This is part 3 of a three part series on Toxic Shame. In episode 1, we looked at the neurobiology of toxic shame. In episode 2, we explored what toxic shame looks like, including what kinds of behaviors you might observe. In this episode, we explore how toxic shame heals.
Keep Reading or Listen on the Podcast
Can Toxic Shame Heal?
With 100% certainty, YES, toxic shame can heal. I wouldn’t do the work that I do if it wasn’t true, that we can bring people relief from the felt sense of toxic shame of believing that there is just something horribly, tragically wrong with them at their core. It is absolutely possible to bring healing and to bring a new “knowing” into the nervous system.
However….
There is No Intervention to Heal Toxic Shame
There is no tool. There is no technique. There is no specific process in which I can teach you how to help somebody heal from toxic shame. There is no intervention.
But there is a map.
Shame has the opportunity to experience a moment of healing- which is just a moment of connecting with the truth of the now- when it is met with presence, safety, and co-regulation.
Experience NOW, What was Needed in the PAST
Remember, toxic shame is a sensation-based memory from the past that really means I am experiencing something intense and confusing, and I am all alone. No one is helping me make sense of what’s happening or riding this wave with me.
We want memory to experience NOW what it needed in the past.
Safety. Presence. Co-regulation.
This is the crux of why parenting with x-ray vision goggles, with a focus on regulation, connection, and felt safety, works! Because we are staying focused on the story from the past and wanting to meet it with the truth of the now.
The truth being, “You’re safe. You’re precious. I see you. I won’t abandon you.”
Memory reconsolidation theory supports this with science. I did a couple of episodes on memory last year. You can find them here and here.
How Do We Access the Sensation-Based Memory?
If the sensation-based memory from the past needs to experience now what was needed in the past, how do we do that?
Remember from part 2 in this series, we learned that our inner systems create a network of protectors that work very, very hard to keep us from re-experiencing toxic shame? Well, the more we increase felt-safety, the more the nervous system grows in the capacity to maybe eventually allow the toxic shame to risk becoming known.
So, we focus on growing their felt-safety and growing their connection to us.
And we continue to offer:
Presence, Safety, and Co-regulation.
Ultimately, then, as felt-safety and connection grows, perhaps what could happen is their inner system, in its own wisdom, may one day allow some of that toxic shame to be touched and metaphorically brought to the surface so that it can experience something new.
Instead of the aloneness they are expecting, they may experience what they hope for:
Presence, Safety, and Co-regulation.
And toxic shame needs that only in a moment. It doesn’t need that all of the time. All it needs is micro-moments of healing. I have a previous podcast about the concept of moments of healing called What Our Kids Really Need (and Us, Too): Moments of Healing.
What that will look like for each child and each family is impossible to say. Parenting in this way (the way we talk about on this podcast, the way we practice in The Club, etc.), strengthens your ability to be with your kids in the muck, and it strengthens your intuition in these moments.
Our Own Shame Gets Touched
One of the hardest parts is that most of us hold pockets (or more) of shame in our own neurobiology, and our own protective system is hard at work wanting to keep us from touching our shame.
It’s really hard for our kids’ shame to come alive without ours becoming touched.
This brings us back to understanding the neurobiology so we can keep that birds-eye view for ourselves and respond with compassion and curiosity, even when we have behavior that surprises or shocks us. We can begin to separate from and heal our own pockets of shame.
Holding the Truth for Our Kids
We are going to be asking ourselves to hold the truth that our kids are good, and precious, and full of infinite worth. We will be holding a truth that they don’t believe about themselves. And this contradiction has the potential to actually make us seem untrustworthy.
We can be with that.
We can have NO agenda to change our kids’ beliefs about themselves while simultaneously believing our own truth, while simultaneously grieving, while simultaneously validating their reality.
It really is possible.
It’s really, really hard.
Waiting with Certainty
Healing toxic shame is not a timeline we can be in control of.
Loving someone with toxic shame requires a constant recommitment to a leap of faith. A leap of faith that meeting their shame with presence, connection, and co-regulation matters. It matters even if we don’t see how it matters.
One of the ‘tools’ I talk about in my book for parenting kids who spend a lot of time on the possum pathway is waiting with certainty.
Joining them in the depth of their possum pathway. Not being afraid. Being with. Waiting with the certainty that their shame will receive the presence, safety, and co-regulation in exactly the right time and pace that is right for them.
This is painful, and exhausting, and worth it. I have seen toxic shame untangle in my clients.
I have watched it untangle in myself and in the people I love.
It is not easy or fast.
But it is possible.
And yes, the behavior that emerges from toxic shame is not behavior that invites us to parent in a way that they’ll feel safe, seen, soothed, and secure.
That’s exactly why you’re here. That’s exactly why this podcast exists. To strengthen your x-ray vision. To give you the connection and co-regulation you need to keep seeing underneath the behavior.
Listen on the Podcast
This blog is a short summary of a longer episode on the Parenting after Trauma podcast.
Find the Parenting after Trauma podcast on Apple Podcast, Google, Spotify, or in your favorite podcast app.
Or, you can read the entire transcript of the episode by scrolling down and clicking ‘transcript.’
Robyn
