This episode is a little different from what I usually share. It touches on current events that may feel triggering, but at its heart, it’s about something deeply universal: how to work through the shame that silences us and reclaim our voice when fear threatens to shut us down.
In the aftermath of the events of October 7, 2023, I received an email from a non-Jewish former client. In this email, she claimed that, as an ethnic Jew, I had a moral obligation to publicly align with her political beliefs. The tone and content of her message felt like an attack on my personal identity and an attempt to weaponize my ethnicity as a test of my moral worth. And it shook me to my core.

I felt instantly afraid, ashamed, and confused, and that swirl of emotions silenced me. I didn’t tell anyone about the email—except for my husband—for months. I didn’t even tell my life coach or best friend. I was so afraid that if this one person thought I wasn’t a good person, maybe everyone thought the same. The email struck such a vulnerable place, dredging up layers of internalized anti-Semitism I didn’t even know were lodged so deeply inside me. Looking back, I realize that because it touched on an unhealed wound carried through generations, through my grandparents’ history of escaping the Holocaust, it triggered a core, primal fear: the fear of not being loved or accepted because of who I am.

I want to share how I worked through this experience and used it as an invitation to heal this deep layer of fear and shame. And part of what helped me recognize what was happening was the timing: I received this email one week before stepping on stage to tell a different story that I had carried shame around for over 20 years, which you can hear in its entirety in episode 42 of this podcast.

That story, about an experience with non-consensual touch in my teens, had silenced me for so long. The shame had stifled my creativity, my clarity, and my life energy. And as I prepared to share that story on stage, I realized how the email was triggering the same fear and the same impulse to silence myself again.

But this time, I knew better, and I had tools. I wasn’t going to let fear and shame bury me for another 20 years. Instead, I used my tools to turn this into an opportunity for inner healing and growth. And that’s what I want to share with you today: how you can use the fear of rejection, judgment, or misunderstanding as a powerful invitation to heal yourself, build deeper self-trust, and free up the life energy you need to share your incredible gifts with the world.

You can find me at:
Instagram: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠@anna_holtzman⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠
Email: [email protected]
Website: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠www.annaholtzman.com⁠