February 23, 2023 • 26 mins
Join Dr. Lynn Varela, LMHC and John Boswell, LCSW as they explore the impact of shame on self-esteem, ways to move past it, and its connection to Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD) and Narcissistic Personality Disorder (NPD). Must listen episode!
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John Boswell, LCSW (00:22):
Hey, this is John Boswell, licensed psychotherapist,
and as of recently, certified.
Personality disorder treatmentprovider, yes, your boy did that.
But I'm still not on the levelof my esteemed colleague.
P H D
Dr. Lynn Varela (00:37):
Dr.
Lynn is just your simple, average,everyday licensed mental health
counselor who does specialize inpersonality disorders, particularly
borderline personality disorder.
And if you have it, I love.
John Boswell, LCSW (00:50):
Absolutely we love you, and you can just think of me as
your friendly neighborhood therapist.
We'll make it simple.
Dr. Lynn Varela (00:56):
All right, my friends.
So today the topic is going to be shame.
Yum.
Yum.
Not really, but it's soimportant in the treatment of
trauma, personality disorders.
And the thing isn't until recently, likelet's say the last 10, 15 years at most,
nobody really recognized the importanceof this piece in treating trauma.
(01:19):
I mean, when I was personallytrained, nobody even discussed shame.
I was never, during my wholemaster's program, nobody said,
Hey, you need to look at shame.
It wasn't until Brene Brown that I evendiscovered that there was an important
part, you know, of this to discover or.
Process and trauma and withoutprocessing it and addressing it,
(01:39):
you're not fully addressing the trauma.
I don't know about you, John.
John Boswell, LCSW (01:42):
Absolutely.
I really don't remembercovering any of that.
In grad school, like you said.
Dr. Lynn Varela (01:46):
Yeah.
Yeah.
And yet bananas, it's so integral.
It really is.
So let's go into this people.
So what is shame versus guilt?
I mean, I can give you BeneBrown's definition and then
you could always add to Sure.
I'm very, very much a Brené Brown fan,and so I quote her a lot, especially
when I'm talking about shame.
(02:08):
How she defines this is that, Guilt iskind of like when you come to work late
one morning because you were hungover cuzthe night before you had a lot tequila
shots and you were having fun with yourfriends and so you've all been there.
You get there and you're like, dang,I need to stop, you know, doing this.
I need to stop drinking when I knowI have to work the next day cuz
this is setting me up for failure.
(02:29):
You know, I'll just do differentnext, next Friday or whatever.
Shame is the same scenario, but you'relike, oh man, I'm such a piece of shit.
What the fuck is wrong withme for even doing this?
So the difference is one,shame is way more guttural.
And two.
Guilt is about the actions itself.
Shame is about you as a person.
(02:50):
There's something wrong, broken, notgood enough, very much not good enough
is the central message of shame, right?
John Boswell, LCSW (02:59):
I always tell my clients that guilt is an important, guilt
is important for us to use as a catalyst.
We use guilt to kind of tell us,don't do that again if, mm-hmm.
, I were unfaithful when I cheated on my.
And I feel guilty about it.
That's a good thing.
I need to feel guilty about it.
Yes, that's what makes me not do it again.
Hopefully.
However, hopefully we useit to push us through.
(03:20):
We don't hold on to it ideally.
Mm-hmm.
, we're share shame is we're just reallydon't like something about ourselves
Dr. Lynn Varela (03:27):
typically, and in my experience, shame really drives the
self dislike all the way to self-hatred,depending on the levels of shame is how
absolutely close you are to self-hatred.
Yes, absolutely.
Okay, so then I like that definition.
Although with a person with M P D,they usually don't feel guilt or shame.
John Boswell, LCSW (03:46):
Well, well, well, I, I disagree.
They do feel shame.
Oh, well,
Dr. Lynn Varela (03:49):
yeah.
Yeah.
That's shame.
Sorry, my, my bad.
It would be guilt,
John Boswell, LCSW (03:53):
but most of the time you'll never see it.
Dr. Lynn Varela (03:55):
They don't like it.
The reason I got mixed up is becausethey have it, most definitely
it's poor, but they do not likelooking at any way, shape, or form.
John Boswell, LCSW (04:05):
Right?
So what they do is theytend to externalize it.
They're gonna make you feel shameful.
They're gonna make you feel bad, guilty.
Wrong.
Crazy
, Dr. Lynn Varela: but through gaslighting.
Through gaslighting, yes.
Their favorite,
but at the core of the narcissist, there is
a deep rooted sense of shame thatusually originates from childhood.
Mm-hmm.
(04:25):
trauma.
Even though we do know that there aresome genetic components to all personality
disorders and some neurologicalcomponents, but usually contrary
to what they show you, people withnarcissistic personality disorder or m p.
Don't like themselves?
Dr. Lynn Varela (04:39):
Oh, no, no.
Although I have heard some researcherssay that they don't agree with that
theory, but I don't agree with thembecause I really don't think narcissists
give two craps about themselves.
Because if they have to take themselvesdown to take you down, they will.
Which is very self-destructive.
Absolutely.
And so, yeah, very muchshame is at the core of m p.
(04:59):
As well as it is for B P D.
And it's very, it's very key.
Although we do have to specify, Iwill specify because research does
say that people with B P D, I don'tknow what it says about M P D.
There are some people out therethat have it without the trauma.
They just have it becausethere's a genetic component
and maybe alarm behavior.
So I do, I've never met those people.
(05:21):
I really have never.
But I have to say that they are outthere because research says they are out.
John Boswell, LCSW (05:26):
From the research that I've read, they say that of
all personality disorders, thatit is just, it's largely genetic.
Mm-hmm.
. And what I've read is thattrauma actually inflames.
Mm-hmm.
or agitates it.
So think of it almost like if Ihave the gene for alcoholism mm-hmm.
, but I never have a drink.
, I'm gonna be fine.
I don't worry about being an alcoholic.
Right.
But if I have a gene for apersonality disorder mm-hmm.
(05:48):
and I experience trauma, that'smore likely to bring that
personality disorder out of me.
Now there are some who disagree andthey believe it's only trauma based.
Mm-hmm.
, there's a bunch of different theories.
The fact of the matter is reallydon't know why these people are
wired differently than mm-hmm.
, most of us.
Dr. Lynn Varela (06:04):
Well, yeah.
I.
Basically, we don't know a lot ofthings about why humans do what they
do if we really look at it becausethere's, there could be two children in
the same household raised the same wayand perceive the childhood completely
different, reacted completely different,and one could be barely functioning
while the other is high functioning.
So, There's so much about the humanstate of being and our brain that
(06:28):
we still have no knowledge about.
That really plays into a lot ofthis stuff that we're theorizing
about, but we don't know for sure.
John Boswell, LCSW (06:36):
And the crazy part about that, just to further
elaborate on that, is that.
There could be a child within a familywho, let's say has B P D or M P D.
Mm-hmm.
, and has raised the exact same way as theirsiblings, and the siblings don't have it.
Mm-hmm.
or they may have a completelydifferent personality disorder.
Dr. Lynn Varela (06:51):
Yes, yes.
Which takes us to this other partthat the vast majority of people
have shame of some sort or another.
Yes.
But just because you haveshame does not require that you
have a personality disorder.
Thankfully, yes.
You can still shame yourself.
You don't necessarily have tohave a personality disorder.
And the proof that that shameis so widespread is how many
(07:13):
people know and love Brene Brown.
I mean, she's been on TED Talk,she's been on Netflix, she's been
on a bunch of different shows.
She does talk.
She has, I don't know how many books.
Don't ask me to count for you.
I don't know.
There are a lot.
, and she's very big and pretty muchher only topic that I know of that she
talks about is shame and vulnerability.
(07:33):
So if it wasn't so common and normalat this point, she'd be talking
about something that only a few groupof people would be listening to.
And how
John Boswell, LCSW (07:42):
does shame present in B P D Dr.
Lynn?
Dr. Lynn Varela (07:45):
Well, so B p D at the core of it is shame, but what I have
observed throughout the years of treatingpeople with B P D is that they absorb it.
They take it in.
They are the rescuers, thefixers, you know, everybody's
issues, everybody's feelings.
Everything that's going on ismy responsibility to fix to.
To pacify to make happy, and ifpeople aren't happy or can't fix
(08:07):
it, then I'm not good enough.
I am the problem.
And that's why there's a lot ofself-harming and self-destructiveness
because the I'm not good enoughleads to a lot of self-hatred also.
It can lead in some people tosuicidal ideations, which is very much
common, whether passive or active.
And the difference between passive isI'm not gonna actively go out there
(08:31):
and kill myself, but if my car happensto go off the bridge and I die as a
result, I'm not gonna really do anythingto stop it while active is, I'm.
Go do something activelyto get myself killed.
A lot of people don't understand that whenclients with b p d, at least the ones that
I have seen get to the point where theywanna commit suicide, is that the pain
of, I'm not good enough, I'm miserable.
(08:53):
There's no purpose to mylife, gets to such a level and
has been there for decades.
They don't see any other way out otherthan just taking their lives because
it's the, it's the ultimate obl.
, I get to stop this alland I get to stop it now.
And so it makes sense when yousee it from a shame point of view.
John Boswell, LCSW (09:14):
And it's funny that you mentioned that, cause we
see the same thing in people withnarcissistic personality disorder.
You really wanna see a narcissist hurt.
Mm-hmm.
embarrass them.
Oh yes.
Make them feel shameful.
Oh yeah.
What that does is it takes someback to being that vulnerable
child once again, and it takesthem to that part of themselves
where they don't like themselves.
and you really have to be carefulbecause if you strip that, they
(09:36):
very well likely may becomesuicidal or even attempt suicide.
Or aggressive.
Or aggressive.
Absolutely.
Or can be the complain go netfight or flight mode, basically.
Mm-hmm.
and it can be either or.
Now I do want to put a caveat about as faras what, you'll never see that shame if
narcissists there are those who see it.
Narcissists usually haveone person in their life.
This will usually be a romanticpartner, a be so and called the
(09:58):
main chick, or that main guy.
Mm-hmm.
that they show thatugly side of themselves.
They part of themselves theydon't like, and they'll be
vulnerable with that person.
But that person also getsthe brunt of the abuse and
Dr. Lynn Varela (10:10):
Yes.
Because they, they actually see them and.
Again, I don't specialize in,in people with narcissism.
Mm-hmm.
. But I have seen a lot of them.
And it's almost like theydon't mean to be vulnerable.
They don't like being vulnerable.
Absolutely.
They abso it's almost like they'repunishing you for making them
quote unquote be vulnerable.
Yep.
Because they do not likeanybody seeing who they are.
(10:31):
, and that is also a commontheme with people with B P D.
They're now, I don't know if anarcissist is aware of that fear,
but the people with B P D very muchare, at least the ones I've worked
with, that this fear of anybody whosees who I truly am will leave me
John Boswell, LCSW (10:44):
absolutely.
That fear of being abandoned again,that fear of re-experiencing that trauma
that they experienced and childhood,I'm so ugly that you won't like.
Dr. Lynn Varela (10:53):
Yeah.
So if, if I have an ugly moment with youor I have a vulnerable moment where I show
you who I really am, I soon and quicklyhave to like, come at you or distract you
or gaslight you, or you know, oh, lookat what you did to me, to almost distract
from this, hopes that you'll forget thatI showed you that moment of vulnerability.
John Boswell, LCSW (11:13):
Absolutely.
and it may take somethingfor it to come out.
Like I knew a narcissist andhe was so coy most of the time.
Mm-hmm.
, the only time that you actually seethat vulnerability, that part where
he would tell me he's an ugly personand he hates himself and he's done
so many horrible things, is actuallywhen he was coming down from drugs.
Oh.
And when he is withdrawing, that'swhen the quote unquote, the real
(11:33):
helm of the core film would actuallycome out after that, when he was
back to just being sobered up.
Mm-hmm.
or being high again.
He was the meanest person in the.
And yes.
Extra me now.
Cause I've shown you that side of me.
And I have to make sure that yourecognize that I am above you.
Cause it's all about inequality withnarcissist, I'm above you, so I have
to make you beep down once again
Dr. Lynn Varela (11:54):
because your knowledge of my vulnerability makes
you more powerful than me temporarily.
So I now have to exert my power over you.
Exactly.
Because I've only treated a couple ofpeople with M P D and one of the ones that
I'll never was this gentleman and the.
And him had separated and she hadgotten everything and the situation
was really in her control versushis, and he was very vulnerable.
(12:17):
He'd come into session and he actually didgood work, but it lasted only temporarily.
And once he almost likebounced back from it.
He got a lawyer, he got new feeds,he got his family backing him.
He was gonna go after herwith everything he had.
He was gonna bury her 10 feet under, youknow, he stopped therapy cuz he didn't
(12:39):
think it was doing any good anymore.
He even started to come at me withdifferences of opinions, you know.
Whatever.
He was trying to come at mepolitically and I was like, I'm not
gonna have this discussion with you.
I don't talk politics in therapy.
It has no place here.
And he'd be like, oh, becauseyou're against my guy.
Must be, and blah, blah, blah.
Much a lot of assumptions.
(13:00):
It was really him trying to pick afight because I need you to get away
from me because I let you in too much.
Wow.
John Boswell, LCSW (13:09):
Yeah.
So he became too vulnerable andthey'd scared the crap out of him,
Dr. Lynn Varela (13:13):
basically.
Oh, yes.
Yes.
And he was a very big guy.
So I let him go his middle way.
, I can't blame you.
He was starting to get really angry and I,and the thing is, I've noticed that most
people won't see the shame until I pointedout to them, but they won't notice that
they have a lot of anger in their lives.
Mm-hmm.
anger usually is where shame dischargesbecause you're uncomfortable with shame,
(13:34):
but you're comfortable with anger.
Absolutely.
Especially.
John Boswell, LCSW (13:36):
Yes.
Especially yes guys,
Dr. Lynn Varela (13:38):
but you know what?
Borderlines I, I mostly treat women.
They also have a lot of anger.
It's just how they allow themselves toexpress it, because they need it to be
socially acceptable, will vary from men.
Mm-hmm.
, but they have it just as much as
John Boswell, LCSW (13:51):
men.
Well, think about it.
Anger makes us feel powerful.
Yes.
So if I feel like a powerlessperson, it makes me feel big.
When I'm angry, I can do
Dr. Lynn Varela (13:58):
anything and I feel in control because if I'm
angry and aggressive, peoplewill do what I need them to do.
Absolut.
John Boswell, LCSW (14:05):
and that thing with the narcissist, I totally believe that.
Mm-hmm.
, part of what sounds like what happenedwith him also is he started hanging
other people outside of therapy,enable the behavior once again.
Yes.
So now, hey, I'm good.
I'm whole, I don't need help anymore.
Yeah.
There was never anything wrong with me.
So you're starting to get to a pointwhere he is having that profound,
making the connections and boom, he
Dr. Lynn Varela (14:23):
lost it.
It was starting to actually seethat the wife reacted the way she
had because he had been abusing heremotionally and psychologically.
Wow.
For decades.
and once he got that support, the,the cognitive dissonance did not
allow him to have those two things.
And so I was the only witnessthat was left that knew that he
knew, so he had to get rid of me.
Mm-hmm.
(14:44):
and I understood why,and I didn't judge him.
I wasn't upset at what he did.
I was just, it was sad because hecould have made so many changes Yeah.
That he never did because.
He just couldn't allow himself.
Wow.
Yeah.
John Boswell, LCSW (14:56):
Wow.
So one of the keys to treatingany personality disorder,
especially narcissist becausethey are so Hoy toy mm-hmm.
Is they had to have thatgift for desperation.
Mm-hmm.
So if he started getting everythingback within his life and he
started having support and otherpeople, I don't need you anymore.
And there is nothing wrong with me,I can kinda go back to being a jerk
and acting the way I was acting.
Dr. Lynn Varela (15:17):
Yeah.
It's kinda like when theyget hurt, they're deflated.
Puffer fish.
And then once they get theirsupplies again, they become
puffed up . I love that.
That's a great analogy.
Yes, they're puffer fish.
So let's really quickly about some ofthese signs of what they call toxic shame.
But I've heard as debilitating shame.
, and maybe you will find that youhave some of these or all of these.
(15:41):
So one of them is you tend toisolate and you fear intimacy.
And intimacy is not, oh, I fear sex.
It's the emotional connection ofbeing able to be almost, I guess
you could say, metaphorically nakedin front of somebody where they see
everything you are and you're saying,here I am, and you're very vulnerable.
(16:03):
And that's very scary because ifyou feared being judged and being
shamed, you're not gonna do that.
And unfortunately, intimacy isrequired for relationships to function.
So the next one is thefeelings of inferiority.
Really, that's just driven by the,I'm not good enough, you know?
So you have.
The complex at work where you think thatyou're not as good as you actually are
John Boswell, LCSW (16:26):
Imposter syndrome.
Dr. Lynn Varela (16:27):
Yes.
That's the one.
Thank you.
So, imposter syndrome, you're, you'redoing the job, you've been doing it
magnificently for, for years, butyou still like Yeah, it's just a
maritime before they catch me andknow that I don't know what I'm doing.
they're gonna fire me.
And I'm like, but you've beendoing this job for five years.
If you didn't know how to do it, I thinkthey would've caught you before now.
Right.
But no, you just think,yeah, I'm not good enough.
(16:49):
I'm, they're, yeah, I'mnot smart, you know?
You know, I passed this class.
I had a client that tell me I'm stupid.
Like, dude, you just finishedpassing a calculus class.
I can't do calculus . So if you'restupid, There's no hope for me.
There's just absolutely no hope for me.
But they were completelyconvinced I'm stupid.
(17:09):
Wow.
And so with that alsocomes low self worth.
Again, I'm not good enough, youknow, and, and sometimes people will
have their worth wrapped around.
So I, I only worthy if I'm helpingeverybody around me, or if I'm the best
mother ever, or if I'm the best wifeever, or I'm the best therapist ever
(17:30):
and I never make any mistakes and I doeverything with no boundaries and I burn
myself out, and that's what makes me good.
But because there's such a highlevel of expectation, you can never
meet, you never feel worthy enough.
Or if today you actually did what youfelt like you needed to do, you feel
worthy, but tomorrow you don't again.
And the tricky thing abouthaving your worth wrapped in
(17:52):
what you're doing versus just.
is that if you get sick, if you getolder, if you retire, if those roles
like mother wife change because you getdivorced or the kids grow up and move
out, you will be completely decimated.
You no longer will have anypurpose or worth as a human being,
and that's humongously problem.
Absolutely.
(18:13):
A lot of times avoidance.
So you avoid certain topics, certainplaces, certain people, because
they triggered that sense of.
Again, the biggest problem that somepeople find with this in avoidance
besides it just screws you over, isthat if you don't allow us to look at
the mistake you made and learn fromit so that you won't repeat, you're
(18:33):
doomed to repeat the mistake andprove to yourself, validate your inner
voices belief that I'm not good enough.
I'm stupid because, oh, look at me.
I can't stop making this.
It's not that you're dumb, it's thatyou didn't look back and allow yourself
to learn to not repeat it, becausethe shame was so overwhelming and
destructive that it didn't allow for that.
(18:54):
So there is some guilt involved.
There's feelings of loneliness.
You hide perfectionism and performanceanxiety is a huge, huge piece of.
Like if you have to be perfect, youprobably have some level of shame,
because if you didn't, you wouldunderstand that nobody's perfect.
(19:15):
And to expect that is toset yourself up for failure.
You know, there's destructiveand compulsive behavior.
So if I have shame, I'll try to numb it.
So I overeat.
I drink, I use drugs, I numb with Netflix.
I scroll on social media all the time.
I notice that I, I'm just always out ofit if I'm not doing something and not
(19:39):
that looking at Netflix and social mediaand having the occasional drink is bad.
Again, black and white.
The gray is okay.
You had a couple drinks with friendsbecause you're having a good.
Not so good is when you startdrinking all the time because you
don't wanna deal with the the crappyday because you made mistakes at
work and you can't handle them.
(20:00):
And so you're drinking andnumbing with Facebook or Instagram
or TikTok to to deal with it.
And also, one of the biggest onesis you lack healthy boundaries.
Hmm, huge.
I have to do this thing for thisperson, and if I don't, then I'm a bad
friend, a bad daughter, a bad whatever.
And unhealthy people, toxic peoplewill take full advantage of this
(20:23):
cuz you also, people please, people,please to Jesus because you need
others to prove that you have worth.
And that you are good enough, whichmeans you've also given other people all
the power and control over you, whichis the irony of people with trauma.
They do not want to be outta controland feel powerless, but yet they
give all their power and controlto everybody outside of them.
(20:46):
Therefore guaranteed theywill consistently feel out
of control and powerless.
Yep.
And the more you try to controlthe outside, the more you've
already lost control inside.
Absolutely.
So that's pretty much my piece.
You wanna add anything to that?
John Boswell, LCSW (21:01):
I wanna point out that we look at combinations
of personality disorders.
There's certain ones that tendto be attracted to one another.
Mm-hmm.
. One of the sets that we typically seeare borderlines people with borderline
personality disorder, along with peoplewith narcissistic personality disorder.
Mm-hmm.
. And what happens is the borderlinewho fear being abandoned are willing
(21:23):
to almost do anything and put up withanything that a narcissist dolls out.
And the narcissist who's lookingfor unconditional love, yes.
At the most toxic sense is like, . Great.
So the borderline's saying, you are thebest thing that ever happened to me.
And then Artis is like, I know
. Dr. Lynn Varela: She's like, fantastic.
You're one.
Exactly.
So we typically see the two ofthem together and it makes for
(21:45):
a pretty unhealthy combination.
Dr. Lynn Varela (21:47):
Yep.
Because the borderline is goodat absorbing the shame and the
narcissist is good at dolling it out.
Yep.
And so if you find that any of thesethings sound familiar, Don't fret.
There is a way that, but the way to treatit is my clients absolutely hate it.
It's like a vampire to garlic.
It's self-compassion.
(22:07):
Ooh.
Mm-hmm.
self-compassion.
Giving yourself a break, givingtwo craps about yourself.
Doing for you what you would dofor anybody, cuz most of my clients
with borderline would do aboveand beyond even for a stranger.
But for them no gross.
John Boswell, LCSW (22:21):
And it's a very unfamiliar feeling for our borderlines,
our people pleasers our helpers.
Mm-hmm.
. However, I promise you, themore you do are the easier it
becomes, the more second nature.
It's a matter of recognizingthat your needs are just as
important as everyone else's.
Yes.
And you can't pour out of yourcup if you have nothing to give.
Dr. Lynn Varela (22:40):
And people say, that's so cheesy, but I'm like, it's so true.
Right.
You.
How can you even accept loveif you don't love yourself?
Because when somebody tries to loveyou, compliment you, acknowledge your
great, how great you are, you aregonna go, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Okay.
Well what about you?
You can't allow somebody to love you.
Therefore, you're setting yourself up tobe with somebody who won't narcissist.
John Boswell, LCSW (23:04):
True.
And this is also why the narcissist treatspeople who love them well so badly because
they don't feel as though they deserve it.
They don't like themselves.
Remember?
Yeah.
Despite the bravado.
Yeah.
I don't like me.
Dr. Lynn Varela (23:16):
Exactly.
And what's wrong with you?
That you love me?
Exactly.
You must have an angle andso, working on your shame and
self-compassion and self-care andeverything that comes with it is so
integral to cure and overcome shame.
And now let me correct the cure.
It's not really curing inside a disease.
And it's an emotion and we're nevergoing to fully get rid of emotions.
(23:37):
Cause emotions are warning systemsthat need to be looked at and felt.
It's just getting it to the pointwhere it's very little and if you
do have it, that you notice itbecause you become intuned with
your emotions and you can go, huh?
What's going on here?
Maybe I need some self-care.
Maybe I need somethingthat I'm not giving.
It's important to know that you haveneeds and that you need to fulfill
(24:01):
them or meet them or ask for helpbecause somebody else can meet them
and maybe you can't at the time.
John Boswell, LCSW (24:06):
So along with that, one of the things I wanna add
is that we are as sick as our secrets.
And what I mean by thatis that shame is a.
So if I feel bad about, and I feelshameful about something that happened
to me, let's say that I was childabused a kid or, or sexually abused,
and I don't tell anybody it, itjust further provokes that shame.
(24:28):
Mm-hmm.
. The more I share it with peopleand the more I take my power back.
And usually we start to realize that itreally is not as bad as we think it is.
And other people have asimilar story as well.
Yes.
Whether it's you're telling itto other people in your life or
you're telling it to a therapist,it's important to talk about those
things you do feel shameful about.
Dr. Lynn Varela (24:45):
Yeah.
I tell my clients shame is like a roachone, it's ugly and nobody likes it.
And two, it hates the light.
Hates it.
Hates the light.
I love that.
You know, self compassion is the raid of.
John Boswell, LCSW (24:58):
Now, sometimes people will say to me, well, what if
you know, it's something shame for.
I feel guilty about that.
I can't exactly makeamends for, or I can't.
I talk about it, butit doesn't get better.
Yeah.
I'll give you an example.
I had a client once and hehad been drinking and driving
and he killed someone.
Mm.
And it's like, you know, howdo I ever make that right?
And it's really no way youcan, the person's gone.
(25:19):
One of the things that we worked outwas that I told 'em, you know, go
ahead and volunteer and talk abouthow you feel shameful about this.
Talk to kids about the dangersof drinking and driving.
You make amends that way, thebest way that you can, and
you will find some relief from
Dr. Lynn Varela (25:33):
that.
Well, it's also helping them come to thepoint where they can forgive themselves.
Absolutely.
Because if he doesn't forgivehimself, he'll never be
able to get past that shame.
Exactly.
So, We've done good,and we can wrap it up.
John Boswell, LCSW (25:47):
I think we have too.
I want to thank you all for listening.
Thank you so much.
Remember that you are lovable.
If you've made it through to the endof this, please make sure you hit the
subscribe button, check back in with us.
We'll have lots of juicy thingsto talk to you about and teach
you, and just kind of figure outthis journey called Life Together.
Dr. Lynn Varela (26:04):
All right, and if you feel like you need to address
it, then find your local helpfultherapist and start the work.
All right.
John Boswell, LCSW (26:12):
Talk to you soon.
Dr. Lynn Varela (26:13):
All right.
Bye bye.
Hey, this is John Boswell, licensed psychotherapist,
and as of recently, certified.
Personality disorder treatmentprovider, yes, your boy did that.
But I'm still not on the levelof my esteemed colleague.
P H D
Dr. Lynn Varela (00:37):
Dr.
Lynn is just your simple, average,everyday licensed mental health
counselor who does specialize inpersonality disorders, particularly
borderline personality disorder.
And if you have it, I love.
John Boswell, LCSW (00:50):
Absolutely we love you, and you can just think of me as
your friendly neighborhood therapist.
We'll make it simple.
Dr. Lynn Varela (00:56):
All right, my friends.
So today the topic is going to be shame.
Yum.
Yum.
Not really, but it's soimportant in the treatment of
trauma, personality disorders.
And the thing isn't until recently, likelet's say the last 10, 15 years at most,
nobody really recognized the importanceof this piece in treating trauma.
(01:19):
I mean, when I was personallytrained, nobody even discussed shame.
I was never, during my wholemaster's program, nobody said,
Hey, you need to look at shame.
It wasn't until Brene Brown that I evendiscovered that there was an important
part, you know, of this to discover or.
Process and trauma and withoutprocessing it and addressing it,
(01:39):
you're not fully addressing the trauma.
I don't know about you, John.
John Boswell, LCSW (01:42):
Absolutely.
I really don't remembercovering any of that.
In grad school, like you said.
Dr. Lynn Varela (01:46):
Yeah.
Yeah.
And yet bananas, it's so integral.
It really is.
So let's go into this people.
So what is shame versus guilt?
I mean, I can give you BeneBrown's definition and then
you could always add to Sure.
I'm very, very much a Brené Brown fan,and so I quote her a lot, especially
when I'm talking about shame.
(02:08):
How she defines this is that, Guilt iskind of like when you come to work late
one morning because you were hungover cuzthe night before you had a lot tequila
shots and you were having fun with yourfriends and so you've all been there.
You get there and you're like, dang,I need to stop, you know, doing this.
I need to stop drinking when I knowI have to work the next day cuz
this is setting me up for failure.
(02:29):
You know, I'll just do differentnext, next Friday or whatever.
Shame is the same scenario, but you'relike, oh man, I'm such a piece of shit.
What the fuck is wrong withme for even doing this?
So the difference is one,shame is way more guttural.
And two.
Guilt is about the actions itself.
Shame is about you as a person.
(02:50):
There's something wrong, broken, notgood enough, very much not good enough
is the central message of shame, right?
John Boswell, LCSW (02:59):
I always tell my clients that guilt is an important, guilt
is important for us to use as a catalyst.
We use guilt to kind of tell us,don't do that again if, mm-hmm.
, I were unfaithful when I cheated on my.
And I feel guilty about it.
That's a good thing.
I need to feel guilty about it.
Yes, that's what makes me not do it again.
Hopefully.
However, hopefully we useit to push us through.
(03:20):
We don't hold on to it ideally.
Mm-hmm.
, we're share shame is we're just reallydon't like something about ourselves
Dr. Lynn Varela (03:27):
typically, and in my experience, shame really drives the
self dislike all the way to self-hatred,depending on the levels of shame is how
absolutely close you are to self-hatred.
Yes, absolutely.
Okay, so then I like that definition.
Although with a person with M P D,they usually don't feel guilt or shame.
John Boswell, LCSW (03:46):
Well, well, well, I, I disagree.
They do feel shame.
Oh, well,
Dr. Lynn Varela (03:49):
yeah.
Yeah.
That's shame.
Sorry, my, my bad.
It would be guilt,
John Boswell, LCSW (03:53):
but most of the time you'll never see it.
Dr. Lynn Varela (03:55):
They don't like it.
The reason I got mixed up is becausethey have it, most definitely
it's poor, but they do not likelooking at any way, shape, or form.
John Boswell, LCSW (04:05):
Right?
So what they do is theytend to externalize it.
They're gonna make you feel shameful.
They're gonna make you feel bad, guilty.
Wrong.
Crazy
, Dr. Lynn Varela: but through gaslighting.
Through gaslighting, yes.
Their favorite,
but at the core of the narcissist, there is
a deep rooted sense of shame thatusually originates from childhood.
Mm-hmm.
(04:25):
trauma.
Even though we do know that there aresome genetic components to all personality
disorders and some neurologicalcomponents, but usually contrary
to what they show you, people withnarcissistic personality disorder or m p.
Don't like themselves?
Dr. Lynn Varela (04:39):
Oh, no, no.
Although I have heard some researcherssay that they don't agree with that
theory, but I don't agree with thembecause I really don't think narcissists
give two craps about themselves.
Because if they have to take themselvesdown to take you down, they will.
Which is very self-destructive.
Absolutely.
And so, yeah, very muchshame is at the core of m p.
(04:59):
As well as it is for B P D.
And it's very, it's very key.
Although we do have to specify, Iwill specify because research does
say that people with B P D, I don'tknow what it says about M P D.
There are some people out therethat have it without the trauma.
They just have it becausethere's a genetic component
and maybe alarm behavior.
So I do, I've never met those people.
(05:21):
I really have never.
But I have to say that they are outthere because research says they are out.
John Boswell, LCSW (05:26):
From the research that I've read, they say that of
all personality disorders, thatit is just, it's largely genetic.
Mm-hmm.
. And what I've read is thattrauma actually inflames.
Mm-hmm.
or agitates it.
So think of it almost like if Ihave the gene for alcoholism mm-hmm.
, but I never have a drink.
, I'm gonna be fine.
I don't worry about being an alcoholic.
Right.
But if I have a gene for apersonality disorder mm-hmm.
(05:48):
and I experience trauma, that'smore likely to bring that
personality disorder out of me.
Now there are some who disagree andthey believe it's only trauma based.
Mm-hmm.
, there's a bunch of different theories.
The fact of the matter is reallydon't know why these people are
wired differently than mm-hmm.
, most of us.
Dr. Lynn Varela (06:04):
Well, yeah.
I.
Basically, we don't know a lot ofthings about why humans do what they
do if we really look at it becausethere's, there could be two children in
the same household raised the same wayand perceive the childhood completely
different, reacted completely different,and one could be barely functioning
while the other is high functioning.
So, There's so much about the humanstate of being and our brain that
(06:28):
we still have no knowledge about.
That really plays into a lot ofthis stuff that we're theorizing
about, but we don't know for sure.
John Boswell, LCSW (06:36):
And the crazy part about that, just to further
elaborate on that, is that.
There could be a child within a familywho, let's say has B P D or M P D.
Mm-hmm.
, and has raised the exact same way as theirsiblings, and the siblings don't have it.
Mm-hmm.
or they may have a completelydifferent personality disorder.
Dr. Lynn Varela (06:51):
Yes, yes.
Which takes us to this other partthat the vast majority of people
have shame of some sort or another.
Yes.
But just because you haveshame does not require that you
have a personality disorder.
Thankfully, yes.
You can still shame yourself.
You don't necessarily have tohave a personality disorder.
And the proof that that shameis so widespread is how many
(07:13):
people know and love Brene Brown.
I mean, she's been on TED Talk,she's been on Netflix, she's been
on a bunch of different shows.
She does talk.
She has, I don't know how many books.
Don't ask me to count for you.
I don't know.
There are a lot.
, and she's very big and pretty muchher only topic that I know of that she
talks about is shame and vulnerability.
(07:33):
So if it wasn't so common and normalat this point, she'd be talking
about something that only a few groupof people would be listening to.
And how
John Boswell, LCSW (07:42):
does shame present in B P D Dr.
Lynn?
Dr. Lynn Varela (07:45):
Well, so B p D at the core of it is shame, but what I have
observed throughout the years of treatingpeople with B P D is that they absorb it.
They take it in.
They are the rescuers, thefixers, you know, everybody's
issues, everybody's feelings.
Everything that's going on ismy responsibility to fix to.
To pacify to make happy, and ifpeople aren't happy or can't fix
(08:07):
it, then I'm not good enough.
I am the problem.
And that's why there's a lot ofself-harming and self-destructiveness
because the I'm not good enoughleads to a lot of self-hatred also.
It can lead in some people tosuicidal ideations, which is very much
common, whether passive or active.
And the difference between passive isI'm not gonna actively go out there
(08:31):
and kill myself, but if my car happensto go off the bridge and I die as a
result, I'm not gonna really do anythingto stop it while active is, I'm.
Go do something activelyto get myself killed.
A lot of people don't understand that whenclients with b p d, at least the ones that
I have seen get to the point where theywanna commit suicide, is that the pain
of, I'm not good enough, I'm miserable.
(08:53):
There's no purpose to mylife, gets to such a level and
has been there for decades.
They don't see any other way out otherthan just taking their lives because
it's the, it's the ultimate obl.
, I get to stop this alland I get to stop it now.
And so it makes sense when yousee it from a shame point of view.
John Boswell, LCSW (09:14):
And it's funny that you mentioned that, cause we
see the same thing in people withnarcissistic personality disorder.
You really wanna see a narcissist hurt.
Mm-hmm.
embarrass them.
Oh yes.
Make them feel shameful.
Oh yeah.
What that does is it takes someback to being that vulnerable
child once again, and it takesthem to that part of themselves
where they don't like themselves.
and you really have to be carefulbecause if you strip that, they
(09:36):
very well likely may becomesuicidal or even attempt suicide.
Or aggressive.
Or aggressive.
Absolutely.
Or can be the complain go netfight or flight mode, basically.
Mm-hmm.
and it can be either or.
Now I do want to put a caveat about as faras what, you'll never see that shame if
narcissists there are those who see it.
Narcissists usually haveone person in their life.
This will usually be a romanticpartner, a be so and called the
(09:58):
main chick, or that main guy.
Mm-hmm.
that they show thatugly side of themselves.
They part of themselves theydon't like, and they'll be
vulnerable with that person.
But that person also getsthe brunt of the abuse and
Dr. Lynn Varela (10:10):
Yes.
Because they, they actually see them and.
Again, I don't specialize in,in people with narcissism.
Mm-hmm.
. But I have seen a lot of them.
And it's almost like theydon't mean to be vulnerable.
They don't like being vulnerable.
Absolutely.
They abso it's almost like they'repunishing you for making them
quote unquote be vulnerable.
Yep.
Because they do not likeanybody seeing who they are.
(10:31):
, and that is also a commontheme with people with B P D.
They're now, I don't know if anarcissist is aware of that fear,
but the people with B P D very muchare, at least the ones I've worked
with, that this fear of anybody whosees who I truly am will leave me
John Boswell, LCSW (10:44):
absolutely.
That fear of being abandoned again,that fear of re-experiencing that trauma
that they experienced and childhood,I'm so ugly that you won't like.
Dr. Lynn Varela (10:53):
Yeah.
So if, if I have an ugly moment with youor I have a vulnerable moment where I show
you who I really am, I soon and quicklyhave to like, come at you or distract you
or gaslight you, or you know, oh, lookat what you did to me, to almost distract
from this, hopes that you'll forget thatI showed you that moment of vulnerability.
John Boswell, LCSW (11:13):
Absolutely.
and it may take somethingfor it to come out.
Like I knew a narcissist andhe was so coy most of the time.
Mm-hmm.
, the only time that you actually seethat vulnerability, that part where
he would tell me he's an ugly personand he hates himself and he's done
so many horrible things, is actuallywhen he was coming down from drugs.
Oh.
And when he is withdrawing, that'swhen the quote unquote, the real
(11:33):
helm of the core film would actuallycome out after that, when he was
back to just being sobered up.
Mm-hmm.
or being high again.
He was the meanest person in the.
And yes.
Extra me now.
Cause I've shown you that side of me.
And I have to make sure that yourecognize that I am above you.
Cause it's all about inequality withnarcissist, I'm above you, so I have
to make you beep down once again
Dr. Lynn Varela (11:54):
because your knowledge of my vulnerability makes
you more powerful than me temporarily.
So I now have to exert my power over you.
Exactly.
Because I've only treated a couple ofpeople with M P D and one of the ones that
I'll never was this gentleman and the.
And him had separated and she hadgotten everything and the situation
was really in her control versushis, and he was very vulnerable.
(12:17):
He'd come into session and he actually didgood work, but it lasted only temporarily.
And once he almost likebounced back from it.
He got a lawyer, he got new feeds,he got his family backing him.
He was gonna go after herwith everything he had.
He was gonna bury her 10 feet under, youknow, he stopped therapy cuz he didn't
(12:39):
think it was doing any good anymore.
He even started to come at me withdifferences of opinions, you know.
Whatever.
He was trying to come at mepolitically and I was like, I'm not
gonna have this discussion with you.
I don't talk politics in therapy.
It has no place here.
And he'd be like, oh, becauseyou're against my guy.
Must be, and blah, blah, blah.
Much a lot of assumptions.
(13:00):
It was really him trying to pick afight because I need you to get away
from me because I let you in too much.
Wow.
John Boswell, LCSW (13:09):
Yeah.
So he became too vulnerable andthey'd scared the crap out of him,
Dr. Lynn Varela (13:13):
basically.
Oh, yes.
Yes.
And he was a very big guy.
So I let him go his middle way.
, I can't blame you.
He was starting to get really angry and I,and the thing is, I've noticed that most
people won't see the shame until I pointedout to them, but they won't notice that
they have a lot of anger in their lives.
Mm-hmm.
anger usually is where shame dischargesbecause you're uncomfortable with shame,
(13:34):
but you're comfortable with anger.
Absolutely.
Especially.
John Boswell, LCSW (13:36):
Yes.
Especially yes guys,
Dr. Lynn Varela (13:38):
but you know what?
Borderlines I, I mostly treat women.
They also have a lot of anger.
It's just how they allow themselves toexpress it, because they need it to be
socially acceptable, will vary from men.
Mm-hmm.
, but they have it just as much as
John Boswell, LCSW (13:51):
men.
Well, think about it.
Anger makes us feel powerful.
Yes.
So if I feel like a powerlessperson, it makes me feel big.
When I'm angry, I can do
Dr. Lynn Varela (13:58):
anything and I feel in control because if I'm
angry and aggressive, peoplewill do what I need them to do.
Absolut.
John Boswell, LCSW (14:05):
and that thing with the narcissist, I totally believe that.
Mm-hmm.
, part of what sounds like what happenedwith him also is he started hanging
other people outside of therapy,enable the behavior once again.
Yes.
So now, hey, I'm good.
I'm whole, I don't need help anymore.
Yeah.
There was never anything wrong with me.
So you're starting to get to a pointwhere he is having that profound,
making the connections and boom, he
Dr. Lynn Varela (14:23):
lost it.
It was starting to actually seethat the wife reacted the way she
had because he had been abusing heremotionally and psychologically.
Wow.
For decades.
and once he got that support, the,the cognitive dissonance did not
allow him to have those two things.
And so I was the only witnessthat was left that knew that he
knew, so he had to get rid of me.
Mm-hmm.
(14:44):
and I understood why,and I didn't judge him.
I wasn't upset at what he did.
I was just, it was sad because hecould have made so many changes Yeah.
That he never did because.
He just couldn't allow himself.
Wow.
Yeah.
John Boswell, LCSW (14:56):
Wow.
So one of the keys to treatingany personality disorder,
especially narcissist becausethey are so Hoy toy mm-hmm.
Is they had to have thatgift for desperation.
Mm-hmm.
So if he started getting everythingback within his life and he
started having support and otherpeople, I don't need you anymore.
And there is nothing wrong with me,I can kinda go back to being a jerk
and acting the way I was acting.
Dr. Lynn Varela (15:17):
Yeah.
It's kinda like when theyget hurt, they're deflated.
Puffer fish.
And then once they get theirsupplies again, they become
puffed up . I love that.
That's a great analogy.
Yes, they're puffer fish.
So let's really quickly about some ofthese signs of what they call toxic shame.
But I've heard as debilitating shame.
, and maybe you will find that youhave some of these or all of these.
(15:41):
So one of them is you tend toisolate and you fear intimacy.
And intimacy is not, oh, I fear sex.
It's the emotional connection ofbeing able to be almost, I guess
you could say, metaphorically nakedin front of somebody where they see
everything you are and you're saying,here I am, and you're very vulnerable.
(16:03):
And that's very scary because ifyou feared being judged and being
shamed, you're not gonna do that.
And unfortunately, intimacy isrequired for relationships to function.
So the next one is thefeelings of inferiority.
Really, that's just driven by the,I'm not good enough, you know?
So you have.
The complex at work where you think thatyou're not as good as you actually are
John Boswell, LCSW (16:26):
Imposter syndrome.
Dr. Lynn Varela (16:27):
Yes.
That's the one.
Thank you.
So, imposter syndrome, you're, you'redoing the job, you've been doing it
magnificently for, for years, butyou still like Yeah, it's just a
maritime before they catch me andknow that I don't know what I'm doing.
they're gonna fire me.
And I'm like, but you've beendoing this job for five years.
If you didn't know how to do it, I thinkthey would've caught you before now.
Right.
But no, you just think,yeah, I'm not good enough.
(16:49):
I'm, they're, yeah, I'mnot smart, you know?
You know, I passed this class.
I had a client that tell me I'm stupid.
Like, dude, you just finishedpassing a calculus class.
I can't do calculus . So if you'restupid, There's no hope for me.
There's just absolutely no hope for me.
But they were completelyconvinced I'm stupid.
(17:09):
Wow.
And so with that alsocomes low self worth.
Again, I'm not good enough, youknow, and, and sometimes people will
have their worth wrapped around.
So I, I only worthy if I'm helpingeverybody around me, or if I'm the best
mother ever, or if I'm the best wifeever, or I'm the best therapist ever
(17:30):
and I never make any mistakes and I doeverything with no boundaries and I burn
myself out, and that's what makes me good.
But because there's such a highlevel of expectation, you can never
meet, you never feel worthy enough.
Or if today you actually did what youfelt like you needed to do, you feel
worthy, but tomorrow you don't again.
And the tricky thing abouthaving your worth wrapped in
(17:52):
what you're doing versus just.
is that if you get sick, if you getolder, if you retire, if those roles
like mother wife change because you getdivorced or the kids grow up and move
out, you will be completely decimated.
You no longer will have anypurpose or worth as a human being,
and that's humongously problem.
Absolutely.
(18:13):
A lot of times avoidance.
So you avoid certain topics, certainplaces, certain people, because
they triggered that sense of.
Again, the biggest problem that somepeople find with this in avoidance
besides it just screws you over, isthat if you don't allow us to look at
the mistake you made and learn fromit so that you won't repeat, you're
(18:33):
doomed to repeat the mistake andprove to yourself, validate your inner
voices belief that I'm not good enough.
I'm stupid because, oh, look at me.
I can't stop making this.
It's not that you're dumb, it's thatyou didn't look back and allow yourself
to learn to not repeat it, becausethe shame was so overwhelming and
destructive that it didn't allow for that.
(18:54):
So there is some guilt involved.
There's feelings of loneliness.
You hide perfectionism and performanceanxiety is a huge, huge piece of.
Like if you have to be perfect, youprobably have some level of shame,
because if you didn't, you wouldunderstand that nobody's perfect.
(19:15):
And to expect that is toset yourself up for failure.
You know, there's destructiveand compulsive behavior.
So if I have shame, I'll try to numb it.
So I overeat.
I drink, I use drugs, I numb with Netflix.
I scroll on social media all the time.
I notice that I, I'm just always out ofit if I'm not doing something and not
(19:39):
that looking at Netflix and social mediaand having the occasional drink is bad.
Again, black and white.
The gray is okay.
You had a couple drinks with friendsbecause you're having a good.
Not so good is when you startdrinking all the time because you
don't wanna deal with the the crappyday because you made mistakes at
work and you can't handle them.
(20:00):
And so you're drinking andnumbing with Facebook or Instagram
or TikTok to to deal with it.
And also, one of the biggest onesis you lack healthy boundaries.
Hmm, huge.
I have to do this thing for thisperson, and if I don't, then I'm a bad
friend, a bad daughter, a bad whatever.
And unhealthy people, toxic peoplewill take full advantage of this
(20:23):
cuz you also, people please, people,please to Jesus because you need
others to prove that you have worth.
And that you are good enough, whichmeans you've also given other people all
the power and control over you, whichis the irony of people with trauma.
They do not want to be outta controland feel powerless, but yet they
give all their power and controlto everybody outside of them.
(20:46):
Therefore guaranteed theywill consistently feel out
of control and powerless.
Yep.
And the more you try to controlthe outside, the more you've
already lost control inside.
Absolutely.
So that's pretty much my piece.
You wanna add anything to that?
John Boswell, LCSW (21:01):
I wanna point out that we look at combinations
of personality disorders.
There's certain ones that tendto be attracted to one another.
Mm-hmm.
. One of the sets that we typically seeare borderlines people with borderline
personality disorder, along with peoplewith narcissistic personality disorder.
Mm-hmm.
. And what happens is the borderlinewho fear being abandoned are willing
(21:23):
to almost do anything and put up withanything that a narcissist dolls out.
And the narcissist who's lookingfor unconditional love, yes.
At the most toxic sense is like, . Great.
So the borderline's saying, you are thebest thing that ever happened to me.
And then Artis is like, I know
. Dr. Lynn Varela: She's like, fantastic.
You're one.
Exactly.
So we typically see the two ofthem together and it makes for
(21:45):
a pretty unhealthy combination.
Dr. Lynn Varela (21:47):
Yep.
Because the borderline is goodat absorbing the shame and the
narcissist is good at dolling it out.
Yep.
And so if you find that any of thesethings sound familiar, Don't fret.
There is a way that, but the way to treatit is my clients absolutely hate it.
It's like a vampire to garlic.
It's self-compassion.
(22:07):
Ooh.
Mm-hmm.
self-compassion.
Giving yourself a break, givingtwo craps about yourself.
Doing for you what you would dofor anybody, cuz most of my clients
with borderline would do aboveand beyond even for a stranger.
But for them no gross.
John Boswell, LCSW (22:21):
And it's a very unfamiliar feeling for our borderlines,
our people pleasers our helpers.
Mm-hmm.
. However, I promise you, themore you do are the easier it
becomes, the more second nature.
It's a matter of recognizingthat your needs are just as
important as everyone else's.
Yes.
And you can't pour out of yourcup if you have nothing to give.
Dr. Lynn Varela (22:40):
And people say, that's so cheesy, but I'm like, it's so true.
Right.
You.
How can you even accept loveif you don't love yourself?
Because when somebody tries to loveyou, compliment you, acknowledge your
great, how great you are, you aregonna go, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Okay.
Well what about you?
You can't allow somebody to love you.
Therefore, you're setting yourself up tobe with somebody who won't narcissist.
John Boswell, LCSW (23:04):
True.
And this is also why the narcissist treatspeople who love them well so badly because
they don't feel as though they deserve it.
They don't like themselves.
Remember?
Yeah.
Despite the bravado.
Yeah.
I don't like me.
Dr. Lynn Varela (23:16):
Exactly.
And what's wrong with you?
That you love me?
Exactly.
You must have an angle andso, working on your shame and
self-compassion and self-care andeverything that comes with it is so
integral to cure and overcome shame.
And now let me correct the cure.
It's not really curing inside a disease.
And it's an emotion and we're nevergoing to fully get rid of emotions.
(23:37):
Cause emotions are warning systemsthat need to be looked at and felt.
It's just getting it to the pointwhere it's very little and if you
do have it, that you notice itbecause you become intuned with
your emotions and you can go, huh?
What's going on here?
Maybe I need some self-care.
Maybe I need somethingthat I'm not giving.
It's important to know that you haveneeds and that you need to fulfill
(24:01):
them or meet them or ask for helpbecause somebody else can meet them
and maybe you can't at the time.
John Boswell, LCSW (24:06):
So along with that, one of the things I wanna add
is that we are as sick as our secrets.
And what I mean by thatis that shame is a.
So if I feel bad about, and I feelshameful about something that happened
to me, let's say that I was childabused a kid or, or sexually abused,
and I don't tell anybody it, itjust further provokes that shame.
(24:28):
Mm-hmm.
. The more I share it with peopleand the more I take my power back.
And usually we start to realize that itreally is not as bad as we think it is.
And other people have asimilar story as well.
Yes.
Whether it's you're telling itto other people in your life or
you're telling it to a therapist,it's important to talk about those
things you do feel shameful about.
Dr. Lynn Varela (24:45):
Yeah.
I tell my clients shame is like a roachone, it's ugly and nobody likes it.
And two, it hates the light.
Hates it.
Hates the light.
I love that.
You know, self compassion is the raid of.
John Boswell, LCSW (24:58):
Now, sometimes people will say to me, well, what if
you know, it's something shame for.
I feel guilty about that.
I can't exactly makeamends for, or I can't.
I talk about it, butit doesn't get better.
Yeah.
I'll give you an example.
I had a client once and hehad been drinking and driving
and he killed someone.
Mm.
And it's like, you know, howdo I ever make that right?
And it's really no way youcan, the person's gone.
(25:19):
One of the things that we worked outwas that I told 'em, you know, go
ahead and volunteer and talk abouthow you feel shameful about this.
Talk to kids about the dangersof drinking and driving.
You make amends that way, thebest way that you can, and
you will find some relief from
Dr. Lynn Varela (25:33):
that.
Well, it's also helping them come to thepoint where they can forgive themselves.
Absolutely.
Because if he doesn't forgivehimself, he'll never be
able to get past that shame.
Exactly.
So, We've done good,and we can wrap it up.
John Boswell, LCSW (25:47):
I think we have too.
I want to thank you all for listening.
Thank you so much.
Remember that you are lovable.
If you've made it through to the endof this, please make sure you hit the
subscribe button, check back in with us.
We'll have lots of juicy thingsto talk to you about and teach
you, and just kind of figure outthis journey called Life Together.
Dr. Lynn Varela (26:04):
All right, and if you feel like you need to address
it, then find your local helpfultherapist and start the work.
All right.
John Boswell, LCSW (26:12):
Talk to you soon.
Dr. Lynn Varela (26:13):
All right.
Bye bye.
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