Untethering Shame

Do you carry a quiet, persistent feeling that you are somehow too much for some people and not enough for others, no matter how much work you've done? You are not alone. In this episode, we go beneath the strategies and the affirmations to the place where that feeling actually lives.

We tackle a question from an anonymous listener:

"I've been in therapy. I've read the books. I've done the work, and I still have this deep quiet feeling that I am fundamentally too much for some people and not enough for others. It's been there my whole life, and I can't logic my way out of it. Where does that actually come from, and how do I stop letting it quietly run everything?"

If that in-between feels familiar, this episode is for you. I want to release you from the idea that not being able to think your way out of this is a failure. It isn't. It's a clue. Core beliefs were never formed through logic, so logic alone can't reach them. Your years of therapy and reflection built essential scaffolding. This episode is about the rest of the building.

In this episode, you will learn:

• What a Core Belief Actually Is: Why it's not an opinion but a pre-verbal truth your nervous system decided about you early in life, formed in the body before you could question it.
• Why Affirmations Bounce Off: How your mind and body run on different systems, and why you can know something isn't true while your body still believes it completely.
• How the Belief Was Formed: How a parent's irritation, silence, or conditional praise became a child's conclusion: I'm too much, I'm only lovable when I perform.
• Confirmation Bias in Action: How the belief filters every experience, minimizing warmth and amplifying rejection, so it constantly reinforces itself.
• Belief vs. Identity: The small linguistic shift from "I am too much" to "I have a belief that I'm too much," and why it creates the distance you need to work with it.
• The Evidence File: How intentionally collecting real moments, real people, and real memories starts to interrupt the filter over time.
• Somatic Work: Why the nervous system changes through repeated experience rather than single insights, and what body-level work actually looks like.
• Your Homework: When the belief shows up this week, name it, locate it in your body, and ask how old the feeling is. The answer is usually much younger than you.

Resources & Links:

• Liberated Living Program: Learn more about the coaching program at https://adversityrising.com/liberated-living
• Start with the burnout quiz to find your honest starting point: https://adversityrising.com/quiz

📝 Want to submit a question for a future episode? Nothing is off-limits (well, almost nothing). Submit anonymously or with your name, whatever feels safest for you.
👉 Submit Here: https://forms.gle/1uYJ87Y2Vag6KYCeA

💬 If this episode spoke to you, drop a comment and share your biggest takeaway: I'd love to hear what came up for you.

Take the Next Step

• ★ Download the FREE Guide: "Five Things Shame Resilient People Do Every Day and Three Things They Don't" and start making those daily shifts. https://www.adversityrising.com/become-shame-resilient
• ★ Book a Free 25 Minute Discovery Call: Discuss program options and find the support that fits your needs. https://calendly.com/adversityrising/discovery-call
• ★ Sign up for Liberated Living: Practice Radical Acceptance, Radical Responsibility, and Radical Authorship to reclaim your life. https://adversityrising.com/liberated-living

Stay Connected:

• Subscribe on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/2AouludJr7EweOkMIN9s42
• Subscribe on Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/untethering-shame/id1691795543
• YouTube: www.youtube.com/@adversityrising
• Website: www.adversityrising.com

That feeling is a child's conclusion about a child's world, carried by a body that never got an update. It doesn't have to be your identity. You are allowed to revise the story.

At 42, Jane went home to Taiwan for Chinese New Year and stayed in a hotel instead of her parents' house. It took four decades of healing work to get there.

In this episode of Untethering Shame, I sit down with Jane I-Chen Liu, LMHC, SEP, a therapist trained in IFS, EMDR, and Somatic Experiencing, to talk about why boundaries with parents feel so impossible.

We get into why you swing between over-tolerating everything and cutting off completely, and why neither one is a failure. Jane explains role confusion in enmeshed families, the difference between healthy shame and toxic shame, and why your nervous system can stay frozen at the age you were hurt.

She also walks through her three-step framework: heal the younger parts, update your current nervous system, then rehearse the new behavior before you are in the room.

The reframe that lands hardest: boundaries are not rejection. Jane's dad still picked her up from that hotel every day for lunch and dancing. The boundary changed where she slept, not whether she showed up.

This conversation is for you if:

• You feel like a bad son or daughter every time you say no
• You have gone from tolerating too much to no contact and back again
• Shame keeps popping up no matter how much work you have done

About Jane:
Jane I-Chen Liu, LMHC, SEP, is the founder of KareKounseling, PLLC, a trauma-informed practice in Washington State. She helps adults heal childhood wounds, developmental trauma, CPTSD, generational trauma, and toxic shame using EMDR, IFS, and Somatic Experiencing.

Connect with Jane:

Website: http://www.karekounseling.com

Ready to take the next step?

• Download the free handout, 5 Things Shame Resilient People Do Every Day
• Book a free 25-minute discovery call

Stay Connected:

• Spotify
• Apple Podcasts
• YouTube
• Website

Do you say no with confidence to friends and family, then fold the second your boss sends a "do you have a few minutes?" message? You are not alone. In this episode, we get honest about why work boundaries feel impossible even after years of boundary work.

We tackle a question from our listener Deb:

"I've gotten better at limits with friends and family, but the second my boss asks me for something I know I can't take on, it's like I fold every time. I say yes, I resent it, and then I feel guilty for resenting it. Why is saying no at work so much harder than everywhere else? And how do I do it without destroying my reputation or my relationships?"

If that moment feels familiar, this episode is for you. I want to release you from the idea that folding at work means you haven't done enough work on yourself. It doesn't. Work is where your worth gets evaluated publicly, with real consequences attached, so your nervous system treats a no as an existential threat. That response is logical. It's also running on an old story, and you can rewrite it.

In this episode, you will learn:

• The Core Belief Underneath: How "my value at work is tied to my willingness to say yes" formed long before you had a paycheck, and why it fires faster than your thinking brain.
• Why Work Rewards the Pattern: How praise, promotions, and "team player" labels quietly confirm the belief while burning you out.
• The Guilt-Resentment Loop: Why resentment pushes you toward no, shame pulls you back toward yes, and communication scripts alone will never break the cycle.
• Separate the Request From Your Worth: How to recognize that your boss is assessing capacity, not questioning your value, so the stakes drop in your nervous system.
• Stop Overexplaining: Why an elaborate justification is the verbal equivalent of asking permission, and the one full sentence that's actually enough.
• The Story After the No: Why the guilt is almost never proportional to the consequence, and how to catch the catastrophizing before it takes over your week.
• When the Environment Is the Problem: How to tell the difference between a workplace where no is safe and one where the honest question is whether you can sustain yourself there at all.
• Your Homework: Revisit one recent regretted yes and answer three questions, including what you would tell a colleague you respect in the same spot.

Resources & Links:

• Liberated Living Program: Learn more about the coaching program at https://adversityrising.com/liberated-living
• Start with the burnout quiz to find your honest starting point: https://adversityrising.com/quiz

📝 Want to submit a question for a future episode? Nothing is off-limits (well, almost nothing). Submit anonymously or with your name, whatever feels safest for you.
👉 Submit Here: https://forms.gle/1uYJ87Y2Vag6KYCeA

💬 If this episode spoke to you, drop a comment and share your biggest takeaway: I'd love to hear what came up for you.

Take the Next Step

• ★ Download the FREE Guide: "Five Things Shame Resilient People Do Every Day and Three Things They Don't" and start making those daily shifts. https://www.adversityrising.com/become-shame-resilient
• ★ Book a Free 25 Minute Discovery Call: Discuss program options and find the support that fits your needs. https://calendly.com/adversityrising/discovery-call
• ★ Sign up for Liberated Living: Practice Radical Acceptance, Radical Responsibility, and Radical Authorship to reclaim your life. https://adversityrising.com/liberated-living

Stay Connected:

• Subscribe on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/2AouludJr7EweOkMIN9s42
• Subscribe on Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/untethering-shame/id1691795543
• YouTube: www.youtube.com/@adversityrising
• Website: www.adversityrising.com

Your no, delivered with clarity, is an act of integrity. And integrity builds reputations. It doesn't destroy them.

Why do we escape, what are we really running from, and what does it actually take to stop?

In this episode of Untethering Shame, I sit down with psychotherapist Jessica Fern and restorative justice facilitator David Cooley, co-authors of a new book built around the shame triangle. We go deeper into the four types of escapers: over-functioning, under-functioning, other emotions, and aggression, and how each one is a nervous system response to the weight of shame and the inner critic.

All three of us bring our own lived experience to the table, so the concepts land as personal and immediately recognizable. We talk about how society rewards certain forms of escape (hello, hustle culture), why most therapy and self-help stop at the symptom level, and how to move from the shame triangle into the self-love triangle: escapers become inner nurturers, and the inner critic becomes an inner coach.

What You'll Learn

• Escapism is a nervous system response, not a character flaw
• The inner critic is built from the outside in, as a survival strategy
• The 4 escaper types: over-functioning, under-functioning, other emotions, aggression
• Why productivity culture makes over-functioning invisible
• Why treating the symptom (anxiety, perfectionism, addiction) is not enough
• How the shame triangle shifts into a self-love triangle
• Healing means expanding your window of tolerance, not eliminating discomfort
• The inner critic is loud, but it is not truth
• Start with one part: the critic, the shame, or the escapers. Just get to know it.

Connect with Our Guests

• Jessica Fern, psychotherapist and author of Polysecure: JessicaFern.com
• David Cooley, creator of Restorative Relationship Conversations: restorativerelationship.com

Get Connected

• Subscribe to my YouTube channel
• Sign up for my email list
• Listen on Spotify or Apple Podcasts

Take the Next Step

• Download the free handout, 5 Things Shame Resilient People Do Every Day
• Book a free 25-minute discovery call
• Join the next round of Liberated Living

Do you know you should apologize, but feel your whole body resist the moment it's time to say the words? You are not alone. In this episode, we get honest about why accountability feels so threatening, and why it has far less to do with ego than you think.

We tackle a question inspired by one of my recent group workshops:

"Why does it feel so uncomfortable to admit when I'm wrong or apologize, even when I know I should?"

If that hesitation feels familiar, this episode is for you. I want to release you from the idea that struggling to apologize means you don't care. Most of the people who struggle with this care deeply, sometimes too deeply. They are so terrified of being perceived as bad that accountability starts to feel emotionally annihilating. This is shame, not character, and what was learned can be unlearned.

In this episode, you will learn:

• Guilt vs. Shame: Why "I did something bad" allows movement while "I am bad" creates collapse, defensiveness, and overexplaining.
• Where It Started: How growing up in homes where mistakes felt dangerous, punishable, or shameful taught your nervous system that being wrong risks disconnection.
• Why Adults Never Apologized: How homes built on authority instead of repair left many of us without a model for tolerating imperfection.
• Repair Over Perfection: Why healthy relationships require rupture and repair, and why repair, not flawlessness, is what builds trust with your kids, partner, and friends.
• Self-Forgiveness Done Right: How to hold two truths at once: I don't love what I did, and I still deserve compassion while I grow.
• Why Shame Blocks Change: Why people become more accountable when they stop treating mistakes as proof they're broken, because safety creates change, not shame.
• Your Homework: Get curious about where you learned that being wrong was unsafe, and start normalizing being human without collapsing.

Resources & Links:

• Liberated Living Program: Learn more about the coaching program at https://adversityrising.com/liberated-living
• Start with the burnout quiz to find your honest starting point: https://adversityrising.com/quiz

📝 Want to submit a question for a future episode? Nothing is off-limits (well, almost nothing). Submit anonymously or with your name, whatever feels safest for you.
👉 Submit Here: https://forms.gle/1uYJ87Y2Vag6KYCeA

💬 If this episode spoke to you, drop a comment and share your biggest takeaway: I'd love to hear what came up for you.

Take the Next Step

• ★ Download the FREE Guide: "Five Things Shame Resilient People Do Every Day and Three Things They Don't" and start making those daily shifts. https://www.adversityrising.com/become-shame-resilient
• ★ Book a Free 25 Minute Discovery Call: Discuss program options and find the support that fits your needs. https://calendly.com/adversityrising/discovery-call
• ★ Sign up for Liberated Living: Practice Radical Acceptance, Radical Responsibility, and Radical Authorship to reclaim your life. https://adversityrising.com/liberated-living

Stay Connected:

• Subscribe on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/2AouludJr7EweOkMIN9s42
• Subscribe on Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/untethering-shame/id1691795543
• YouTube: www.youtube.com/@adversityrising
• Website: www.adversityrising.com

You don't have to be perfect to be worthy of connection. You just have to be willing to repair. And you already are.

Grief doesn't only come from death. Sometimes it comes from the slow loss of a relationship, an identity, a place you used to belong.

In this episode of Untethering Shame, I sit down with Marcia Earhart, a grief and trauma-informed coach, mediator, and HeartSync minister, for a raw conversation about estrangement, complicated grief, and what it actually costs to belong somewhere you have to disappear to stay.

Marcia and I hold genuinely opposing beliefs. We chose curiosity anyway. That choice is the episode.

We get into why estrangement is rarely about politics, how social media manufactures division, why avoidance damages more than conflict ever will, and why waiting for time to heal you is the quietest way to stay stuck.

This conversation is for you if:

• You have lost someone who is still alive
• You have shrunk yourself to keep a seat at a table
• You avoid hard conversations and call it peace
• You are grieving a version of yourself you cannot get back

Connect with Marcia:

• Website: thesterlingrosesanctuary.us
• Instagram: @thesterlingrosesanctuary
• Facebook: TSRS21
• LinkedIn: Marcia Earhart
• YouTube: @marciaearhart6328

Free handout: 5 Things Shame Resilient People Do Every Day. Download it here.

Book a free 25-minute discovery call: Schedule here.

Stay connected:

• adversityrising.com
• YouTube @adversityrising
• Spotify
• Apple Podcasts

Leave a review and tell me what landed.

What if the traits you've been praised for your whole life, the perfectionism, the rule following, the relentless work ethic, were actually symptoms of a diagnosis most people have never heard of?

In this episode, I sit down with Janice Russell, the Overwhelm Slayer, to unpack Obsessive Compulsive Personality Disorder (OCPD). Not OCD. OCPD. Janice spent decades building a life that looked incredibly productive and impressively accomplished, from special education to corporate to a 20-year career as a professional organizer, before a therapist handed her a questionnaire that finally explained the operating system her brain had been running the whole time.

We get into the difference between OCD and OCPD, why so many people go undiagnosed, what it feels like when you literally cannot turn your brain off, and how Janice has learned to leverage her wiring instead of fighting it. From planning her relaxation (yes, really) to a gratitude practice built around a two-inch notebook, this conversation is a masterclass in working with your brain, not against it.

What we cover:

• The difference between OCD (an anxiety disorder) and OCPD (a personality disorder)
• Why the traits society celebrates can be the same ones quietly depleting you
• How Janice found out about her diagnosis while in therapy for depression
• The exhaustion of a brain that never stops and why she has to plan her downtime
• Building systems that honor your wiring: gratitude notebooks, mindfulness streaks, and scheduled recharge
• Navigating interpersonal relationships when your brain defaults to "there's a right way"
• "Done is better than perfect" and asking "what's the worst thing that could happen if I don't do this?"
• How Janice now helps others optimize life after a medical diagnosis

More about Janice:

Janice Russell is the Overwhelm Slayer, helping people navigate life after a health diagnosis by building systems that make paperwork, to-dos, and time feel manageable. After 11 years in the classroom and time in the corporate world, they built a business grounded in decades of hands-on organizing and productivity experience. Today, Janice provides virtual coaching and accountability for clients managing brain-based, autoimmune, and other body-based conditions.

Connect with Janice:

• Website
• LinkedIn
• Facebook
• Instagram
• YouTube

Ready to take the next step?

Download the FREE handout, "5 Things Shame Resilient People Do Every Day" and start making those daily shifts to break that shame cycle that's keeping you stuck in that negative headspace.

Book a free 25-minute discovery call to discuss different program options and find the support that best fits your needs.

Stay Connected:

Subscribe to the podcast on Spotify or Apple Podcasts and be sure to leave a review to let us know your thoughts on this episode.

YouTube | Website

Please note: this episode covers substance use, fentanyl poisoning, child loss, and grief. Take care while listening. If you're struggling, you can call or text 988 (Suicide and Crisis Lifeline) or reach SAMHSA at 1-800-662-4357. Michelle Kullmann was sure it would never be her kid. Then her 18-year-old son Cade took one pill at college, a fake Percocet that was 100% fentanyl, and he never came home.

In this episode, Michelle tells Cade's full story: who he was, the night he died in his UW-Milwaukee dorm, the warning signs nobody in the room recognized, and the judgment she faced afterward. Strangers called her son a junkie. This conversation is about the grief, and the second wound that stigma piles on top of it.

Michelle refuses to call what happened an overdose. It was a fentanyl poisoning. It only takes two milligrams of fentanyl to kill you, enough to fit on the tip of a pencil. Today she fights to put Narcan on every college campus and to tell young people the truth about what the fentanyl crisis really looks like.

In this conversation:

• Why "fentanyl poisoning" is not the same as "overdose"
• The warning signs of an opioid emergency that could save a life
• How fake pills are pressed to look like Percocet, Adderall, and Xanax
• How stigma keeps families silent and keeps this crisis hidden
• How Michelle turned her loss into advocacy through Cade's Light

Please note: this episode covers substance use, child loss, and grief. Take care while listening.

Connect with Michelle Kullmann
Cade's Light: cadeslight.org
LinkedIn: Michelle Kullmann

Resources
988 Suicide and Crisis Lifeline: call or text 988
SAMHSA National Helpline: 1-800-662-4357

Ready to take the next step?
Download the free handout, 5 Things Shame Resilient People Do Every Day, and start breaking the shame cycle that keeps you stuck.
Book a free 25-minute discovery call to find the support that fits your needs.

Stay connected
Subscribe on Spotify or Apple Podcasts and leave a review to let us know your thoughts on this episode.

Do you know you should teach your kids that discomfort isn't an emergency, but freeze because you have never figured out how to sit with it yourself? You are not alone. In this episode, we get honest about teaching a skill you are still learning, and why that might be the most powerful version of this work there is. We tackle a question from an anonymous listener:

"I know I need to teach my kids that they can't have everything immediately and that discomfort isn't an emergency, but honestly? I'm terrible at sitting with discomfort myself. I distract, I scroll, I fix things just to make the feeling stop. How do I teach my kids something I haven't figured out myself yet?"

If that scene feels familiar, this episode is for you. I want to release you from the idea that you have to be fully healed to be a good parent in this area. You don't. You just need to be honest and willing to do the work alongside your kids. We get into why this is a nervous system pattern rather than a discipline problem, how it gets handed down across generations, and what a steadier kind of love actually looks like in the hard moments.

In this episode, you will learn:

• Discomfort Tolerance Is a Skill: Why this is a nervous system pattern, not a willpower problem, and why a skill can only be built if someone creates the conditions to practice it.
• The Intergenerational Pattern: How the way you respond to discomfort was handed to you, without blame, and why you are at a remarkable moment to choose something different.
• What Rescuing Actually Teaches: Why fixing a hard feeling too fast accidentally confirms the belief that discomfort is dangerous, and what a steadier love looks like instead.
• You Are the Curriculum: Why kids learn discomfort tolerance from watching you move through something hard, not from lectures about it.
• The Pause: A concrete practice for catching your own rescuing impulse and asking whether this is an actual emergency or a feeling they can move through with your support.
• Co-Regulation and Narration: Why you only have to be more regulated than they are, and how naming your own discomfort out loud regulates you and teaches them at the same time.
• Scrolling and Real Relief: Why distraction is an understandable strategy, not a character flaw, and the difference between relief that restores you and relief that just interrupts the feeling.
• Your Homework: One small practice for staying present in a mild moment of discomfort, so you teach your child and learn it yourself, side by side.

Resources & Links:

• Liberated Living Program: Learn more about the coaching program at https://adversityrising.com/liberated-living
• Start with the burnout quiz to find your honest starting point: https://adversityrising.com/quiz
• 📝 Want to submit a question for a future episode? Nothing is off-limits (well, almost nothing). Submit anonymously or with your name, whatever feels safest for you. 👉 Submit Here
• 💬 If this episode spoke to you, drop a comment and share your biggest takeaway: I'd love to hear what came up for you.

Take the Next Step:

• ★ Download the FREE Guide: "Five Things Shame Resilient People Do Every Day and Three Things They Don't" and start making those daily shifts. https://www.adversityrising.com/become-shame-resilient
• ★ Book a Free 25 Minute Discovery Call: Discuss program options and find the support that fits your needs. https://calendly.com/adversityrising/discovery-call
• ★ Sign up for Liberated Living: Practice Radical Acceptance, Radical Responsibility, and Radical Authorship to reclaim your life. https://adversityrising.com/liberated-living

You don't have to be a perfect parent. You just have to be a willing one. And you already are.

What happens when you have done all the things, read the books, attended the webinars, and still feel disconnected from yourself? In this episode I sit down with Elizabeth Webb, positive psychology expert, coach, and author of Made for Magic, to talk about why so many of us stay stuck in patterns that drain us, and how we start choosing differently.

We get into self-abandonment and the quiet ways we spend our time and energy on everyone but ourselves. We name the trap of toxic toleration, the shadowy side of being the fixer, and why unasked-for help is often a form of control. Elizabeth gets honest about people-pleasing, the line "when you stop people pleasing, people are not pleased," and the grief that shows up when you start renegotiating the invisible relational contracts you never knew you signed.

We also talk about the shame spiral that keeps you stuck, how hope and choice rebuild your agency, and the practical, body-based tools you can use in the moment when breaking a pattern feels scary.

In this conversation:

• Why self-abandonment quietly runs your week, and how to track it
• Toxic toleration and the cost of being the one who holds everyone's stuff
• The shadowy side of caretaking and unasked-for help
• How the shame spiral keeps you out of action
• Elizabeth's energy reclamation practice for rumination
• Breaking and rewriting relational contracts without ghosting people
• The grief that follows boundary work, and how to be with it
• In-the-moment distress tolerance: walks, nature, grounding, bilateral stimulation
• Why hope is always available, because choice is always available

About Elizabeth:
Elizabeth Webb is The Practical Priestess and an expert in positive psychology and human behavior. For over two decades she has helped leaders, celebrities, and change-makers break free from life's shackles, make empowered choices, and build a life they are excited to wake up to. Her debut book, Made for Magic, is out now in paperback and audiobook, narrated by Elizabeth.

Connect with Elizabeth:
Website: http://positivelyelizabeth.com/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/positivelyelizabeth/
Get the first chapter of Made for Magic free: http://madeformagicbook.com/

Ready to take the next step?
Download the free handout, 5 Things Shame Resilient People Do Every Day, and start making the daily shifts that break the shame cycle keeping you stuck: http://www.adversityrising.com/become-shame-resilient
Book a free 25-minute discovery call to talk through program options and find the support that fits you best: https://calendly.com/adversityrising/discovery-call

If this one landed, comment POD and let me know what hit home.

Stay connected:
Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/2AouludJr7EweOkMIN9s42?si=d8cdfcb925ce4c9c
Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/untethering-shame/id1691795543
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@adversityrising
Website: https://www.adversityrising.com