🔓3 Ways to Combat the Feelings of Shame

Shame is often curated—and monetized. Industries, institutions, and interpersonal relationships use shame to keep people compliant.

• Shame keeps people quiet about abuse.

• Shame keeps people from exploring their sexuality.

• Shame keeps people in dead-end jobs out of fear of looking “ungrateful” or “unprofessional.”

• Shame makes people believe they’re hard to love if they don’t perform perfection.

When you let shame run your life, you disconnect from your intuition, your voice, and your freedom. But when you challenge shame, you return to yourself.

Your joy expands, your relationships deepen, and your boundaries strengthen.

1. Name It So You Can Neutralize It

Shame thrives in secrecy. The moment you name it—“I feel ashamed about X”—you’ve already weakened it. Speaking it aloud (even privately to yourself or in a journal) separates you from the emotion. Gradually, you learn: shame is a feeling, not an identity.

Try: Write down the exact belief behind the shame. Then ask, Whose voice is this? Mine, society’s, my upbringing’s, or someone else’s?

2. Replace Judgment With Curiosity

Shame attacks your worth. Curiosity asks gentle questions:

“Where did I learn this?”

“Who benefits from me feeling this way?”

“What would I choose if shame wasn’t speaking?”

Curiosity pulls you into empowerment. It helps you realize how shame is used to control behavior, whether it’s through body stigma, purity culture, workplace expectations, or family pressure. Once you see the pattern, you can break it.

3. Practice Truth-Telling in Small, Safe Steps

Authenticity grows through repetition. Start telling your truth in small ways—express what you want, set a boundary, say no without explanation. Each time you choose truth over shame, you weaken its hold. Over time, you stop living for others’ comfort and start living for your own liberation.

Try: Practice one tiny truth today—something as simple as “I don’t like that,” “I need help,” or “Here is what I want.”

thought • thinkers!

My primary goal is to educate and inspire new thought while stating the cause, the effect, and a possible solution while having fun and being transparent.