shame makes everything our fault
a trauma centered lens on shame and how it shapes our childhood and everything that follows
and because words land differently when spoken, here’s a recording of me reading it.
the shape of shame—
for those of us who grew up inside trauma, and truly that is every human alive, because this planet is far too dense and wounded for anyone to escape the reach of shame, it formed its imprint before we even had mental constructs to understand or describe the feeling.
every childhood is shaped by either countless micro moments, or several catastrophic ones that carve themselves into the body’s cellular memory. but in every case, shame arrives long before words do and long before we realize we have internalized this feeling of deep inadequacy.
shame was never a belief we chose consciously, for we were all too young to be choosing something so important and life altering as that. shame was a survival adaptation where the nervous system learned that shrinking might keep us safer, that disappearing might reduce the harm, and that self-critique might prevent someone else’s blow from landing first.
shame is so efficient because it disguises itself as protection when in truth it is a form of self-rejection.
shame often feels like caution mixed with self-judgement, and an inner warning not to be too much because something bad might happen and because you’re really not good enough to have something good happen anyway.
and because in a trauma framework, shame is the bedrock upon which so many other self-protective coping mechanisms form, not only does it narrow our field of possibility, shame has us scanning for danger even when we are alone, and it reroutes any positive energy that should be fueling creativity and connection and intimacy.
everything ends up getting funneled into hypervigilance and self-surveillance because shame has us deciding that it was our fault, and once we internalize that belief, we think constant control is the only way to stay safe. it becomes a self-perpetuating loop, a system that reinforces itself until the body finally refuses to hold it anymore.
shame is not the enemy, but our fusion with it is.
the harm comes when we start believing that the contraction is who we are and we learn to shrink to survive.
a moment of choosing to trust my body—
i did not find shame in my mind, i found it in my body.
it was the moment the memories surfaced, when what had been repressed first broke through, and i wasn’t ready to engage with it right away. for decades i had lived with this form of ptsd called dissociative amnesia, so when the memories arrived they were too dark, too reality shattering, and overall too much to understand, or digest, without some time for my body and nervous system to have a chance to calibrate.
so i did what i knew how to do at the time, and i placed these memories on a shelf in the back of my mind. it wasn’t that the memories disappeared again, it was more that i chose not to look at them directly for a while.
it was the beginning of summer and i had already decided to take the kids on a long trip, our first international trip and we went to costa rica. so it was easy to ‘shelve it’ and give myself some space to focus on other things. i allowed the warmth, the ocean breeze, and the pura vida mentality wrap me in a calm embrace. it gave me time to let some of the intensity pass while my nervous system adjusted. still, i could feel the presence of what i had set aside, especially when i was alone and my mind would wander from the immediate needs of my children, and traveling abroad as a single parent, with four kids, for the first time.
but once i returned and things began to get back to their normal cadence, i remember while out on a walk one evening, that familiar flutter of fear and avoidance rise again as my thoughts drifted toward the memory that i had been shoving off to the corner. and this time, instead of circling around it or pushing it away, i slowed down and asked myself a different question:
what would it mean if i took this memory down from the shelf?
and what would it mean to allow this memory to exist as something real for me?
fear came immediately— quiet, steady, and undeniable, because i felt scared of what it might mean. so i shifted the question and instead of asking my mind, i asked my body this time:
can we trust this?
then i listened inward…and i didn’t force an answer. i listened with my whole body instead of only with my head.
can i trust the wisdom of my own body to tell me what to do with this memory?
i realized that i no longer wished to keep circling around it like a little bird trapped inside a house, who was desperately trying to find its way out.
and what came rising up from within wasn’t language, but a clear internal leaning forward, a grounded—
yes. we are strong enough now.
and the moment i allowed myself to hold that, not as complete certainty, but as trust in my own body to tell me the truth, a wave of relief, followed by a strong feeling of unexpected but intense shame washed through me. it was sudden and it was so fiery, like flame rippling up my spine, as if something that had been held at bay for years had finally been allowed to rise into awareness.
and alongside the initial relief and the heavy shame, another realization surfaced, one i had not consciously recognized before:
owning this memory would mean letting go of a lifelong pattern of minimizing, protecting and responsibility for something that was never actually mine to carry.
i saw then how shame had functioned as a form of misplaced loyalty, protecting someone else’s actions at the cost of my own right to be protected.
that recognition did not come with resolution. but it did come with a fierce clarity that it was both confirming and nerve wracking, both whispered and screamed from my body’s buried wisdom— it was now safe to face my inner and outer monsters now.
it was then that i knew i was ready to tell my therapist, and, after her, a few others in my inner circle.
it was time to finally begin the work of breaking down the shame cycle of self-imposed silence and carried burden.
shame and the misplacement of control—
what emerged, as i began to heal that which had always been hidden inside me, is something many trauma survivors live without language for:
shame creates a distorted locus of control.
locus of control is a term used in psychology that describes where we believe power lives and who we believe is responsible for what happens to us. it is the invisible framework that shapes how we interpret every choice, every relationship and every painful moment.
in healthy development, this inner framework is flexible and we learn what is ours to hold and what is not. we also learn the difference between taking responsibility for our actions without holding undo burden. we learn that some things happen because of our choices and some things happen because life is unpredictable.
but shame makes everything our fault.
so trauma collapses any distinction between outer and inner responsibility, turning it all inward without discrimination. it all becomes our fault, because assuming blame feels safer than facing how powerless we once were. the nervous system learns that self-blame is easier to control than chaos, so it adopts it as a strategy for survival.
the body starts to read it all as danger, and it assumes the blame because blame feels more manageable than chaos.
and shame thrives in this misplacement, as it convinces us that vigilance is wisdom, and shrinking must be humility.
and the biggest loss of all is that what shame really does is drain our precious life-force, because it keeps us living inside a version of reality that was shaped by survival, not truth.
healing only begins the moment we question this equation we have lived inside our whole lives. we must first find and then eradicate the the notion that: if it is my fault, then i am safe.
shame never actually kept us safe,
only trapped inside a maze of our own making.
the doorway back to yourself—
healing is non-linear and it often looks like a lot of falling down and getting back up again. it is not the pursuit for the ultimate perfection of your personality. healing is much more subtle than any of this. it is the moment you stop abandoning the places inside you that once felt too dangerous to feel.
the doorway is never around the wound.
it is always through the center of it.
courage is enough to begin, while a soft willingness to be present with what is becomes enough to keep going.
reclaiming your right to be protected may be the most powerful act of liberation you ever choose.
for shame may have shaped you, but self-love will remake you in the image of the divine, in the image of your true self—
perfectly imperfect in every way.
thank you for being here, it truly means the world. i love hearing your thoughts, if you feel called to comment.
i am a writer, speaker, and musician devoted to healing and embodiment. i share essays, poetry, and original music through venus consciousness. i’d love to walk this path with you. 💞
Your voice is so soothing and sultry. I think you found your calling in this. Writing and reading your poetry aloud. It comes so naturally for you. Thank you for sharing this piece of Art. Keep this up. I will look forward to them all.
As someone who has felt the clutches of shame this really spoke to me! We can’t trust it. It’s a signal that what we’ve done becomes us, that it makes us “no good.” Life is about learning and making mistakes. We shouldn’t be ashamed of what we didn’t know yet!