How to Stop Shaming Yourself & Reclaim Your Power - with Emma Lyons

Emma Lyons and I are diving deep into something we all carry but rarely talk about: Shame.

Emma spent 15 years in human rights law before burning out and realizing she had to dismantle her own trauma patterns from the ground up. 

Now, she’s an Inner Power Guide helping women like us stop the self-sabotage and actually heal our nervous systems. 

We talk about how those things we think are just "personality traits"—like being shy or afraid to speak up - are often just survival responses our bodies are holding onto from way back.

We get into the "inner critic" (which Emma calls the inner narcissist) and how it keeps us under a kind of house arrest, preventing us from receiving the goodness we deserve. 

Emma shares her "BREAK" method to help us snap out of those shame spirals in real time so we can finally start living authentically and, as she puts it, shamelessly. 

It’s such an eye-opening look at how breaking these cycles doesn’t just change our own lives, but ripples out to everyone around us.

You’ll hear us chat about:

• Why mindset work is only half the battle and how our bodies store fear
• Reclaiming the word "shameless" as a badge of honor and authenticity
• How shame acts as a tool for control and how to stop passing it on
• Emma’s simple, powerful steps to shake off inherited trauma for good

This episode is a total permission slip to stop hiding and start taking up the space you were always meant to fill. 

I can't wait for you to hear it!

Connect with Emma Lyons:

https://traumamatrix.substack.com/
https://www.linkedin.com/in/emma-lyons-traumamatrix/
https://www.facebook.com/trauma.matrix
https://www.youtube.com/@trauma.matrix
https://www.tiktok.com/@trauma.matrix

Access your FREE gift here: 

5 signs it's time to break up with your inner narcissist

https://tinyurl.com/NotTodayNarc

Thank you for spending time with me today on the Thrive After 45™ podcast! If this episode spoke to you, be sure to hit that follow button so you never miss one.

And if you loved it, I’d be so grateful if you left a review - it helps more amazing women like you find this show!

Your journey doesn’t stop here - let’s keep the conversation going! Connect with me at denisedrinkwalter.com, and follow @thethriveafter45podcast for daily insp, tips, and support.

Remember, midlife isn’t the end - it’s just the beginning of a new, exciting chapter! Keep thriving, keep shining, and I’ll see you next time!

Transcript

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Hello, and welcome to today's episode of Thrive After 45. I'm Denise Drinkwater, heart whisperer, midlife mirror and mentor. And every week I am honored to share energy and space with inspiring guests whose stories reflect so many possibilities of thriving. Beyond 45. Together we'll uncover the whispers of the heart, the power of midlife transformation, and the wisdom that fuels expansion. What if the patterns you've spent your life surviving are the same ones? Quietly shaping your business, your money, and your visibility today. It is such an honor and a privilege to introduce and welcome, Emma Lyons, an Inner Power Guide. With over 15 years of deep, energetic, somatic, and subconscious healing work. After burning out in human rights law, she dismantled her own trauma patterns, rebuilt from the ground up, and has since guided over 1000 people through trauma release, nervous system repair, money block clearing, and reclaiming true sovereignty. Emma helps heart led entrepreneurs stop self-sabotaging, dissolve. Shame. Clear inherited trauma and build businesses that honor their nervous systems rather than overwhelm them. Today we're gonna explore what it truly means to return to your real power and break the cycles you never chose. Welcome to our show today, Emmett's. So great to have you here. Thank you so much for having me, Denise. I appreciate the introduction. My goodness. Nervous system repair. Ah, I think as a society, our nervous systems are. Shot and we don't even realize it. Yeah, help. Help us to understand what that actually can come out looking like so people can actually start to understand when we say nervous system, what is it we're talking about and how can we recognize. It's basically your body. So the mindset work, it works on the mind, but all of the, all of the information, all the fears, it's stored in the nervous system, the body. This is like the. The animal part of us that's like, that just automatically goes into trauma mode. That goes into fear. We're not consciously able to control it. Most of the time the body just gets scared or tenses up. And so many of what people call, um, or people consider to be like personality traits. I'm shy. I'm Oh yes. You know, confront, a lot of these things are in rather than being personality. Types are actually res trauma responses that people have adapted to. And now people just think, this is who I am. I'm shy, I am afraid to put myself forward. This is part of my personality. But no, it's because your nervous system is carrying all of that trauma from your childhood and it's kind of, it's holding you back so often the, the mindset blocks that people talk about. It's only, it's, it's not even half the bucket. Mm. It's because most of the trauma, the fear, the extreme fear of visibility that so many people, women have particularly, but people in general, women particularly, right. We're afraid of showing up. It's because we have this legacy of kind of being attacked maybe in our childhood or not being allowed to speak up. And also because women, we collectively have been kind of scapegoated. By society. So we're carrying the trauma of that. And that's often not consciously or what we're not aware of, but the body is holding it nonetheless. And this is where we've got to start to really, to really open ourselves up to receiving.'cause when the nervous system is tense, we can't receive, we're in survival mode. Even if we don't, even if we don't know it in our head, we feel like we're fine. Right. Where the body is in survival mode, the body is holding all that tension. And the way to real freedom is to open up that nervous system and to teach your nervous system that it's safe to open, that it's safe to receive, that it's safe to relax, that the world is a safe place. And that's pretty hard when we've been trained for 30, 40, 50 years. You know, we're gonna be, something terrible is gonna happen. We've got tense for the worst, you know, so our nervous system is holding onto all of that, even if psychologically we know better. And this is where, this is where so much of this work, uh, really needs to start. So what's, what, what does that look like? I mean, other than our body do we like, and our mind, our mind has such power, but we're missing what you're saying is we're missing so much because the rest of it Yeah. Is being held in our bodies. So what do we do to start moving forward? Well, I, I do somatic work with people, so working with opening up the body, working with breath, working with sound, working with movement of the body. Okay? Because, uh, we're not, we're not just ahead. We're a whole system, and this is where we start. You could, your brain can know things, and I've done this. We can be in, it's a way of avoiding, it's a trauma response as well. When we so get into, I know this and I know better and I've studied all about it. I know all the psycho psychology of why I'm like this, but yet our bodies are still stuck in that pattern and. Sometimes we can use that psychology stuff to kind of keep ourselves stuck. We wanna be in, feel like we're in control. And this is one powerful way to keep that sense of control of holding on for dear life. And, you know, the work that I do is all about opening that up and working with, I work a lot with the inner critic is what, what it's generally known as. And what I've realized is that this, this so-called inner critic. Mm-hmm. It's, uh. It's kind of a, it ticks all the box of the narcissist, but the call is coming from inside the house, and yet we're taught to take this thing to therapy, to send love to it and treat it like a wounded child. Yeah. And we've realized that's not the way, that's not the way to deal with this shaming thing. It's like a parasite. It's sucking us dry. And it does, if you look, go through the, the DSM, um, definition of the, of the, of a narcissist that the inner critic of so many of us, it fits that bill. It's grandiose, self-important. It knows best. It's got all these fantasies. It's special, it's high and myy. It's in titles. The only one that it doesn't tick is that it's interpersonally exploitative, because who it exploits is you right? Stands to its tune and that is what's we're, when we're stuck in shame, the nervous system is basically held hostage. And that's what this so-called inner critic. I call it the inner narcissist. That's what it does. It has us under house arrest and so many people don't even realize that we're there because we've all been taught since childhood. Shame is good for you, that you need to feel shame in order to be a good person. And we're carrying all that, and that means that we just kind of remain, no matter what we do. We're still stuck in this kind of trauma response, in this kind of shame loop that keeps us small, that keeps us from expanding into our power and reclaiming our space and really receiving what we're here to receive in this lifetime. Amazing. So when you're talking about shame. My brain goes to, well, I, I know what shame is. Do I really know what shame is? I'm starting to get curious. What do you see shame as being? Well, shame is that thought that it's often defined as the belief that I'm bad. Something wrong with me. Yep. But if we look at shame, really shame is actually, it's a, it's a, it's a lethal cocktail. A bunch of, bunch of self attacks, self-loathing, anger turned inwards, resentment, fear, you know, all this bunch of emotions that are basically turned against the self. And then from down there. From downstream. From that, you've got all these beliefs that I'm wrong, that I'm ugly, that I'm too fat, that I'm too thin, that I've got too many wrinkles, that I've got a big ass, that I've got a big nose, you know, whatever. Whatever those things that people say, this is the shaming voice that that really rules our life, and that tells you. So many women are gonna relate to this because so many women are stuck in that, you know, imposter syndrome. Yeah, a lot of that's pretty much everyone has that. And if we trace that back to, you could see that shame. That's shame with better pr, you know? But nobody wants to talk about shame because shame is a dirty four letter word. You know, nobody wants to, nobody wants to talk about, it's something that we should keep on the side, right? We're shamed of our shame. We don't wanna own it. And uh, that means we avoid the issue when we pretend it's not there and we press it. And, uh, I'm, my whole message is really about breaking free from this shame voice, because this shame voice is kind of an implant from culture. I could talk about that. Women have a double dose because, you know, we, we collectively as women have been scapegoated by society, you know, for, for all the sexual things, right? And dirty bits that nobody wants to talk about. It's all been dumped on women. So we're carrying all that and. So much of that is shame. And this shame is also when I started looking into this, I started to realize that, you know, trauma, when it passes down intergenerationally, we need the shame in order for it to stick. Like if you look at an animal that you know, wild animal, they don't, they might experience a trauma, but then they go and have a good shake after they've been hunted by the lion. They have a good shake, they shake it out. They're not still thinking about that 20 years later. So what's the difference with us humans? It's shame. Shame is the glue that keeps that inter intergenerational trauma going. When you take shame out of the equation. Mm-hmm. It's really, shame is like the granddaddy of, you know, it's such ati, it's not normal emotion. It's like the granddaddy, the worst possible thing.'cause it's the only so-called emotion I don't think. It's not even normal emotion. Right. Yeah. It's really. Personal attack on the self. Mm-hmm. And we're, we're gast every single day and told that shame is good for you. Even in the English language particularly, you have no shame, Denise. You have no shame. You don't have enough shame. Mm-hmm. So you're not a good person, you're not a good girl, or you have no shame. You, you know, it's, it's an insult that we're throwing around there and what I've realized in my work, mm-hmm. Shame is a, is a cultural implant. That's really always every 100% of the time it's about control. You know, if there's a child who here is making, and I want him to shut up mm-hmm. I shame him very quickly. He gets quiet, you know, and I get to feel, oh, so important. I'm so big. Look what I've done. It's a, it's a narcissistic hit. We, we, we do that because we're carrying so much shame, right? And we wanna get rid of it. So how do we get rid of it? The, a lot of women do this, we do this to other women. Mm-hmm. We're feeling the shame. We don't, it's a bit uncomfortable, so we shame that woman over there. Right. Look at her big ass, look at her wrinkles, and then suddenly we feel like, oh. I'm so powerful. Hmm. Look what I did to that person. And it relieves us temporarily. I was gonna say, does it? Yeah, it does not, it's not effective, but it gives us that, that like little ooh, but it's a narcissistic hit is what it is. Right. Because it makes us feel powerful. And when we do that to ourselves or other people, we are playing that shame game. We are passing it on, we are ensuring that it keeps going. Mm-hmm. What I've realized is that we can cut off that shame brain by shame game by working with our own inner critic, the old, the inner narcissist, right? Um, because the only, we only experience shame. Like if you tell me that I've got, or if I say to you, Denise, that you've got mm-hmm. That I hate your purple hair, you're gonna just think I'm a crazy woman. You know? Mm-hmm. You are only going to feel shame if, if you have that inner narcissist voice that says you do, or big ass or whatever. Whatever the shaming words are, you have to, that inner narcissist has to agree in order for you to experience shame. Otherwise, you're just gonna think. That person is crazy and see it for what it is. Right? And shame is always a projection. It's always a projection, okay?'cause we're projecting something that's uncomfortable. I feel something uncomfortable. I wanna put it on you so I don't have to feel it. Right? And that's the sneaky way that shame keeps being passed down from generation to generation. But we absolutely have the power to break the cycle. Which, which is so important, which is my next question. We have the power to break that cycle, not only for years to come, but for ourselves, right? Yeah. Yeah. So when we do that shame game, and I mean, I think of. You know, you, we all can think of times in our lives where women have shamed others and made themselves feel great as a result because you take it off yourself and push it to something else. Yeah. When that happens, are you actually growing it inside yourself at the same time? I, I, I think you're right. I think you are because you're, you're shaming them. You're putting that shame on them. You're creating more to be ashamed of, right? So it doesn't dissipate the shame. Yeah. Actually in a sense, like the empathy is down there underneath it. Okay. And this is a why, this is why I have such a big problem with the way it's shame is presented as this moral compass. Mm-hmm. And even therapists or everyone, you know, they talk about, I even had someone reach out to me on Substack recently. Mm-hmm. And they said their therapists have told them that it's good that you experience shame because you've done lots of bad things. So shame in our society has seen as, as long as you've, if you've done something bad. It's kind of like a get out of jail free card. If you feel shame about it, then that means you're still a good person, so everything's okay. So it's kind of a kind of a, yeah, it's a, it's a sneaky one interesting one. Mm-hmm. Isn't it? Yeah. Yeah. But the thing is shame is a really, really bad way to change someone's behavior in the media. Sure. Sure. Like, if I shame this child, this child is talking, I shame him. He shuts up for now, but, uh, he's not gonna realize why. He's just gonna feel bad and pass that on. I was on a podcast a, a, a few weeks ago. Yeah. And this woman was talking to me, she said something really good about her aunt. Who was, when they were children, they were out eating ice cream. Mm-hmm. And this adult came up, came up to them and said, you shouldn't be eating ice cream. They'll make you fat. And these girls were a little bit pudgy, but you know what they did? They could have felt so shame there.'cause that's what he was trying to do. He was projecting his. His own beliefs and fears onto them. These girls, they could have dropped their ice cream run away. Mm-hmm. So many things that could have happened to shame themselves for the rest of their lives. Yeah. But you know what they did? They laughed in his face and continued to eat their ice cream. Mm-hmm. And this is the power of breaking free of shame. Nobody can shame you unless you have that inner narcissist activated that agrees with you. And this is the power. This is what I do. I help people to break up with that narcissistic shame voice. Yeah. And this is really different from what everyone else is saying. Yeah. Everyone else out there, they're talking about getting comfortable with shame. Even people like Brene Brown, who I really love and respect. Mm-hmm. Um, she, all of these people are talking from inside the ca the shame cage. Mm-hmm. They're talking from, from inside a culture where shame is normalized. And shame is just part of what it is to be human, and we just have to cope with it and get on with our lives and accept that shame is good, is part of what it is to be human. I, I've really come to see that it's not that shame, you know, if you look at the story of Adam and Eve, you know, you can see that as an allegory of shame, but shame does not have any positive attributes. If we look at anger. Somebody's crossed my boundary, I get angry. Sure. That's a good thing I need to tell you to stop. Yeah. And, and don't come any further. This is a powerful thing. Sometimes anger can get outta control. Yes. Mm-hmm. But we need anger. We need anger. Um, you know, and so other emo all the other emotions, there's a point, there's a function to them. Right. But when we come to shame. There's nothing. Right. Shame does not help anyone. Shame is a tool of control domination. It's always a manipulation every single time. Mm-hmm. When I shame someone, if I shame you now. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Um, you know, like we talked about, I'm just passing on my own shame, so Right. It's a, and it's a manipulation every single time because I'm trying to. Gaslight you into thinking that it's you rather than me that wants something, you know? Right, right. Yeah. So it's very, very manipulative and it's so, so normalized, absolutely everywhere. Mm-hmm. Not just amongst women everywhere, of course. Men as well. I mean, look at the hustle culture. Mm-hmm. And women are part of that as well. This is very shaming, right? Yeah. We're taught that if you just shame yourself enough, then you'll pull up your socks and get better. Yeah, yeah, yeah. What's wrong with me? Yeah. Yeah. And we're, we're, we believe that this is why people have been shaming themselves for 40, 50, 60 years. Look, don't believe me. See where it's got you. Mm-hmm. Yeah. How has that helped? Yeah. How's that working for you? That shame? Right, right. Let me tell you. If you're trying to manifest something big in your life, shame is gonna anchor you and make sure you don't get that. It's, it is really massive reason why people don't manifest what they want.'cause they're carrying all this shame may, so a lot of the times it's unconscious shame that they're not even aware. Yeah. Shame. Shame is also the root of narcissism, you know? Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. This is why narcissists, you know, look at Donald Trump or whatever, you know? Mm-hmm. If, if he was really, if he really was a psychopath and didn't care about other people, he gets, he gets angry when people make jokes about him because it triggers his shame. Mm-hmm. That's repressed down there. So he, he does, he does. He, he has a bunch of repressed shame, and that's what narcissism is. Narcissism is repressed. Shame gone, taken over, you know, and. People like Brene Brown, for example. She says that if you don't experience shame, that would make you a narcissist or that would make you a psychopath rather. Mm-hmm. But if we look at psychopaths carefully, not having shame is not the problem. The real problem is that they don't have empathy, that's the problem. And psychopaths don't experience empathy. So they can't experience shame. Narcissists are a different story. The the rest of us, um, the, the, the funny thing is when you look at the facts and the reality of how shame works with the body and the nervous system mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. When we experience shame, it actually shuts down our ability to empathize. So it, it kills our ability to empathize. Even with ourselves. We are like, go in for the kill and punch ourselves. Okay. We gotta, okay. And that's what shame does. It makes we lose, it kills our empathy and that's, that's, we don't need more shame, we need more empathy. Thank you very much. Right, right, right. That's the real problem. Okay. Okay. So when we know of, um, people who are doing all kinds of incredible things but are still feeling stuck after doing all the mindset work. What's really at the root cause? Is it the fact that everything, the subconscious and it's stuck in your body, like what's going on there from your perspective? Yeah, it's in your body. Your nervous system is tensing, and this is the thing, I mean, it's one, one of the reasons that like this is what visibility blocks are a shame. You know, people afraid to show up. And like even when you do show up, and I've experienced this personally along with my clients, even if you're doing all the things and showing up, shame says you're not okay. There's something wrong with you. You've gotta hide. So we're not showing up authentically when we're carrying shame and not pretty much. We all have shame. We've been taught shame, right? It's been intergenerational. Shame is a taught, it's not even a real option. Yeah. It's taught, it's a control mechanism. It's a construct that we as a society have taken on and we've been told that it's good for you and that you need shame in order to be good person. But as I said. Shame doesn't work to make people better. Right. Shame makes people worse. Shame makes, when you're carrying shame, you're, you're, you're telling yourself, I'm not good. I have to hide. It puts us into survival mode, right? So we feel like somebody says something, we wanna, yeah, we wanna hit them, we wanna kill them. We're feeling like, yeah, it's, it's hitting that survival part of us. So we feel threatened. It's not, that's not a place to start the changing behavior, right? Yeah. The long term. In the short term, it looks very impressive and this is why therapists, this is why coaches, everybody uses it. It's been so normalized, but it's so toxic. And when people experience the shame. They pass it on you, either it's not something that you can't digest. Right? And this is why, you know, people saying sit down and feel your shame. It can be very dangerous for lots of people because then people go into all those self attacking thoughts. Mm-hmm. And where does shame lead? At the bottom. At the bottom. Like, it's not like, it's not like sadness. You experience sadness and then you experience anger, you experience something else. Shame isn't like that. You, you sit down with your shame and what's underneath it. More shame. Mm-hmm. What's underneath that? More shame. It's a bottomless pit of shame that eventually comes to place where it says you might as well not be alive. Mm. And you know, shame has done that to me, it's made me feel that way. And I don't believe that people would ever, you know, take that final act if shame were not involved. Mm-hmm. We need to have shame in order to feel, there's no matter how bad things get in your life, shame needs to be there. To say there's no point. You're, you're a waste of oxygen, or whatever that voice says. Mm-hmm. And for us to actually take that, take that action. Right, right. We know shame is a, and shame is in so many, like up to genocide, like shame is essential part of the substrate there that gets passed on and, you know, not dealt with and reinforced. So shame is a really serious thing. Yeah. But, but we're, it's so normalized and we do it all the time. Right. We see it everywhere. People do it to their parents, teachers, teachers do it to their students, parents do it to their kids. Mm-hmm. It's, uh, it's happening constantly. It's so pervasive mm-hmm. That people, you know, people just see it as part of what it is to be human. And this is where, right. Yeah. Where I come in to tell people really, no, wait a minute. Yeah. Wait a minute. Reality check. You do not need shame. Yeah. Stop shaming yourself. Yeah. And it's like we're, we're, we're, we're hostage. It's like we have, um, you know, a Stockholm syndrome with shame. We're we as a society are addicted to it. We're shooting up on a shame. Right, right. Because we're thought, oh, I need shame. It's like we're, we're unconsciously stuck there. Right. Your body can get used to any kind of emotion. Shame is so pervasive with so many us. Right. And, and so hidden as well. You know the Exactly. Look at it. Yeah. So the shame is huge. Yeah. Shame is what's keeping women down in the world. Yeah. Yeah. And uh, this is why I work with a lot of women who are really ready to rise and move beyond their shame and move into that next level. Because like I said, shame is the opposite of authenticity. When you're carrying shame, you, shame tells you, you are not good enough as who you are. You have to hide. You have to. And physiologically, this is what shame does to you. It makes you hide. Right, right. Pull in. Yeah. I need to go into my survival space'cause I'm being attacked right now. Right. That's not, that's not where you wanna start making real changes. That's, that's the wrong place to start. We need to start by separating the behavior from the person. And this is how we, we, we make long-term changes. We don't blame the person and do ad ho attacks. We, we talk about the behavior. Mm-hmm. And how people expand and become more comfortable with who they are. Right. So that you can really show up in all your power and people can feel that we've gotta reclaim our shameless. This word shameless. It's an insult, you know, in our society, but we, I wanna reclaim that word. Mm-hmm. Because every single other word in the English language that ends in LES is homeless, hopeless. You know, it means you don't have any of that thing. But usually when we call someone shameless, it's an insult. And often those people are acting out of repressed shame. If you think of someone who's on mm-hmm. You know, alcohol or something. Mm-hmm. Shame kind, the alcohol kind. This is why we drink. For, and that's why alcohol shame is essential component for addictions as well. Because you know, when you drink, puts the mute button on shame for a few hours. Right? Right. And then the cycle spins out, you know, so I've been on, I've been on podcasts about alcoholism, an addiction. Mm-hmm. And even bulimia and what's on, what do they all have in common? Shame. Shame. Yeah. Shame is really the driver of all of these things.'cause it's, you know, bulimia, anorexia, you want it, it's self-attack. Yes, of course. And this is, this is the definition of shame. Yeah. Alcoholism, all kinds of addictions. Yeah. It's trying to cover up that shame and, you know, but shame is there. Shame is the driver, and we can cut it off. We can take back our power by rejecting this shame that we've been fed for thousands of years as a society. Right. You know, we need to, we don't, we don't need it. The only person that benefits from shame is the people pulling the strings at the top, and that's not, you take back your power, take back your right, right. Integrity, become who you really are. Stop trying to hide. And when you stop hiding and become who you are, that start living shamelessly, people really feel that people can respond to it because it's so freaking rare. Well, I was, I was just gonna say, it's probably such a rarity that people are in awe and just want to come closer to those who live Shameless, right? Yeah. Shameless is authentic. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Love it. Shame. Love it. Shameless is authenticity. Reclaim, you're shameless. This is how you reclaim. Find out who you really are.'cause when you're carrying shame, you're hiding. You're like, of course good enough. Something's wrong with me. I've gotta hold up my barrier. And we don't even know who we are'cause we're too busy attacking ourselves all the time. Yeah. We won't know who we are'cause we're not coming through a full lens. That's clear. Yeah. It's, it's, it's got, you know, history piled up upon history and as a result, we can't see who we really are until we come to. You and get the support and the brilliance that the work that you do around everything that you do to support your clients. So good. Um, this conversation has been incredible. I'm sitting here going, yes, yes, I can. Hmm. This is good. I can see this. I can hear this. I can. Stand this. Isn't that interesting? I'm gonna take life through a new lens and look at where it is in my world that I am experiencing thinking about feeling shame. Exactly. And when are you shaming yourself? Even in little ways, drop something, I'm stupid. That's shaming guys for sure. That's shaming any kind of attack on the person. And watch you'll, if you go around like this homework, like go, go out tomorrow and have a look and see how often you see people shaming each other. Watch how you, how that voice inside your head. That narcissist shames you. Yeah. You pop something. Oh my god, you're so, I'm so stupid. Yeah. Yeah. That is shaming. And we, when we stop shaming ourselves, for most of us, when we stop shaming ourselves, we, we stop shaming other people. We, we only shame others to the degree that we shame ourselves. Love that. That's not, not true for, you know, narcissists and 70 psychopaths. Sure. But for most of us that are, you know, fairly sound of mind, that's the truism. Nice. Love that. Love that. Is there any, this has been golden. Absolutely incredible. Such a great conversation. And there's two things that I wanna say. One. Women listening thrive after 45. Yes, we can do this. Yes, there is availability to understand ourselves in a brand new way through a new shameless lens. Yes. And when we do that. When you do that for you, by you, because of you, everything around you will change. Just like Emma shared. You know when people who do this work and are shameless, the energy that exists as a result changes not only their world, but all those who are in contact with them. Near and far, absolutely. And right. So many things like people pleasing, so many things that women complain about are shame. Yeah. People pleasing, imposter syndrome, all that. You know how many people please other people. Mm-hmm. That's because you're not, you're not, you, you have all this shame. You're trying to impress someone else. Get rid of that narcissist. Break up with that narcissist. And I have, I have an, I have a, A system if you'd like to hear it, about how to, yes. Yeah. Break that shame attack when it strikes. Yeah. And it can, I mean, I've had shame attacks. Mm-hmm. Shame. When shame attack is much, it's much stronger than even a fear attack.'cause it's like you are like attacking you. That, that really going for you. Your body shuts down. You, you're, you go red, you feel the heat. Your body goes, you know, this is, this is what shame does to you. It makes you go inside your shell and also become more narcissistic.'cause you're just thinking about yourself. You're not thinking about anyone else. You just go inside yourself. So it's not good for anyone. It's not good for you. Nobody wins. Yeah. So lose lose. So the, the way, when, when shame strikes, this is what to do. Mm-hmm. It's called break. B-R-E-A-K. Mm-hmm. So the first one is, you know, recognize that voice that says you've got a you. I don't know that you're too old. Yeah. Recognize this isn't your voice. It's a spell. We're all collectively under this spell this trance state. So you catch it, you interrupt it. Don't overthink it. Just name it. This is the trance and really disrupts the loop instantly. Mm. And shame is a trance that we're collectively under. Mm-hmm. So you, we want to go onto the next one, which is our refuse to engage you. Don't I try to argue with the Trumps love. Do you? You don't argue with the Trumps. You don't argue with a narcissist either, right? That's what, that's why Dr. Ramini says, don't go deep. Don't defend. Don't engage, don't explain, and don't personalize. Just say, not today. Not today. You don't. You don't have to be polite to this thing. Mm-hmm. So many of us are out there trying to be polite to this voice when it's trying to kill you. You know? Yeah. When we're taught and told that this voice is trying to look after you, it's trying to keep you safe. That's a huge gaslight as well, because just like narcissists, they're, they'll punch you in the face, kick you in the balls, and then tell you, I'm trying to protect you. They are not trying to protect you. This inner right, this inner voice is not trying to protect you. Guess what? It's out for itself. It's out for itself. It's not out for you. So don't en don't engage. Not today. Mm-hmm. Not today, Satan. Don't, you don't need to be, don't owe it any courtesy. Then you wanna expose the lie. So he, okay. Mm-hmm. Had the shame-based programming. This is control. This is not my story. Mm. And really just speaking that disarms its power. Mm-hmm. And I talked about how shame kind of does a full body hijack. Right? So we wanna, we need to come back to the body and this is anchor in truth, anchor in your body, come back to your body, feel your breath, plant your feet, say your name the year. And really you could even, mm-hmm. Give your mind your nervous system unsafe. I'm sovereign. I'm still here. We're still good? Mm-hmm. So that's a, and then Kate is kick it out. So shake it off, stomp it out. The say it. This is not mine. This is inherited shame. Yeah. This is not yours to carry anymore. And literally shake it off your body. Um, this is what, you know, animals do after they've been hunted. Yeah. They survive, they actually physically shake it off and then, you know, five years later they're not sitting there. Oh my God. Yes. Oh me. Oh my God. I'm something. Animals don't do that. And animals that are domesticated do that because they're taking on our toxic shame. But we don't have to do that anymore. We can break the cycle for ourselves. And like you said, everyone, every animal, every being around you will feel that shamelessness. Mm-hmm. And that that is. Power. That is an elevating, that's an inspiring energy that is very rare in the world today. Love that, and such a simple, um, acronym Break. Thank you so much for sharing that and giving us some concrete. I can go do this, I can practice this. I can become aware and I can actually respond and take ownership and responsibility and kick the narciss system narcissist out of my inner critic brain. Thank you very much. Thank you, Emma. Is there anything that you would love to share before we close off today? Is there anything that you haven't shared? I know there's lots, but is there, is there one golden nugget that you wanna end with? You don't need shame. Yeah, you don't, you don't need a for anything. It may, it doesn't make you better. It makes you worse. There you go. It makes you, it makes you narcissistic, it makes you self-centered. It makes you unhappy. Stop shaming yourself and stop shaming other people. Break, you can break that cycle for, for yourself and for the world. It can start with you. Yeah. And um, I have a, I have a free gift. Mm-hmm. If I could talk about that. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. So it's. Five signs that it's time to break up with your five signs. It's time to break up with your inner narcissist. So if you've, if you're listening to this and they, oh my God, yes. I do shame myself a voice. It does shame me a lot. Yeah. And, uh, you know, I can see how it's holding me back. Mm-hmm. This, uh. It's a checklist. You can see five signs that it's actually time to break up with that, and it's also got concrete steps beyond what we spoke about today about how to really put that in place. And you can find that@tinyurl.com slash. Not today, narc. NARC. Not today, narc. So, yeah. Okay. You can, you can check. Definitely check that out. If you are inspired and you know, follow me. Perfect. Perfect. Reach out to me. Send me a message. Yeah. You know how you found this conversation? Yeah. On trauma matrix, on Instagram and everywhere. Perfect. We will absolutely take all that information and put it in our show notes as well. For those who are listening and want to don't have paper and pencil at the moment, we will make sure we get that. We get that information from Emma and it will go in the show notes. So thank you so much for that free gift. We always love gifts from our incredible guests on this show'cause they're always golden. Emma, thank you so much for the work you do for the awareness that has brought you to doing the work you are doing now, and we so appreciate this time and energy and space with you today. Thank you. It's been a pleasure. Thank you so much, Denise. If you felt something, heard, something been moved by something in our conversation today, take action for you by you because of you. You've got this, ladies, the ball is in your court. Please make sure that you begin this journey around understanding and taking control of and becoming closer to shameless every single day. Thank you, Emma. Thank you for listening. Please follow, share, give us a review. We love to hear from you. Have a great day everyone.