This is Part 3 of the 3 Part Journey to Healing. The first two parts, An Emotionally Safe Relationship and Permission to Feel are helpful vehicles to arrive effectively at Part 3: Heal Through Love.

In our culture, there is a lot of pressure to be thin enough, smart enough, kind, enough, attractive enough, successful enough, or strong enough all the while sending the message “never let them see you sweat.” Not measuring to these standards makes us feel vulnerable. Most people think of vulnerability as weak. We fear that there is “something about me, that if people knew it, that I would no longer be worthy of love and connection,” which is what we desire the most and gives life meaning and purpose.

So to avoid perceived weakness, we hold on to these secrets about ourselves. Dr. Brené Brown is a renowned researcher on shame. Her research defines shame as different from guilt. Guilt is: I made a mistake and shame is a more global identity: I am a mistake. She explains that shame thrives on 3 things: secrecy, silence, and judgment (see video Brené Brown on Shame). She also explains that empathy, which drives connection, is the antidote to shame (see video Brené Brown on Empathy).

You begin the third part in the journey to healing, after you are in an emotionally safe relationship with someone (in this case your therapist) and have permission to share your shame story and not run from the pain that it brings up. This is when you invite the compassion to fill you. When you share your shame story with someone who can hold space for you with light and love, you begin to recognize just how human you are and allow yourself to feel it on a body level.

First, you let that empathy in from the safe person and give yourself permission to feel that they deeply see you and still honor you. Second, you begin to see yourself differently with more kindness and love. You practice letting the love from all sources fill the space where the pain was once so present and on a body level not just an intellectual level. Because you have felt an internal shift from pain to love, from shadow to light, your body has a new and memorable association, and you can make a new meaning of that experience.

This 3 Part Journey to Healing is personal and profound. Find the right individual therapist, couple therapist, or family therapist that can help you and people you love feel safe enough to work through the burden and pain, assure you that you are worthy of love and belonging, so you can walk away feeling that truth honestly coming from your own heart again.