Why Shame Is Sabotaging Your Relationship (and what to do instead) EP 98

[00:00:00] Shanenn Bryant: When you have a jealous experience, typically you feel a lot of emotions afterward, including maybe guilt or shame or even both.

And today on Top Self, we're talking about these two negative emotions, guilt and shame. But first, if you're listening to this in real time, the holiday season is here for many of us, and in case you missed my announcement last week on Instagram, in the spirit of the holidays, I'm offering 12 hours of giving through December 31st.

This is a pay what you can coaching session to 12 people. Some sessions have already been scooped up, so you probably want to hurry. Go to www.topself.com and click on the top right-hand corner, 12 hours of giving to claim your pay what you can coaching session. The reason I wanted to do this is I wanted to make coaching a little bit more accessible to show you the life changing impact coaching can have. I wanted to offer a time where budget wasn't a hurdle.

And I love to give back during the holiday season. So, this is just another way to give back. So, I'm offering 12 pay what you can coaching sessions. There is a minimum investment of 25, but this is my way of giving back and saying thank you for being here and in hopes to help you experience the power of coaching.

If you're interested in scooping up one of these sessions, go to www.topself.com. In the top right-hand corner, you're going to see 12 hours of giving. Each session is an hour, and you pay what you can starting at 25.

 And if that wasn't exciting enough, let me tell you 2025 is going to be next level over on Instagram. I have got some incredible things in the works, new programs, opportunities to connect, and content designed to help you grow. So, if you're not already following me, 

Now is the time to hit that follow button so you don't miss a thing. You can find me @topselfcoach. So, before we get going, just remember there are some sessions left to pay what you can to get that one-hour coaching spot with me. This is only going to be available through December 31st.

And hit me up on Instagram at Top Self Coach. I'd love to see you there. Now on to talk about shame. And guilt.

Welcome to Top Self, the podcast dedicated to relax your mind, achieve change, and become a healthier, more present you. Are you ready to move past the daily anxiety, comparing and doubting yourself, and feeling like you're not enough? I'm your host, Shanenn Bryant, and I've ruined many good relationships because of my jealousy, and stayed way too long in some bad ones because of my insecurity.

But I've stopped letting fear drive my actions, and now I can't wait to share with you as I dive into these emotions, shed light on how they might be impacting your life, and uncover strategies to break free from their grip. It's time to start living a life of confidence, so get ready to ignite your self worth and transform your life, because my friend, you are worthy. 

[00:03:45] Shanenn Bryant: I think the first thing I wanted to talk about was the difference of the two, because it's so important. Guilt is focused on a specific action or behavior you did wrong, making you feel responsible for something. While shame goes way deeper. And instead of just an action or behavior, you actually feel bad about your entire self and believing.

You're fundamentally flawed. or an inadequate or bad person. so basically, it comes down to guilt is I did something bad and shame is I am bad. And when it comes to your jealousy, I think some guilt is fine.

Shame is not. Some guilt can be helpful. Shame is not. Guilt lets us know that we've done something wrong, and you may have or will do something wrong when you're jealousy or insecurity creeps in. It can help let us know that there are things that we can change in our response to the feelings of jealousy.

Understanding the emotions you're having and making it a point to become really aware of your thoughts and actions is key to managing your jealousy and changing your insecure habits. We might need some guilt there to teach us lessons, to make us become more aware and to be there as a teacher of, hey, next time we may need to do something a little bit differently. What we don't want, though, is the shame. It is not healthy to hold shame. 

 There's a quote from Brene Brown that says, shame corrodes the very part of us that believes we are capable of change, meaning shame causes inactions.

Because if we believe that we're just bad people, we're just defective, then we won't take any steps to make it different because we don't think we can. We don't think that we can change. If you are saying this is who I am and I'm this horrible person and I'm bad, no one wants to be with me.

I'm not worthy of somebody being with me. Then we're not going to take the steps like… getting a coaching session and seeing what changes can make. We're not going to take the steps to become self-aware and track some of our insecure habits. Also, when you have shame after a jealous meltdown in particular, maybe you said some pretty nasty things to your partner.

Maybe you gave them the cold shoulder. Maybe you ruined dinner or did something bad to your partner. You didn't treat another woman in the right way because you were feeling insecure. These are all things that you can and maybe should feel guilty about. But when you feel shame about them, we're adding to the trouble.

We are keeping ourselves locked in this cycle because you think that's just who I am. I remember, I, that's what I used to think is I am broken. I'm fundamentally a bad person because I have these feelings of jealousy and insecurity because I am saying these things that feel very uncontrollable. Like I'm, I'm possessed with this ugliness. 

Another place that shame is really going to make it difficult for you to make any changes is, you know, I talk about when you do have a jealous meltdown that causes an actual argument between you and your partner.

You know, the whole idea when we feel triggered, when we feel this jealousy come on or this insecurity come on, it's to lengthen the time between that stimuli, that thing that happened to trigger this. this jealousy and our response or reaction, we want to lengthen that time because the more time that we create in there, the more time that we have to potentially make a difference, to make a change, to think through something, to use a tool or technique that maybe changes from a reaction to more of a response.

And in that same situation, we also want to shorten the gap between our reaction or response in this recovery time. I shared this in an episode not too long ago where it's really important, this recovery time, to just get back to normal, get back to doing the things that you were going to do instead of staying stuck in that cycle.

Because when you stay in that place of massive guilt or, or shame in particular, that's really going to, start additional unhealthy behaviors like people pleasing and overcompensating with your partner. And guess what? That'll last for a while until you feel taken advantage of or until you feel disrespected, which then brings more problems into the relationship rather than just feeling guilty and then knowing that you may have initially done something wrong that just needs to be corrected.

But if you're feeling the shame and like, uh, I'm not worth this person being with me, you're going to go into that mode of overcompensating and people pleasing. If we are feeling guilty, versus shame, then we know that that's an opportunity. Okay, I'm feeling this guilt. This is my opportunity to look back on the situation and to figure out what I could have done differently. At what point did Is there a new tool I've learned or an old tool that I know I should have used here, but I didn't?

Is there some other way that I should have thought about this? Have I properly apologized? And more importantly made a conscious effort to figure out how I can do things differently in the future. Figure out where you went wrong. What did you learn from that meltdown or the jealous experience to make improvements?  Not shame yourself and tell yourself that you're a horrible person. 

There are some things that you can do to break this cycle of shame. Self-compassion practice by thinking about what you would say to a friend in this situation.

You know, would you tell her that she's a terrible person? if your friend said, oh my gosh, I did this horrible thing. We were at a wedding, and I thought my partner looked at someone, And I got so upset and I exploded, and we had to leave early. Would you be like, you're horrible. You are a nasty, terrible, no-good person.

No! You'd say, uh, yeah, you did something wrong. We all make mistakes, right? Let's learn from them and move on. I still love you. I still think you're a great person. I still think you're beautiful inside and out. You made a mistake. What would you say to your friend?

You'd lean more into, okay, you did something bad. Not you are bad. And we go deep to the core of shame in Behind Your Jealous Mind Boot Camp, where we reprogram these thoughts of shame like I'm unworthy. I am defective. We talk about that in the boot camp, and there's another one starting in January that So you can sign up for that now.

There will be a link to sign up for that January bootcamp in the show notes. Get a jumpstart. Make sure that you have a spot in the next behind your jealous mind bootcamp. Um, I know, especially after the holidays, we think, okay, things are so great. we just spend a lot of time together and, um, our moods tend to be a little bit more excited, and we have other things going on that maybe that jealousy and insecurity isn't creeping up so much.

And then as soon as the holidays are over and it's kind of in that, um, back to reality type situation. so, I think January is a perfect time to have a new behind your jealous mind bootcamp, you can sign up for that in the show notes, or you can go to www.topself.com and sign up for the next bootcamp there.

I think this is so important to recognize the difference between guilt and shame and it will not only make all the difference in the world and your relationship, but also with yourself. And we know that we can only work on one person and that is ourselves.

But when we do, even going from working through those core programs. Like, I am defective. I am unworthy. I am bad. When we can work through those, it changes every area of your life. work, romantic relationships, friendships, family. It changes every area of your life. So, it's okay to feel guilty.

Maybe you did do something wrong, But what we don't want is for you to feel shame. Thanks for hanging with me in this quick dump episode of Top Self.

Until next time, take care and remember, you're not alone.