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A podcast for women doing a lot and craving more soul alignment — motherhood, business, healing, relationships, growth — trying to do it without running themselves into the ground.
We talk about:
* intuition & energy
* nervous system regulation
* trauma healing
* self-compassion
* emotional processing
* entrepreneurship
* motherhood
* creating routines that actually support you
* staying connected to yourself while juggling real life
This is about learning how to feel energized, grounded, cared for, emotionally honest, and fully alive.
Your soul called - are you ready to answer?
Welcome to Your Soul Called. A podcast for those feeling like there's something more. More alignment, more purpose, more peace, more connection, more joy. I'm Nicole your host. Each week we explore the invisible things that shape our lives.
Nicole:Our intuition, our energy, our emotions and the lessons we came here to learn. Through personal stories, meaningful conversations and practical tools my hope is that every episode helps you trust yourself a little bit more, love yourself a little deeper and remember something your soul has always known. So without further ado let's dive in. Hi everyone welcome back it's episode 16. Today we're going to talk about when you grow up with parents who use guilt and shame.
Nicole:I was thinking about this today because I had this crazy call from my mom and it was like eight in the morning and she flipped out on me and I immediately felt shitty. I felt some level of guilt and like I needed to fix it even though I don't think I did anything wrong. A concept I've been unraveling in the last few years is just this idea of guilt and shame because these two feelings have had such a huge impact on my life personally. And I realized that not everybody feels those things. My husband, he doesn't feel those things, especially guilt, like hardly ever.
Nicole:And I even asked him once, like, how often do you feel guilt? And he was like, never. Hardly ever. Once in a great while. I was like oh I feel it like every day that's so weird.
Nicole:So I wanted to talk about this and why this happens specifically when you grow up in an environment where guilt and shame are used regularly. And then what happens when you grow up that way is you eventually learn to turn those feelings on yourself. I'm still kind of unraveling all of it, but I have learned so many techniques to help with this and I thought someone else out there really needs to know this because when you just feel these feelings of guilt and or shame on the regular, it sucks. It's not who you are and it really is unnecessary. They're not feelings that serve you.
Nicole:So I've learned that there's a difference first of all. The difference between guilt and shame. Let's talk about that. So guilt says I did something bad and shame that one is even worse it says I am bad. Guilt can actually be useful.
Nicole:Guilt could be like I forgot my mom's birthday I might think. I feel terrible that I forgot. I want to call her and apologize and make it up to her. That would be like a normal person's reaction to forgetting their mom's birthday whereas I would feel shame. Guilt points to an action.
Nicole:It gives you an opportunity to repair something, to learn something, to do something differently, to do something better. Shame is different. Shame takes the exact same situation and turns it into I am a terrible daughter. I am so selfish. I can't believe I forgot her birthday.
Nicole:I suck. I can't even call her or show my face because I'm that terrible and bad. I'm a horrible person. That sounds a little excessive, but that is how I would feel in that situation. I would be in shame.
Nicole:I turned it into it meaning that I'm bad, that I'm a terrible person. Shame doesn't help us in any way. It doesn't make us better. It makes us hide. It makes us isolate.
Nicole:It makes us feel like we are fundamentally wrong at our core. And the distinction is really important. It was for me because I grew up in a home where guilt was used constantly. And in fact, my mom still uses guilt all the time. Like, a few times a week I experienced guilt.
Nicole:So the way that I grew up, I developed this belief because I had a mom that used guilt all the time. Had I developed this belief that I was responsible for other people's feelings. So if someone was upset, I thought I did something wrong. If someone was disappointed, I thought I needed to fix it. That was my job, my duty.
Nicole:If someone around me is unhappy, I feel like I need to make it better. And I didn't realize for a long time that this wasn't actually my responsibility. You know, I just automatically felt like it was. But here's what I've learned is that people have feelings. Everyone has feelings and we are not in control of other people's feelings like we can't be.
Nicole:Their thoughts and their beliefs create their own emotional experience. It's not me. I'm not in charge of how they're feeling. They're in charge of how they're feeling. But that wasn't the belief that formed when I was a child.
Nicole:Let me give you an example. Let's say I don't call my mom for three days. That is a terrible terrible thing in my mom's life. So I finally call her after three days and she'll this is like for real this is what she'll say to me finally I was wondering where you've been I guess you've been too busy Family's never really been important to you anyway. Like that is how she'll start the conversation before I even say hello.
Nicole:That immediately makes me feel guilty. I find this interesting because my husband won't call his mom for thirty days and then he'll call his mom and he'll have her on FaceTime so I can hear her and she'll be like Oh! Hi! Hi, son. Hi!
Nicole:Oh my god. I've been thinking about you and the kids. How's your house? I know you guys almost got hit by that storm. How is everything?
Nicole:How are you? And her voice is just filled with so much love and care and support. It's almost the complete opposite of the way my mom answered the phone. So we have the same basic situation two mothers, two children who haven't called. Completely different emotional experiences.
Nicole:Why? Because that phone call itself wasn't creating the feeling. It's the meaning that each of the mothers were assigning to the phone call. One mom might be thinking my mom might be thinking my daughter doesn't care about me, I don't matter While my husband's mom is thinking I love my son. I miss him.
Nicole:He loves me. Both mothers are deciding their own feelings based on their core beliefs and thoughts. Their children are not responsible for their feelings. Right? They are.
Nicole:Their thoughts and core beliefs affect their feelings. So I started noticing this like and how differently my husband reacts to stuff compared to me. He wasn't raised with guilt in the same way I was. And he actually said to me the other day, he was like, feeling guilt is not a normal thing, you know? And I was like, yeah like I sometimes I'm not even aware that that's not normal because it's how I've just always felt I even asked him like how often do you feel guilt and he was like almost never meanwhile this is something I feel on the regular and I realized you know more recently I would say in the last several years that I've been carrying around this feeling that is not serving me.
Nicole:So let's dig in a little bit and try to uncover why this happens. What happens when a child grows up with a parent who uses guilt and shame? So healthy parenting would say that behavior wasn't okay but shame would say there's something wrong with you and then manipulative guilt would communicate that your choices, your needs, your feelings, your independence hurt me. You hurt me and you are responsible for how I feel. That is a tactic my mom uses all the time on me and I believe it.
Nicole:So I needed to learn how to change that. And when you hear that kind of thing repeatedly, especially from someone you love and care deeply about like a parent, you learn how to start building your entire life around avoiding disapproval, avoiding rejection, avoiding conflict, avoiding this feeling of being bad. And what happens when you grow up with a parent that uses shaving guilt and even can use manipulative guilt like my mom is that you develop some core beliefs that aren't true. Things like I'm responsible for other people's feelings. If someone is upset with me, I did something wrong.
Nicole:It's my fault. I have to be good to be loved. My needs are not important. My needs inconvenience people. Wanting something for myself is selfish.
Nicole:That's an interesting one because my mom used to always call me selfish. Saying no means that I'm a bad person. You probably have a tough time saying no. Disappointing someone isn't safe. It's even dangerous.
Nicole:I need people to understand my choices before I'm allowed to make them I need to explain myself it's my job to make sure everything is okay. If someone's unhappy I need to fix it. I'm only safe when everything around me and everyone around me is okay. So here's the interesting part and I don't know if you have any of those beliefs I have almost all of them but here's the interesting part a child that grows up with these beliefs can become someone who is really really good because that's safe. They become really helpful, really responsible, really mature, accommodating, easy, often high achieving.
Nicole:They learn how to read the room because they always need to be aware like is mom upset? Is dad's tone going to change? Is someone mad? Is someone disappointed? Did I do something?
Nicole:Is someone upset? I need to fix it. What do I need to do to make this better? You have these thoughts constantly running through your head at all times in all rooms wherever you go. Eventually you become super sensitive to everyone's emotional state.
Nicole:If you're a natural intuitive person you're already so emotional but then this just adds to it right? Now you walk into a room and you immediately know who's upset and you feel like you need to fix it and you can feel when someone's energy changes. You notice someone's tone, notice their facial expression and then you adjust yourself, you overexplain, you people please, you have a hard time saying no because you don't want to upset them, you feel guilty when you rest or when you relax because then you're taking care of yourself and that's not good. You feel guilty prioritizing yourself and you even feel guilty when someone wants to help you. And sometimes you feel guilty for having needs at all because you were never allowed to have needs.
Nicole:Here's the kicker: What I see happen to a lot of people who grew up this way and what I feel personally is that you become incredibly hard on yourself. Because if shame was used as a motivation when you were young eventually you don't even need the parent to do it to you anymore you become the parent you start doing it to yourself so you start saying to yourself you should be doing more You shouldn't have forgotten that. Why didn't you just handle it? Why are you being so selfish? You should have known better.
Nicole:Other people manage this. You you messed up. You need to fix this. It's your fault. And all the things that your parents said to you you replay in your head to yourself that becomes your inner voice and in fact we become even harsher towards ourselves than almost anyone else around us actually is.
Nicole:So the normal response to to feeling uncomfortable with the situation would be like, okay. What happened? What do I need? But if you grow up with guilt and shame, our brain does something different. It says, oh, shit.
Nicole:I fucked up. And and the mistakes, they feel so big and painful and we put it all on ourselves and we take it on and it feels like evidence about who we are. Instead of asking what would make me happy? What do I need right now? Caring for yourself, supporting yourself you automatically ask what do I need to do to fix this?
Nicole:How can I make everyone else happy? How can I make him happy? How can I make her happy? What does she need? You almost never care for yourself and that is a really hard way to live because eventually you become so focused on taking care of everyone else's needs that you lose the connection with your own.
Nicole:So yay now that we know we're all fucked up. Not really. That's not true. That's how I felt though for a long time but it's not true. What we actually are is we are conditioned to turn on our self instead of support ourselves.
Nicole:That's so very important because conditioning can change. We can change how we are towards ourselves we can learn something new we can learn how to be there for ourselves in a way that we wish that our parents were there for us and I want to give you three steps that have helped me start separating guilt and shame from who I am. Because feelings are always separate from who you are. Are just a feeling that's moving through your body. They are not who you are.
Nicole:They have nothing to do with who you are. I want to remind you that who you are is always perfect, special, incredibly amazing, beautiful, lovable, light soul. You are so special and whatever feeling that you're having right now is just a result of the thoughts and beliefs that you have they are not who you are. If you're feeling guilt and shame on the regular like I do here's three steps that will help you through it. Step one: Notice it.
Nicole:When you feel it, just notice it in the beginning. Just pay attention to when you're feeling it. Can name it. I'm feeling guilt. Not I'm guilty.
Nicole:Not I'm a bad person. Just I'm experiencing guilt right now this is guilt I feel it in my body okay step two allow it instead of immediately trying to make the feeling go away or make it mean something about you I want you just get curious about it allow it to be there and Notice where you feel it in your body. Is it in your chest? Is it in your face? Is it in your throat?
Nicole:Does it feel heavy? Is it moving around really fast? Does it feel tight? Hot? What color is it?
Nicole:So what you're doing here is you're not trying to fix it, you're not trying to change it, you're giving it meaning, you're just noticing it and by naming all the things that it is you're separating yourself from it. You're learning to experience the feeling as something you're having rather than something you are. Step three: Care for it This is really uncomfortable and weird for people who never learned how to care for themselves. But here this is super important you're going to care for the feeling you're going to ask yourself what do I need right now? What would support me?
Nicole:What would I say to someone I love if they were feeling this way? And then I want you to give yourself that. Put your hand on your heart and tell yourself you love her. Tell her you care for her. Tell her it's okay that she's feeling that way and it's hard and you get it but you're so proud of how far she's come and all of the work that she's doing and it doesn't matter that this just happened that you will be there for her no matter what.
Nicole:You tell her what she needs to hear in real time. Step one: Notice it. Two: Allow it. Describe it. Three: Care for it.
Nicole:There's a difference between a healthy internal process of managing things that go wrong versus unhealthy. We've learned, some of us me, has learned an unhealthy way of managing emotions and making it mean something about us. We're reprogramming to manage our emotions in a more healthy way so the healthy internal process becomes what happened what part is mine is there anything to repair what can I learn and then you can release it but you see there's no attachment there's no meaning and it's not you're I mean you're you're not attaching any meaning to who you are versus what happened who's upset it must be my fault what's wrong with me how do I make everyone okay again and that is the unhealthy way of managing it the way that I usually manage it but I'm learning So we want to go from how do I make sure nobody is upset with me to well because people are allowed to be disappointed? They're allowed to have feelings. They're allowed to disagree with me.
Nicole:I can still love them, I can still care, I can still help them. And it doesn't mean that I've done anything wrong. But here's the thing, you don't have to abandon yourself in order to make someone else feel better. I want to give you one more tool that I've been using lately that has been incredibly helpful for me. If you have been going through similar things with feeling guilt or shame around any kind of situation on the regular I want you to try to use this tool too because it's literally changed things for me.
Nicole:It's so good and if you do it consistently I'm telling you it's going to shift things for you in a big way. Call it the pep talk and here's how it works: Before you go into a situation that you have a feeling could be triggering or uncomfortable or hard you know you're about to go into something where you know the person might be upset or whatever you just have a feeling like it doesn't feel like it's gonna be safe for whatever reason. Here's what you're gonna do you're gonna take five minutes and give yourself a pep talk out loud You can do it in a car, can do it in a bathroom with the water running. Here's a trick I've used is you do it while you're on a walk, put some ear pods in and you pretend like you're talking to someone but you're actually just talking to yourself but I want you to think that you're about it this way like you're talking to your younger self. Here's the trick though you can't do it by writing it or by thinking it you have to say it out loud because you need to hear it okay so here's what you're going to do you're going to give yourself a pep talk and you're going to acknowledge younger you you're going to acknowledge all the things that she's scared of all her fears, the things she's worried about, all the scary things she's expecting to happen.
Nicole:Then, you're going to tell her how she's safe how you've got her back how she's incredibly special how you're so proud of her for all that she's done and for all that she's doing and for the woman that she's become and how she's going to be okay and how you're going to be with her no matter what and how she's equipped to handle this and how you are so proud of how far she's come and you want to tell her how loved she is and how special she is and how she's allowed to have needs and how she's allowed to put herself first and how no matter what she is not a bad daughter a bad person how she's beautiful from the inside out all the things that you wish your parent told you you are going to tell her in this five minutes. I'm talking about the kind of talk you give your best friend when she is going through the ringer when she just went through something really shitty. You're going to give this talk to yourself you're going to do it out loud in the car or as you're walking or whatever and say it so you hear it.
Nicole:I want you to do this every time before you get into a situation that feels like it might be a little sticky. Here's why. Here's why it works. There's this thing called neuroscience and it's about the way your brain has programmed itself to react to situations that feel dangerous. So what we're doing is we are reprogramming the brain to create a new neural pathway of safety instead of threat.
Nicole:So right now your brain is saying it's unsafe and you know because you're like freaking out a little bit about going into the situation and because there's a potential threat so your brain your ego is going into fight or flight to try to protect you and it's telling you it's something bad is gonna happen. It's telling you it's disproportionately bad and on some level it's telling you like you are bad. But we want to shift this in a real way so this is what the pep talk does it rewires your brain and tells you that you are safe, are loved, you can handle this, you are supported, you are never alone. It tells you that there is no reason to feel guilt or shame. And if we do this enough times, who we are changes.
Nicole:We literally change our energetic field to move from danger, danger into a space of groundedness, of safety, of support even when someone is upset with us. So we're teaching ourselves that discomfort doesn't automatically mean danger. That someone else's discomfort someone else being pissed off at us it doesn't mean that we're bad. Doesn't mean that we're being rejected. We're teaching ourselves that it's okay to make a mistake.
Nicole:The more we start practicing this practice of supporting ourselves, the more natural it becomes. Is something that kids who grow up with supportive parents feel automatically, but some of us that haven't grown up with that we need to teach ourselves this and this is how we do it. We begin creating a different internal experience. One where we don't automatically turn against ourselves and start being shit heads to ourselves. Where we are able to stay grounded and feel supported even when we're in a situation where someone's pissed.
Nicole:Once we get to be in a situation where we make choices now that are true for us where we get to have our own back instead of constantly doing this thing where we're asking what everyone else needs trying to fix everyone and take care of everybody else's emotions. And here's the biggest part. We when we do this work, stop the pattern and we don't continue to teach this to our children because I don't want my kids growing up believing that love means they have to manage my emotions. I'm in charge of those. I'm not going to put them on my kids.
Nicole:I want my kids to know that they can love someone deeply and still have boundaries. That they can piss someone off and still be a good person that they can make a mistake and that will never ever affect their worthiness their specialness because that is who they are at their core and nothing can change that. I want my kids to know that they are allowed to have needs and voice them and in fact they should prioritize themselves because when they do everybody else benefits. I want them to know that they can say no that it's always better to say no than to do something out of guilt. Perhaps most importantly I want them to know how to support them themselves when they're feeling shitty when they're feeling bad I want them to know how to come back to themselves how to be there for themselves and if I can do this now through practice I get to teach this to them and that's a really really cool thing so if you're in the middle of experiencing or having days where you have experienced guilt or shame on any level I want you to go back and listen to episode five it's called feel it to free it and in that episode I walk you through exactly how to process feelings in real time and I think personally having someone walk you through it and guide you through it in real time is so helpful especially when you're first learning how to do it and after you've done it like a 100 times you can do it for yourself but basically I walk you through that three step process when the guilt shows up how to notice it allow it and care for it and it will walk you through in like five minutes it's super simple again that's episode five it's called feel it to free it but I want you to remember that you are not the feeling you are the person the soul experiencing the feeling and you don't have to live your life trying to make sure that everyone else is okay you deserve to feel okay too.
Nicole:How you feel your needs is incredibly important and the feeling is always separate from who you are because at your core you are always worthy, you are always more than enough you are always special. I hope you guys found that one helpful and let me know in the comments if you do this like how or send me an Instagram message and let me know how this process has helped you because for me it's made such a big impact it's been so helpful and I can't wait for you to try it and I hope you guys use this like in real time because it's made such a shift for me Alright until next time have a great weekend!