It’s so easy to brush over the bad and focus on the good. And it’s getting in the way of your growth.

We’ve all done some things in life we wish we hadn’t. When we let ourselves down, or we let someone else down. And we don’t want to talk about it.

• Maybe it was an awful parenting moment.

• Maybe it was a terrible thing you said to your spouse when you were angry.

• Maybe you let yourself down when you swore you’d quit drinking but didn’t follow through.

And too often, instead of processing the shame that often comes from that mistake, we shove it down and dump some positivity on it. What we don’t realize is that the shame is still there, festering, and still impacting the way we feel about ourselves.

• “Yeah, I launched into a rage toward my daughter when I was drinking that one time. But I’m such a good mom most of the time. She really is lucky, over all. I don’t know why she can’t focus on all the good things I’ve done for her instead of the handful of bad times.”
• “What I said was really awful. But I do so much for him, always cooking and cleaning and taking care of the kids. He knows I love him.”
• “Okay, so I drank even though I told myself I wasn’t going to. But look how far I’ve come! I don’t drink nearly as much as I did before. I’ll just focus on the progress.”

I don’t want to take away the positivity. But I don’t want you to use it to avoid your issues, either. We can acknowledge the growth, and we can also acknowledged where we screwed up. And we MUST do both, if we want to grow.

Almost always, it’s shame we’re avoiding when we drown out the negative with the positive. And that buried shame is keeping you stuck feeling like you’re never good enough.

We don’t want to feel the shame of knowing we caused real pain to our child. We don’t want to have to face how we made our husband feel. We don’t want to admit that this drinking problem is a lot bigger than we originally thought, because that’s scary and shameful. But it’s in having the courage to look at that shame and understand it, shine a light on it and free ourselves from it, that the freedom lies.

I remember the first time I told a friend the actual story of a time I hurt my daughter. It was so hard to get the words out. I was so afraid to let someone else know what kind of failure I believed I was, under that shiny perfect-mom exterior. But – because I chose the right person to tell my story to – I was met with so much compassion. I was reminded that we have all made huge mistakes that make us feel awful. We’ve all lost control of our tempers and emotions. I’m not the only mom who has caused her child pain. And while it’s not okay that I did that – it’s not helpful to pretend it never happened, or wasn’t that big of a deal. It’s not helpful to hide all that shame inside and continue to marinate in it and suffocate beneath it.

Talking about it was the first step to being able to breathe again.

Talking about it turns shame into regret. And that might not sound like a good thing, but it really is. Shame holds you hostage, it traps you so you can’t move. Regret acts as fuel, moving you toward change.

Regret demands that you look at your actions and that you figure out what you’re going to do differently this time. It gives you permission to finally forgive yourself and remember that all humans make mistakes. And – if that shame story involved someone else, too – it allows space for you to heal from it together.

It takes a lot of courage to be willing to invite that shame to come to the surface.

Especially when you’ve spent your whole life avoiding it.

But that’s the only way you’ll start seeing the change that you’ve been looking for.

If you’re tired of carrying the shame alone, and you’re looking for a safe place to share it, that’s exactly what I offer my clients. You can learn more about that here.

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If you often find yourself struggling with shame, make sure you also check out my blog article called You’re Never Going To Shame Yourself Into Being Sober.