Episode 180: Ask a Coach: How to Become Shame-Resilient

Welcome to the Overcome Pornography For Good podcast where we take a research-based, trauma informed and results focused approach to quitting porn. This approach has been revolutionary and changed thousands and thousands of lives. I’m your host, Sara Brewer.

Jessica: Hello everyone. I am Jessica Farmer, I’m a coach in Overcome Pornography for Good and I am here for our Ask a Coach question of the week. For those of you that aren’t aware, Ask a Coach is a feature that we have in the program where anytime you have a question or a worksheet or learn and move on that you’ve done in the program, you can send it in, email Ask a Coach and one of the coaches in the program will answer your question. It’s available 24/7, we always get back to you in a timely manner.

And yeah, I’m excited to share this question with you today that comes a lot. It comes up pretty often. So the question is, that I got in Ask a Coach a couple weeks ago actually, the question was does the shame I feel after slipping up, meaning after viewing porn, ever really go away? And this question has stuck with me because it feels so heavy, right? Like does the shame ever really go away?

And the answer to that is yes, it does. It can. It can go away. And it’s also kind of a complicated question because we, you know, experiencing the emotion of shame is a universally human experience. We all experience shame at some point in time. In fact, people who don’t experience shame it’s usually because they have some sort of disorder or the chemicals in their brain aren’t working the way that they should.

And so shame is something that we all experience. And the place where we try to get people to in the program is we don’t want to completely get rid of shame, because I don’t know that that is really possible. But what we do is become really, really shame resilient. That’s a term Brene Brown uses, is shame resilience. Meaning we get really, really good at noticing when it is coming up for us.

We notice, we start getting really good at recognizing the triggers for us individually, right? Each individual has different triggers, right? Things that trigger me are going to be different than things that trigger you. And so we spend some time really figuring out, okay, what are my shame triggers? What are those issues, those topics, those situations that tend to bring up a lot of shame in me?

We get really, really good at noticing the physical sensation of shame for us individually, right? For me, when I’m feeling shame, I start feeling really hot in my neck and face. I notice that I have this physical sensation of heat in my neck and in my face. And that is usually the trigger, or that’s usually the indicator for me like, oh, I’m feeling this physical sensation. I know that this is shame, right?

Usually I don’t notice the emotion, I notice the physical sensation first. And that’s the way it is for a lot of people. So we get really good at recognizing how our body responds to the feeling of shame. And so we’re becoming more aware of how shame shows up for us.

Another way that it comes up is in certain behaviors, right? And I talk with my clients about this in the program all the time. We start noticing certain patterns in our behaviors which indicates that shame is driving the bus, so to speak. We only act certain ways when it’s coming from a place of shame.

And some of these include being aggressive towards other people. And that can be aggressive towards other people or it can be internal aggression, right? If I notice that I’m being really hard on myself, if I notice my internal monologue is getting really aggressive, that is an indicator that shame is driving the bus.

Hiding, if I notice that I’m starting to withdraw from interactions or withdraw from certain people, then that’s an indicator that shame is driving the bus. Another one is perfectionism. If I start noticing that I’m getting really, really perfectionistic about things, that’s an indicator for me that shame is going in the background. That’s the program that’s running in the background.

So we want to get really, really good at noticing how shame is showing up in your life so that you can be aware of when it shows up and respond intentionally. That’s really the goal. That’s shame resilience. Again, we may not ever get rid of shame completely because it’s part of the human experience. It’s part of a normal human range of emotions. But we get really good at being shame resilient.

We want to see where it’s coming up for us, challenge it, and start really showing that self-compassion for ourselves and moving past the shame, instead of kind of unintentionally believing the stories that the shame might be telling us.

So back to this question, does the shame I feel after slipping up ever really go away? It might not go away completely, but we get really, really good at noticing it and responding to it in a different way.

The problem right now is that you’re feeling shame and you’re believing it. You’re responding to the shame in a way that’s confirming, like, oh, okay, yeah, this is actually true, right? If I’ve just viewed porn and I’m feeling shame, it’s usually because the thought driving it might be something like, I can’t believe I did this again. What is wrong with me? Why can’t I figure this out? Those are all shame-producing thoughts.

And if we’re practicing shame resilience, what that looks like is you notice, oh, okay, I have slipped up. This is usually a shame trigger for me. And I know that this usually brings up shame. So I’m automatically going to be on the lookout for it. And I’m going to start noticing these patterns that I typically engage in when I’m feeling shame. So I notice that I have that urge to withdraw from people who I’m close to.

And then once we notice that that’s what’s going on, then we can respond differently. Instead of believing those shame thoughts, we can start challenging those shame thoughts and moving past them quicker instead of getting stuck in it and kind of like sitting and absorbing that shame and the shame story. We’re moving out of it quicker, which is really going to enable us to overcome it completely eventually.

So again, does it ever really go away? I don’t know that it ever fully goes away, but we get so much better at responding to it. And it gets to a point where it becomes automatic and we don’t even really need to think about it. We just notice that this is shame, I’m starting to see these physical sensations, notice these patterns. I know shame is driving the bus. I’m going to challenge it and I’m going to move on and respond differently.

All right, I hope that helps. Thank you for being here and we will see you all next week.

I want to invite you to come and listen to my free class, How To Overcome Pornography For Good Without Using Willpower. We talk about how to stop giving in to urges without pure willpower or relying on phone filters so that you can actually stop wanting pornography.

We talk about how to stop giving up after a few weeks or months. And spoiler alert, the answer isn’t have more willpower. And then lastly, we talk about how to make a life without porn easily sustainable and permanent.

If you’re trying to quit porn, this class is a game changer. So you can go and sign up at Sarabrewer.com/masterclass, and it is totally free.