
Embracing Shame
How to Stop Resisting Shame and Turn It into a Powerful Ally
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Narrated by:
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Carla Emmons
About this listen
Discover a proven pathway for transforming shame from a self-punishing emotion into a powerful ally for your health and happiness.
Why do we feel shame? Given how painful and destructive shame can be, it’s easy to see this emotion as an inner demon that turns our own mind against us. Yet shame is a universal emotion—and it serves an important purpose. “While toxic shame can keep us stuck in a self-defeating vortex,” say Bret Lyon and Sheila Rubin, “there is a healthy expression of shame designed to protect us, help us change, and actually build our self-esteem.”
With Embracing Shame, these expert teachers share an invaluable guide to an emotion so volatile that most of us—including therapists—avoid talking about it. Here this husband and wife team, cofounders of the Center for Healing Shame, examine the dynamics of shame, the reasons it arises, why it causes such harm, and how we can heal its negative effects. Through case studies, creative tools, and body-based practices, they invite you to explore:
• The purpose of shame—How it is meant to protect and guide us, and why it gets distorted into a self-sabotaging emotion
• How shame disguises itself by “binding” to other emotions—and methods for disentangling these complex feelings
• The ways shame forms in childhood, evolves as we grow, is impacted by trauma, and takes residence in the body
• Practical guidance for regulating common shame-based challenges—including the inner critic, imposter syndrome, perfectionism, intimacy in relationships, and much more
While no amount of self-talk, personal success, or therapy can eradicate shame, we can transform shame into the supportive, health-promoting force it was meant to be. Created as a go-to resource for laypersons and healing professionals alike, Embracing Shame offers an achievable path for reclaiming the true potential of this vital emotion to help us grow, connect, and find a new confidence in the way we move through life.
©2023 Bret Lyon, PhD, SEP and Sheila Rubin, MA, LMFT, RDT/BCT (P)2023 Sounds TrueCritic reviews
“A few times in a lifetime a book comes along that opens up the dark recesses of our lives and illuminates the mysteries of human behavior, including why people act the way they do and why there is so much emotional suffering in the world. Embracing Shame by Bret Lyon and Sheila Rubin is such a book. It is engaging, transformative, and eye opening!”—Ann Weiser Cornell, PhD, CEO of Focusing Resources and author of The Radical Acceptance of Everything
“Heartwarming, empowering, vulnerable, and brilliant. Every so often, a book comes along that will inspire your mind, touch your soul, and remind you that you are not alone. Embracing Shame by Sheila Rubin and Bret Lyon is a groundbreaking book that can help you break free of the chains of shame. Through stories, concrete practices, and research, Sheila and Bret bring us face-to-face with shame’s power to paralyze our lives while also offering a way out through embracing it.”—Albert Wong, PhD, director of the Trauma Certificate Program at Somatopia
“Bret Lyon and Sheila Rubin have already transformed the trauma therapy field with their Healing Shame workshops. Now anybody who picks up this book can benefit from their radical healing approach to shame. They have written a gem of a book that anybody can read, understand, relate to, and apply to themselves, to clients, to loved ones. Expect to learn, expect to have ‘aha’ moments, expect to be moved, expect to be transformed.”—Diana Fosha, PhD, developer of AEDP, editor of Undoing Aloneness and the Transformation of Suffering into Flourishing, and author of The Transforming Power of Affect
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