Breaking the Cycle of Shame
Breaking free from the cycle of shame can feel like an impossible task, especially when it’s deeply tied to the mother wound—the unspoken pain we carry from our earliest relationships. In this post, we’ll explore why shame linked to the mother wound is so persistent, how it takes root in our earliest experiences, and why traditional healing methods often fall short. You’ll also learn how to identify shame’s subtle disguises, break its repetitive cycle, and take practical steps toward healing—gently and at your own pace.
Inma told me at the beginning of our session about a recent trip with her son. He had just been through a very harsh experience so she created this opportunity for them to have a lovely holiday—to rest and feast on good food, take in the calming landscapes and connect.
As she described the way they’ve connected during the holiday—sometimes doing their own thing, other times being present with each other—she lifted her palms as if holding something, her fingers contracting and expanding in a way that reminded me of a beating heart.
“I was aware that I both wanted to know and didn’t want to know, at the same time,” her words mirroring her hands motion. She recalled the conflicting desire to understand all the details of her son’s recent traumatic event while also wanting to shield herself from its horror.
Her hands captured my interest. They made me reflect on the nature of shame—we want to see it so we can find a way to release it, but we also want to avoid it because facing shame often immediately elicits more shame.
Chronic shame is what brought Inma to working with me. A therapist herself, who’s done a extensive therapy on her mother wound. During our get-together initial call she told me “I don’t need more understanding”. She’s had plenty of explanations for her explain shame, yet she was still burdened by it.
What is chronic shame
Chronic shame is shame that lingers, persisting as part of our identity or sense of self.
It can remain even after years of therapeutic work on the mother wound, even after gaining extensive knowledge, logical explanations, and emotional processing. You may have accepted your mother, forgiven her, or processed your rage—and yet, the shame stays. Isn’t that interesting?
Since I don’t like the clinical word chronic, I’ll be using continuous instead.
Continuous shame is often what keeps the mother wound healing stuck. It’s also the part of the mother wound which we get to much later in the journey of healing.
If that’s your case, I want you to know it’s very common. Below, I explain why shame tied to the mother wound operates this way.
What causes shame
Continuous Continuous shame begins building in the earliest stages of our relationship with our mother—during the pre-verbal phase of our lives. At that time, we understand reality through bodily sensations and relational experiences rather than thoughts or words.
When our body feels uncomfortable around our mother—when we receive signals that something in our relationship isn’t safe—we begin to develop a sense of shame.
At first, this is just a vague experience.
Trauma specialist Janina Fisher, with whom I trained in healing shame and trauma, explains that before we begin walking, we don’t actually experience shame yet. Instead, we develop an implicit sense that “something’s wrong” when we’ve done everything in our power to get attention and still haven’t received it.
When these impressions, sensations, body memories of ‘something’s wrong’ occurs repeatedly they shape our perception of our relationship with our mother—not through words, stories, narratives or ideas, but through felt experiences.
‘Something’s wrong’ is the seed of shame. If our efforts to fix or soothe that discomfort don’t succeed, we reflexively turn it inward.
By the time we begin talking, thinking and walking we have already internalised what it can feel like to not feel safe, guided or nourished by our mum.
At this point, the misattunement between mother and daughter, have been absorbed like rain into the earth and shame solidifies. Something’s wrong in this relationship has transformed into something’s wrong with me.
Repeated failed attempts to connect and be seen, along with the non-verbal cues we’ve come to recognise in our bodies, shape the beliefs we develop about ourselves, life, and the world. Now, it’s hard to separate the rain and earth.
Mother wound and shame
Continuous shame is the most latent, secretive or persistent experience because it’s rooted in that very early phase of our life. Therefore we need the continuous unfolding of healing the mother wound to reach that deeply embedded layer and discover shame’s residence.
This kind of healing cannot be achieved through talk therapy alone or cognitive-based approaches that rely solely on logic and reasoning.
Inma’s Inma’s hands became more expressive as we spoke—illustrating the paradox of shame, and she resonates with my association.
We’ve had glimpses of shame free experiences so far, but today she’s feeling an urgency to understand why?! Why is it so sticky?!
One of the pinnacles of lithe mother wound is this very sense of urgency and it comes not only with shame but with many other mother wound related experiences.
We’ve known about mother wound experiences for a long time though a direct experience only that we haven’t yet known it though conscious experience. This urgency tells me that something new is ready to be discovered and learnt.
How to identify shame
Shame wears many disguises. Since it’s a non-verbal, deeply ingrained experience, it often appears in subtle forms. To identify it, you may first need to recognise its variations:
Common experiences of shame: self-loathing, self-criticism, embarrassment, humiliation, feelings of inadequacy, a sense of failure, or a lack of belonging, avoidance.
Emotional states linked to shame: low motivation, procrastination, depressive moods, the desire to hide or disappear, numbness, or slumped posture.
Body-based reactions to shame: nausea, dizziness, digestive issues, chronic fatigue, immune system disorders, or an overall sense of heaviness.
Rather than focusing on the most dramatic manifestations of shame, pay attention to patterns—those that show up repeatedly in your daily experience.
The stages of befriending shame
We need to approach shame like we would approach a shy, wild animal.
You can’t call out to a wild animal and expect it to come to you immediately. Likewise, you can’t simply call out shame and expect it to reveal itself directly.
Instead, we want to befriend shame.
This is how befriending shame and the stages of breaking the cycle of shame look like:
Learn where it lives in your body
Explore when it shows up — what triggers shame and makes it visible is highly personal
Notice its features — which one of the above disguises and manifestations you’re more inclined to habitually
Learn what characterises its inhabitant — shame exiles us into false belonging and false selves that at the same indicate where we naturally belong
Discover what interrupts it — which beliefs and newly learned experiences disrupt its repetition
What shame needs from you
These qualities and attitudes further help breaking the cycle of shame:
Acknowledgement — once it was a very smart and useful survival tool. You can’t discard it without recognising how it served you
Pace — remember shame is a shy, wild animal. If you rush and push to let go of it it’ll crawl back to its hiding place
Capacity — gradually expand the window of tolerating shame so you can explore it more
Reorganisation — notice how your daily experience reorganises itself as drops of shame dissolve like dew in a spring sun
Nourishment — supplement your healing process with supportive connections, take repeated actions on newly learned habits and beliefs
If you got to this point, well-done! It’s not easy to read about shame let alone work with it. I hope this helps you feel less intimidated by shame and gives you some ideas for working with it.
If you want to explore more of this together, click the button below to set up a free exploration call
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Shelly's helping women who've had a complex relationship with their mother and want to unplack the way it shaped them so they can become unlimited in their personal or professional life
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