Psychotherapist Dr. Zoe Shaw joins us to share her powerful story of transformation—overcoming complex shame, finding healing, and helping others do the same. Don’t miss this conversation about breaking free and stepping fully into your purpose.
Transcript:
Speaker 1:
If you’ve ever struggled with fear, doubt or worry and wondering what your true purpose was all about, then this podcast is for you. In this show, your host, sylvia Worsham, will interview elite experts and ordinary people that have created extraordinary lives. So here’s your host, sylvia Worsham.
Speaker 2:
Hey, lightbringers, welcome to Released Out Revealed Purpose. And with us today is Dr Zoe Shaw, and when I read her story on Podmatch and that’s how we linked up I was blown away with everything she had accomplished in life. And she’s got a brand new book in the horizon, being released in September of this year about shame, and I know that she’s going to dive a little bit deeper into her story of transformation and why she’s done this work. She’s a psychotherapist. She’s in California, I believe. So, for those tuning in, I’m in Austin, texas, and we are ready to dive into this amazing story of transformation. So, dr Zoe Shaw, thank you so much for joining us.
Speaker 3:
Oh, thank you so much for having me on.
Speaker 2:
It’s amazing how much work has been done in the field of shame and I know that you have a very powerful story to share with us today, and why you wrote a book and why it’s being released this year. So, without further ado, do tell us your story of transformation.
Speaker 3:
Oh, my goodness. Yes, so it is kind of a long story. I will try to be as brief as possible. I grew up in a all white farming community in rural Maryland and as a result of those earlier years, we actually moved there. When I was eight, I developed some racial identity shame and then, when I was 15, I got pregnant and my dad was a prominent doctor in the community. I also grew up in a fundamental Christian home and that was just not going to happen in my home, and so my parents sent me away to a pregnancy home for women or girls really for teens with the understanding that I was going to come back without a baby. And I did.
Speaker 3:
I came back home without a baby and pretended like nothing happened, and that’s really where a lot of my shame just started to just dive deep. And I covered it up with accomplishments. I was a track athlete I, you know, did very well academically, earned scholarships to UCLA and competed on a very high level as a track athlete, went and got my master’s you know, my bachelor’s, my master’s, my doctorate all really, you know, in service of hiding my shame, and I, you know, practice as a therapist for a long time, and a lot of it, I think, was really just not conscious. There was a lot of perfectionism, a lot of codependency in my relationships, which is kind of a hallmark of complex shame. And it wasn’t until my first kept daughter was born, and she was born with a very rare genetic disorder called Prader-Willi syndrome that I really began to spiral, meaning I wasn’t able to hold defense mechanisms which are never really meant to be held right. So defense mechanisms work really well for a period of time and eventually they, like a dam breaks and then you know all of a sudden you’re not really functioning well anymore and that was really my dam breaking time. Excuse me, I you know, as a result of my history, I really believe that God was punishing me for placing my first child with adoption, and he was punishing not just me but now my second daughter, with her, you know, genetic disorder, and I really began to spiral. And then I had a moment at my father’s funeral of a very long story. I had reunited with my birth daughter by that time and she knew my parents, and yet there was still this secret about who she was. And I had three children at that point. I had four, four other children at that point and I was not willing to hold the secret anymore, and so at my father’s funeral, I invited my daughter, I shared with the whole family about her and I experienced this moment.
Speaker 3:
That is really important for people to understand who hold shame, because we can hold this shame for years and years and it affects our body, it affects our relationships, it affects our entire life, and when we release it, it’s the weirdest feeling because we imagine that the world is going to fall apart. We imagine that when we share something that we’re so shameful about, that all of these negative things are going to happen, and that’s what keeps us holding our stories right. And then, when you share it, nothing happens and it’s a little kind of life-shifting lens-shifting. But you realize how long you’ve held a story or held shame for really essentially no reason right Now. There are many reasons, and I understand that people hold them for reasons that they feel are very valid. My answer is, really they’re not valid in comparison to what they do to you.
Speaker 3:
And so I began this journey because, also, what I found was that releasing my shame was cathartic, but it actually didn’t heal my shame. And as I started to work with other patients in my work, as I started to really heal myself, I understood that the type of shame that I had was different than what I call basic shame or simple shame. It’s the kind of shame that Brene Brown talks about, the basic shame, where you release it, you experience empathy or outward compassion from somebody and your shame releases right. That didn’t happen with me. I felt an initial relief, but because my shame was complex, because it was attached to so many other things, what I couldn’t experience and take in for other people was that empathy and compassion.
Speaker 3:
Because what happens when you have complex shame is your immediate response is you don’t really understand.
Speaker 3:
You’re forgiving me or you’re absolving me or telling me it wasn’t my fault, but you don’t really understand what happened or what part I played or what I did, and so we’re not able to take in that compassion.
Speaker 3:
And so I had to begin to understand what do I need to do to heal from this and how could I help other people heal from this and how could I help other people heal from it? And so I kind of developed these six steps not kind of I did of healing from complex shame, and part of it involves being able to deconstruct your shame, being able to take responsibility even for things that weren’t necessarily your fault, because it’s the way that our brain works, that we need, especially when we are blaming ourselves. We need to be able to forgive ourselves for that thing before we can go to vulnerability and external compassion. But once we’re able to untangle it, take it apart from our identity, then we’re able to start healing the shame. And that’s what I was able to do and it was a major transformation internally in my life and then the ripple effects on my life externally and my relationships and my work were just astronomical.
Speaker 2:
It’s the power it holds over us and we’ve all had shame, some complex, some the basic shame that Brene Brown does talk about. But I remember being in therapy myself in 2016. And I’m a big believer of therapy. I’m a life coach myself and I always know we all have blind spots and we all can use some help. We do, and I was blessed that I found somebody here in Austin that could help me and she started to introduce me because she realized that a lot of what I was carrying was guilt and shame, which are two of the most useless feelings out there, because it leaves you in limbo for a long time and you feel like you can’t ever get out of there. It just feels like you have to earn your way out of there, which is the most backwards way.
Speaker 3:
Right, right, yes.
Speaker 2:
So I totally can relate to your story and I it. There’s some elements here that I know why we attracted each other into our lives. My father was also a physician and a perfectionist, and I was a high achiever.
Speaker 3:
Those go together, don’t they? Yes?
Speaker 2:
achiever. Let’s go together, don’t they? Yes, and you just feel like the avoidance of pain is go, go, achieve, achieve, achieve, push down, push down, push down. Don’t feel. And then comes the catalyst and cannot ignore anymore, right, and your soul feels a different pull to start addressing it and healing it.
Speaker 2:
And I love your story because it is going to bring so much healing and light to chapters of shame that are usually dark, right, and nobody wants to talk about no one. And I remember when I started to come to terms with my shame and there was things that I thought I had done wrong with my first, in my first marriage that led to our divorce and then my little boy having anxiety and OCD and all these complications and I just blame myself for all those things, even though my mom kept saying wait, wait, wait, no, no, no, no, no, there’s two people in a marriage, wait, wait, yeah.
Speaker 2:
But it was like I’ve got to do this to myself and it’s horrible to be in that position, I feel, and it sounded like you were also in that position. And then, finally, when you start to release it, but truly release it, like where you address the complexity of it right’s when you, the lightness starts to freedom.
Speaker 2:
There’s so much freedom and not just acknowledging but calling it out, and I think when you name it it’s kind of like anxiety. Where you name it, it just ceases to have all that power over you and every memory that’s backing up into this library of shame in your mind, yeah, just starts to unravel, right it just it doesn’t?
Speaker 2:
all these things that were connected in your mind are no longer there, and I just that’s why I think the work that you guys do in psychotherapy is so valid and it’s so needed, especially when it comes to shame, because it is a deeper wound than what we as life coaches deal with. We’re dealing mostly with mindset shifts and habits in the present moment. Shame is in our past, yes, and in our true subconscious, very, very deeply there, true, like subconscious, like very, very deeply there, and so I do think it requires a different therapy to bring to light.
Speaker 2:
So thank, you for sharing that amazing story of transformation, because I know that there’s women that listen to release, that reveal purpose, that are currently in a lot of shame, and I cannot wait till your book releases. So tell me more of why you decided to write a book.
Speaker 3:
Yeah Well, first let’s go back, because you’re right, shame does go so deep, and what we know about shame is that children as early as toddlerhood, right 18 months, experience shame and shame. I want to talk about the difference, because often we put shame and guilt together as if they’re the same, and actually guilt is mostly a healthy emotion. Shame, in my opinion, is never healthy, and the reason why now we have guilt, you know, mom, guilt we have guilt that is not valid guilt, and so when our guilt is not valid, that’s certainly not helpful to us and we need to learn to untangle that too. But guilt is an just tells us. It’s kind of like a warning sign that says you’ve done something that breaks your moral code right, and that’s not okay. And we feel this sense of guilt or sometimes break somebody else’s moral code that we’re attached to, and so we feel guilt. The thing with guilt is that if you’ve broken your moral code or you’ve broken somebody’s moral code that matters to you, you can change that. You can choose to behave differently next time. Right, you can go back and repair.
Speaker 3:
But the problem with shame, and the reason why it’s so toxic to our soul, in my opinion, is that shame says I am wrong, I am right. And so when you tell yourself I am wrong, there’s no recourse, there’s nothing for you to do with shame, except to hide. And that’s what people do with shame is they hide. It causes them to hide because they try to run from it too. But you’re running from yourself and it doesn’t work. You just bring yourself with you. And so what we’re doing is hiding, and that’s why it’s so toxic, because when we hide in relationships, we don’t show up as ourselves, we don’t aren’t able to experience any healthy love from anybody else, because when they love us and we know we’re hiding, there’s a part of us that feels like but they don’t really know me, so they don’t really love me, and so you don’t feel loved, even when someone is loving you.
Speaker 3:
A memoir, and I think actually initially the book was a hope that it could help somebody just by me sharing my story. But as I developed the concept of complex shame and as I really started to understand it, I realized wait, no, I need people to get this and see this, and I don’t want them to wait two decades, you know, or three decades, or a lifetime, before they’re willing to and able to untangle their complex shame. And so that’s why I wrote my book, because I wanted to share my story to help somebody else who may feel some debilitating shame, or even a little bit of shame, be able to kind of untangle that from for themselves.
Speaker 2:
That is, that’s why we do what we do.
Speaker 3:
Right.
Speaker 2:
Because we have a story to tell and our broken pieces become the thriving pieces when you put them into a book that can help others, because we have gifts right and the shame has taught us over time. You don’t have anything to share.
Speaker 3:
Yeah, don’t have anything or you’re not qualified because of it.
Speaker 2:
Yes, yes and it. It’s something that if you don’t address it will keep you exactly where you’re at for a long time. There’s a lot of people that never get out of their shame, absolutely.
Speaker 3:
Yes.
Speaker 2:
Never grow out of there and it does impact every single out of their shame. Absolutely, you never grow out of there and it does impact every single area of your life. There’s nothing you can hide from. Eventually, it catches up to you.
Speaker 3:
It does.
Speaker 2:
And that catching up. I always call it a major crossroads and for you it probably was a combination of factors, in that you, at your father’s funeral, you’re going through major grief and you’re just like I need release from this. I need to be able to share this light and my beautiful daughter with my family right and it. Just it’s the catalyst to start shifting out of that cloud that you can put you under.
Speaker 2:
But you’re right. It is the I am wrong. And when you say I am, it’s so powerful to your subconscious mind because, in essence, you’re taking identity with it. It’s like part of your identity and that’s what really is tough to get out of, because when it’s your identity, then you project it subconsciously and you don’t even realize you’re doing it until you start having issues in every area of your life.
Speaker 2:
So I love your explanation and I love that this book is going to be released. Now do tell me how you discovered your divine purpose. Do you think your divine purpose is to stay a psychotherapist or to become an author, or what? Where do you? Is this seasonal for you?
Speaker 3:
Yeah, that’s great. Excellent question, excellent question. I have been a writer since as long as I can remember, but I was told very young that writing is not really a career to have and that writing, you know, you can’t really make any money off of writing. And so I I went more of a traditional path. Now I have an equal love for writing and psychology and so I feel like I have the best job in the world. And you know, I’ve been a psychotherapist for decades. I’ve been writing for a little less than a decade now, and I’ve been speaking for a little less than a decade, and what I’ve discovered as I found my voice, is that my purpose is speaking and writing, and my skill set is, you know, is therapy, is being a therapist, but I speak and I write from all of my knowledge and understanding of psychology, and so for me it’s kind of just a beautiful, beautiful blending, but I’m definitely stepping more into speaking and writing now.
Speaker 2:
I love it because that’s how you reach more people.
Speaker 3:
Absolutely.
Speaker 2:
You know you can be in practice and the people that you meet you can help. But then comes that moment of like. I’ve got an amazing awareness and amazing and since you have a Christian background, I grew up Catholic because my background is Mexican and but then the divorce happened and in those years it wasn’t accepted to be divorced.
Speaker 3:
So I had to leave the.
Speaker 2:
Catholic church divorce. So I had to leave the Catholic church and did not feel welcome and then became a non-denominational Christian. So I know how some of that can also bring some shame into the mix. Absolutely, and as was evident through your story as well, right Because you got, you gotta leave. You can’t be. This is not right. I to write and to speak is to really reach a multitude of people, because what you’ve been downloaded by christ has been a way to address complex shame that can impact millions, if you stay just in your practice, doing your thing.
Speaker 2:
You still are going to impact, right?
Speaker 3:
a lot of people, there’s no question yeah, there’s no question.
Speaker 2:
But if you feel a pull and your soul is feeling a pull to step into a role that can then impact even more, you’re really like stepping into a whole new zone and some people really don’t have, they don’t feel the courage to step in there unless they see their path. Tell me a little bit more about did you feel a little bit of fear or did you just jump in there?
Speaker 3:
Oh, my goodness gracious, I feel fear all the time, but one of my very intentional practices is to make myself do hard things. The very first time I got on stage, I was terrified, and people now, when they see me on stage, they’re surprised to hear me say that I was terrified of public speaking. I made myself do this thing because I did feel very strongly that I had something to share. I was just terrified to do it and so I pushed myself in that way. But I’m always scared when I speak so vulnerably. I have a vulnerability hangover, just like anybody else. But I’m always scared when I speak so vulnerably. I have a vulnerability hangover, just like anybody else. But I’m determined to push past that fear because I know that there’s a greater purpose. There’s a greater purpose out there.
Speaker 3:
There’s something that you said that I think is so important, and another passion of mine is that you mentioned getting divorced.
Speaker 3:
You mentioned having to leave the church because of that judgment and shame and what I see with so many women as they transform, as they grow and change they tend to have that thought that they have to leave their religion or leave their faith in order to step into who they are authentically, and that’s not true. What’s true is that you need to see God differently, because probably the way you were taught to see God was from a shameful lens. Right, instead of chucking God, chucking your faith, just recognize that. You need to now shift your lens out of the shame-filled lens and learn how to have a relationship with a God who is not shaming you. But it’s humans that shame, not God, and we imagine that it’s God that’s shaming right, and so that’s another passion of mine, too is you know, I call myself a redeemed feminist as well, because I truly don’t believe. I know that we do not have to leave our faith relationships in order for us to grow and be healthy.
Speaker 2:
We just have to change relationships in order for us to grow and be healthy. We just have to change. You’re right, because, as I was going through the divorce and I just didn’t want to be back at church for that shame factor.
Speaker 3:
I still felt a pull in my soul to connect with that.
Speaker 2:
So I started to do it through journaling because I myself am an author and I’ve always written all my life. That’s what I’m telling you, like there’s so many parallels here. It’s quite eerie how God sends people in your life at precisely the moment that you need them, because, so you know, shame is one of the things I am attempting to, especially complex, shame address currently in in my life.
Speaker 3:
So that it doesn’t impact my marriage my second marriage.
Speaker 2:
So it was amazing when you, when I saw your biography and everything that you’re doing, I thought, yes, this is gone, you know, and I’m probably going to be first in line to get your book, so I definitely want to be. If you have advanced reader copies that you’re submitting, I’d be happy to write your review and read the book in advance.
Speaker 2:
Thank you, because I know how important it is to get the algorithms working in your book, so it could be seen. Yes, because it can drown in the amount of books out on Amazon and all these other sites. So, yes, I trust me when I do this a lot for my friends. So I was thinking this is going back to the being with Christ. Is I felt a pull like I’m right here, you don’t need to go to church, I’m right?
Speaker 2:
here, you can talk to me, yeah, and I started to journal and the more I journaled, you can talk to me. And I started to journal and the more I journaled, the more I heard his voice and I just started acting on the promptings I was receiving, and then, right now, in my journey with him and I’ve journeyed quite a bit with him I’m in a stage where I’m finding my identity in Christ, and so to do that, you’re having to sift through all the things that are still within your mind space that are holding you back from being that, that light right.
Speaker 2:
Yeah, calling you to be and it’s like you have fully stepped into that light and net. You’re taking it by storm. And even though, though, because we all feel the vulnerability- absolutely first time he was like you gotta write your book. I’m like, and what am I gonna write about? That shame will tell you. Like, what do you have to say?
Speaker 2:
that is important right it’s that thought process in your head and I was like, what am I gonna write about? And he said you don’t worry about that, I will download it to you. And it was a constant conversation with him and as soon as I made the decision, the download started, and boy did I have to have like a notebook next to me as I would take walks in nature. This was during 2020, this is the first go-round of the book, but it’s interesting how god works, because he was doing it, because he saw what it was going to do. Four years later, my father was going to pass away and I had a very the shame had been. The shame I felt was mostly from my relationship with my father, and God knew that.
Speaker 2:
If I didn’t heal that, if I didn’t heal myself through the writing of the book that I would feel guilt after his death. So so I stayed obedient. I wrote the first book and I, oh my goodness, my the way, like once it just the veil lifts. How you see life is totally different.
Speaker 3:
Yes.
Speaker 2:
When that doesn’t have power over you anymore and you can actually look at your loved ones and appreciate them for who they are and who they were trying to be when they were parents and you were a little kid. Because they make mistakes too. We all make mistakes.
Speaker 3:
A hundred percent.
Speaker 2:
To pay for those mistakes forever. That’s just cruel, and I, for one, don’t want to be that person. I want to be like Christ, I want to love unconditionally. I want to not be self-seeking and not keep a record of wrongs, and that was something I was aiming for with my dad and I’m glad I did that first journey through reflection and writing yeah the full circle from shameful, horrible experience in chapter one to chapter 15, just loving on him and just being his friend and all of it. So that’s beautiful.
Speaker 2:
The writing of your book was healing for you, wasn’t?
Speaker 3:
it. It was definitely a cathartic experience. It was, you know, it was healing and also, as I wrote, wrote the book, I just thought about the women and the people that would be reading the book, that I could also heal. So, yeah, it was a fantastic experience, necessary. You know, I think writing is always healing for us and I think that’s okay and that’s good, that writers use writing as a way to heal so any tips you want to share as it comes to shame with the audience.
Speaker 3:
Yeah, you know I can give you a link to the steps to overcoming complex shame, and certainly link to my book as well. But the first thing is to understand that whatever shame you feel is not yours to hold, even if you feel you are to blame. There are plenty of things that you know. We feel that we have 100% blame, we have 1% blame. Our brain doesn’t really care what our percentage is, but we have this idea in our head and it’s not yours to hold regardless. And so if you’re listening to this and you know that you are hiding in any way, shape or form in your relationships, in your life, in your work, because of shame and if you’re hiding it’s because of shame. That’s the reason why we hide I just encourage you to be willing to start taking that apart and looking at it, going back to the original shame story and asking yourself what was mine and what’s not mine. And if that little tiny percent is mine, how can I start to forgive myself for that? How can I actually forgive myself?
Speaker 3:
And when we talk about forgiving, I love the quote. I’m trying to remember who said it originally. I can’t remember exactly who said it, but anyway, there’s a quote that says, forgiveness is giving up all hope of a better past. And I love that definition of forgiveness because it doesn’t talk about any person, not yourself, not anybody else who may have wronged you. It’s just an ability to give up the hope that it could have been different, that you could have made a different choice, that somebody else could have made a different choice. And when you’re willing to forgive in that way, give up that hope of a better past, allow yourself that way, give up that hope of a better past, allow yourself that grace, then you can begin to deconstruct the shame. And so I encourage you to start that process.
Speaker 3:
And you know, when it comes to shame, I never say we get rid of or obliterate shame, because shame is a part of our social experience. Unfortunately, our psyche uses it. It’s used very strongly in the faith community and people think that shame changes behavior. So if I shame you, I’m going to change your behavior. But what we actually see in research is that when you shame somebody, their behavior goes underground. And so my point is is that you are not meant to hold the shame and you can get to a point where you can maintain the shame, which means when shame shows up. When toxic shame messages come into your sphere, you’ll be able to recognize them, you’ll be able to see them for what they are, you’ll be able to name them and let them pass through, and that’s kind of the goal to get with shame.
Speaker 2:
It sounds like there’s some acceptance, or maybe when you call it out. You’re accepting that they’re playing a role in your life and then you make a different choice.
Speaker 2:
I talk about learning to make friends with shame or acknowledging it and at times and this is something that I’ve seen in neuro-linguistic programming it’s like with patterns of behavior, particularly because they want to be seen and they want to be recognized for how they’ve protected you in the past and it’s to say well, thank you. But I am now a different person and I, while I appreciate you trying to warn me and trying to help me, I no longer lead you, so thank you and releasing it to help me. I no longer lead you, so thank you and releasing it. And I remember that part because there were parts of when writing the book that you’re just like.
Speaker 2:
I’ve got to accept it and understand that this is part kind of like the quote that you’re talking about releasing the hope of a better past. It’s when you’re holding so tightly to that that you don’t allow it to just just like release itself from the body. And I think that is a huge piece of information you just shared, wisdom, wise. Because shame does that to us. We want to hold on because we don’t know any different and that’s what we’ve been doing for so long. It’s such a habit that it’s formed in our body and in our hearts and souls. Our whole identity becomes this way. So I want to thank you because I know that your book is going to change lives. Your interview today will start helping people recognize and start to move in the direction of releasing that shame, acknowledging it and releasing it. And I just want to thank you for being on here and released out Reveal Purpose. Do share with us the name of your book and when it’s released and what’s next for you.
Speaker 3:
Yes, the name of the book is Stronger in the Difficult Places Healing your Relationship with Yourself by Untangling Complex Shame. You can find it anywhere, anywhere books are sold Amazon, target Books, a Million anywhere books are sold. It’s the same name as my podcast, stronger in the Difficult Places, and it’s available now for pre-order, so you can find it now. If you’re whenever you’re listening, you can find it. It’s available for pre-order now and thank you so much, sylvia, for having me on your podcast.
Speaker 2:
I really enjoyed having you on here, dr Zoe, but do share with us how we can find that link to that copy, because I’m going to be reading that.
Speaker 3:
Yeah, so you can find me on social media. It’s at DrZoeShaw D-R-Z-O-E-S-H-A-W. You can go on Amazon and just enter Dr Zoe Shaw, or enter stronger in the difficult places, and my website is also the same drzoeshawcom.
Speaker 2:
Oh, that’s wonderful. Thank you so much. And for the listeners of Released Out Revealed Purpose, remember Matthew 514. Be the light, have a wonderful week, stay safe, love y’all. Bye now Bye.
Speaker 1:
So that’s it for today’s episode of Release Doubt Reveal Purpose. Head on over to iTunes or wherever you listen and subscribe to the show. One lucky listener every single week who posts a review on iTunes We’ll win a chance in a grand prize drawing to win a $25,000 private VIP day with Sylvia Worsham herself. Be sure to head on over to sylviaworsham.com and pick up a free copy of Sylvia’s gift and join us on the next episode.