In today's episode, I talked with Annalie Howling—a coach, speaker and author—who just released an inspiring new book Unapologetic: Unshackle Your Shame and Reclaim Your Power. While Annalie writes for women, I think what she talks about applies to many men I know.
Some of the topics we discussed in the episode include:
The role shame plays in keeping us from being truly authentic, often in ways that are outside of our awareness and are extremely harmful to our wellbeing
How being "unapologetic" isn't aggressive or mean; in fact, it comes from a vulnerable, soft place
Why you should stop abandoning yourself in an effort to be a "good girl" (or "good boy")
How even high-achieving or "strong" women shrink and contort themselves to be accepted and loved
I discovered Annalie on Instagram1 (social media is not always bad!) of all places when I was going through a difficult period after my mother's death2, particularly coming to terms with the shame I still held due to a complicated relationship with my impossible-to-please mother and the family system she created where others unwittingly enabled and even perpetuated that shaming.
I related to so much of what Annalie vulnerably shared in the interview, particularly when she discussed accepting scraps from others. This often happens because you feel you don't deserve anything more, usually because a parent or authority figure made you feel you were inherently a bad person when you were young. You might carry this belief throughout your life, frequently with no awareness that you hold this belief or carry shame.
My friend
helped me gain awareness around this by repeatedly pointing out that I just accepted the bare minimum from people; what Annalie calls “scraps” and Heidi calls bread crumbs. I truly had never noticed this until it was highlighted for me because, on an unconscious level, I didn't believe I deserved anything more than that.Annalie spoke in the episode about how this phenomenon showed up in her life due to a violent childhood:
I'd been so driven by shame at the steering wheel of my life telling me that I was bad. So me thinking I'm bad and using that lens to see the world through…. I'm accepting scraps basically in everything because I'm a bad person. Everything about me is bad. That's what I believe myself to be. So, any place—work, friendships, romantic, you name it—I'm taking the scraps because that's all I deserve, and I'm staying in situations for too long that are causing me harm. So, for me now, being unapologetic is protecting and preserving my self-worth, wrapping up my soul and giving it and my heart the hug that it needed.
Even if this is not your story, nearly everyone has some amount of shame to contend with. We are pressured starting at a very young age to conform to other people's expectations—parents, teachers, religion, community—that aren't aligned with who we authentically are, and that results in us denying parts of ourselves that we feel shame about.
Because we feel shame, this disconnection can feel impossible to face, and so we keep it suppressed (in what Jung called the "Shadow"), thus perpetuating the problem for us and everyone around us. As Jung noted, “'Until you make the unconscious conscious, it will direct your life and you will call it fate.”3
I hope you enjoy the episode and gain some clarity about how shame might be showing up in your life or those close to you. You can listen to it on most podcast platforms or watch it below.
Follow Annalie on Instagram
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