Shame has a way of telling us we are unworthy.
Unworthy of love. Unworthy of rest. Unworthy of joy unless it’s been earned through sweat, sacrifice, and perfection. Unworthy of the success we have already achieved.
It tells us we’re too much and not enough all at once. It tells us that we can’t want too loudly, can’t rest too long, can’t need too much. It tells us that belonging is conditional and that we’re safest when we stay small.
Shame separates us from our own truth. It separates us from the truth, the truth that we are enough. As we are. Nothing to prove. Full stop.
It casts complex and nuanced mirages that tell us to be everything and anyone but ourselves, as though we are fundamentally flawed by virtue of simply existing. It makes us unworthy of success. Whatever we do or achieve, it has us diluting, diminishing, and even eliminating our accomplishments from our sense of self. The enoughness we crave always seems to live just beyond our own cognitive horizon.
And here’s the thing: shame is not simply a thought or an emotion. It’s far more insidious. It seeps into identity, shaping how we see ourselves, our worth, and our place in the world. However it’s disguised, as discipline, humility, or professionalism, it’s judgmental, a bully, and downright tyrannical.
When Professionalism Became My Prison
As a kid from a slum, I learned early how to prove myself. Professionalism and success, whatever those words meant, became my pathway to belonging, except I never truly accessed the feeling of belonging. My inner bully made belonging impossible.
At the time, I didn’t know about shame. I only knew that the other shoe would drop soon and that I’d be out, out of wherever or whatever I was part of at the time. It was a constant background hum of self-doubt and self-protection.
For years, I wore professionalism like armour. A flippen heavy armour!
I thought it meant being polished, contained, endlessly competent. I believed that control equalled credibility. But that version of professionalism didn’t expand me. It squeezed me and silenced me.
I over-delivered in ways that were neither needed nor wanted. Every extra hour, every overworked deliverable was not service, it was survival. It was my strategy to engineer enoughness and secure approval. My internal game was running the show, and the audience, my colleagues and clients, never even knew there was a performance happening.
Kathy Caprino writes that we often become who we think the world will reward, not who our soul is asking us to be. And I saw myself in that mirror. My need for perfection was a coping mechanism masquerading as professionalism. It wasn’t power, it was protection.
I believed that success would silence shame. But the more I achieved, the louder it got. Because it was never about money, it was about meaning. Not about wealth, but worth. Every milestone came with a new mask to maintain. I was sprinting toward validation that kept disappearing.
And when I finally stopped running, I met myself in the quiet. I realised that success fuelled by shame is a treadmill to nowhere. You can run fast, look good, and tick every box, but you never arrive. Because shame always moves the finish line.
At times, I still feel it bubbling under the surface. I haven’t wrestled the shame demon down completely. But now, I recognise it. I can separate it. And with devotion to my own wholeness, I can work with it.
It surfaces in the unsuccessful launches, in the poorly expressed relational challenges, in the stress that flares when I realise I am still running scared. I’m learning to practice grace, to see my shame as a vulnerable, fragile part of myself yearning for comfort and assurance.
It is shame that is teaching me about love. It is shame that is helping me explore faith. It is shame that has allowed me to name and express the stories that live in my resistance and in my tears. It is shame that is guiding me toward wholeness.
Shame cannot survive being spoken and met with empathy. – Brené Brown
“You are not a problem to be solved; you are a person to be loved. – Glennon Doyle
The Subtle Ways Shame Shows Up
Shame doesn’t just live in our work. It hides in everyday moments, so subtle we mistake it for conscience.
It sounds like:
- Shame for unfinished projects or unread books.
- Shame for the tiredness that won’t go away.
- Shame for needing help.
- Shame for saying no.
- Shame for wanting too much, or too little.
- Shame for the chaos behind the calm.
- Shame for the success we’ve achieved, and the guilt that follows it.
How many of us will end this year ashamed of what we didn’t finish, completely forgetting the weight of what we did carry?
How often do we shame ourselves into doing things we don’t even want to do, whispering, “Any decent person would…”?
If that’s you, breathe. You are not behind. You are not broken. You are becoming.
Owning our story and loving ourselves through that process is the bravest thing we’ll ever do. – Brené Brown
Turning Shame Into Gold: The Alchemy Practice
Shame resilience isn’t about never feeling shame again. It’s about learning to recognise it, name it, and alchemise it.
Shame Alchemy invites us to:
- Recognise: Notice shame in real time. Where does it sit in your body? What story is it whispering?
- Separate: You are not your shame. You are the awareness holding it.
- Express: Speak what’s been silent. Write it. Move it. Let it out.
- Soften: Meet it with compassion instead of critique.
- Integrate: Let the lesson land. Shame transforms through tenderness, not toughness.
Kathy Caprino often reminds women that the path to authentic success begins with self-trust, the courage to stand in one’s own story without needing to perfect it first. When we meet shame with honesty, it becomes our greatest portal to self-leadership.
The opposite of shame is presence. – Tara Brach
The Cage and the Compass
In many ways, shame is the architect of self-exile. It tells us that belonging must be earned and that faith must be performed. It externalises our power, placing it in systems, people, and titles that can’t hold it.
But what if shame isn’t our captor, but our compass? What if it’s pointing us back to the places we’ve abandoned ourselves?
When we meet shame with presence, we start unlocking the cage from the inside.
Coming Home to the Body
Shame lives in the body, in the tight chest, the held breath, the clenched jaw before a hard conversation. But the body is not betraying us; it’s signalling where we’ve turned away from ourselves.
When we breathe into those spaces, when we listen instead of fix, we begin to return home.
10 Small Shifts for Big Magic
- Notice when shame says “I am…” instead of “I did…” – that’s the identity trap.
- Speak your shame aloud, even softly, it can’t survive light.
- Ask: “What is this emotion trying to protect in me?” before you judge it.
- List what you’ve completed this year and honour what’s already done.
- When money shame visits, whisper: “My worth isn’t up for accounting.”
- When body shame surfaces, place a hand where it hurts and breathe: “You’re safe with me.”
- Replace self-criticism with self-inquiry: “What if I’m not behind, but in process?”
- Tell one person something you’ve been hiding, choose intimacy over isolation.
- Forgive yourself daily, even if you don’t yet believe you deserve it.
- End each week with this question: “Where did I choose grace over guilt?”
Reading List for Reclaiming Worth
- The Gifts of Imperfection – Brené Brown
- Radical Acceptance – Tara Brach
- The Soul of Money – Lynne Twist
- The Body Keeps the Score – Bessel van der Kolk
- The Most Powerful You – Kathy Caprino
- The Dance of Connection – Harriet Lerner
Journaling & Embodiment Invitation
- Where in your life do you still equate worth with proof?
- How does shame show up in your body, tightness, stillness, avoidance?
- What mask of professionalism, perfectionism, or politeness have you outgrown?
- What would it mean to choose grace instead of guilt, today?
Breathe into the answers. Let them speak softly.
Because shame may have built the walls, but love, curiosity, and courage will always find the door.
Upcoming Webinar: The Self-Love Reset
Why Doing More Isn’t Working and What Actually Heals
🗓️ 25 November | 19h00–20h30 SAST
A 90-minute deep dive for high-achieving women who are done with self-betrayal. We’ll explore how to soothe your nervous system, rebuild self-trust, and finally stop equating productivity with worthiness.
Because what actually heals isn’t more doing, it’s gentler being.