How to Eliminate Shame So You Can Live in Freedom! | Ep.33

Hello, my darling, thank you so much for coming here today. A couple of weeks ago, I did a really short episode on shame, and how shame just absolutely never serves us. It was short and sweet, very to the point. And over the last couple of weeks, I've really been thinking like, I want to give you more, I want to help you dig in to this work can feel like a really, really heavy subject, shame. Ah, and I want to help you lighten it up, okay? lighten it up and know what to do with it. So this episode is really going to help you first of all, understand where your shame comes from, and how to shift out of it so that you can live a life of freedom shame free freedom.

This show is about freedom. Freedom from your constant struggle with food and letting the size of your thighs determine your worth. Join me weekly for no hold back unfiltered girlfriend kind of conversations that will inspire, teach and empower you. As we tune into our own body's wisdom and tune out of the diet industry live, we can live our most radiant, pleasurable and fulfilled lives. My name is Chanci dawn. I'm a non diet nutritionist embodiment and mindset coach. But most importantly, I'm a woman on a mission to grow a deeply connected and conscious relationship with food and my body. And I'm here inviting you to do the same. Let's go.

So, first of all, let's dig into the difference between guilt versus shame. So guilt is like, oh, oh, shoot, I did something wrong, right, according to your own values. Ah, I did something wrong. And I believe that guilt can actually serve us because it helps us to check in again, with our values. Who do we want to be? How are we showing up in the world. And it's really a guiding light. It's like a North Star. If you're feeling guilt, something's something's out of whack there. And you get to check in and then unit and get to navigate differently for yourself according to that higher self, that future self Who are you growing into. So guilt, when used in this way can serve you now let's look at shame. Where guilt says, Oh, I did something wrong. Shame. On the other hand goes, Oh, something is really wrong with me. It's like I am broken. I am so deeply wounded, that I can never be fixed. Shame, really, it's really rooted in that deep level of I am not enough. This does not serve us. And unfortunately, so many people, most of us are actually here. There's guilt. And then we're like, oh, that actually means that I am a terrible person personally, this is like rolling around in your story. It's like taking you know, your story of guilt on the ground, whoring around rolling around in it like tar, and sticking a whole bunch of feathers to it and being like, this is my identity. And the reason why this doesn't serve you is because shame actually perpetuates more shame. It creates what I call the shame spiral which just spirals you down to creating more of what you don't want in life. Okay, and we will talk about this coming up here. And so, when you're feeling shame, what I invite you to do number one, let's go into the pillars of embodied eating the pillars of the it tastes like freedom program. Number one, we want to drop into compassion. The thought, I am human having a human experience, I am still enough and fully lovable. And I forgive myself, coming from this place of compassion calms your nervous system, it calms that brat brain. So at this point, she can then drop into that curiosity part. Right? How can I grow from this? And questioning are these beliefs even mine? This is such an important thing because our beliefs are actually thoughts that we think over and over and over and over again, that are actually usually fed to us by society, by the patriarchy by the church, by our parents, by our teachers, by media, by social media, all of these things outside of ourselves, feeding these thoughts to us. And we think them over and over and over again. And then they solidify in us as a belief and a belief that we don't question Just a belief that we just start living our lives according to becomes our value. So this is why this curiosity part is so, so vital, my friend, we need to get compassionate. We need to come from a place of Oh, wow, sweetie. Yeah, you did that. Okay, let's like love you through this, we're not going to beat ourselves up, we're not going to go something is drastically wrong with me. We're gonna go Oh, hon, there you are, again, I see you. Now, do you even want to believe that this thought is true? Do you even want to hold on to this as your truth as your guiding North Star? And this is where you take your power back. Because once we start asking these questions, and we start looking at the source of our beliefs, we get to really choose what is right for us. And I grew up in a very, very legalistic Christian home, and I still consider myself a Christian. I love God, I definitely, really Yeah, I have a beautiful relationship with God. But I do not subscribe to most of what that religion teaches. And it's a very interesting place to be. Because here I am deeply in love with my Creator, and deeply opposed to much of what the Christian Church teaches. So this has been actually painful, right? This is what we call dissonance. When you're moving from one place, it's like you want to believe this, but you're back here believing this. And moving from that deeply held conditioned thought and belief to this new one, it can actually be quite uncomfortable. So this is where that compassion part comes in. As you're questioning as you're growing, and you're moving forward into what's really true for you, then you will grow your capacity to feel the difficult, you're like, you know what, yes, this is hard, but I have my own back here. This is truly the most empowering thing you can do. So once you drop into that question, curiosity, where does this come from? Is this even my belief? What do I want to believe about this? Then ask yourself, Why am I choosing to believe this? And do I like my reasons for doing so? I don't believe there's a right or wrong answer here. This is up to you what you want to lead your life with. And this is where the liberating aspect of it all comes in. And then underneath this, if you get to question your beliefs, if you get to really drop in and go what is right for me, then this actually erases that there's something wrong with me, right? Because this is where that deep level of trust and respect for yourself. And when I started dropping the story, that there's something wrong with me. And I was, you know, inherently sinful, and gross as a human like, this is what I grew up really believing. And when I'm like, actually, you know what, no, I am love. I'm created in love. That means I am love. Wow, I am love moving forward from that foundation of holy My goodness, I'm created in the image of God, right? This is my belief that I'm created in the image of God. Of course, I am love. So no, I am not disgusting. No, there's nothing wrong with me. I am love having a human experience in this human body. And now I get to move forward from this very beautiful, deeply grounded place. And when you come from this deep place of I Am Love, shame disappears, because it doesn't have place there is no shame in love. And from here, you get to grow.

Now, let's really dive in to that growth part. This is where we're going to revisit what I talked about in the beginning, the shame spiral. So when we're not aware of these thoughts that we're holding on as beliefs, and that become our values when we're just sort of like, we're living life by default. what essentially happens here is that we get the results in our lives also by default. So if you go back and listen to episode number six, I talked about the power of curiosity when I was introducing the pillars of embodied eating, and I introduced a tool that I use so often with my clients and in my own life, I use this daily I am not exaggerating at all. I learned this tool like 13 years ago when I first started training to be a life coach and this is the number one tool that I have continued To live to use along the way, it is so powerful. And it is so simple. It's called the model and it was created by Brooke Castillo at The Life Coach School. And so when we're looking at this, the, the, well, what I'm going to do is I'm just gonna go step by step through it. Okay, so number one, when we're looking at this, the first thing that we need to look at is the circumstance, the circumstances neutral, the circumstance is the fact everyone will agree on it. And when I say it's neutral, what I mean is that it actually doesn't create emotion in you, okay? It is what it is. And different people will think different thoughts and feel differently about it. So for the sake of this example, let's talk about overeating. Okay, so say you have been on this intuitive eating journey for a while now. And as you know, as we talk about all the time, this is nonlinear, there's ups and downs to it. But you, you really feel perhaps you had this overeat, and you're feeling really uncomfortable, and you know that there was an emotional component to it. And you're just like, oh, geez, what the heck right, I did something that was really out of the value system for what I'm wanting for myself, here, I'm wanting to honor my feelings, I'm wanting to really drop into them, feel them and not eat them away. Okay, say that this is the thing. So yeah, had an over eat. The thought, when we are dropping into shame, the thought would be, yeah, I can't even do this stupid, intuitive eating thing. Something is wrong with me, I am so broken. And then this is a thought in your brain that will vibrate into your body, and you will experience as a sensation, and we will label it as shame, you will feel the shame your body imprints this feeling of shame inside of it, it becomes your identity. And from here comes the actions. So we have the circumstances neutral, we have a thought about it, that creates any motion, and it's our emotion that drives the actions. So when we're looking at this, perhaps what will happen here is that you will hide, you'll stay in the shadows of shame, you're believing something is wrong with you, you believe you can't be fixed. So you don't even keep moving forward. You don't even keep trying, okay? You beat yourself up. Like you're like I knew it, nothing works for me, I might as well just give up or go back on that diet. And or maybe just give up altogether. And, you know, not even care anymore to extremes. But you will behave according to how you're feeling. And this is also different for everyone, right? Shame will drive different people to do and not do different things. So think about for yourself, as I'm doing this, if you've had this experience or something like this, think about right, when I'm thinking that something was really wrong with me, and I'm feeling shame. What do I do? And what do I not do? Okay, so let's continue with this. What you will also perhaps will do is look for evidence of proof that something is wrong with you, okay, and you will find it because whatever that brat brain of yours believes she will look for evidence everywhere to build to as evidence to believe even stronger that it's true, okay, she will find this, because we can find evidence to prove both sides, this is just the way it is because it is actually neutral. So what you go looking for is what you will find. So you will look for evidence to you know, really solidify this belief in yourself that you are broken, and you will find it when then you might go into self control. This is like back into that diet mentality self control willpower, I'm never going to do this again, I'm gonna get my act together, tomorrow will be different. I'll start again on Monday, whatever comes in to your brain here. And then inevitably, because as we know self control and willpower, they do not work in the long run, you will fail. And again, this creates more evidence that something is wrong with you. And this spiral, this shame spiral will repeat and repeat and repeat and repeat itself. And it will feel crazy making because you're constantly creating more of what you don't want. The result here is that you will never find freedom and you will always feel broken. And just like I said before, how your brain will go looking for evidence to prove itself right. The result that you will create from this shame spiral will actually Zoop go up and it will prove the thought that something is wrong with me I am broken right. This is why this is so damaging. This is why this is like absolutely so vital to know and to just feel Light with compassion, loads of curiosity so you can now switch out of it. Oh, this is so beautiful when you start to understand this because freedom is yours when you start to really embody this truth, when you're like, oh my gosh, I'm creating these results, because of what I'm thinking about myself here. And when you have this, then you can start to question just like I talked about in the first part of this podcast, where do these thoughts even come from? Are they even mine? Do I want them? If not, okay, what do I want to think? And if I do, okay, why? Why do I want to hold on to this? Now, when you look at this, you can really see that the circumstance, the overeating is not the problem. The thought that you are broken is that create shame, you take the actions or inactions as a result, and then you get the result of what your actions create. When you see this, the first thing we want to do my friend is we want to love on this model. Okay? So easy when we start to like, uncover this stuff. And in this curiosity, becoming more aware, it's so easy to start judging ourselves. But again, that perpetuates the shame. Okay, no model shame allowed here. Only love only compassion and only understanding. Of course, this is what I'm thinking, this is how I've been conditioned, flood that with honey code of compassion, and then you can start getting curious about what really serves you. And here's the thing. We're looking at the conditioning, one of the primary

industries that really, really speak these lies into us about the fact that we're broken, we're not enough. It's the diet industry itself. And it wants to it really thrives on this message, because 93% of diets fail. And we still keep going on down. Because the diet industry has you convinced that you are failing because there's it's your fault, something's wrong with you, you can't stay on track, you have no self control, you have no willpower, you are not strong enough bla bla bla bla bla crap, that is total junk crap. The reason why diets why you fail a diet is because actually diets are created to fail, you are not failing, you are just doing exactly what your brain is wired to do. So when we start to really drop into this truth, that's where we get to choose better for ourselves. And that's where embodied eating comes in. Because this actually does work, it serves you and your body to your highest. Okay, so let's look at this. Now the diet industry's lies, we've been believing it, put your little self in your hands, this is like your wound itself. This is yourself that has been on diets your whole life and have felt like a failure, or where it whatever else, you're dealing with whatever shame that you're experiencing, put your little self in your hand, like sweetie, I'm here for you. Now I know better. So I'm going to do better for us. And this is what this can look like. So the beautiful thing about the model is it doesn't just create more awareness, it actually helps you really uncover how to create the result that you actually want. So say that you're the result you want is to heal your relationship with food and your body. Now, in order to get this result, let's look at the actions that you have to take and not take. So we need to calm this brat brain, we need to love her, we need to calm the nervous system. So we interrupt that stress response right and we can go right honey with compassion. I love you. What do you really need here? Asking yourself, what do I need most? It's not an overeat, what actually is it? What do you need. And then from here, we seek out support support from our brilliant, beautiful minds, supporting our body with that I love to make these heart based decisions and then we go up into our brain and we help our heart by leading these decisions with her brain. We support her with our thoughts. So our heart based decision here is I want to heal. I want to have freedom around food and freedom in my body. I want to live this most radiant, vibrant life. That's your heart based decision. Now we move up to your brain here. How do I support that right I calm my rat brain. I asked what do I need most I seek out support not only from myself, doing exactly what I just said, but also from others. A coach a group roup, right, close friends, people who have your back people who get this, and want this for you as much as you want it for you. And then we learn how to work with our bodies, we learn how to trust our bodies, we learn how to honor her, and we grow and regrow and regrow. And then, because this is a nonlinear process, we go back a little bit, or maybe a lot. Maybe we have a huge over eat, maybe we're just in that pantry, just binging the heck out of everything. But when that happens, what do we do? Right? We go back compassion, calm the brat brain, nothing's gone wrong. Again, nothing's wrong with me, this is just a blip. This is just an opportunity to again, go deep inside, what do I really need, choose love again. And if you continue to do this, this will create more growth, grow, grow, grow, and that will lead to healing. So when we know hear from the previous model, we did that it's actually our thoughts that are creating our emotions. And it's our emotions that are driving our action or inaction. Now, what we have the honor of doing is saying, Okay, if these are the actions I want to take, if this is how I want to show up for myself in my life, how do I have to feel in order to do it? And I invite you to try on compassion, and curiosity. Okay? Again, that's why I made them the pillars of the tastes like freedom program, compassion, and curiosity. These are like your superpowers, drop into compassion and get curious. And then you take those actions. So let's, let's like, brainstorm this a little, what thought do you have to think and you have to believe as true, this is really important, we can't just have a thought that we actually just kind of create, but we actually don't do not believe it at all. In order to create the emotion in your body, you have to actually believe the thought you're thinking. That's why a lot of affirmations don't work, because we don't believe them. Okay, so, in order to believe this, I'm gonna do actually another episode on I'll do it next time. Okay, so keep like tuned in. Because next week, I will do an episode on ladder thoughts. So this is actually a tool you can use to help you believe these new thoughts. Okay, so I have a thought down. That really works for me, when I want to feel compassion and curiosity, and this is very in line with much of what I've said today. So my thought is, Oh, honey, I love to call myself honey and sweetheart. So it's like, Oh, honey, you did something you didn't want to do. Okay, you are fine. I love you. Let's grow from this. As soon as I think that, from this heart centered place, my body feels calm. I actually feel warm inside even when I said that right now, I'm not actually working through any of this right now. But even when I said that, because my body's really familiar with this thought she's like, oh, yeah, that's cozy. I love you too. chancy? No, I'm getting super cheesy. But that's really what it feels like, which is really, really neat. So think about it for you what thought will help you you feel compassion, and really drop into that curiosity for yourself. And again, the circumstances the same, nothing's changed. You've had an overeat, that is neutral. Nothing is actually creating an emotion you and you from that overeat, it's only your thoughts. How do you want to think about it? How do you want to think about yourself, in order to be able to feel the way you need to feel to take the actions you need to take to create freedom? Okay, if you have any questions, like I always say, please, please message me drop message me on Instagram, come connect with me on Instagram. I'm growing that account. It's taking forever. It's like snail's pace. But I really do like the way that app is. And I love being able to share on there. So come connect with me on there, follow me, send me a message, introduce yourself, I really want to know, my listeners. So let's let's get personal. And in that spirit of getting personal, I asked you if you haven't already done so please go in and rate and review the show in iTunes, because it'll really help to bump it up in the algorithm. So more people will be able to see it and learn and grow. From all of this information and wisdom that I've learned in my own life. And now I have the honor of passing on to you. Thank you, my friend. You are amazing. I value you. I appreciate you. Thank you for showing up for yourself by listening to it tastes like freedom. Have a beautiful day. Take care