September 21, 2025 • 32 mins
In this empowering episode of The Quiet Warrior Podcast, I am joined by Emma Lyons, trauma healer, shame exorcist, and Self Liberation Mentor who works specifically with quiet achievers, especially women who have internalised a voice of narcissistic control and mistaken it for their own. Emma shares her journey of overcoming depression, self-sabotage, and the relentless “shame voice” that kept her stuck for years.
Together, we explore themes that many introverts and quiet achievers will recognize — the struggle with boundaries, the invisible toll of narcissistic relationships, the weight of shame, and the quiet resilience it takes to heal. Emma explains how somatic work, nervous system healing, and energy medicine can transform shame into self-trust, and how introverts can reclaim their truth and freedom without burning out.
Quotes
“When you give yourself permission to pause, clarity comes more naturally than when you push.”
“Self-trust is built one small choice at a time—every ‘no’ that honours your energy makes you stronger.”
About Emma Lyons
Emma Lyons studied human rights law but never started that career, because she was caught in a vicious loop of depression, self-sabotage, and a relentless voice in her head tearing her down every day. It wasn’t just self-doubt or insecurity — it was something deeper, a toxic internal narrative that kept her stuck in shame and failure.
After years of trying everything — yoga, healing, therapy — Emma finally found a way to break free. Through nervous system healing, somatic work, and energy medicine, she reclaimed her power and rewired her mind.
Now, she guides women who’ve done “all the things” but still feel stuck, invisible, or burnt out to dismantle the shame voice that humiliates, controls, and impersonates them, and to reclaim their truth and freedom.
Links
DOWNLOAD: 5 Signs You’re Ready to Break Up with Your Inner Narcissist
Connect with Emma:
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/trauma.matrix/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/emma-lyons-traumamatrix/
FB: https://www.facebook.com/trauma.matrix
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@trauma.matrix
TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@trauma.matrix
Substack: https://traumamatrix.substack.com/
Call to Action
If you enjoyed this episode, please subscribe, rate, and leave a review on your favourite podcast platform. It helps more introverts and quiet achievers discover these conversations.
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This episode was edited by Aura House Productions
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hi, I'm Serena Loh.
If you're used to hearing thatintroverts are shy, anxious,
antisocial and lack goodcommunication and leadership
skills, then this podcast is foryou.
You're about to fall in lovewith the calm, introspective and
profound person that you are.
Discover what's fun, unique andpowerful about being an
(00:21):
introvert, and how to make theelegant transition from quiet
achiever to quiet warrior inyour life and work anytime you
want, in more ways than youimagined possible Welcome.
Welcome to the Quiet Warriorpodcast.
Today's guest is a traumahealer, shame exorcist and
(00:42):
self-liberation mentor who worksspecifically with quiet
achievers, especially women whohave internalized a voice of
narcissistic control andmistaken it for their own.
Welcome, emma Lyons, to theQuiet Warrior podcast.
Speaker 2 (00:59):
Thank you so much for having me.
Serena, Great to be here.
Speaker 1 (01:03):
Emma, tell us what's the story behind how you come to
do this work.
Speaker 2 (01:08):
Well, I mean, as is often the case for people doing
this work, I really needed thiswork myself and I was trying
everything, doing all thehealing, doing all the therapy,
and things weren't reallyshifting.
I could see things shiftingwith other people, but with me
it was much.
It seemed to be really stuckand things didn't really move
(01:30):
until I found this underlyingpattern that I talk about.
Uh, because that I feel thatwhat I'm, what I'm talking about
now, is really the, thesubstrata, like the base level,
the, the undercurrent, if youlike, the software that's
running the whole show this.
I was unaware that I was stuckin a role.
(01:50):
I was unaware that this voicein my head that was telling me
that I was useless, that I wastoxic, that there was sometimes
got really malignant.
I was confused as to when tolisten to it and when, you know,
not to.
I was trying to be empathizedwith it and understand it.
That's what everyone wastelling me to listen to it and
when you know not to.
I was trying to be empathizedwith it and understand that
that's what everyone was tellingme to do.
So it wasn't until I reallybroke from that and put down
(02:12):
firm boundaries with that voicethat things really started to
shift for me and I realized thatyou know you shouldn't pander
to a narcissist on the outside,so why would you pander to some
a narcissistic voice or entityinside your body, inside your
head?
So, and it's working reallywell for me, it's, and for the
(02:33):
people that I work with thisstrategy, a lot of people who've
done a lot of therapy, who have, like, really a lot of
self-awareness and are stillstuck.
This is the final piece thatreally causes everything to
shift into place, becausethey've been trying to empathize
and feel into this and sit withthe shame and things just
(02:54):
haven't moved at all.
And that was exactly myexperience as well.
Speaker 1 (03:00):
This feels like a revolutionary piece, emma,
because you're right.
In therapy we encourage ourclients, we encourage ourselves
to be accepting of all parts ofus.
We say all parts are welcomehere and we do our best not to
judge.
We do our best to be thatresource for that inner child
that was helpless and powerlessat that time.
(03:21):
That was helpless and powerlessat that time.
But then what you're saying isthat there is that one persona,
one character, one personalityinside this family of
personalities that is refusingto do its part, that is somehow
sabotaging everything else foreveryone.
How do you know that there issuch an entity inside you?
(03:48):
Does everybody have this innernarcissist?
Speaker 2 (03:49):
I think a lot of people have it.
To be honest, serena, it's acase of to what extent you have
it, because we live in a verynarcissistic world and
narcissistic systems areeverywhere.
Even if you didn't have anarcissistic parent or family,
very likely you had somedysfunction in your family.
We all do, especially inwestern families.
(04:10):
That's dysfunction is kind ofmore the norm, it's the kind of
the standard more than anythingelse.
So it's okay.
Some people they're able to turnit down and some people really
struggle and they would be thepeople that might go on to have
mental health problems, like Ihad depression or, you know,
bipolar disorder, lots of otherthings and it really boils down
(04:34):
to this, this, this toxic innervoice that really is carrying
shame, and this is this is thekey piece.
How do you know you have thisvoice?
This is the key piece.
How do you know you have thisvoice?
Is it shaming you and a lot ofpeople and spiritual people and
advisors and everything?
They make it very complicatedto know.
Is this your higher self, or isthis some other being that you
(04:55):
shouldn't listen to?
Or is this sabotaging you?
And for me it's very simple nowin my head is this voiceaming
me?
And if it, if it's shaming me,that's not my higher self, my
higher, my higher self, yourhigher self, doesn't shame you.
God doesn't shame people.
This is shame as a humanfabrication, and that's what I'm
(05:16):
really convinced of now.
There's no function for shame.
It's just so baked in,particularly to Western culture,
with this idea of Christianoriginal sin, that it's kind of
even great thinkers that talkabout shame, like Brene Brown
and John Bradshaw.
They think you need a littlebit of shame in order to be
(05:38):
healthy, in order to be a goodhuman, and Brene Brown went so
far as to say that you need alittle bit of shame.
And if people you don't, peoplewho don't have shame, they
can't have empathy and theycan't be, they're basically
psychopaths.
And I really, really disagreewith this.
I feel like when they talk aboutthis, they conflate guilt and
(05:58):
shame.
Shame says you're bad, andthat's never a good thing.
To believe that you're badbecause we, either we do one.
To believe that you're badbecause we, either we do one of
two things we internalize it orwe externalize it.
We find someone else to projectit on and guilt is totally
different.
Guilt is I've done somethingbad and that can be positive.
I know it doesn't feel good inthe moment, but it's important
(06:21):
to have that awareness.
Oh my god, I did something, Ihurt someone and I won't do that
again.
So that's what we need.
We don't need to be shamingourselves.
Shame is always toxic and it'sa fabrication from religion and
from society.
It's not something indigenouscultures have built into their
system.
It's a construct from society,from narcissistic empires and
(06:47):
religion, particularly to keepeverybody in mind.
It's all about controllingpeople, keeping everyone in
their little box, in their place.
Speaker 1 (06:56):
So when a parent says to a child you know, shame on
you for being mean to yourlittle sister, what then
actually are they saying?
Are they not pointing out thatthe older child should have
behaved better, more kindly?
Speaker 2 (07:12):
is that a bad thing?
This is, this is.
This is the distinction betweenshame and guilt.
Like if you say to a child youare bad, you are bad, you are
there's, you are a bad childbecause you've done this.
That's shaming.
But you can say all right,little Serena, you've done
something bad there, you've hurtyour child.
(07:33):
Encourage them to empathizewith what they've done and
understand why it's bad.
You don't need to shame themfor it, because they'll either
internalize that shame orthey'll externalize that shame.
That's whatize that shame.
That's what happened.
That's what happens withcollective groups that have been
all this shame like scapegoatedgroups.
They they end up projecting iton someone else are
(07:55):
internalizing it, and thathappens on an individual level
level as well, and it's alwaysvery, very destructive.
It's never it's, it's neverconducive to anything good.
Whereas guilt, yes, yourecognize them.
The little child recognize oh,I've hurt my little sister,
you've made them cry, see theresults of that.
(08:15):
But you don't need to shamethem and say that you're a bad
girl for what you've done.
You can just say look howyou've hurt this person.
Let them feel the empathy.
All humans, we have thatnatural empathy, and shame
actually impedes us from feelingempathy.
So when people say that youneed shame in order to feel
empathy like neurologically itdoesn't make any sense either.
Speaker 1 (08:40):
So what you're saying also is to separate the person,
the intrinsic essence of theperson, from what they do,
because all of us are capable ofdoing bad things, of doing
things that let ourselves or letother people down, that hurt
others, but that doesn'tnecessarily mean we are a bad
person.
We're a person who made a badchoice in the moment and we can
(09:03):
go and remedy whatever happenedright.
That's what you're saying.
Speaker 2 (09:07):
That's exactly it.
And in indigenous cultures,before religion and these
societies came along imposingall these rules, that's exactly
what it was like.
If somebody hurt someone orkilled someone or did anything
bad, they came together as acollective and brought that
person in.
They didn't cast the person outand shame them.
It's clear if you look at theempirical data that what we're
(09:33):
doing by shaming people it's notworking.
It doesn't stop crimes frombeing committed.
It actually causes them tointernalize shame and then the
cycle continues.
And it's the same with families.
If we have been shamed, we go onto pass that on to our children
one way or the other.
There's no way around that.
And shame I call it the kind ofthe code, the code of this
(09:56):
trauma matrix that I talk about,because the shame is really how
we are controlled.
Without shame, we can't becontrolled by these systems of
domination, by anyone else.
And if anyone says somethinginsulting to us oh I hate your
orange jumper, you look so uglyWe'll just be like oh my God,
you're crazy.
(10:17):
We won't take it in.
If we don't have that shamereceptor, or that inner
narcissist, as I call it,already active within us, the
shame won't stick, we'll justlaugh and we won't shame
ourselves.
So, really, this is the thingwe can change.
We don't need to change societyin order to release ourselves
(10:37):
from this bell of shame thatwe're all under what I hear you
say is that shame makes someonean outcast and an exile.
Speaker 1 (10:49):
So they are expelled out, they no longer belong and
therefore they have to go andfind.
Either they stay by themselvesin isolation, disconnected from
community, or they also look forsomeone else to project that on
, to pass that on, to put thatout from themselves but make
them hurt less by making someoneelse their victim.
(11:10):
Is that how it gets perpetuated?
Speaker 2 (11:13):
That's exactly it, and this is the.
It's one of the roles innarcissistic or dysfunctional
families.
You have a scapegoat.
These families look for ascapegoat.
They look for someone becausewe don't want to deal with our
intergenerational trauma, allthe trauma that's been passed
down for the generations.
We're not doing any therapy orwork to understand it.
(11:33):
So what do we do?
We find a child, usually asensitive, introverted child,
who may be a little bit quieter,a little bit more sensitive,
and that gets projected anddumped on them.
So this is why a lot of highlysensitive people can end up in
that role and, yeah, it ends upbeing really destructive.
(11:55):
The scapegoat goes on, like yousaid, to either internalize all
that shame and believe I'm bad,there's something wrong with me,
I'm ugly, because when we'rechildren, we can't believe that
our parents did something wrong,they were bad.
So we internalize that and it'skind of also a protective
(12:16):
method.
We shame ourselves in order toprotect ourselves, and it's kind
of illogical, but we shameourselves first so that we won't
be shamed from the outside, ifthat makes sense.
So we get in there first byshaming ourselves so that it
won't feel so bad when we getshamed from outside.
So this is a thing that we doto kind of that's kind of
(12:39):
counterintuitive, butemotionally that's kind of how
it works to to protect ourselvesfrom shame.
We shame ourselves and we makeit our fault.
I'm bad.
This is why I didn't fit in asa child.
This is why I wasn't happy,because there's something wrong
with me.
This is shaming internalizedshaming that leads to depression
(13:01):
, that leads to addictions, thatleads to anorexia all kinds of
dysfunction in adulthood.
And also, like you mentioned,we either go down that route or
we find someone else to projectit on, find a soft victim to
(13:22):
project it on, so that we don'thave to deal with it.
So we go on to recreate thatcycle that our parents created
because we don't have to dealwith it.
So we go on to recreate thatcycle that our parents created
because we don't know, anythingelse.
Shame is all we know.
We don't want to deal with it,so we got to find someone to
dump it on.
And you can see that in societylevel as well, because it's
happening as we speak.
This is why there's so muchrejection of immigrants and
(13:46):
foreigners, because of all theunprocessed shame that we have
collectively as a culture, as asociety, we don't want to deal
with it.
So what do we do?
We find a scapegoat.
We find a scapegoat and it'stheir fault, so we project it
all on them and that way weavoid dealing with our own shame
.
But it just goes on to createmore and more of this.
(14:07):
But the good news is that wecan free ourselves one person at
a time.
We don't need to wait forsociety to wake up to what's
happening.
Speaker 1 (14:16):
So talk to us about how we do that as a shame
exorcist.
How do you exorcise shame?
How do you expel it fromyourself with that
self-awareness, so that webecome maybe immune to shame or
protected from shame?
Speaker 2 (14:33):
Well, the first, the real key that I've discovered is
to recognize that shaming voice.
It's not you, it's not you andthat's not something that we're
generally told.
We're told that it's a part ofyou that's really, that wants to
help you, that wants to lookafter your inner critic, that
wants to keep you safe.
And I've realized I mean, Ihave a covert narcissistic
(14:56):
mother that this voice in mycase, and I think in a lot of
people's case, it's not so muchan inner critic that's trying to
keep us safe, it's more of aninner narcissist that's trying
to keep us safe.
It's more of an innernarcissist that's trying to keep
itself safe.
So, like a, like a covertnarcissistic mother, it is
trying to like the mother is not, doesn't really care about your
(15:17):
safety.
They care about how they feelabout it.
They don't want you to gotraveling because it'll make
them feel bad.
They don't, they're not,they're not.
They don't want you to go andbe a singer because they'll feel
anxious about that, becausethey don't think it can work out
.
So it's not really about tryingto protect you at all.
And that inner voice, thatinner narcissist, is exactly the
(15:38):
same.
It's not trying to protect you,it's trying to protect itself
from anxiety that it's going tofeel it's not helping you expand
, it's not helping you at all.
It's actually keeping you small, keeping you in your place,
keeping you in your little row.
So that is key Recognize thatit's not you, it's an inner
narcissist.
And even just with thatawareness that can really shift
(16:01):
a lot, just by becoming awarethat that voice isn't you lot,
just by becoming aware that thatvoice isn't you.
And then you know when it comesup.
You have to defy it.
When it comes up and it saysyou can't go there and sing, you
can't do that thing, you can'tstudy massage, you can't
recognize that.
And if it's something that youwant to do, do it.
(16:22):
Defy that voice.
Defy that voice Not for thesake of defiance, because then
you're still being controlled bythe voice, but because it's
what you genuinely want to do.
So you've got to disconnectfrom that voice and do you Not?
Do the opposite of what thevoice says, but do exactly what
you want to do.
Don't listen to that voice,because every time you listen to
(16:44):
it, every time you follow itsguidance, every time you shrink
when it says something, or evenwhen you try to fight with it or
try to make yourself right ormake it see you're actually
feeding it.
It's really very much likenarcissistic supply you actually
feed it and it grows the moreyou try to argue with it.
(17:04):
So don't try to argue with it.
Draw a line in the sand and sayyou're over there, I'm not
talking to you anymore, I'mliving my life.
You're not, you're not you're,you're not controlling me
anymore, you're not the boss ofme.
So we create that distance,just like we would with the
narcissist out there in theworld.
We wouldn't, we would.
And this is what the therapistsall say.
(17:25):
You know, get away from them.
Don't try to argue with them,don't try to convince them,
don't try to tell them thatthey're a narcissist.
Just get yourself as far awayfrom them as possible.
So we've got to do that.
And then it becomes a practice.
It becomes a practice becauseyou're not feeding the
narcissist.
It's going to starve becausethat inner narcissist, it needs
(17:47):
the fuel.
It only has power over you,while it can hook into your
shame and get you feeling shame.
So you've got to reclaim yourshameless, what I call it.
In English we have this word,shameless, which if people are
called shameless, they'rebehaving badly, they're doing
something way out of order, andI'm all about reclaiming that
(18:13):
word, because shameless justmeans free of shame.
When people are behaving what'scalled shamelessly, they're
actually full of shame.
They're behaving badly becausethey're full of shame that
hasn't been processed.
So I want to reclaim this wordshameless.
I want to be shameless, I wantto live free of shame, and
that's the goal that we're goingfor once, we start rejecting
(18:33):
this voice and really livingfree of that and the highly
sensitive child going throughthat childhood with a
narcissistic parent would become, you know, more likely to to be
the victim or the scapegoat,and then into adulthood.
Speaker 1 (18:56):
That still happens because they've internalized
that shame, that they believethat there's something genuinely
wrong with them.
But there's also another layerof you know for you.
You did mention Westernfamilies, but I'm, you know,
cultural conditioning wise.
I'm also thinking of Asianfamilies where, you know, shame
is also a large part of, as yousay, how we control our families
(19:20):
, how we control the children.
You know you have to behavethis way.
You don't bring shame on thefamily name.
Now is that a different kind ofshame that we're talking about?
Speaker 2 (19:30):
yeah, I think it's a slightly different flavor and we
have that in the west as well,especially, like in the past,
this idea of honor killings andstuff like that.
That happened back in the dayand it still exists.
You know, don't bring shame onthe family it exists in the West
as well.
But the key thing about Westernshame is that it's internalized
(19:51):
.
It's a more internalized,individualized shame and that, I
think, is different from whatyou see in Eastern you know,
japanese and Chinese and otheroriental cultures, because it's
more external.
It's more about looking goodwithin the collective, not
stepping out of your role, youknow, keeping the family clean,
keeping, you know, just stayingin line.
(20:12):
So there it is used to controlpeople.
But it's a slightly differentflavor and it's not better or
worse, it's just a differentflavor.
I mean, I personally feel thatthe individualized shame that we
have in the West is evenstronger, but it's like a
slightly different flavor inChinese culture and it is very
(20:33):
self-destructive as well.
I mean, I know that there's alot in cultures like Japan.
You have a lot of suicide andwhat I realized in my research
is that this voice, this innernarcissist, it can become like a
malignant narcissist, it's likea covert narcissist.
They're pretending to help youand it can actually metastasize
(20:55):
into malignant narcissisttelling you oh, you might as
well not be here, you might aswell disappear, everyone will be
better off without you.
That's like a really malignantvoice and that's when people go
on to do very self-destructivethings, and I don't believe that
suicide can really existwithout that, without having
(21:16):
that piece in place.
So it's not so much aboutwhat's happening out there, it's
about this internalized shame,this internalized narcissist,
how deeply heavy ingrained it isinto your system and how much
you really buy into it.
And so many of us we believe it, we believe that voice, we
(21:36):
believe everything that it saysand everything that it makes us
feel and we believe it to betrue.
And then we go on to sabotageand destroy ourselves.
Speaker 1 (21:47):
I think a lot of us are not even aware that we are
buying into the voice of thisinner narcissist because we
haven't identified it as suchand so, like you say, we are
feeding it inadvertently byengaging with it, by trying to
prove that we are smart enoughor attractive enough or
successful enough, that we'regood enough with it's.
(22:08):
It's like having, it's likestill trying to please or gain
approval from the externalnarcissist figure in our lives
yeah we freeze, fawn and, youknow, fight.
Speaker 2 (22:22):
You know those are the three, three responses to
trauma and are, to you know,external and what the voice,
when it comes along, a lot of usgo straight to fawning.
We just do what it says.
We follow along, we try toprove, and when we're trying to
prove that we're good enough,we're feeding it.
We're feeding it, we're notliberating ourselves, we're just
(22:43):
maybe making ourselves feel alittle bit better for a short
time.
But then inevitably, as was mycase, I'd constantly be trying
to prove I was good enough andthen would constantly be
disappointed.
So I was constantly in theseemotions where we're fueling it
more and more.
And my inner voice, it didn'tmetastasize into very malignant
entities.
(23:03):
You know I have these big flareups whereignant entities that
you know.
I have these big flare upswhere it would be, you know,
have a depressive episode.
So now that I recognize that'snot me, I'm in control of that.
You know I'm not.
I will never allow myself to betaken down by that.
It's not me.
I've separated from that voice.
I've gone no contact with thatvoice.
(23:24):
From that voice I've gone nocontact with that voice and it
has no power over me because Isay so, and that can be the case
for anyone listening too.
It just requires a bit ofpractice.
But even knowing that it's notyou, that this is an inner
narcissist, that it doesn't haveyour good at heart, even just
knowing that can be reallytransformational.
Speaker 1 (23:47):
So how does one begin to recognize and to separate
ourselves from this voice?
Speaker 2 (23:56):
well, I think you can .
You can.
It's.
It's helpful to look back andsee where it came from.
You know, because a lot ofpeople would would argue with me
and say, oh, you have toempathize with the voice, and I
I agree.
It's useful to understand, youknow, where did this voice come
from?
If you had a narcissistic parent, you can see, oh, maybe their
parent was very toxic so theytook it on.
(24:17):
So you can have empathy for itto a degree, but not letting it
control you.
Just because your mother wasbrought up by very toxic parents
and is mentally ill and is verycontrolling and dominating and
toxic, that doesn't give her afree pass to pass it on to you.
And it's the same with thisvoice, with this inner
(24:39):
narcissist.
Just because it has beenconditioned by hard times and
toxic environment doesn't giveit a free pass to dump all that
on you.
So you have the power to say noand that that is key.
It's not you, it has no rightto dump anything on you, no
matter how sad the story is.
It's not yours.
(25:00):
That shame is not yours and youcan say no to it.
It just takes a little bit ofpractice, because we're kind of
addicted to shame.
To be honest, we kind of, likeI said, it's become a kind of,
you know, a comfort blanket forus, you know, like the children
with the dirty teddy bear, thedirty blanket that's what shame
(25:26):
is for us, where we think it'slike keeping us safe, but
actually it's just filthy, it'sjust, it's just.
It's it's bringing us no goodwhatsoever and there's no
evidence really that shame doesanything positive for us.
It's just it's a culturalconstruct that it's beneficial.
There's no evidence.
If you look back in cultures itdoes not bring any good.
That's all.
Guilt, guilt can be positive.
(25:47):
Shame has no benefit.
So, even becoming aware ofthose few things, I think they
can help you liberate yourselffrom them.
But really it takes making adecision and finding support,
because sometimes you can dothis on your own, you can
definitely start but alsofinding finding a coach or a
mentor or a group of people tosupport you, because that voice
(26:11):
will come and try to tempt you.
Just like, if you're trying togo no contact with a
narcissistic boyfriend orgirlfriend, that person will
inevitably try to reach out toyou, try to follow, you, try to
send you a DM and you have tohold your boundary firm and say
no, I'm not taking this anymore.
I'm going to follow my own path.
I choose to be happy.
(26:31):
I choose to be free of shame.
This doesn't serve me anymore.
0% serves me and I'm ready tolive me anymore.
Zero percent serves me and I'mready to live.
I'm ready to be free.
I'm ready to stop polishing thecage that I've been in, that
I've been in all my life, andactually step outside.
And very few people are doingthat.
Most people are living withinthe cage of shame and have no
(26:53):
idea that they're in there.
Speaker 1 (26:56):
And I think that's the greatest tragedy, isn't it
To be living inside the cage butnot be aware that we are inside
a cage and to keep polishing it, as you say, or keep dragging
around our tatty comfortblankets because we're so used
to that?
Having that in our lives,having that voice, having that
figure in our lives, that'stelling us we have to be smaller
(27:16):
, we have to be quieter, we haveto be something else other than
who we are, because we're stillnot enough.
So that's like a an endlessself-sabotage cycle that we
can't get out of until we insistand it'll tell you, um, that
you're not loud enough.
Speaker 2 (27:33):
If you're very introverted and quiet, it'll
tell you that you're not goodenough because you're not
speaking up enough, even though,rather than accepting yourself
for who you are, it'll always,always, always, find a new and
innovative way to shame you.
You know, so it's like abottomless pit.
This is why, you know, I saydon't sit with the shame,
because it's a bottomless pit.
There is no end to it.
(27:53):
It's like a well that has nobottom.
You can sit with it all yourlife and there's going to is no
end to it.
It's like a well that has nobottom.
You can sit with it all yourlife and there's there's going
to be no end to it.
It's just going to shower youwith more and more shame.
That's why we should definitelynot sit with shame anymore.
You know, you've tried that,probably been doing it all your
life.
If you're anything like me andlook where it's got you do you
(28:17):
want something different?
Then you need to make adifferent decision and say no to
that.
Speaker 1 (28:23):
So what I hear you also say is this is about
self-responsibility.
A while back you mentioned thatthe effects of
intergenerational trauma, thatperhaps the narcissistic parent
also had a toxic parent and it'sgone on for several generations
, but that is not an excuse tocontinue to perpetuate that and
to bring that on to the futuregeneration.
That becomes like a victimmentality, isn't it?
(28:45):
Because I've suffered and youalso have to suffer, Whereas
what we're saying is we're thecycle breakers of our generation
and we have the ability tochoose differently for ourselves
as well as for the futuregenerations.
Speaker 2 (29:00):
Exactly Beautifully said that generations Exactly
beautifully said.
That's exactly it, Serena,You've nailed it and said it
perfectly.
We are the cycle breakers, oryou can be the cycle breaker,
but you have to step out of theshadow of shame.
That's what it takes to reallybe free.
You've got to get out of shame,You've got to reclaim your
shameless and just be shameless,not in the way that language
(29:23):
has taken it hostage.
You know, we're kind of I feellike we have, you know,
Stockholm syndrome when it comesto shame.
Shame has taken us hostage andwe think it's trying to help us.
And no, it's not trying to helpus.
That voice is not trying tohelp you.
You've just got Stockholmsyndrome because you've been
with it all your life and it'snot helping you.
(29:46):
Own that and take your powerback.
Speaker 1 (29:50):
Wow, that is extremely powerful, and I think
what people will want to knownext is how would they connect
with you and work with you, andwho do you help?
Speaker 2 (30:05):
Well, I help women who are ready to step out of the
shadow of shame and say no tothis narcissistic voice.
They don't want to pander to itanymore.
Maybe they've tried that for 20, 30, 40, 50 years and they're
recognizing.
Maybe they've done all thetherapy and it just hasn't
worked and they're ready forsomething else.
(30:25):
They're ready to actuallyreclaim real freedom, which
means stepping out of this shameStockholm syndrome that I'm
talking about and what I wouldsay for people who are willing,
who are, to checking this out.
I have a free gift for people.
It's five signs that you'reready to break up with your
inner narcissist.
So these are these are likefive signs to look out for to
(30:49):
know that it's actually time tobreak up with it.
It's like having a toxicboyfriend, girlfriend, and you
need to go no contact with it.
So I would say that would be areally good first step.
You could also check me out onI've written a lot of things
about this on Substack and theTrauma Matrix on there, or you
can find me on social mediatraumamatrix.
Speaker 1 (31:11):
Brilliant.
We'll make sure to include allyour links in the show notes for
people that want to reach outand find out more.
So if you enjoyed today'sepisode, be sure to leave a
five-star rating and review tohelp the Quiet Warrior podcast
reach more introverts and quietachievers around the world.
Thank you for joining us andsee you at the next episode.
I'm so grateful that you'rehere today.
(31:33):
If you found this contentvaluable, please share it on
your social media channels andsubscribe to the show on your
favorite listening platform.
Together, we can help moreintroverts thrive.
To receive more upliftingcontent like this, connect with
me on Instagram at Serena LoQuiet Warrior Coach.
Thank you for sharing your timeand your energy with me.
(31:55):
See you on the next episode.
Hi, I'm Serena Loh.
If you're used to hearing thatintroverts are shy, anxious,
antisocial and lack goodcommunication and leadership
skills, then this podcast is foryou.
You're about to fall in lovewith the calm, introspective and
profound person that you are.
Discover what's fun, unique andpowerful about being an
(00:21):
introvert, and how to make theelegant transition from quiet
achiever to quiet warrior inyour life and work anytime you
want, in more ways than youimagined possible Welcome.
Welcome to the Quiet Warriorpodcast.
Today's guest is a traumahealer, shame exorcist and
(00:42):
self-liberation mentor who worksspecifically with quiet
achievers, especially women whohave internalized a voice of
narcissistic control andmistaken it for their own.
Welcome, emma Lyons, to theQuiet Warrior podcast.
Speaker 2 (00:59):
Thank you so much for having me.
Serena, Great to be here.
Speaker 1 (01:03):
Emma, tell us what's the story behind how you come to
do this work.
Speaker 2 (01:08):
Well, I mean, as is often the case for people doing
this work, I really needed thiswork myself and I was trying
everything, doing all thehealing, doing all the therapy,
and things weren't reallyshifting.
I could see things shiftingwith other people, but with me
it was much.
It seemed to be really stuckand things didn't really move
(01:30):
until I found this underlyingpattern that I talk about.
Uh, because that I feel thatwhat I'm, what I'm talking about
now, is really the, thesubstrata, like the base level,
the, the undercurrent, if youlike, the software that's
running the whole show this.
I was unaware that I was stuckin a role.
(01:50):
I was unaware that this voicein my head that was telling me
that I was useless, that I wastoxic, that there was sometimes
got really malignant.
I was confused as to when tolisten to it and when, you know,
not to.
I was trying to be empathizedwith it and understand it.
That's what everyone wastelling me to listen to it and
when you know not to.
I was trying to be empathizedwith it and understand that
that's what everyone was tellingme to do.
So it wasn't until I reallybroke from that and put down
(02:12):
firm boundaries with that voicethat things really started to
shift for me and I realized thatyou know you shouldn't pander
to a narcissist on the outside,so why would you pander to some
a narcissistic voice or entityinside your body, inside your
head?
So, and it's working reallywell for me, it's, and for the
(02:33):
people that I work with thisstrategy, a lot of people who've
done a lot of therapy, who have, like, really a lot of
self-awareness and are stillstuck.
This is the final piece thatreally causes everything to
shift into place, becausethey've been trying to empathize
and feel into this and sit withthe shame and things just
(02:54):
haven't moved at all.
And that was exactly myexperience as well.
Speaker 1 (03:00):
This feels like a revolutionary piece, emma,
because you're right.
In therapy we encourage ourclients, we encourage ourselves
to be accepting of all parts ofus.
We say all parts are welcomehere and we do our best not to
judge.
We do our best to be thatresource for that inner child
that was helpless and powerlessat that time.
(03:21):
That was helpless and powerlessat that time.
But then what you're saying isthat there is that one persona,
one character, one personalityinside this family of
personalities that is refusingto do its part, that is somehow
sabotaging everything else foreveryone.
How do you know that there issuch an entity inside you?
(03:48):
Does everybody have this innernarcissist?
Speaker 2 (03:49):
I think a lot of people have it.
To be honest, serena, it's acase of to what extent you have
it, because we live in a verynarcissistic world and
narcissistic systems areeverywhere.
Even if you didn't have anarcissistic parent or family,
very likely you had somedysfunction in your family.
We all do, especially inwestern families.
(04:10):
That's dysfunction is kind ofmore the norm, it's the kind of
the standard more than anythingelse.
So it's okay.
Some people they're able to turnit down and some people really
struggle and they would be thepeople that might go on to have
mental health problems, like Ihad depression or, you know,
bipolar disorder, lots of otherthings and it really boils down
(04:34):
to this, this, this toxic innervoice that really is carrying
shame, and this is this is thekey piece.
How do you know you have thisvoice?
This is the key piece.
How do you know you have thisvoice?
Is it shaming you and a lot ofpeople and spiritual people and
advisors and everything?
They make it very complicatedto know.
Is this your higher self, or isthis some other being that you
(04:55):
shouldn't listen to?
Or is this sabotaging you?
And for me it's very simple nowin my head is this voiceaming
me?
And if it, if it's shaming me,that's not my higher self, my
higher, my higher self, yourhigher self, doesn't shame you.
God doesn't shame people.
This is shame as a humanfabrication, and that's what I'm
(05:16):
really convinced of now.
There's no function for shame.
It's just so baked in,particularly to Western culture,
with this idea of Christianoriginal sin, that it's kind of
even great thinkers that talkabout shame, like Brene Brown
and John Bradshaw.
They think you need a littlebit of shame in order to be
(05:38):
healthy, in order to be a goodhuman, and Brene Brown went so
far as to say that you need alittle bit of shame.
And if people you don't, peoplewho don't have shame, they
can't have empathy and theycan't be, they're basically
psychopaths.
And I really, really disagreewith this.
I feel like when they talk aboutthis, they conflate guilt and
(05:58):
shame.
Shame says you're bad, andthat's never a good thing.
To believe that you're badbecause we, either we do one.
To believe that you're badbecause we, either we do one of
two things we internalize it orwe externalize it.
We find someone else to projectit on and guilt is totally
different.
Guilt is I've done somethingbad and that can be positive.
I know it doesn't feel good inthe moment, but it's important
(06:21):
to have that awareness.
Oh my god, I did something, Ihurt someone and I won't do that
again.
So that's what we need.
We don't need to be shamingourselves.
Shame is always toxic and it'sa fabrication from religion and
from society.
It's not something indigenouscultures have built into their
system.
It's a construct from society,from narcissistic empires and
(06:47):
religion, particularly to keepeverybody in mind.
It's all about controllingpeople, keeping everyone in
their little box, in their place.
Speaker 1 (06:56):
So when a parent says to a child you know, shame on
you for being mean to yourlittle sister, what then
actually are they saying?
Are they not pointing out thatthe older child should have
behaved better, more kindly?
Speaker 2 (07:12):
is that a bad thing?
This is, this is.
This is the distinction betweenshame and guilt.
Like if you say to a child youare bad, you are bad, you are
there's, you are a bad childbecause you've done this.
That's shaming.
But you can say all right,little Serena, you've done
something bad there, you've hurtyour child.
(07:33):
Encourage them to empathizewith what they've done and
understand why it's bad.
You don't need to shame themfor it, because they'll either
internalize that shame orthey'll externalize that shame.
That's whatize that shame.
That's what happened.
That's what happens withcollective groups that have been
all this shame like scapegoatedgroups.
They they end up projecting iton someone else are
(07:55):
internalizing it, and thathappens on an individual level
level as well, and it's alwaysvery, very destructive.
It's never it's, it's neverconducive to anything good.
Whereas guilt, yes, yourecognize them.
The little child recognize oh,I've hurt my little sister,
you've made them cry, see theresults of that.
(08:15):
But you don't need to shamethem and say that you're a bad
girl for what you've done.
You can just say look howyou've hurt this person.
Let them feel the empathy.
All humans, we have thatnatural empathy, and shame
actually impedes us from feelingempathy.
So when people say that youneed shame in order to feel
empathy like neurologically itdoesn't make any sense either.
Speaker 1 (08:40):
So what you're saying also is to separate the person,
the intrinsic essence of theperson, from what they do,
because all of us are capable ofdoing bad things, of doing
things that let ourselves or letother people down, that hurt
others, but that doesn'tnecessarily mean we are a bad
person.
We're a person who made a badchoice in the moment and we can
(09:03):
go and remedy whatever happenedright.
That's what you're saying.
Speaker 2 (09:07):
That's exactly it.
And in indigenous cultures,before religion and these
societies came along imposingall these rules, that's exactly
what it was like.
If somebody hurt someone orkilled someone or did anything
bad, they came together as acollective and brought that
person in.
They didn't cast the person outand shame them.
It's clear if you look at theempirical data that what we're
(09:33):
doing by shaming people it's notworking.
It doesn't stop crimes frombeing committed.
It actually causes them tointernalize shame and then the
cycle continues.
And it's the same with families.
If we have been shamed, we go onto pass that on to our children
one way or the other.
There's no way around that.
And shame I call it the kind ofthe code, the code of this
(09:56):
trauma matrix that I talk about,because the shame is really how
we are controlled.
Without shame, we can't becontrolled by these systems of
domination, by anyone else.
And if anyone says somethinginsulting to us oh I hate your
orange jumper, you look so uglyWe'll just be like oh my God,
you're crazy.
(10:17):
We won't take it in.
If we don't have that shamereceptor, or that inner
narcissist, as I call it,already active within us, the
shame won't stick, we'll justlaugh and we won't shame
ourselves.
So, really, this is the thingwe can change.
We don't need to change societyin order to release ourselves
(10:37):
from this bell of shame thatwe're all under what I hear you
say is that shame makes someonean outcast and an exile.
Speaker 1 (10:49):
So they are expelled out, they no longer belong and
therefore they have to go andfind.
Either they stay by themselvesin isolation, disconnected from
community, or they also look forsomeone else to project that on
, to pass that on, to put thatout from themselves but make
them hurt less by making someoneelse their victim.
(11:10):
Is that how it gets perpetuated?
Speaker 2 (11:13):
That's exactly it, and this is the.
It's one of the roles innarcissistic or dysfunctional
families.
You have a scapegoat.
These families look for ascapegoat.
They look for someone becausewe don't want to deal with our
intergenerational trauma, allthe trauma that's been passed
down for the generations.
We're not doing any therapy orwork to understand it.
(11:33):
So what do we do?
We find a child, usually asensitive, introverted child,
who may be a little bit quieter,a little bit more sensitive,
and that gets projected anddumped on them.
So this is why a lot of highlysensitive people can end up in
that role and, yeah, it ends upbeing really destructive.
(11:55):
The scapegoat goes on, like yousaid, to either internalize all
that shame and believe I'm bad,there's something wrong with me,
I'm ugly, because when we'rechildren, we can't believe that
our parents did something wrong,they were bad.
So we internalize that and it'skind of also a protective
(12:16):
method.
We shame ourselves in order toprotect ourselves, and it's kind
of illogical, but we shameourselves first so that we won't
be shamed from the outside, ifthat makes sense.
So we get in there first byshaming ourselves so that it
won't feel so bad when we getshamed from outside.
So this is a thing that we doto kind of that's kind of
(12:39):
counterintuitive, butemotionally that's kind of how
it works to to protect ourselvesfrom shame.
We shame ourselves and we makeit our fault.
I'm bad.
This is why I didn't fit in asa child.
This is why I wasn't happy,because there's something wrong
with me.
This is shaming internalizedshaming that leads to depression
(13:01):
, that leads to addictions, thatleads to anorexia all kinds of
dysfunction in adulthood.
And also, like you mentioned,we either go down that route or
we find someone else to projectit on, find a soft victim to
(13:22):
project it on, so that we don'thave to deal with it.
So we go on to recreate thatcycle that our parents created
because we don't have to dealwith it.
So we go on to recreate thatcycle that our parents created
because we don't know, anythingelse.
Shame is all we know.
We don't want to deal with it,so we got to find someone to
dump it on.
And you can see that in societylevel as well, because it's
happening as we speak.
This is why there's so muchrejection of immigrants and
(13:46):
foreigners, because of all theunprocessed shame that we have
collectively as a culture, as asociety, we don't want to deal
with it.
So what do we do?
We find a scapegoat.
We find a scapegoat and it'stheir fault, so we project it
all on them and that way weavoid dealing with our own shame
.
But it just goes on to createmore and more of this.
(14:07):
But the good news is that wecan free ourselves one person at
a time.
We don't need to wait forsociety to wake up to what's
happening.
Speaker 1 (14:16):
So talk to us about how we do that as a shame
exorcist.
How do you exorcise shame?
How do you expel it fromyourself with that
self-awareness, so that webecome maybe immune to shame or
protected from shame?
Speaker 2 (14:33):
Well, the first, the real key that I've discovered is
to recognize that shaming voice.
It's not you, it's not you andthat's not something that we're
generally told.
We're told that it's a part ofyou that's really, that wants to
help you, that wants to lookafter your inner critic, that
wants to keep you safe.
And I've realized I mean, Ihave a covert narcissistic
(14:56):
mother that this voice in mycase, and I think in a lot of
people's case, it's not so muchan inner critic that's trying to
keep us safe, it's more of aninner narcissist that's trying
to keep us safe.
It's more of an innernarcissist that's trying to keep
itself safe.
So, like a, like a covertnarcissistic mother, it is
trying to like the mother is not, doesn't really care about your
(15:17):
safety.
They care about how they feelabout it.
They don't want you to gotraveling because it'll make
them feel bad.
They don't, they're not,they're not.
They don't want you to go andbe a singer because they'll feel
anxious about that, becausethey don't think it can work out
.
So it's not really about tryingto protect you at all.
And that inner voice, thatinner narcissist, is exactly the
(15:38):
same.
It's not trying to protect you,it's trying to protect itself
from anxiety that it's going tofeel it's not helping you expand
, it's not helping you at all.
It's actually keeping you small, keeping you in your place,
keeping you in your little row.
So that is key Recognize thatit's not you, it's an inner
narcissist.
And even just with thatawareness that can really shift
(16:01):
a lot, just by becoming awarethat that voice isn't you lot,
just by becoming aware that thatvoice isn't you.
And then you know when it comesup.
You have to defy it.
When it comes up and it saysyou can't go there and sing, you
can't do that thing, you can'tstudy massage, you can't
recognize that.
And if it's something that youwant to do, do it.
(16:22):
Defy that voice.
Defy that voice Not for thesake of defiance, because then
you're still being controlled bythe voice, but because it's
what you genuinely want to do.
So you've got to disconnectfrom that voice and do you Not?
Do the opposite of what thevoice says, but do exactly what
you want to do.
Don't listen to that voice,because every time you listen to
(16:44):
it, every time you follow itsguidance, every time you shrink
when it says something, or evenwhen you try to fight with it or
try to make yourself right ormake it see you're actually
feeding it.
It's really very much likenarcissistic supply you actually
feed it and it grows the moreyou try to argue with it.
(17:04):
So don't try to argue with it.
Draw a line in the sand and sayyou're over there, I'm not
talking to you anymore, I'mliving my life.
You're not, you're not you're,you're not controlling me
anymore, you're not the boss ofme.
So we create that distance,just like we would with the
narcissist out there in theworld.
We wouldn't, we would.
And this is what the therapistsall say.
(17:25):
You know, get away from them.
Don't try to argue with them,don't try to convince them,
don't try to tell them thatthey're a narcissist.
Just get yourself as far awayfrom them as possible.
So we've got to do that.
And then it becomes a practice.
It becomes a practice becauseyou're not feeding the
narcissist.
It's going to starve becausethat inner narcissist, it needs
(17:47):
the fuel.
It only has power over you,while it can hook into your
shame and get you feeling shame.
So you've got to reclaim yourshameless, what I call it.
In English we have this word,shameless, which if people are
called shameless, they'rebehaving badly, they're doing
something way out of order, andI'm all about reclaiming that
(18:13):
word, because shameless justmeans free of shame.
When people are behaving what'scalled shamelessly, they're
actually full of shame.
They're behaving badly becausethey're full of shame that
hasn't been processed.
So I want to reclaim this wordshameless.
I want to be shameless, I wantto live free of shame, and
that's the goal that we're goingfor once, we start rejecting
(18:33):
this voice and really livingfree of that and the highly
sensitive child going throughthat childhood with a
narcissistic parent would become, you know, more likely to to be
the victim or the scapegoat,and then into adulthood.
Speaker 1 (18:56):
That still happens because they've internalized
that shame, that they believethat there's something genuinely
wrong with them.
But there's also another layerof you know for you.
You did mention Westernfamilies, but I'm, you know,
cultural conditioning wise.
I'm also thinking of Asianfamilies where, you know, shame
is also a large part of, as yousay, how we control our families
(19:20):
, how we control the children.
You know you have to behavethis way.
You don't bring shame on thefamily name.
Now is that a different kind ofshame that we're talking about?
Speaker 2 (19:30):
yeah, I think it's a slightly different flavor and we
have that in the west as well,especially, like in the past,
this idea of honor killings andstuff like that.
That happened back in the dayand it still exists.
You know, don't bring shame onthe family it exists in the West
as well.
But the key thing about Westernshame is that it's internalized
(19:51):
.
It's a more internalized,individualized shame and that, I
think, is different from whatyou see in Eastern you know,
japanese and Chinese and otheroriental cultures, because it's
more external.
It's more about looking goodwithin the collective, not
stepping out of your role, youknow, keeping the family clean,
keeping, you know, just stayingin line.
(20:12):
So there it is used to controlpeople.
But it's a slightly differentflavor and it's not better or
worse, it's just a differentflavor.
I mean, I personally feel thatthe individualized shame that we
have in the West is evenstronger, but it's like a
slightly different flavor inChinese culture and it is very
(20:33):
self-destructive as well.
I mean, I know that there's alot in cultures like Japan.
You have a lot of suicide andwhat I realized in my research
is that this voice, this innernarcissist, it can become like a
malignant narcissist, it's likea covert narcissist.
They're pretending to help youand it can actually metastasize
(20:55):
into malignant narcissisttelling you oh, you might as
well not be here, you might aswell disappear, everyone will be
better off without you.
That's like a really malignantvoice and that's when people go
on to do very self-destructivethings, and I don't believe that
suicide can really existwithout that, without having
(21:16):
that piece in place.
So it's not so much aboutwhat's happening out there, it's
about this internalized shame,this internalized narcissist,
how deeply heavy ingrained it isinto your system and how much
you really buy into it.
And so many of us we believe it, we believe that voice, we
(21:36):
believe everything that it saysand everything that it makes us
feel and we believe it to betrue.
And then we go on to sabotageand destroy ourselves.
Speaker 1 (21:47):
I think a lot of us are not even aware that we are
buying into the voice of thisinner narcissist because we
haven't identified it as suchand so, like you say, we are
feeding it inadvertently byengaging with it, by trying to
prove that we are smart enoughor attractive enough or
successful enough, that we'regood enough with it's.
(22:08):
It's like having, it's likestill trying to please or gain
approval from the externalnarcissist figure in our lives
yeah we freeze, fawn and, youknow, fight.
Speaker 2 (22:22):
You know those are the three, three responses to
trauma and are, to you know,external and what the voice,
when it comes along, a lot of usgo straight to fawning.
We just do what it says.
We follow along, we try toprove, and when we're trying to
prove that we're good enough,we're feeding it.
We're feeding it, we're notliberating ourselves, we're just
(22:43):
maybe making ourselves feel alittle bit better for a short
time.
But then inevitably, as was mycase, I'd constantly be trying
to prove I was good enough andthen would constantly be
disappointed.
So I was constantly in theseemotions where we're fueling it
more and more.
And my inner voice, it didn'tmetastasize into very malignant
entities.
(23:03):
You know I have these big flareups whereignant entities that
you know.
I have these big flare upswhere it would be, you know,
have a depressive episode.
So now that I recognize that'snot me, I'm in control of that.
You know I'm not.
I will never allow myself to betaken down by that.
It's not me.
I've separated from that voice.
I've gone no contact with thatvoice.
(23:24):
From that voice I've gone nocontact with that voice and it
has no power over me because Isay so, and that can be the case
for anyone listening too.
It just requires a bit ofpractice.
But even knowing that it's notyou, that this is an inner
narcissist, that it doesn't haveyour good at heart, even just
knowing that can be reallytransformational.
Speaker 1 (23:47):
So how does one begin to recognize and to separate
ourselves from this voice?
Speaker 2 (23:56):
well, I think you can .
You can.
It's.
It's helpful to look back andsee where it came from.
You know, because a lot ofpeople would would argue with me
and say, oh, you have toempathize with the voice, and I
I agree.
It's useful to understand, youknow, where did this voice come
from?
If you had a narcissistic parent, you can see, oh, maybe their
parent was very toxic so theytook it on.
(24:17):
So you can have empathy for itto a degree, but not letting it
control you.
Just because your mother wasbrought up by very toxic parents
and is mentally ill and is verycontrolling and dominating and
toxic, that doesn't give her afree pass to pass it on to you.
And it's the same with thisvoice, with this inner
(24:39):
narcissist.
Just because it has beenconditioned by hard times and
toxic environment doesn't giveit a free pass to dump all that
on you.
So you have the power to say noand that that is key.
It's not you, it has no rightto dump anything on you, no
matter how sad the story is.
It's not yours.
(25:00):
That shame is not yours and youcan say no to it.
It just takes a little bit ofpractice, because we're kind of
addicted to shame.
To be honest, we kind of, likeI said, it's become a kind of,
you know, a comfort blanket forus, you know, like the children
with the dirty teddy bear, thedirty blanket that's what shame
(25:26):
is for us, where we think it'slike keeping us safe, but
actually it's just filthy, it'sjust, it's just.
It's it's bringing us no goodwhatsoever and there's no
evidence really that shame doesanything positive for us.
It's just it's a culturalconstruct that it's beneficial.
There's no evidence.
If you look back in cultures itdoes not bring any good.
That's all.
Guilt, guilt can be positive.
(25:47):
Shame has no benefit.
So, even becoming aware ofthose few things, I think they
can help you liberate yourselffrom them.
But really it takes making adecision and finding support,
because sometimes you can dothis on your own, you can
definitely start but alsofinding finding a coach or a
mentor or a group of people tosupport you, because that voice
(26:11):
will come and try to tempt you.
Just like, if you're trying togo no contact with a
narcissistic boyfriend orgirlfriend, that person will
inevitably try to reach out toyou, try to follow, you, try to
send you a DM and you have tohold your boundary firm and say
no, I'm not taking this anymore.
I'm going to follow my own path.
I choose to be happy.
(26:31):
I choose to be free of shame.
This doesn't serve me anymore.
0% serves me and I'm ready tolive me anymore.
Zero percent serves me and I'mready to live.
I'm ready to be free.
I'm ready to stop polishing thecage that I've been in, that
I've been in all my life, andactually step outside.
And very few people are doingthat.
Most people are living withinthe cage of shame and have no
(26:53):
idea that they're in there.
Speaker 1 (26:56):
And I think that's the greatest tragedy, isn't it
To be living inside the cage butnot be aware that we are inside
a cage and to keep polishing it, as you say, or keep dragging
around our tatty comfortblankets because we're so used
to that?
Having that in our lives,having that voice, having that
figure in our lives, that'stelling us we have to be smaller
(27:16):
, we have to be quieter, we haveto be something else other than
who we are, because we're stillnot enough.
So that's like a an endlessself-sabotage cycle that we
can't get out of until we insistand it'll tell you, um, that
you're not loud enough.
Speaker 2 (27:33):
If you're very introverted and quiet, it'll
tell you that you're not goodenough because you're not
speaking up enough, even though,rather than accepting yourself
for who you are, it'll always,always, always, find a new and
innovative way to shame you.
You know, so it's like abottomless pit.
This is why, you know, I saydon't sit with the shame,
because it's a bottomless pit.
There is no end to it.
(27:53):
It's like a well that has nobottom.
You can sit with it all yourlife and there's going to is no
end to it.
It's like a well that has nobottom.
You can sit with it all yourlife and there's there's going
to be no end to it.
It's just going to shower youwith more and more shame.
That's why we should definitelynot sit with shame anymore.
You know, you've tried that,probably been doing it all your
life.
If you're anything like me andlook where it's got you do you
(28:17):
want something different?
Then you need to make adifferent decision and say no to
that.
Speaker 1 (28:23):
So what I hear you also say is this is about
self-responsibility.
A while back you mentioned thatthe effects of
intergenerational trauma, thatperhaps the narcissistic parent
also had a toxic parent and it'sgone on for several generations
, but that is not an excuse tocontinue to perpetuate that and
to bring that on to the futuregeneration.
That becomes like a victimmentality, isn't it?
(28:45):
Because I've suffered and youalso have to suffer, Whereas
what we're saying is we're thecycle breakers of our generation
and we have the ability tochoose differently for ourselves
as well as for the futuregenerations.
Speaker 2 (29:00):
Exactly Beautifully said that generations Exactly
beautifully said.
That's exactly it, Serena,You've nailed it and said it
perfectly.
We are the cycle breakers, oryou can be the cycle breaker,
but you have to step out of theshadow of shame.
That's what it takes to reallybe free.
You've got to get out of shame,You've got to reclaim your
shameless and just be shameless,not in the way that language
(29:23):
has taken it hostage.
You know, we're kind of I feellike we have, you know,
Stockholm syndrome when it comesto shame.
Shame has taken us hostage andwe think it's trying to help us.
And no, it's not trying to helpus.
That voice is not trying tohelp you.
You've just got Stockholmsyndrome because you've been
with it all your life and it'snot helping you.
(29:46):
Own that and take your powerback.
Speaker 1 (29:50):
Wow, that is extremely powerful, and I think
what people will want to knownext is how would they connect
with you and work with you, andwho do you help?
Speaker 2 (30:05):
Well, I help women who are ready to step out of the
shadow of shame and say no tothis narcissistic voice.
They don't want to pander to itanymore.
Maybe they've tried that for 20, 30, 40, 50 years and they're
recognizing.
Maybe they've done all thetherapy and it just hasn't
worked and they're ready forsomething else.
(30:25):
They're ready to actuallyreclaim real freedom, which
means stepping out of this shameStockholm syndrome that I'm
talking about and what I wouldsay for people who are willing,
who are, to checking this out.
I have a free gift for people.
It's five signs that you'reready to break up with your
inner narcissist.
So these are these are likefive signs to look out for to
(30:49):
know that it's actually time tobreak up with it.
It's like having a toxicboyfriend, girlfriend, and you
need to go no contact with it.
So I would say that would be areally good first step.
You could also check me out onI've written a lot of things
about this on Substack and theTrauma Matrix on there, or you
can find me on social mediatraumamatrix.
Speaker 1 (31:11):
Brilliant.
We'll make sure to include allyour links in the show notes for
people that want to reach outand find out more.
So if you enjoyed today'sepisode, be sure to leave a
five-star rating and review tohelp the Quiet Warrior podcast
reach more introverts and quietachievers around the world.
Thank you for joining us andsee you at the next episode.
I'm so grateful that you'rehere today.
(31:33):
If you found this contentvaluable, please share it on
your social media channels andsubscribe to the show on your
favorite listening platform.
Together, we can help moreintroverts thrive.
To receive more upliftingcontent like this, connect with
me on Instagram at Serena LoQuiet Warrior Coach.
Thank you for sharing your timeand your energy with me.
(31:55):
See you on the next episode.
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