#65: Let's Talk About that Dirty Word Called SHAME

Are you willing to dive into some of the things that are coming up for you in order to be the support person that your loved one needs?

Episode Transcript

Jen (00:00):
Welcome back to the unbreakable boundaries podcast
with your host, myself, JenniferManeely. In today's episode,
we're actually going to startdoing something a little bit
different with this podcast. Oneof the things that I noticed is
like a lot of people will postand they'll write in, in various
different platforms, they'll askquestions, they'll ask advice,

(00:24):
they'll give the situation,asking for support and help. So
I thought I would kind of maybepool some of these things that
people write in publicly, andasking for a little bit of
support and advice. And I amgoing to kind of give, I don't
want to say the answer, but kindof some thoughts and my two

(00:48):
cents, I will never say whetheror not I am right or wrong. It's
just kind of my perspective,coming from my experience, both
as a recovering person, and thenalso my experience of having
worked with hundreds of parentsand family members and stuff.

(01:11):
And some of the things theyexperienced some things that
have been helpful for them. SoI'm kind of basing all of this
on a lot of my, what I have seenin the community, so there's
going to be times where I'mgoing to read the posts
verbatim. And then there's gonnabe times where I may keep some

(01:33):
of the things a little bit morevague, like, I don't want to
attribute certaincharacteristics about that
person. And I mean, like, maybetheir age, or just if, if I
don't think that it's completelyirrelevant, I may kind of just
give a little bit of context andnot talk necessarily verbatim

(01:55):
so. So for my first post, Ipulled something that I found
find to be a very commonsituation that a lot of people
are dealing with. And so I I'mjust going to read, so this
person says, so my homeless son,addicted son called last night,

(02:22):
from not hearing from him from awhile. He wanted some
cigarettes, and some snacks. Andcourse I asked him what he's
been eating. And he said, hebuys food from panhandling
money. This is not a veryuncommon thing, right? You see
pain handlers all over theplace. And the thing about that

(02:44):
is is is that always someone'sson or daughter out there
panhandling. He said he washungry, he paid handles in my
area. And he, this person isfull of shame from this idea
that her son panhandles in thearea in which she knows people,

(03:09):
so neighbors, co workers. Thisperson has isolated themselves,
she seems like she's a littlebit scared that people will
start associating her son withher. And he even asked why he

(03:31):
was embarrassed when she tookhim to go get food, and it was
not in the part of town. And shebasically said, because I'm
embarrassed. And sounds like hehas a lonely life. And it sounds
like because she has decided toisolate herself, that she also

(03:55):
has a very lonely life and wouldlove to move but can't afford to
move. And would love for him tomove. But obviously, he can't
afford to move either. And shementions that her health is
declining. Now, this is such acommon situation that I run into

(04:18):
with so many people and I knowthat when family members look at
this, they think that they'rethe only ones that could
possibly be experiencing thethings that she's saying like
all the shame that goes intohaving a loved one, whether it's

(04:38):
a son or a daughter, going outand doing things like like this,
especially so publicly becausepanhandling is very public. So
what does happen if you knowthis, this person's son or
daughter is pan handling and oneof their co workers or one of
their friends or one of theirneighbors put goes up and sees

(05:01):
them and is like, what the heckare the first thought, and this
sometimes happens is issomething went wrong in the
family unit, right. So this iswhere all of the shame comes in,
from the parents side of things.
And so a lot of times like whatI tell family members and one of

(05:21):
the things that we first work onif someone's in this situation
where they're findingthemselves, just full of shame
about their situation, is reallydiving into what is that shame
coming from. Because if you'reattaching your self worth to how

(05:44):
your your kid comes out, one ofthe things that I remind people
is a we have no control over theexternal factors in in the
world, there's so much that goesinto someone becoming a person
that has what I'll just calladdiction for the sake of time.

(06:05):
If you don't like that Burbageyou can call it substance use
disorder, call it whatever youwant, right. But for the sake of
this, I'm going to sayaddiction. When someone turns
into it's not ever about thefamily unit, in the external
way. It's something that's goingon very much internally with

(06:29):
that person, it's how they arereceiving information about the
world and processing thatinformation about the world,
right. So I had a really goodupbringing, I had a good family,
I had all of these reallywonderful things. I've been very

(06:51):
grateful for everything I grewup in. You know, in a church,
I've never seen my parents, likecompletely wasted or any
substance abuse at all. And Ithink this is where a lot of
people find themselves in deepshame is they say to themselves,

(07:12):
I didn't raise my son ordaughter to act like this. And
they're worried that otherpeople will think that that's
how somehow they were raised,right? Well, people can think
whatever they want to think itdoesn't make it the truth, first

(07:32):
of all, so when we're looking atshame, this is where the family,
the parents, can really use somesupport and help for themselves.
Because as this person issaying, this shame that they're

(07:54):
holding on to is isolating themfrom the rest of the world. And
it feels like that's the onlyplace that that person can be is
at home isolating so that theydon't have to feel embarrassed.
Is it any wonder that whensomeone starts isolating

(08:17):
themselves, that their healthwill start to decline? Because
they're not getting the thingsemotionally and mentally that
they need and it takes thestress takes a large physical
toll on a person. And it'sreally hard for someone to live

(08:43):
their life in that way. It'slike a constant survival mode of
just trying to cope and dealwith what's going on. And it's
it can start becoming veryunhealthy for the family. Right.
All the stresses is just, it'sjust not good for a person I

(09:06):
think we can I think we can allget behind that. When we feel
very emotionally stressed. Thatthat there is a physical toll. I
don't think I have to go intotoo much detail about how that
can play out. So I think it'sreally important when someone is

(09:28):
holding on to shame and they'reworried about connecting and
talking, and maybe in thereality is is
that maybe they have beentalking about it with other
family members because that'susually where we turn to right.
Not necessarily she didn't sayanything about this situation,

(09:48):
but this is very normal, wherewe have a tendency to turn to
our other family and maybe ourfamily because they have no idea
What to do or what to say theydon't have the skills or
knowledge or experience tosupport that person. So they get

(10:11):
some not so great feedback fromtheir own family that seems to
also be blaming them or beinglike, oh, you should do this, or
Oh, you got to do that, Oh, yougot and it all sounds very, not
loving, not compassionate, notthe way that we want to handle

(10:32):
the situation as it relates toour loved one. Now, in some for
instances, their family may beright in the way that they are
approaching is saying, hey,maybe you got to let them go or
whatever. But until we're ready,or until we understand the
importance, or until we havebuilt our own foundation of our

(10:55):
own, understanding our skillsand making sure that what we're
doing is loving, and the reasonsbehind why maybe it's in the
best interest of our loved onesthat are out there. Suffering,
why allowing them theopportunity to maybe go down,

(11:22):
hey, I want to say the theharder road but we will always
take and this is coming from arecovery person. And I just want
to reiterate this, we willalways take the path of least
resistance. So whatever thatpath is, we're going to take
whatever we think, is theeasiest way of doing things.

(11:45):
Even if what we're doing isreally, really hard, is the
easiest path that we can see infront of us. Sometimes families
can offer us an easier path,such as, hey, I'm here to
support you, if you can go intosober living or rehab or
something like that. And theydon't feel at the time that that

(12:11):
may be the easiest path to godown. It feels really hard.
Because the truth is, is it isreally hard recovery is hard.
But until we can start seeingrecovery as the path of least
resistance, we're not going tochange anything. Now back to the

(12:31):
families, right? How can wecreate a way of supporting them
and seeing that this is the pathof least resistance, the ideas
that we're coming up with thesupport that we're we're having?
How do we start? I guessplanting seeds enough for them

(12:55):
to have an opportunity to choosesomething different because what
they're doing is becoming toodifficult. And it's not what
they want for their lives. Howdo we support them in that now,
what I'll say is all of thisstuff is very challenging. And
it's it's difficult, it's hardto figure out what's going on, I

(13:20):
can't even necessarily tackleall of the dynamics in this
podcast, I could try. And I dotry. But there's no way to get
from point A to point B withouta third party intervention on
support, and how to get whereyou are meeting the goals that

(13:43):
you want to see for your, foryourself as well. And so this is
where it's so crucial that whenwe're faced with these things to
understand that there's notgoing to be a single person
including me, that can have aone and done conversation. Not a
therapist, not an addictionsupport counselor, whatever,

(14:08):
that can have a one and doneconversation, to really start
honing in on how you can bestsupport your loved one in this
and most importantly how you canbest support yourself than this.
Especially when you startfinding yourself in these really
stressful situations that youhave no freaking idea what to
do, how to handle it and yourloss, right. It's not a one and

(14:32):
done conversation. These areseveral conversations over time,
that can really start makingsome different moves and changes
in your life. To better supportyourself in in in your loved
one. It takes a while it wedon't like things that take a

(14:54):
while. We also don't like thingsthat force us to look at things
that we are uncomfortablelooking with At. And so it's
like starting to kind of becomewilling of going, I am willing
to start making some shifts andchanges in myself. Because I

(15:14):
need to because it's timebecause I don't want to keep
living the way that I want tothat I'm living right now,
again, I don't care who you'retalking to, whether it's that
person with the substance abuseissues, or ourselves or
whatever. As human beings, we'regenerally going to want to take

(15:37):
the path of least resistance.
And unfortunately, when we startdiving into our own shame, stuff
that comes up through our lovedones, that doesn't feel like the
path of least resistance. Butour feelings aren't facts. Over
time, we start discovering thatwhen we do start looking at

(15:58):
ourselves, we start looking atthe shame, we start looking
about what's getting in our way,why do we keep stepping in and
all of the things that we reallyfind ourselves struggling with?
That overtime, when we startdoing something different, that
becomes our lives become betterour lives become easier. The way

(16:21):
that we start forming theboundaries is remember, this
podcast is called theunbreakable boundaries when we
start creating unbreakableboundaries, which simply means
that we are starting to live inalignment with what we want for
ourselves in our lives, when wereally own that for ourselves.

(16:46):
We become the person that we canlook in the mirror, and have no
matter what the external worldis doing, or whoever we're
looking at, we don't findourselves in shame, because

(17:07):
that's not our journey. Ourjourney is not another person's
journey. Although we have ourjourney through another person,
I'm not entirely sure that thatmakes sense. But we have to
separate ourselves. And this ispart of the boundaries, we have
to separate ourselves from whatsomeone else is doing and really

(17:33):
own, that that is not ours toown. And we can own the things
that we need to own. But we canalso let go of holding on to the
things that are not ours to own.
And there's a wealth of things,when it comes to having loved

(17:56):
ones with substance abuse issuesthat you may find yourself
holding on to things that arenot yours to hold on to. And
this is part of a it's a it's ait's a good part of what does it
mean, to let go. And let godoesn't just necessarily mean

(18:18):
turning your back on your lovedone. In part, it means to let go
of the things that's not yoursto hold on to. But that, again,
is not a one and doneconversation. So these are just
some of the things that I reallywork with families on is how to

(18:41):
start separating themselves fromtheir loved ones. And when I say
separating, I don't literallymean let go and turn your back
on. I mean, how do you startemotionally, learning what's
yours and what's theirs, andthen how to honor the
difference, right? How to startseparating yourself how to start

(19:05):
really looking at how to liveyour life so that you're not
having a lonely life and havingyour health decline because
you're not getting what youneed. We have to live our lives
despite what's going on with ourloved ones. And the more that we
live our lives and I know thissounds very counterintuitive,

(19:27):
but the more that we can findourselves living a happy and
healthy life, the less likelythey are to start being able
to manipulate us to reallyattach themselves to us to

(19:47):
really have I guesssubconsciously punish us for
whatever they think becausethey're just so used to like
being able to pull On yourheartstrings a little bit
through manipulation structuresto get what they want, right?
Like, all of this is just to getwhat they want, which is just

(20:08):
money and drugs. And so they mayblame you for all of these
things that is not yours to own,it's theirs. But how do we start
facing some of those things, notan overnight process, I hate to
say it, this is just not There'sno quick fix, there's no silver
bullet, I can tell you fromexperience, and I know this

(20:29):
sounds overwhelming. But to evenreally start getting a handle on
making shifts and changes foryourself, and I'm gonna say
this, and you're not gonna likeit. But it's a six months to a
year process period. And a storyI hate to say it, but that's how
long it takes for people tostart making shifts and changes,

(20:50):
it takes three months just toget clear about what the problem
is, and then a whole notherquite a few months to actually
start making changes about it.
And those changes can sometimesbe really uncomfortable. And
this is where it's reallyhelpful to have someone like
myself, help you. Because ifleft to your own devices, you

(21:12):
get uncomfortable. And you don'tdo it. It's like all the sudden,
things still seem so bad. Andnothing changes. Because you're
like, you know what, I haveaccepted that this is just going
to be my life, because makingchanges seems too hard. Well,
bullshit, because we're justgoing to be right back here in

(21:35):
another year, another two years,another five year do you want to
live the next 10 years of yourlife? Because this is what
you're up against? Do you wantto live the next 10 years of
your life? Not making anychanges whatsoever? Is this the
way that you want your life tolook like? Is this the way you
want to feel? And not even justfor the next 10 years, but get

(21:58):
worse? So at what point do westart making changes so that in
a year from now, our lives don'tlook the same anymore? And for
the better? And so I want to Iwant you to ask yourself, what

(22:19):
are you willing to do to notfeel the way that you feel about
yourself about your loved oneabout your situation? What are
you willing to do? Are youwilling to dive into some of the
things that's coming up for you,in order to be the support
person that your loved oneneeds. So that is a little bit

(22:41):
and I know that was seemed along from this post, but I'm
gonna keep doing this, andyou're gonna hear some of the
same thing. So I hope that youkind of tune in and you know
what, if you are not the person,if you were just interested in

(23:02):
listening to this podcast,because maybe, you know, it's
your sister or your brother,share these things with the
people that you feel like coulduse it the most. And if you're
worried, share it publicly, likeGo share it on your Facebook
page. Right, Go share it in, inlet people know that this is out

(23:24):
there. That's the only way thatpeople find these things is
either you know, subscribing tothe podcast, sharing with
sharing it with their families,their friends on their own
social media. Because there'sI'm going to tell you right now,
there are people that are outthere that you know, well. But
you have no idea that they'regoing through these things

(23:49):
because this this situation,these situations, people love to
stay in hiding. People love tonot talk about it. People are
that deep in shame that theydon't even they don't want
anyone to know what's going on.
So sharing this allows peoplethe opportunity to hear

(24:10):
something in the privacy oftheir own car, and their own
home, sitting at their desk atwork or whatever have headphones
plugged in and they can get thesupport and the help that they
need in the privacy of their ownhome. So sharing this is such an
amazing support for thecommunity that's out there that

(24:34):
you may not even know who needsit. So thank you so much for
listening. Again, subscribe,share, talk about it with people
send people this podcast. And ifyou want more podcasts like
this, I do a lot of interviews.
I've done a lot of interviews inthe past. If you haven't gotten
a chance, please go and lookthrough some of the interviews

(24:56):
so that it's not just me rightNot just me saying these things,
not just Jin's opinion. It'slike what works. This is what
works. These are the things thatwork, it's not Jin's way, it's
sometimes it's the way, right.
So if you want to listen tomore, you can go check out my

(25:19):
website, unbreakable,unbreakable boundaries
podcast.com. And if you have asituation that you'd actually
like to hear, kind of, I guessmaybe my two cents, or some of
my thoughts, I encourage you towrite in to me. And you can go
to my email, just shoot me anemail. Keep things I always keep

(25:41):
things anonymous, or, and vague.
So unless you publicly say yes,I'm totally cool with whatever
you want to use with this. Butotherwise, I lean on the side of
anonymity. So everything willalways be anonymous, if you want
to, and I will be vague. And insome of the attributes, in terms
of, you know, age, or whateverto make sure things don't get

(26:07):
attached, or people can't figureout who we're talking about
here, but email me a situationyou would like to hear about.
And my email is Jennifer, atManeely, ma, N E. l ey
consulting.com. And I'd be morethan happy to kind of discuss

(26:30):
this on one of my futurepodcasts. And you can get your
two cents. And of course, if youwrite in to me, I will happily
let you know when that will bereleased. So it's not just, you
know, you write in to me, thenyou don't ever hear anything
back. I will always let you knowwhen I have talked about your

(26:52):
situation on my podcast. Soanyway, I hope that you have a
good rest of your day. I hopethis was helpful. If you have
questions you can you can emailme as well say, Hey, I would
love to just talk and get moreclarity around what it is that
you're talking about. If you'dlike to discuss a little bit

(27:15):
more about how, what workingwith me looks like I want you to
go check out my other website.
My main website is ManeelyConsulting. Again, that's ma N e
L ey consulting.com. You can gocheck out that you can even go

(27:36):
schedule a call with me and justlearn a little bit more about
what I do and how I may be ableto help you. So I hope this was
helpful. And don't forget thereis always hope even when things
seem the most hopeless.