't. But if I do something that really embarrasses myself and and or I feel really embarrassed or even shameful about something, I try to immediately call it out in that moment to the person, be like, and just kind of make light of it because it helps. But that's one way that I really try to reduce like the shame. I have enough shame that I just keep bald up down inside. I don't need to be adding more to the pile. It it does a good enough job just kind of sitting there and moving around. So when I when I do something, I really I do try, if I recognize it, to say, like, wow, that was really awkward, or oh, I really, God, why did I say that? Like, it can just be a passing comment like that. At least if I put it out and out there, it gives A, it gives the other person a chance to be like, yeah, that was crazy, or no, it's no problem at all. Like I I can, I can then I can navigate the level of acceptance and the awkwardness. But if I feel comfortable navigating like an awkward moment, then I can throw that shame out there. But I have to name it first and be like, yeah, God, I felt really bad when I did that. Oh, I can't believe I said that.

SPEAKER_00 30:57

I love that so much because it's modeling self-forgiveness. It's modeling, hey, it's okay to make mistakes. And shame says it's not okay to make mistakes. Shame says if you make a mistake, you are a mistake, and you'd better not mess up. There is no second place, all that no second chances. Bullshit. Yeah. You know, I'm 50 years old. I have had so many second and third and fourth and fifth chances, and I will continue to have more chances. And, you know, I I just love that you're able to take, you know, hold yourself accountable. I can try. Well, you can try, but without punishing yourself, you know, just to admit.

SPEAKER_01 31:40

Yeah, it's hard. In all honesty, I will still punish myself about it. Oh, sure. But it's much less painful and it doesn't stick as long. Right. Then it might switch back to guilt. Oh, I made a mistake. I think that's when we talk about that distinction again, guilt is I made a mistake versus shame, I am a mistake. They there is a relation to them, and and you can cross that line from one and one does transform to the other, but you can move it back. Right. I think we have we have the ability. And that's where I think if we can call attention to the moment, and this is what's so important with teenagers, especially kids, like teach them that making a mistake is okay. Yeah, just call it out. You don't have to hide, you don't have to run away. You know, I constantly tell my kids come back here and talk about it. Come back here and talk about it. Don't run upstairs and go hide in your room, don't hide under the table. Come back and talk about it. Right. It's okay. I did the same stupid things as a kid, too.

SPEAKER_00 32:35

Right.

SPEAKER_01 32:36

Probably worse.

SPEAKER_00 32:37

Absolutely. It's definitely it gets normalized. Definitely worse. No, it gets normalized that way. And yeah. It's it's so important.

SPEAKER_01 32:48

Normalization's really that's key. You're bringing that up because that's also normalizing is understanding that, oh, you know what, Kenyon, you probably have shame too, and I have shame, and you have some shame. Hey, so we both have this kind of it's maybe about different things, but we all experience it as human beings. These are all things we feel bad about. Totally. We've all done something we feel bad about. That's okay. Where it's not just our secret like albatross to suffer with.

SPEAKER_00 33:18

No, and that sense that shame gives us, which is that you're the only person in the world who has this, you are terminally unique, my friend. Yeah, no one sucks just as bad as you do, you know, in quite the same way. And it's God, I mean, just the shame of like farting and trying to cover it up, I mean, that's so awkward. It's like just own the fucking fart. We're it there's two of us here. I know you smell it. But if I say, but if I say, hey, you know what? I farted Chris, whoops, yeah, it's it's I I know you farted too. And it's to clarify, nobody's farting right now.

SPEAKER_01 33:57

No, I just want to be very clear. Yeah. Because my wife is gonna be like, that whole part of your podcast where you talked about farting.

SPEAKER_00 34:03

But again, but but sharing breaking shame down, because shame does say, you know, you're the only person who's experienced this, and you'd better hide in order to be barely acceptable, and thus shame self-perpetuates being able to talk about it. That's why I love therapy. I mean, hey, this is this is a place to counter shame, to let it out, show it to the light. It's like a vampire, it'll die in the light, in the sunlight.

SPEAKER_01 34:35

That's true. It can be, it's hopefully a safe place. And I know it's kind of cliche to say, oh, therapy is like creating this safe environment for people, but that really is when I think about therapy and being a therapist and that process, it's it's not just the room, the safe room, or it it a lot of it has to do with that space, but you know, since we've gone to telehealth, that's a little different, you know. But I think it's it's really about how the relationship is safe and and how can somebody just share something and not feel a sense of judgment. And as or and and like like a mean judgment too. Like there's there can some of that we've talked about assessment versus judgment, just kind of like listening, but this idea of like, oh, I'm being judged and I'm being put down, or or this person thinks less of me because I'm saying this. Absolutely, and that is that is what we're avoiding. We don't want that. We want we are trying to have a relationship with somebody where you can you can tell me about all the weird stuff that goes on in your life. Yeah, dude, that's just you. That's okay. Yeah, it's it's part of you, it's part of what gives people character, and sometimes we do weird stuff.

SPEAKER_00 35:49

Humans are very strange, it's so rewarding to have a client, and I just had this the other day, to have a client say, I've never told anybody any of this before, but this happened to me. And then it makes me it's deeply gratifying to me, not because something awful happened to a client, right, but because that client is experiencing safety and I can see the shame kind of like minimizing. And it's not like I I don't aim to be anybody's confessor. Yeah, you know, I don't want to be the only person the client can come to with their stuff. I want to model it so that that client feels comfortable going out in the world and sharing these supposedly shameful things that aren't shameful with their loved ones, with their friends, with anyone they trust.

SPEAKER_01 36:46

Yeah. So so if people think of therapy as a microcosm or a test testing ground for like, yeah, the sandbox, you get to you get to experiment with that and then take it out and try it. But the cool thing in therapy is that you get to identify the people that might be safe. So there's nothing wrong with tipping the scale. Put your finger on the scale and tip it in your favor a little bit to go out. Try those, try those experiments first. Pick the safest person you can think of in your life to go and share something that you feel shame about. Don't go to the hardest or person or I think about all how many conversations I've had, not just with clients, but just with people in general, like, yeah, I keep going back to this relationship or this person in my life or this this parent or or this this you know ex or this partner, active partner. And I just keep asking for this thing and they're just not giving it. They're just not right. I'm like, why you're you keep going to a dry well, right? Go to the person that's gonna give that to you. You have a friend that hypes you up all the time, doesn't matter, go to them, get some more hype, right? Just eat it up, try it, and then find the next person, and then find the next person. And that's and I think that's a good exercise for people listening to to just reflect on who in your life can you share something like that with? Is there somebody that is mostly safe that you can do that with or that would give you some feedback? Maybe they're gonna be bluntly honest with you, you know, not brutally, but bluntly honest with you back and say, Yeah, like here's how I think about here's what I think about that, or here's how I feel about that. But you know, identify people that you have in your life that you can share some of these things with. Because shame needs three things to survive. It needs secrecy, silence, and judgment. And so if we take any one of those things a losing its, it's losing its its power, it's losing its you know, ability to control our lives. So uh find don't be silent. Yeah find some way to speak about it.

SPEAKER_00 38:48

Absolutely. And once we do get in the habit, I mean that that's the thing, it can change. We those of us who uh sort of get locked into this tower with our shame, we think this is it. I'm stuck here. It's never gonna get better. I'm only gonna become more ashamed. And and the more we do talk about it and share and allow ourselves to be seen by other people, shame really does diminish. Yeah, it's not permanent.

SPEAKER_01 39:19

Remember, it was a learned behavior early on, or a learned experience early on. And that means we can unlearn it or learn to do something different. I don't think we unlearn it, it'll still, it's still something we've experienced, but we can we can learn to do something different with it.

SPEAKER_00 39:36

That's one of the things I love about just the not only recovery, however you choose to define recovery, but just the word itself. The idea of recovery is that we are reclaiming something we once had. So it gets back to what you're saying about like our origins are amazing. You know, we come into this world, some say we come in innocent, we but we come in with like all these resources and all this potential, and then you know, we're kicked around a bit and we and we develop shame. Yeah. But the idea of recovery as something recovering something we once had is really brings me a lot of hope. And I know it brings a lot of hope to my clients.

SPEAKER_01 40:17

That's a beautiful thought and and just something to reflect on, reclaiming something we once had. And shame is lame. That's the takeaway. Hey man, shame's lame. It's the new dare program. Oh, I like it. Actually, that's what we're doing. We're going in the schools. Shame is lame.

SPEAKER_00 40:38

Shame is lame, bro.

SPEAKER_01 40:43

That seems like a natural, natural place to stop this music. Thank you, Kenyan, for that wonderful insight. You said something so beautiful. And then I just shot all over it. I refuse to be ashamed for it. That's right. No, I I appreciate that about you.

SPEAKER_00 40:59

Perfect. Thanks for listening to Lumen. If today's conversation resonated with you, we encourage you to follow, review, and share Lumen with anyone you think would appreciate it.

SPEAKER_01 41:12

We'll be back soon with another conversation designed to bring a little more light to the human condition. I'm Christopher Mooney, LCSW. And I'm Kenyon Phillips, LMSW. Until next time, take care of yourselves and each other. Lumen is for educational and informational purposes only and is not a substitute for therapy, diagnosis, or treatment. If you're experiencing a mental health crisis, please contact local emergency services or a trusted mental health professional.