The Modern Mormon

The Shame Blame Cycle

November 04, 2021 Kami Satterlee Season 1 Episode 14
The Modern Mormon
The Shame Blame Cycle
Show Notes Transcript

The Shame Blame Cycle can keep us trapped. Understanding what causes this and how to prevent it can help us keep progressing the way we desire. Listen to today's podcast to finally drop this stuck cycle. 

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You're listening to the modern Mormon, Episode 14. Hey there, I'm kami Satterlee. And I'm the modern Mormon. I'm an Advanced Certified Life coach who's dropped the all or nothing approach to life, and religion. I can't wait to show you how. I've got you, girl. Let's go. Hey, all you beautiful souls. Welcome to the podcast. Today I'm going to be talking about the shame blame cycle. This is a vicious cycle. And I think we have heard of the words shame and blame. But a lot of times when we are in them, we have a hard time recognizing that we actually are in it. And we don't quite know how to escape that. So I'm going to talk about that today and discuss that. But first, I want to talk to you about my MMC coaching program. It's beginning in January again. So we started this last time for the first go round in October. And I'm so excited, it's gone amazing with my clients. I'm so excited to bring it to you again in January. For months. one on one coaching is amazing. It's awesome. Go to my Instagram my link in my bio to see what it's all about. And then also sign up. So I will say there are only a certain amount of spots for this program. And I'm only going to be taking a few this time. So if you are interested, go check it out. Okay, this shame blame cycle. The reason I'm talking about this today is because it's something we all experience. And it's something that feels absolutely terrible. And we can feel really stuck when we're in it. So when we feel shame, shame is something has gone wrong in our brain, right? Something to us feels not right, it comes up when things are not going our way. It makes us feel like this is our faults. If we were more worthy, if we were better if we were just enough, this wouldn't have happened. Shame says I am bad, okay? When our brain feels shame, it will get to a point where it does not like that emotion anymore, and it will do everything in its power to get rid of it. Okay, when we try to do that, then we go to blame. And blame says it's your fault. Blame says, you know, it could be God's fault. At times, it is basically a shift of trying to get rid of that emotion and put it on something, someone else another behavior that is outside of us. Both of these feel absolutely terrible. But I feel like when we go to blame, it's almost a little bit of a relief from the deep, dark, heavy shame that we feel. So blame kind of gives shame, a quick break. In my opinion. It's like if you're drowning, you're treading water, you go under, okay, that's shame when you're under the water. But when you come back out and you kind of take a breath, you're still treading water. So it still feels terrible. But you have a little bit of a moment of a pause a break. All right, that would be the blame. The reason we're so stuck in this cycle is because it feels justified to us. It feels safe to us. But what it truly is, is just a bunch of lies. When our brain starts to have that awareness of those lies, that's when we go to the blame. And when we're in blame, that's when we start building our case, we start getting supporters, we want to have validation that we are you right and they are wrong. And it feels almost powerful. The shame blame trap is so dangerous to us because it stops us from progressing. It stops us from understanding our truth, taking ownership over that truth and being able to move forward. Instead, we stay stuck, we stay put where we're at with our behaviors, whether we like them or not. And we still are stuck with negative emotion. Basically, when we are blaming other people. Blame victimizes us it takes basically our power away from us in blame. We tie our emotions to someone else, and their behaviors. And although we feel it's not our fault, it kind of takes the edge off. It does this by us not taking responsibility. If we're tying it to somebody else, and we're not taking responsibility, then it also makes it so we are not held accountable for the emotions that we are feeling. So we're not taking ownership over those emotions. It's the assumption that something or someone has gone wrong, what they did was wrong. Okay. So that's when we're stuck in blame. And there's so much shame associated with women in the church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints because we get stuck in these loops. When we make mistakes. When we don't feel we measure up. I find it really hard for women to be stay at home moms and do these tests that we think in our heads we're supposed to do and we're supposed to want to do. And then we end up hating them. And and then we feel like we're not good enough. And then when we feel like we're not good enough, that's when we bring on the shame. And that's what stops us from actually progressing and going after our dreams and our desires. And this is what I coach women on all the time because it's so common. It's it's something that we all deal with on one level or another, whether you're a stay at home mom or not, and not just in religion just in society in general. But for women, especially, I feel like we get stuck with this, like, we're not worthy, we're unworthy in some way. Like if our job is to be mothers and wives, and then we look around, and we're like, my house is a disaster, I'm obviously not a good mother, if I can't teach my kids how to keep their rooms clean, so we feel unworthy. Or if we can't meet our husbands expectations that our brain that we have set for ourselves, then it's also unworthy. And so it's these two words actually worthy and unworthy are ones we use a lot within the church. And I find for me, from a very young age, those brought on shame for me, the way I understood them as a kid was that basically, if you're worthy, then God loves you. And if you're unworthy, then he's so unhappy and disappointed, he had even look in your direction. And what I talked about in my last podcast, with, you know, being in high school and having a boyfriend, and you know, screwing up with him and nothing like to major, but in my head, it was so major, that it was an instant unworthy. So the times that I wasn't doing those things, then I was feeling worthy. And I thought the thoughts of like, at this very moment, like I have to take the sacrament, I have to do temple baptisms, almost in a way to kind of build up my worthiness, like, as if I was getting some type of point system and heaven, because I knew at some point that I was going to fail, and I was going to be unworthy again. And it was just almost too much to bear. So even when I felt like I was worthy, I was still stuck in shame. And that kind of just felt completely out of control it just as a hopeless feeling. worthiness to me felt almost inauthentic. It meant trying to be perfect and kind of boring, I kind of looked at when you're worthy, your life really sucks. And it meant basically doing the opposite of what my wants and desires were, it's just to appease God, I even remember being taught that premeditated sin was like the worst thing you could absolutely do in this world. And it was an instant, like damnation to hell. As a kid, I knew once I saw my boyfriend exactly what I was going to go do. And so I just felt like I was already going to Hell, no matter what that is, what kept me in shame is that I already felt doomed right off the bat, which is so sad and terrible for a child. But I also kind of continued this into my adult life in different ways. So just like I teach, when we continue our same thought pattern, it'll show up in different areas in our life it did for me. So the reason that this unworthiness brought on shame, is because the focus wasn't on truth, it was unchecking, the worthiness box, like especially during my bishop center interview, if I could check all of these boxes, then I was good to go. And if I didn't, then I was bad, that would be a shame. So I wasn't building a testimony, I was striving for perfection. And I was basically just trying to appease my parents and appease God, and the way that I thought he wanted me to think, act and perform. This is what I coach women on is we feel so obligated in our roles, to do things that are not in line with who we are. Now, you know, being sexually active as a kid is not necessarily in line with who I was. But it is in line with nature, it is in line with what you know, the whole purpose of us being on Earth. And so instead of looking at it that way, I fought against it and fought against it and resisted it, which just made it the desire for it come on stronger and stronger. I wasn't focusing on truth or why we wait or being taught any of those things. It was just like, I can't do this. And because of that it was like an obligation or else what's going to happen. And that type of thinking is never going to bring on truth. It's just going to bring on more negative emotions and a ton of shame. So I carried this on into my adult life, which kept me from religion, because it felt so much better. Blaming the church felt better than justifying my choices that I was making. But then shame would come up when those choices I stood behind backfired on me in my relationship and who I was becoming in the way I wanted to raise my family. So how do we get out of shame and blame? We do that by telling ourselves the truth by finding truth and opening up and being vulnerable in those moments. So when we cut out the labels and we stick to just the facts, then we are more able to get out of shame. Shame wants us to keep us hidden. So this is where we don't share where we're falling short. This is where we don't share what we truly are feeling inside. exposing ourselves takes courage, honesty, and it takes a lot of awareness, owning who we are. When we talk about worthiness and unworthiness. We are all unworthy, yes, but our value is not. I never understood that part. As a kid and I didn't understand it even as I became an adult. Once I finally started to truly like find out whether the Church was true, and discover like the doctrine of the Church, I understood truth more. And when I did that, I understood what worthiness and unworthiness actually was. You're supposed to make mistakes, you're supposed to do it wrong. You do this until you find your right. You do this until you find your truth. When I could remove the shame from my decisions and my choices in life, my experiences and even from my past, I was able to just feel guilt. Guilt was the emotion that taught me truth. Guilt said, Hey, this isn't feel like you, girl. This isn't the way you want to live. This isn't in line with your spirit. Where shame says your bad. Guilt says, what you did wasn't the greatest that it was just a mistake. Not that you're bad. The mistake was bad. Guilt is like, yeah, I don't ever want to do that again. Not well, I already did it. Whatever I do at this point doesn't matter. Okay, that's the difference between the shame and guilt. guilts lets you ask the questions of what does your future self say about that choice? Who are you becoming? That was all guilt? Guilt is an incredible emotion. Guilt, to me is kind of the Holy Ghost guilt is intuition. And it is the Spirit. Shame is more of the adversary. So sometimes, intellectually, we can understand this. But when we go to perform or act, we go right back to you know, acting out of fear. And an example of this is when we as parents teach our children our truth, and they choose otherwise, our alarms go off, and we try and control and fix and try and prevent them from making mistakes. So we force truth on them in hopes that they will do it right and avoid mistakes. This type of manipulation is what creates that make mom and dad and God happy. It creates that checklist, where you're not letting your child be authentic to who they are. Now, of course, we don't want our kids to make these massive mistakes. But also, that is how we learn. That's how we learned as a kid. When we try and prevent this, though, this is where your child will then feel responsible for your emotions. So they will get out of touch with their own emotions and their own life. And they're so wrapped up and trying to perform and make you happy that it makes them unhappy. And it makes them go to shame. This will block them from feeling the guilt that is in line with who they are. And it instantly just leads to shame and hiding. When they don't measure up. It blocks their truth. So if you want your child to build a testimony for themselves, it has to be through their own experiences, their own struggles, their own mistakes, it cannot be through yours. Now our job as parents is to teach them our truths. And then allow them to go and, you know, figure that out for themselves take action on that, whether they want to listen or not. And then we as parents can hold boundaries and have consequences for those things. But it's when we try and control them and try and prevent them from making these decisions by holding them back keeping them, you know, almost like locked down in a way that this is what makes them want to complete do the complete opposite of that. So the more that we can understand this as parents, the more we can let go of the fear that's associated with parenting a lot of times and stay grounded and firm in knowing that they're going to be just fine, that they're going to be okay, because we trust in God. And we trust in the doctrine that he's got their back. If we spent more time telling our kids, that they're capable of figuring out their own lives and building up their courage and their strength, and instead of trying to hold them, you know, and control them, because we know more than them and then they feel less confident in who they are that then they feel insecure. And now, they feel also not worthy of being able to make decisions and figure out what they do know as truth. So the same thing actually needs to be done within ourselves. We look in the mirror and we beat ourselves up. We say if I was just smarter, skinnier, more organized, better housekeeper capable of making money, if I was sexier, more worthy, a better member of the church, all of those things, things would be better. We try and beat ourselves better, which never leads to more positive emotion. It just leads to more self loathing. So you get out of the shame blame trap by just simply reminding your brain of truths. I love me. I'm a beautiful mess. I made mistakes and I love me anyway. I love to use examples from my marriage mostly because marriage is always like, both toughest lessons the like biggest self awareness you just get it's such a slap in the face when it comes to marriage. And it's because they know you the most So in a way, you, you know, really value their opinion about things. So if you guys have a discussion about something, and they think one way and you think another, it's almost sometimes easy to get to shame about it. Because I know for a lot of women and for myself for a long time, you kind of put your husbands on this pedestal of like all knowing and the most wonderful beings ever. But what happens then is that you also become super insecure around them, and feel a little bit less than, like, you're not good enough. And because of that, then it brings on that shame. But of course, we don't like that emotion. So then we go to blame. And that's where the argument happens, happens. And we go back and forth, and from the shame to the blame. So we, as humans are naturally wired for connection, you would have to totally be just a sociopath to truly ignore the opinion of other people. But in my experience, what is possible in these scenario is to develop a sense of self where you can take in another's opinion, but not attach it as your own. We do this by liking, connecting, and basically just befriending ourselves. So in moments, if you're arguing with your husband, before that argument even happens, hearing them out hearing their opinion, but being firm, in your own opinion, and understanding that it doesn't make someone else better, and doesn't make you worse, or vice versa. Just basically having your back in those scenarios. So the more that we can start to believe that we're enough, and to believe we're capable of handling any emotion and that we are, you know, empowered women, then we can show up as the type of mother or the type of wife, the type of just human all around human that we want to be, this isn't just going to benefit us, it's going to benefit our relationships and the way that we parent, it will help us show up in the world, constantly forgiving ourselves, and therefore being able to forgive forgive others, and progress, move forward, hit our goals and do the things in life that we actually want to be doing. So when I'm working with my clients, the way that I know that they are in shame, is when they talk about things that they are not measuring up in, for example, it's like I just can't get all the things done in the day that I want to get done. And they'll say all of these different examples. And then there's kind of like a thought in there of I can't get it all done. And I should be able to. And it's that thought and I call that thought in parentheses, that brings on the shame. And so when I'm helping people get out of shame, it simply comes down to dropping that shoulds dropping the you should be better, you should do these things. That's what brings on the shame. If we could drop that, then we can start from I'm not doing these things. Let's recognize that. Let's bring awareness to that. And let's think and talk about why they aren't getting done. How can we build ourselves up? How can we build up our capabilities, our strength so that we can get the things done in in the day and within our own lives, so that we can keep progressing? The shame is what's making them not get those things done. When you put a shirt on anything, you're going to feel terrible. So that is what I teach everyone and that's kind of what I want to leave you with. If you're shooting on yourself in life, drop the should. Dropping the shirt will drop the shame. When you drop the shame. You can start showing up as who you want to be. Thank you guys have a beautiful week and I will see you back here next Thursday. If you're ready to drop the all or nothing in your life, then I would be honored to be your life coach. Head over to the modern mormon.com To start your journey and becoming the confident authentic and best version of you