[Taking a moment to welcome you, if you're new here. Today's Love Note is on the longer side, it's about a 6-minute read]

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TL;DR: The experience of shame makes us feel unsafe and feeling unsafe tends to also feel shameful.

This isn't a personal failing, it's partly evolution/adaptation and partly cultural.

Understanding the nature of shame and knowing how to navigate it can help us feel safer, individually and collectively.

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Several years ago I heard part of an interview with Saeed Jones, author of How We Fight For Our Lives, which is about growing up black and gay in Texas in the 1990s. He talked about how he "erased" himself (specifically being gay) in order to have a relationship with his mother.

It made me think about the ways I erased parts of myself in order to be palatable to my mother.

Later that same day she happened to call me. ​The conversation followed its typical path: the weather, how her husband is doing, her bridge games. She usually then says, "What's new with you?" and I share generalities with her about the weather, what my husband is doing, how the pets are, etc.

Thinking about what Jones said, when my mother asked – "What's new with you?" – I took a deep breath and decided to share something I would normally "erase" – not because it was particularly controversial, but because my spidey sense knew it wasn't a "safe" subject based on a lifetime of experience.

"I went to New York City last week..."​

"New York City?!" she said with a tone I perceived as suspicious and aggressive.

"Yes, I went for a workshop..."​

"A workshop?? What kind of workshop?" Her tone ratcheted up when I told her, and she sputtered and sniffed and made sarcastic noises. I could practically hear her rolling her eyes.

I rushed to change the subject, which didn't help. "And the day before I saw my friend Suzanne, who worked at McGraw-Hill with me. She came to our wedding, remember? I hadn't seen her in more than 20 years."​

"I don't remember her. Does she still work there?"​

"No. She freelances as a technical writer now." ​

"Oh, I enjoy reading those kinds of articles. ... Do you still write?" she asked (this pings shame in me: "there something wrong with me because I am not a 'serious' writer like she wants me to be.")

"Yes! I have two books coming out next year." ​

"What are they about?"

"One of them is a guided journal for mothers and daughters and the other one is about creativity and overcoming your inner critic." ​

"And these books actually sell?" she asked, sarcastic tone intact, plus a hint of incredulousness.

With each back-and-forth of the conversation my heart beat faster, my breathing became more shallow, and I was on high alert. At first I want to "fight" back, but my body's wisdom had me starting to dissociate/freeze, so I ended the call.

Later, I joked with my husband that the theme from Jaws would have been an appropriate soundtrack for the conversation.

Then I had a moment of clarity: if my nervous system perceived the conversation as unsafe, then her's did too.

Her aggressiveness (i.e., nervous system "fight" activation) means she doesn't feel safe with me (and her safety is not my responsibility). I can speculate about why she feels unsafe when I bring up certain topics, but that's a conversation for another day.

More importantly, I know why I don't feel safe with her, and how shame is intertwined with that.

This has been the dynamic at the core of our relationship for as long as I can remember. It's why we are currently estranged.

~~~

Underneath all the pathology and buzzwords surrounding mother-adult daughter estrangement is shame and a profound lack of safety.

This is not a personal failing!

It's the result of living in a culture of abuse where shame and fear have been, and continue to be, used as control.

It's generational trauma.

And it's beyond time to put collective responsibility for this where it belongs: on systems that have shamed and oppressed women for thousands of years.

Our understanding of – and our ability to recognize – manipulation, abuse, and harm has expanded. This is maturity, not weakness, reactivity, or naiveté.

Yet, when we feel unsafe and our survival response is activated we are more vigilant and self-conscious, which can intensify the experience of shame ("what's wrong with me that I can't just have a normal conversation?"), and we become even more focused on our perceived inadequacies.

Chronic shame makes us feel unsafe; it signals to our nervous system that we are somehow defective or unworthy of protection.

Shame emerges from experiences where our social bonds feel threatened – when we perceive judgment, rejection, or exclusion. These experiences directly challenge our sense of safety, because we rely on belonging for survival. This creates a cycle: feeling unsafe can trigger shame, which can further erode our sense of safety.

If we grew up in environments where we didn't feel consistently safe (physically or emotionally) we develop stronger shame responses. Without the foundation of felt safety, we internalize negative experiences as reflections of our own worth rather than as circumstantial events.

What can we do individually?

We can understand the complex, layered experience of shame and the role it plays in our lives.

We can unshame ourselves and our bodies' survival responses.

We can create safety within ourselves so we are safe with the ones we love.

We can establish healthy, protective boundaries, up to and including going no contact.

We can reclaim or authenticity and the parts we erased and abandoned to make ourselves palatable to (m)others: our dignity, our expression, our audacity.

Safety is directly related to authenticity. If you're going to put energy or effort into changing anything, put it towards that which supports your authenticity.

Much much love,

Karen

P.S. If you would like to do this work in community, Shame School is for you. Shame School is a facilitated small group exploration of shame and how it impacts us and our perception of safety. Over the course of three months, we work on three core skills:

Creating safety: Understanding and working with the physiology of your nervous system and the role shame plays in being triggered.

Creating intentional identity: Offering your brain an alternative to the internalized shame-based stories you have about yourself.

Creating healthy boundaries: Taking care of yourself when others project shame onto you (and avoid projecting shame onto others).

Shame School includes twelve 90-minute recorded Zoom calls; access to the Shame School Library (on Google drive) of tools, writing prompts, and explainers; and access to the Shame School online community.

I am running two cohorts of 10 participants each. Calls for cohort 1 are on Tuesdays (starting February 18) from 1:00 p.m. - 2:30 p.m. Eastern. Calls for cohort 2 are TBD.

You can register for Shame School with one payment of $600 or two monthly payments of $300.

Questions? Reply to this email. Want to chat with me about Shame School? Click here to schedule a conversation with me.