Shame Is Not Yours to Carry: How to unlearn shame, reconnect with your body, and begin again through mind–body healing

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Segment 2: Reclaiming Wholeness

Episode 3: Shame is Not Yours to Carry

Shame is borrowed weight. You were never meant to carry it. — Dr. Kidi

Shame is not yours to carry, yet so many of us move through life holding it like it belongs to us. 

I am writing this because in my medical practice, I see how shame gets in the way of healing, but I also hear it far beyond my clinic. 

Teenagers say, “I am so dumb,” “I hate myself,” “I always mess things up.” Young adults say, “Something is wrong with me,” “I am not good enough,” “I do not deserve to feel better.” Midlife carries its own phrases, “I should have known better,” “I am failing,” “I am too far behind,” and often, “I have failed as a parent.” Elders echo the same wound, “I am a burden,” “I did not do life right.” 

And there is nothing harder than hearing these words from teenagers and young adults, because they are still becoming, still learning their worth, and shame tries to claim them before they have a chance to know themselves. 

If you have ever turned a mistake into a story about who you are, keep reading. We are going to define what shame is, how it lives in the body, and how to reset and begin again without abandoning yourself.

Shame vs. Guilt: What’s the Difference?

Have you noticed how sometimes after you mess up, you feel a pull to fix the problem, and other times you want to hide? Shame and guilt are both painful feelings tied to wrongdoing or perceived failure, but they point in different directions.

• Guilt is the heavy awareness that I did something wrong (or believe I did), and it comes with a sense of blame or responsibility.

• Shame is the deeper sting that something is wrong with me, a feeling of humiliation or disgrace about who I am or how I showed up.

  
  

Let’s try a simple exercise.

Imagine you are at a party and you spill red wine on your friend’s white dress. You feel bad right away. What kind of bad is it? To find out, listen to the story that follows the feeling.

Guilt says, “I did something wrong, and I can repair it.” It focuses on the action. The message is, “I made a mistake, but I am not a bad person.” With guilt, you feel sorry about what happened, not about who you are. It guides you towards responsibility. You apologize, you offer to clean the stain, you try to make it right. Guilt can guide healing because it reminds you that your actions can change.

Shame says, “I am wrong.” It shifts from the action to the self. Your thoughts repeat, “I am so clumsy. I always mess things up. I am the worst.” That voice is shame turning one mistake into a statement about your worth.

Unlike guilt, shame makes you want to disappear. It brings embarrassment, self-blame, and withdrawal. You stop thinking about repair and start thinking about escape.

Too much shame can feed anxiety, depression, and isolation.

If guilt is a ripple on the surface, shame is the undertow that pulls you under. You were never meant to be pulled under by the weight of shame.

The Origin: Survival Shame vs. Expectation Shame.

Shame arrives long before we speak our first word, carried in the family air and the social weather around us. We are not born believing we are wrong. We learn it through the ways love is offered, withheld, or made conditional. Over time, shame takes root as a belief: something is wrong with me. That belief becomes a seed.

Later, when life brings mistakes, rejection, or imperfection, the old seed rises. The body reacts first. The thoughts follow. And suddenly we feel like we are the problem.

Across generations, shame can wear many faces.

Strictness.

Perfectionism.

Scarcity.

Comparison.

Emotional distance.

The forms differ, but the message is the same: something about me must be controlled or hidden to be safe.

And this is where it helps to name what we are carrying. Because not all shame is born the same way. Some shame grows from what was expected of us. Some shame grows from what our families had to survive. In other words, shame tends to arrive through two main doorways: survival and expectation.

The Survival Shame

Survival shame is born in fear. It is shame that grows from danger, scarcity, and the need to survive. It lives in families shaped by violence, oppression, or instability, where mistakes once carried real consequences.

For me, this story begins in Ethiopia.

I was raised under Mengistu Haile Mariam’s dictatorship, after Emperor Haile Selassie was toppled. My grandmother on my father's side, Emebet Hoy Beletae Ayele Work, was a first cousin to the Emperor, so fear was not abstract for us. It was personal. Relatives were executed. Property and wealth were taken. Lives were disrupted. Trust in the community cracked. Curiosity was replaced with caution. Before we learned to trust a room, we learned to scan it.

The Netch Lebash, the spies who watched and reported, were everywhere. Sometimes they were strangers. Sometimes they were people you shared coffee with. Even within families, there was a quiet question that never fully went away: who is listening?

Children hid under beds when heavy knocks shook the door. My mother made us sleep fully clothed, even in our shoes, because we did not know if strangers would come and take a parent or a child away. Silence was not politeness. It was protection. We learned to swallow emotion, to stay small, to stay unnoticed. Saying the wrong thing could carry danger.

Fear was not a story we heard.

Fear was the air we breathed.

Later, when many families rebuilt their lives in places like America, the fear did not stay behind. It came with us in how we worked, how we worried, how we raised our children. We became achievers because failure once meant danger. We became providers because we had known scarcity. We became careful because mistakes once meant death. Even in safety, our bodies kept remembering what it took to survive.

And here is how survival shame gets passed down. We hand fear to our children dressed up as pressure. We push achievement to keep them safe. We teach restraint to avoid risk. Not because anyone intended harm, but because survival shaped how our families loved. 

And here is how a child absorbs the message: If I do not get it right, I am not safe. If I relax, something could fall apart. That is not character weakness. That is an inherited shame.

The Expectation Shame

Expectation shame grows where love feels unsure and is tied to performance. It often starts from mixed messages. As children, we learn right and wrong from adults and society. When we break a rule, we may feel guilty because we know we did something others call wrong. Guilt is about the action.

Shame is different. Shame forms through eyes and voices that meet us with disapproval, or affection that feels earned. It shows up in glances that say "not enough," tones that withdraw warmth, praise that only comes when we succeed. Slowly, the mind begins to believe, I am the issue.

You can see how early it starts.

In a classroom, a child raises their hand with honest curiosity, and the teacher sighs, rolls their eyes, or says, “That’s a dumb question.” The room laughs. The lesson lands in the body before it lands in the brain.

Don’t ask.

Don’t risk.

You are the problem.

At home, a parent says, “What is wrong with you?” or “Why can’t you be more like so and so?” or even the quiet version, the look that hardens when you cry, the warmth that returns only when you perform.

The child does not think, I made a mistake. 

The child thinks, I am a mistake.

None of these moments have to be loud to leave a mark. Sometimes shame is a sentence. Sometimes it is a smirk. Sometimes it is love that feels conditional.

But each time, the same message slips under the skin. 

Be smaller. 

Be someone else. 

Be ashamed.

And bit by bit, the mind learns to turn on itself.

This kind of shame teaches us to manage ourselves for acceptance.

To be impressive.

To be agreeable.

To be perfect.

We become skilled at earning love, but uncertain about belonging without excellence. Many loving families can pass this down without meaning to. When expectation is the doorway to love, a child learns that their worth must be proven.

Whatever the origin, shame feels like danger to the body. The nervous system reacts as if something needs to be fought or escaped.

The Body Hears Shame as Danger

Shame traps us in the belief that we are never good enough. It keeps the mind in self-blame and blocks healing because it insists we cannot change. And when that harsh inner voice shows up, your nervous system does not treat it like “just a thought.” The body hears shame as danger.

In that moment, you can drop into the acute stress response, also called the sympathetic fight-or-flight response. This is your autonomic nervous system shifting into survival mode. It is the same system that would switch on if you were walking through tall grass and suddenly saw a lion.

Picture it.

Your brain spots a lion. Before you have time to reason, your body is already moving. Your heart speeds up to send blood to your muscles. Your breathing quickens to pull in more oxygen. Stress hormones like adrenaline surge so you can run, fight, or freeze. Your senses sharpen. Your whole system says, “Something is coming for you. Act now.”

Shame can set off that same cascade. Not because a lion is in the room, but because shame feels like a threat to belonging, safety, and worth. The body responds as if a real predator is near. Yet there is nothing to fight and no clear place to run. So the survival energy turns inward, and the urge becomes to hide, shut down, go quiet, or disappear.

Here is the difference. With the lion, the acute stress response is designed to end when the danger passes. The lion leaves, and your nervous system can return to safety. With shame, the threat is not outside you, so it does not resolve in a single moment. Shame can linger in the body like a danger that never walks away. The nervous system stays on guard, and you remain stressed even when you are trying to rest.

This is not you being dramatic. This is your body trying to protect you from what it believes is danger. But over time, that constant activation drains your energy, fatigues your organs, and wears down the systems that keep you well. Chronic stress can contribute to illness, including higher blood pressure and anxiety. When shame becomes a long-term home in the nervous system, the body pays the rent.

Chronic shame can become chronic illness.

Beneath it all, a deeper truth remains. 

We were not born with shame. 

We learned it. 

And what was learned can be unlearned to return to wholeness.

Returning to wholeness

You do not have to carry shame forever. Mistakes are part of being human. Your past can teach you, but it does not define you.

Guilt can be useful when it stays tied to what happened, not who you are. If you feel guilty, ask: Is there something I can do to make this right? If yes, take responsibility, repair what you can, and let the moment rest in the past. Replaying it over and over only pulls you into rumination and keeps you stuck.

Shame is different. Shame blames your identity, not just your behavior, and it grows in silence. If you have someone safe, share what you are carrying. Shame loses power when it is named in a trusted place. It thrives in loneliness, which is why connection is part of the cure.

Letting go of shame is a daily practice. Here are three ways to begin:

1. Name the root and meet yourself with compassion. If you can, trace where the shame started. Then remind yourself: this feeling is a perception, not a verdict. Practice self-compassion. Speak to yourself the way you would speak to someone you love. Kindness is not a reward for healing. It is a doorway into healing.

2. Use mindfulness to tell fear from truth. When your body tightens or uneasiness rises, pause and breathe. Ask: Am I acting from fear or from truth? Am I trying to prove myself or be myself? Does this choice make me smaller or make me whole? If no one were watching, would I still choose it? These questions become a compass. The more you use them, the clearer the path back to wholeness.

3. Practice the Tinfash 4C Reset when shame pulls you back. Pause and choose calm. Close your eyes. Count your breath. Create distance. Picture yourself setting down the weight you have carried for years. Thank it for how it once tried to protect you. Then step forward without it.

   Lighter. Clearer. Whole.

   
   

Going Forward with Kindness

Shame slips into our lives through what we were told, what we saw, and what we learned to believe about ourselves. After a mistake, it tries to turn one moment into a permanent label.

You can hear it in the familiar lines we learned to carry:

• shame on you

• I am ashamed

• you should know better

• you always mess things up

• why are you like this

• you should be more like them

Words matter.

They shape your thoughts.

Your thoughts shape your beliefs.

Your beliefs shape your identity.

Your identity shapes how you move through the world.

Your body believes you, even when you call it small talk.

But here is the truth.

You are not the worst thing you have done.

You are not the fear your family carried.

You are not the voice that says you will never be enough.

Now that you know the difference between shame and guilt, you can start to notice what is rising in you in real time.

Guilt points to a choice you can repair.

Shame insists that you are the problem.

When shame shows up, you still have a choice. You can follow it into hiding, or you can pause, breathe, and come back to yourself. That is how healing begins again.

Shame does not lift through willpower alone because it does not live only in the mind. It lives in the body. Healing needs more than insight. It needs a daily practice.

This is the work we do together at What Healing Knows Tinfash Healing Space. We unlearn shame with honesty.

We listen to the body without judgment.

We practice self-respect instead of self-punishment.

We rebuild self-trust breath by breath.

Together we use guided meditation to settle the nervous system, journaling to name what is true, and mantras to grow an inner voice your body can believe.

You do not have to carry this alone.

You were never meant to.

Come as you are.

We will begin again, until we become whole.

Tinfash: Dr.Kidi’s Healing Space

A space to breathe. A space to listen. A space to begin again.

Moment for Meditation: Shame Is Not Yours to Carry

Journal Invitation: Release What Was Never Yours

Write a letter to yourself that starts, “Dear one, I want to…”

Say what you want to unload, when you picked it up, how it has shaped you, and what you want to carry instead. End with one promise you will keep going forward.

Healing Words to Repeat

Shame is not mine to carry.

Repeat it slowly. Feel it travel through every place that once felt divided.

Closing Call to Connection

Healing deepens when it is shared.

Reach out to someone who reminds you of your truth.

Speak honestly. Listen fully. Let your presence be healing.

Visit drkidi.com for more reflections from What Healing Knows.

Follow @drkidi.healing to join a community learning to return to themselves, one gentle moment at a time.

To read my short stories go to Substack @drkidi.

Until next time,

Trust the journey. Keep listening. Healing knows the way.