Healing my heart and soul one day at a time.

I remember the gamut of emotions that I felt in early sobriety were outrageous to say the least! And, many years later I am still working on getting to know myself and my reactions to life in sobriety. I believe that living life one day at a time is supposed to be on a minor learning curve; after all life is ever changing and evolving.

Throughout my sobriety I have been working on healing my inner child from the trauma of loosing my birth mom so young.  As well as, how it has affected my adult life and the choices I have made.

I recently realized that after all of this time that there was still an emotion that was being triggered in me. It is that feeling of just not being worthy.  This unworthy feeling gets triggered by some of the silliest things like birthday cakes, someone got one and I didn’t. I haven’t been able to figure out where it comes from and why. I thought maybe I needed to do more step work, but never took the initiative. It wasn’t until I started this new book about women and shame that I realized what it was that I needed to work through, shame, toxic shame to be exact resulting from the early childhood trauma of losing my birth mom so young due to a drug overdose.

Many years ago I read John Bradshaw’s book, “Healing the shame that binds you” and knew then that I had a lot of shame hidden deep down in crevasses of my heart and soul, but had no idea the impact it would have on my life. This toxic shame is one of the hardest emotions I have found to work through. My shame is a combination of my feelings of being unworthy and unlovable, my inability to trust, feelings of powerlessness, anger, self hatred and fear of being abandoned again.

A large majority of my decisions starting as a young adult stemmed from that ugly toxic shame I felt in the core of my soul. Bren’e Brown says “Shame is the intensely painful feelings or experience of believing we are flawed and therefore unworthy of acceptance and belonging.” My toxic shame led to me making some pretty bad decisions such as marrying immediately after my high school graduation, not going to college because I didn’t have enough self confidence, and trying drugs, which I had always hated because of the my mother’s overdose, and of course, my alcoholism. My dis-ease with myself kept me stuck and extremely uncomfortable with myself and those around me. I wasn’t able to be honest with myself or those closest to me. I was a chameleon always changing to be what I thought you wanted, believing down deep in my heart and soul that I could never be what you wanted because I was flawed and bad. My toxic shame made me believe and feel that very way, unlovable and unworthy. Once shame is transformed into an identity, it becomes toxic and dehumanizing. Toxic shame is unbearable and always necessitates a cover-up, a false self. vii viii JOHN BRADSHAW Since one feels his true self is defective and flawed, one needs a false self which is not defective and flawed. I believe that day I got home from kindergarten not only changed me and my life, but it changed my brain chemistry as well. The chemical makeup in my brain changed not only from the initial trauma, but also from all of the toxic shame and the false responsibility I took on as a result of my mother’s overdose, such as my depression, anxiety and insomnia.

My days now are not just focusing on my recovery from my addiction, but on my whole health, mind, body and soul. I try to practice mindfulness everyday, even if it is just being quiet and not doing anything. That has helped me immensely over  the last couple of years. I also do a check in with several women in recovery, which keeps accountable. I belong to a wonderful women’s 12 step group and am involved with a book club reading Bren’e Brown book “I thought it was just me (but it wasn’t).”  I share my days with my husband who is also in recovery and 3 sweets dogs and our cat Jinji. I love living my life one day at a time and having the ability make better choices. Today I am a woman of dignity and honor and a loved child of my God that is no longer ruled totally by toxic shame. Practice, practice, practice.

There so much more I could write in this blog about toxic shame. But for this time, that is all I am going to write about it. I still have much to learn; now I must work my way through this mire which perpetrates my negative belief about myself. Today I am a much stronger woman, and I will continue to grow and learn as I hope you will. Person growth work is never a bad thing; it only makes us better and rewards us with a better life.

I have some done some research and am providing you with some the great stuff I found online. I now have much more to read on this very interesting subject.

https://www.deepinnerknowing.com/blog/poetry-my-name-is-toxic-shame-by-leo-boothjohn-bradshaw

https://learninginaction.com/PDF/Overcoming_Toxic_Shame.pdf

https://creativegrowth.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/10/bradshaw_shame-1.pdf#:~:text=Once%20shame%20is%20transformed%20into%20an%20identity%2C%20it,false%20self%20which%20is%20not%20defective%20and%20flawed.