What happens when shame becomes so familiar that it starts to feel like part of who you are?

In this episode of Shedding the Shame, I’m joined by Amber Romaniuk, emotional eating, digestive and hormone expert and host of The No Sugar Coating Podcast.

Amber shares the deeply personal story behind the work she does today, including being called “fat and ugly” as a five-year-old, years of dieting and restricting, binge eating, bulimia, and the shame and self-judgment that kept her trapped in a cycle of trying to control her body. At one point, she had gained 80 pounds in four months and found herself binge eating most days of the week.

She opens up about the moment that finally broke through her denial and made her realize she couldn't keep living this way, and what happened when she reached out for help and was essentially told to “just” stop buying the food and love herself.

From there, we talk about what healing actually looked like: messy, nonlinear and full of setbacks, but grounded in curiosity, compassion and a willingness to keep going. Amber describes feeling like she was standing at the edge of the Amazon jungle with a butter knife, trying to find her way through one step at a time.

We also get into the ways shame and perfectionism show up far beyond food, including people-pleasing, overworking, body image and our need to control everything around us.

And then we dive into hormones, stress, self-talk and the ways Amber believes these can intersect with our relationship with food and our bodies. We talk about why “normal” doesn't always mean you feel well, the importance of advocating for yourself when something doesn't feel right, and why learning to listen to your body can be part of rebuilding body confidence.

One of the biggest themes throughout this conversation is that shame keeps us silent. Amber didn't tell her family about her eating disorder for years because she was afraid they wouldn't understand. Once she finally shared her story, she was met with compassion instead of the judgment she'd feared.

We talk about:

• How childhood experiences can shape the way we see ourselves for decades
• The connection between shame, emotional eating and self-worth
• The all-or-nothing mentality that can keep us stuck
• Perfectionism, people-pleasing and the need for control
• Body image and learning to see ourselves with more compassion
• Hormones, stress and the importance of looking at the whole picture
• Advocating for yourself when you don't feel heard
• Learning to listen to your body's signals

Amber's message at the end of our conversation is simple: “You are so much more powerful than you give yourself credit for.”

Her definition of shedding the shame might be my favourite part: having compassion for yourself, softening into empathy, forgiving yourself for what you've been through and giving yourself the opportunity to make a change.

This is a conversation about food, bodies and hormones, but it's also about something much bigger: what happens when we stop treating ourselves like the problem and start listening to what we're actually trying to tell ourselves?

Website: https://amberapproved.ca/

IG: https://www.instagram.com/amberromaniuk/

No Sugarcoating Podcast: https://podcasts.apple.com/ca/podcast/the-no-sugarcoating-podcast/id1158699464

What if you stopped waiting until you felt confident, comfortable, or “ready” before you went after the things you want?

In this episode of Shedding the Shame, I’m joined by Natasha Jeshani, president and CEO of Career Contacts, founder of Training Arch, author, keynote speaker, and someone who has built an impressive career while navigating some very personal struggles behind the scenes.

Natasha and I have an incredibly honest conversation about hair loss, body image, confidence, motherhood, entrepreneurship, money, success, and what it actually looks like to keep showing up when you don’t feel your best.

Natasha shares her experience with alopecia areata, including discovering large patches of hair loss unexpectedly, losing eyelashes, dealing with changes in her body after back surgery and steroids, and the impact all of that had on her confidence. She talks candidly about stepping onto stages while worrying about how she looked, taking a break from social media, and even turning down a TEDx opportunity because she didn’t feel like she “looked the part.”

But this conversation isn't about appearance. It's about what happens when we stop allowing our appearance to dictate what we're willing to do.

We talk about:
• The pressure to have everything together before we allow ourselves to be visible
• Why waiting for perfection can keep us stuck
• Taking up space, taking the mic, and asking for the money you’re worth
• Imposter syndrome and why even incredibly successful women experience it
• Building businesses without a blueprint and learning through doing
• Creating community instead of treating other women as competition
• The importance of celebrating our wins and keeping “receipts” of what we’ve accomplished
• Why sometimes clearing space for the wrong people creates room for the right opportunities
• Showing up authentically even when you’re struggling behind the scenes
• And why your hair, your weight, your lashes, or any other part of your appearance should never get to decide how big your life becomes

One of my favourite moments comes when Natasha says:

“You have to demand it.”

The space. The mic. The check.

If you have done the work, built the experience, and have something meaningful to say, you don't need to wait for someone to decide you're ready.

This is a conversation about refusing to shrink yourself, about doing the thing before you feel ready, and about realizing that you can be uncomfortable, insecure, imperfect, and still move forward.

You don't have to feel confident to take up space. Sometimes you just have to take the space anyway.

IG: https://www.instagram.com/yourcareercontact/

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/natashajeshani/

Website: https://www.careercontacts.ca/

What happens when the things you experienced as a child continue to affect your body, your relationships, your parenting, and your mental health decades later?

In this episode of Shedding the Shame, Tami is joined by Julianna Burmesch, a former school principal, speech pathologist, early brain development trainer, parent educator and author of Life with Less of Me.

Julianna’s memoir explores her childhood growing up with addiction, abuse, neglect and fear, and the long-term impact those adverse childhood experiences had on her physical and emotional health.

We talk about ACEs, or adverse childhood experiences, and why trauma doesn't have to be one catastrophic event to leave a lasting mark. Sometimes it's the repeated arguing, unpredictability, emotional neglect, fear and dysfunction that shape a child's nervous system and follow them into adulthood.

Julianna shares how childhood trauma showed up in her own life, including anxiety, panic, physical health issues and a tendency to retreat when she felt unsafe. We also talk about why people who have experienced trauma can become incredibly good at hiding it, why even successful adults can struggle with unresolved trauma, and how being triggered can temporarily disconnect us from the rational part of our brain.

We get into the importance of finding a trauma-informed therapist, why traditional talk therapy doesn't work for everyone, EMDR, inner-child work, allowing yourself to finally feel the emotions you've spent years suppressing, and the complicated guilt that can come with trying to become a different kind of parent than the one you grew up with.

Most importantly, we talk about breaking generational cycles and learning to release the shame and responsibility we carry for things that were never our fault.

As Julianna puts it: “Shedding the shame means letting go of responsibility for what happened to me.”

If you grew up in a difficult or dysfunctional home, or you've ever wondered why something from your childhood still seems to live in your body today, this conversation is for you.

Life with Less of Me by Julianna Burmesch was published June 23, 2026.

Website: https://www.juliannaburmesch.com/

What happens when you realize your daughter is watching the way you treat your own body?

For Jess M, that realization became a turning point. Jess is a mom of two based in Melbourne, Australia, who has spent the past eight years navigating lichen planopilaris (LPP), a rare form of scarring alopecia that has progressively changed her relationship with her hair, her identity, and herself.

But her struggle with body image started long before her hair loss.

Beginning competitive taekwondo at age 11 meant weighing herself regularly and learning to associate the number on the scale with performance, success, and worth. That relationship with the scale followed her into adulthood and eventually became something she describes as feeling like a “prisoner to the scales.”

Then one day, her two-and-a-half-year-old daughter walked into the bathroom and asked, “Mummy, can I have a turn?”

Jess’s heart sank. She realized she didn't want her daughter growing up believing that her body was something to criticize, measure, or be ashamed of. That day, Jess took her glass bathroom scales to the bin. Her husband grabbed a hammer, and together, they smashed them.

In this deeply honest conversation, Jess and I talk about:

• Living with lichen planopilaris and navigating progressive hair loss
• The emotional decision to stop eight years of alopecia treatment
• Grieving the loss of her bio hair while beginning to embrace wigs
• Growing up with weight-based beauty standards and developing an unhealthy relationship with the scale
• Pregnancy, motherhood, body changes, and learning to see her body differently
• Why modeling self-acceptance for our daughters can be more powerful than anything we tell them
• How the alopecia community helped Jess redefine beauty
• The freedom that comes from talking about the things we’re ashamed of

This episode is about so much more than hair loss. It's about unlearning the messages we've absorbed about what our bodies should look like, choosing what we want to pass on to the next generation, and finding the courage to take up space exactly as we are.

Our daughters are watching, and maybe it's time we started watching how we talk to ourselves, too.

Find Jess on IG here.

What happens when a life you imagined doesn’t happen? How do we grieve something that never quite existed? And what does it look like to completely reinvent yourself in your 50s?

In this episode of Shedding the Shame, Tami is joined by Sarah Savoy, a Vancouver-based end-of-life doula, for a deeply honest conversation about grief, uncertainty, reinvention, and what it means to live more intentionally.

Sarah opens up about a chapter of her life she rarely talks about: the adoption process she and her husband went through years ago, their decision to ultimately withdraw, and the ambiguous grief that followed. She shares what it was like to grieve a child she had imagined, hoped for, and prepared for, while simultaneously questioning whether she even had the right to grieve the loss.

We also talk about the ritual of grief, the “what ifs” that can follow us long after a decision has been made, and the ways our minds try to protect us by imagining every possible future catastrophe.

Then we dive into Sarah’s own reinvention. After owning her Vancouver retail store for 13 years, she made a major career pivot in her 50s and became an end-of-life doula. Her mother’s death, reaching the age her mother was when she died, and an unexpected introduction to the work all played a role in helping Sarah realize that this was where she wanted to use her empathy and compassion.

Despite what many people assume, Sarah doesn’t find working with death depressing. She finds it incredibly life-affirming. We talk about why conversations about death are ultimately conversations about what matters most, how to lead with curiosity instead of assuming we know what someone needs, the importance of advanced care planning, and why our relationships and chosen family may matter more than anything we accumulate.

Sarah also shares what she has learned about starting over, being a beginner again at 55, navigating ageism, building a business from scratch, and reminding herself that uncertainty and possibility can exist at the same time.

Perhaps most importantly, she has a message for anyone who thinks it’s too late to change their life: It’s not too late. Dive in.

This is a conversation about grief, mortality, purpose, self-compassion, and the courage to create a life that feels more like you.

In this episode, we talk about:

• Grieving a future that never happened
• Ambiguous grief and the losses we don’t always feel entitled to mourn
• Why rituals can help us mark transitions and integrate grief
• Sarah’s journey from retail business owner to death doula
• How losing her mother shaped her relationship with mortality
• Why talking about death can actually be life-affirming
• Leading with curiosity instead of trying to have all the answers
• Advanced care planning and navigating difficult family dynamics
• Starting over and becoming a beginner again in your 50s
• Ageism and society’s assumptions about women as they get older
• Living with uncertainty while staying open to possibility
• Self-compassion when doubt gets loud
• What working closely with death has taught Sarah about what really matters

This episode is a reminder that we don’t have to wait for certainty to begin again, and sometimes the most honest conversations about death can teach us how to live.

Sarah's website: https://www.agoodfarewell.ca/

Sarah's IG: https://www.instagram.com/agoodfarewell_vancouver/

What if the thing you spent years trying to hide became the very thing that shaped your purpose?

Michelle Doan, founder of Emani Cosmetics, knows what it's like to feel like you're hiding in plain sight.

Michelle struggled with painful cystic acne from a young age, describing herself as an "ugly duckling" and feeling like her appearance affected her confidence and how she believed others saw her. She eventually turned that deeply painful experience into a career dedicated to helping women feel confident in their own skin.

In this episode, Michelle and Tami talk about the shame that comes with visible skin conditions, their shared experiences with cystic acne and Accutane, and the pressure women face to look "perfect." They talk about motherhood, menopause, aging, self-acceptance, and what happens when the insecurities you thought you'd left behind come back in a different form.

Michelle also shares how she built Emani Cosmetics from her own struggles with acne and why she believes the very thing she once considered a curse ultimately became a blessing.

This is a conversation about beauty, but it's really about something much deeper: learning that you don't have to be perfect to feel beautiful, and you don't have to hide the parts of yourself that make you human.

If you've ever felt ashamed of your skin, your hair, your body, or any part of yourself you wished you could change, this episode is for you.

Emani Website: https://emani.com/?srsltid=AfmBOoorGQhJF3EJHbjI5NHeEAagoaqhTRdZ3QjZRJSvCu0Jj1sJYmVO

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/emanicosmetics/

TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@emanicosmetics

What happens when you've accomplished everything you thought would finally make you feel worthy, and it still isn't enough?

Season 2 of Shedding the Shame starts with this deeply moving conversation. Tami sits down with bestselling author, leadership coach, and Embrace Global co-founder Jane Chen to explore the hidden shame that can fuel achievement, perfectionism, and burnout.

Jane shares the incredible story behind Embrace, the portable infant warmer that has helped save more than one million babies around the world. But behind the accolades, recognition from President Obama, and global success was a woman quietly carrying childhood trauma, believing she had to constantly prove her worth.

We talk about how unresolved pain shapes the way we lead, love, parent, and work, why productivity can become a form of numbing, and what finally helped Jane begin healing after years of pushing herself beyond exhaustion.

Together, we discuss:
• Why so many high achievers secretly struggle with feeling "not enough"
• The connection between childhood trauma, perfectionism, and burnout
• How Internal Family Systems (Parts Work) helped Jane develop self-compassion
• The courage it takes to confront generational trauma
• Why belonging isn't something we find, but something we build within ourselves
• How healing ourselves changes future generations

Jane's message is simple but profound: You are enough exactly as you are.

Whether you've experienced childhood trauma, struggle with people-pleasing, or simply feel like your worth is tied to what you accomplish, I hope this conversation reminds you that healing is possible and that you're not alone.

Connect with Jane: https://www.linkedin.com/in/janemariechen/
Website: www.janemariechen.com

Resources mentioned:
• Like A Wave We Break by Jane Chen
• No Bad Parts by Richard Schwartz
• The Body Keeps the Score by Bessel van der Kolk

What happens when you've done everything "right," achieved the prestigious career, and still feel like something is missing?

In this episode, I sit down with physician-turned-medicine woman Dr. Alexandra Perel-Winkler to explore the shame that comes with feeling like the black sheep. From a young age, Alexandra felt different. While training as a physician and later specializing in rheumatology, she found herself asking questions that traditional medicine couldn't answer. After years of burnout and a life-changing family crisis, she chose to leave the path she'd worked so hard to build and follow a calling that felt deeply aligned with who she truly is.

Together, we talk about:
• Why so many women feel like they don't belong
• The shame of being "too different" and learning to embrace it
• Burnout, perfectionism, and people-pleasing
• The connection between the nervous system, intuition, and healing
• Why worthiness is at the root of so many of our struggles
• Letting go of the need to be liked
• What it means to live in alignment with your authentic self

Whether you connect with spirituality, therapy, breathwork, or simply the desire to feel more like yourself, this conversation is an invitation to stop hiding the parts of yourself that make you unique.

Maybe the thing you've spent your life trying to change is actually the gift you're here to share.

Where you can find Alexandra:

Website: https://www.themysticmedicine.com/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/themysticmedicine/

Confidence isn't about feeling fearless.

It's about trusting yourself enough to take the first step anyway.

In this episode of Shedding the Shame, I sit down with Sheena Yap Chan, Wall Street Journal bestselling author, TEDx speaker, host of The Tao of Self-Confidence podcast, and creator of the VISIBLE™ Framework. For nearly a decade, Sheena has been helping women build confidence and step into leadership, with a special focus on increasing the visibility and representation of Asian women, whose voices and contributions have too often been overlooked.

Together, we explore why so many women struggle to recognize their own abilities and how the confidence gap impacts our careers, relationships, and lives.

Sheena shares how cultural expectations, imposter syndrome, and the fear of self-promotion can keep women playing small, even when they're more than qualified. We also talk about why simply working hard isn't enough, the importance of advocating for yourself, and how confidence is a skill that can be built.

In this episode, we discuss:

• What the "confidence gap" really is and why it holds so many women back

• Why working hard doesn't always lead to recognition or promotion

• The importance of self-advocacy in your career and everyday life

• How cultural conditioning can shape the way we see ourselves, especially for Asian women navigating stereotypes and expectations

• Navigating imposter syndrome and learning to trust your own voice

• Why confidence isn't something you're born with. It's something you practice.

• Small, practical ways to become more visible and advocate for yourself, even before you feel ready

If you've ever questioned whether you're qualified enough, worried about speaking up, or waited for someone else to recognize your worth, this conversation is for you.

The opportunities you're waiting for may start with believing you're already capable of them.

Sheena's Website: https://www.sheenayapchan.com/

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sheenayapchan/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/sheena.yap.chan/?hl=en

Bridging the Confidence Gap Book: https://a.co/d/0eSzCMZm

Some people find this podcast and wonder...

Who is Tami? And why is she talking about shame?

In this deeply personal solo episode, I'm answering that question. I'm sharing the experiences I've spent decades carrying quietly, from living with hair loss since I was 15, to growing up in an emotionally unsafe home, navigating religious shame, experiencing abandonment, infertility, miscarriage, grief, family trauma, and the imposter syndrome that still follows me today.

For years, I believed these were the parts of my story that needed to stay hidden. Now I've learned that the very things we hide are often the things that connect us most deeply to one another.

I also share why I started Shedding the Shame, how this podcast has grown beyond anything I imagined, and why I'll continue creating a space where women can tell the stories they've been told to keep quiet.

If you've ever wondered whether your story matters...

If you've ever felt like your struggles made you "too much" or "not enough"...

Or if you've been carrying something alone for far too long...

This episode is for you.

Because shame grows in silence. Healing begins when someone is brave enough to speak.