Discomfortable

Jen Lumanlan   In this episode, I’m joined by researcher, parenting coach, and author Jen Lumanlan to discuss her new book, Parenting Beyond Power: How to Use Connection and Collaboration to Transform Your Family—and the World . I had the pleasure of reading an advance copy of Parenting Beyond Power and even though I’m not a parent, I gained a lot of valuable insight from her expl...

Impermanence   One of the ways that I define toxic shame, is that it is an interpretation of the feeling of shame (shame affect) as something global, permanent, and externally referenced. In this episode, I want to explore the permanent aspect of this interpretation because I’ve been experiencing it a lot lately in my own life. I notice this sense of permanence shows up in (at least) 3...

Rupture   Lately, I’ve noticed a particularly insidious message hidden in my shame. Not only do I tend to go into shame when I make a mistake (as I’m sure most people do), but my inner critic adds insult to injury by convincing me that on some level, I knew I was going to make that mistake! And the fact that I did it anyway, even though I supposedly knew it wouldn’t work (or...

Viral Memes   In episode 101, I put forth a provocative analogy for toxic shame that I think captures the slippery and insidious way that it spreads from one generation to another. I see toxic shame as operating like an unconscious viral meme. The thought experiment goes like this: imagine that as a child, you were hypnotized by someone you loved and trusted, or someone who had power and infl...

Shame and Wisdom   After a long hiatus, the podcast is back with episode 100! In this special episode, I share a conversation I had a few months ago with my friend Virabhadra Colin Bested. Virabhadra has spent the last several years exploring monastic training at Willow Dharma House and MAPLE Monastic Academy . We held an event one rainy afternoon in Toronto with a small group of people to explore...

Authenticity   Episode 99 is a weird and special exploration of authenticity that upended my entire notion of what this podcast is and what I want it to be! Authenticity is a concept and a practice that I really value and something that I consider to be one of the opposites of toxic shame. Shame often tries to tell us to change and hide our truth, whereas authenticity is all about embracing and sh...

Circling   In Episode 98, I describe one of my favourite practices, Circling. Circling is an interpersonal relational modality that I’ve been playing with and training in for a number of years now, and it has been one of the most powerful tools I’ve found for improving my self-awareness and authenticity. Circling is often described as a social form of mindfulness. Like meditation, Circ...

Shame Affect   In Episode 97, I tackle some common questions that people confront when they begin exploring their shame: what does shame actually feel like? And how do you spot it when it’s happening?  We all feel shame, but because it is so uncomfortable and aversive, it is a feeling that we often unconsciously avoid, repress, numb, or react to before we even realize we are feeling it. You...

Paloma Medina   In Episode 96, I interview TEDx speaker , educator, coach, and entrepreneur Paloma Medina . I first met Paloma when I took her masterclass The Neuroscience of Equity and Inclusion in Portland several years ago, and I was immediately impressed with her commitment to science while exploring this difficult and important topic, as well as her ability to frame potentially shame-triggeri...

Hopelessness   Hopelessness is one of those tricky emotions, like shame, where the unpleasantness of feeling it is amplified by the fact that I don’t want anyone to  know  that I’m feeling it. Not only do I experience hopelessness as a kind of emotional prison in which my world seems devoid of any avenues for finding joy or meaning, but shame tells me it’s my own fault for being...

Sally Adnams Jones   In Episode 94, I interview author, educator, counsellor, and artist Sally Adnams Jones . Sally did her PhD in Arts Education with a focus on transformation through creative practices, an exploration that uncovered some powerful insights about the interplay between shame and creativity. I first encountered Sally’s work on the app Clubhouse where she led an in-depth sessio...

Judgement   In Episode 93, I come clean about the fact that I’m a pretty judgemental person. Of course, we all naturally make judgements all the time, that’s part of how we make decisions and form opinions. But culturally, being “judgemental” has come to mean something like, passing judgement on the decisions and behaviour of others . And for people like me who tend to stru...

Susan Campbell   In Episode 92, I interview clinical psychologist and best-selling author Susan Campbell . I first heard about Susan because of her book Getting Real , which was one of the founding texts in the Authentic Relating (AR) movement (AR has been such a useful practice on my journey of learning to talk about shame, I did an episode about my earliest impressions of AR here ). Susan recent...

Nathan Vanderpool   In Episode 91, I interview Nathan Vanderpool. Nathan has a background in psychology, cultural and religious studies, and he did his PhD in sociology. He’s also a singer/songwriter and the author of the Social Arts Handbook .  Nathan recently led me in a process he calls Trauma Mapping, and it was a powerfully transformative experience. Afterwards, I tweeted:  I was just r...

Peter Limberg   In Episode 90, I interview Peter Limberg, the steward of The Stoa . Almost a year ago now, on March 21st, 2020, as the pandemic arrived in North America, Peter started an online event space inspired by the Stoa Poikile (“painted porch”) in ancient Athens where Zeno held the philosophical discussions that came to be known as “Stoicism”. Peter’s modern S...

Michaële Antoine   In Episode 89, I interview Michaële Antoine, creator and founder of Curios Consulting , a learning studio that equips teams and communities to have better conversations. Michaële is a self-described “conversation enthusiast” with a background in intercultural and rhetorical communication, business, and higher ed. Michaële had me as a guest on her  Thoughtful Thursday...

Arran Rogerson   In Episode 88, I interview Arran Rogerson , a podcaster, facilitator, and coach whose work has quickly become synonymous with the concept of the shadow. Popularized by the work of Carl Jung, the shadow is a metaphor for the parts of ourselves that we hide from ourselves . The shadow is the realm of our unconscious mind that we can’t or won’t see.  Arran and I discuss h...

Noah Malcolm   In Episode 87, I interview Toronto-based singer-songwriter Noah Malcolm about his decade-long journey from literally being silenced by shame to releasing his first EP. Noah grew up in Prince Edward Island where he taught himself to play the family piano at a young age and loved nothing more than singing his heart out at church. But his exuberance and creative spirit waned when...

Sarah Peyton   In Episode 86, I interview author, speaker, and neuroscience educator Sarah Peyton about the brain science of shame and what she calls “alarmed aloneness”. In this candid interview, Sarah illustrates the incredible neuroplasticity of the human mind with impactful stories from her own life detailing the transformative experiences she has had as both a mother and daughter....

Partisanship   In Episode 85, I look at the recent election in the United States and the political partisanship that seems to be tearing the country in two. The dictionary on my computer defines partisanship as, “prejudice in favour of a particular cause; bias”. Though we often associate partisanship with political allegiance, I think it really is a form of prejudice (for me at very le...

Savouring   This week I talk about an ongoing experiment I’ve been engaged in during the pandemic in an effort to enjoy myself in spite of being alone virtually all of the time.  I’ve noticed a pattern in my life of conflating people, accomplishments, or things with pleasant feelings. For example, I’ve been working on a book about shame all year, and when I finally sent the book...

Cancel Culture   The podcast is back after a little hiatus (more on that in the next episode), to tackle an issue that has been coming up in the news a lot lately and which people often bring up with me thinking they know what my opinion will be. And while I am of course not a proponent of cancel culture, as I know that shame is not an effective strategy for getting through to people, I increasing...

Hierarchy   Shame is an unpleasant sensation in our body triggered by moments of social rejection or isolation that naturally pressures us to conclude that something must be wrong with us in comparison to other people. So by merely feeling shame, the idea of hierarchy gets implanted in our mind. And these feelings of “lesser than” and “better than” gradually get enacted in...

Racism   This episode is difficult to listen to and was even more difficult to record. My touchpoint for racism is homophobia. One of the fascinating aspects of being gay, in my experience, is that I’m acutely aware of both my gay pride and my internalized homophobia. This seeming contradiction reveals to me that you can be one thing in your cognitive, conscious prefrontal cortex, and the ex...

Trauma   Trauma is something we have all experienced to some degree or another, and it’s something that we are all probably going through right now during this pandemic. So I wanted to try to explore what trauma is all about, as much for myself as for anyone else. Bear in mind that I’m no expert on trauma (or anything for that matter). I’m in the process of figuring trauma out be...