Affirmation: I define myself as I choose.

Quote:  "Live in thy shame, but die not shame with thee." -William Shakespeare

Certified Aromatherapist

I am a Clinical Aromatherapist, which means I am qualified to work in a Healthcare setting as an Aromatherapist and of course, to make custom blends to address various health concerns and skin issues. Many aromatherapy blends also have a quality of emotional support.

Contact me to get your own custom blend!

Shame
Brene Brown has been speaking and writing on the subject of Shame for some time now.
It is a subject, she says, that is taboo and that people don’t really like to talk about and yet, “we are swimming in it deep." When I think of shame, I believe we are referring to the sense a person has of not just being less worthy than others, but of being inherently flawed. I agree that we are swimming in it, deep. And I think it is part of the human condition. In other words, kinda goes a long with being human.

I was introduced to the idea of shame by John Bradshaw, Healing the Shame that Binds You back in the late 80’s. He says that at least 95% of families are dysfunctional. There are multiple reasons a family can be dysfunctional and I believe the ACE’s study proves this.

ACEs which stands for Adverse Childhood Event, was a study done by the CDC and a doctor at Kaiser in the early 90’s. They developed a questionnaire asking about fairly common events that can happen in life in the context of a family like alcoholism or drug addiction, emotional and/or physical abuse, depression, and divorce amongst a few others. In the course of the study, they determined that two out of three people experienced at least one adverse childhood event. They also determined that the higher number of ACE’s, the higher the likelihood people would suffer long term adverse health outcomes like diabetes, heart disease, anxiety and depression.

If at least 95% of families are dysfunctional, then guess what? Dysfunctional is normal. It is more common for people to have issues of some kind than to have no issues at all. And it is common that those issues started in childhood as the result of parenting that perpetuated a legacy that existed in the family system for generations. That means it’s not your fault, it’s not your parent’s fault on down the line. It just is. And maybe, it is the human condition meaning that no matter what we dealt with, we all have the opportunity to work on our stuff, work through our stuff and learn a different, hopefully better way to live and to take care of ourselves.

Continue reading below...

Negative Self-Talk
One of the common ways that internalized shame shows up for people, is the content, nature and direction of our self-talk. Our self-talk is often distorted and became an habitual way of seeing the world we've carried with us through our lives. Worst of all, we tend to believe the thoughts that go through our heads without question.

In my 1:1 work with people I have noticed some commonalities in the self-talk themes that people experience.
Here is a sample of negative self-talk statements:

• "OMG, I am going to get fired."
• "I'm going to fail."
• "Because I work so much, my child is not going to feel close to me and I'm going to be remembered as a mother who neglected her child."
• "My husband is going to hate me and think of me as a mean and selfish person."
• If I don't exercise, I'm going to get fat."

One thing all of these statements seem to have in common is the theme of "I am not ok the way I am. I must behave, feel, think, look, be different than I am to receive love and approval and even then, I'm not likely to get it right and will still end up alone, rejected, worthless and suffering."

If you relate to this experience of negative self-talk, here are some steps you can take to work on it:

• Raise your awareness about your pattern of self-talk. Become an observer of yourself. Start to record the things you catch going through your head especially right after something happens.
• Work at detaching from it. See it as coming from outside, not within yourself.
• Work at strengthening the current adult voice inside your head. Giving it authority over choosing what goes through your head. The wise, mature part of you.
• Start talking back to the negative self-talk. Not in a punitive way, but in a "Thank you for sharing, but that's not true" kind of way.
• Come up with specific words to use in talking back to each of the things that typically go through your head.

• "Getting fired is a lengthy process. If my boss were that unhappy with my work, I would have plenty of chances to correct it."
• "There is plenty of evidence to conclude that I am actually doing quite well in my life. That I am not a "failure." But also, if I hadn't made mistakes (failures) along the way, I wouldn't have learned what does make me successful."
• "I can work on work/life balance and focus on making my time with my child quality time doing things we both enjoy."
• "I actually have a strong marriage and I have no indication that my husband thinks anything but positive things about me. I can continue to work on how I communicate and do so in an honest, genuine way that can only strengthen the relationship."
• "There are more elements to maintaining weight than just exercise. It's healthy to maintain a variety of healthy self-care habits that I manage consistently. Missing a day here or there is not going to make me fat."