If punishing yourself worked, you'd have healed by now. That's a line I said in a class recently, and I can't stop coming back to it. Most of us have been taught that when we're not getting what we want in life, the fix is to punish ourselves. We just don't call it that. We call it "holding myself accountable," or "making sure I don't make the same mistake twice," or needing a system and a list and someone to keep us on track. It hides in all these reasonable-sounding places, and underneath it is the same quiet belief: that there's something about me I need to fix.

In this episode I talk about where that belief comes from, how far back it goes, and why it was never yours to carry in the first place. I share how "making a mess" got baked into my identity as a kid, and how so many of us walk around with a version of that: the hot mess, the scattered one, the one who's bad with money or bad with love. And I get honest about what actually happens when we beat ourselves up for it. We shrink. We get smaller and less visible and less willing to go build the life we actually want. You can't make big waves with your wings when you've convinced yourself you're the size of a fly.

I also tell you about throwing my hip out this week training for a figure skating competition, and the exact moment my brain tried to turn it into proof that I should have known better. Having your own back isn't something you master once. It's a practice you come back to, one moment at a time.

Key Takeaways:

1. If punishing yourself actually worked, you'd already be healed. You've tried it for years, and it keeps doing the opposite of what you hoped.
2. "Holding yourself accountable" is often self-punishment in disguise. It hides in the lists, the systems, and the "hot mess" identity we carry around.
3. The stories about who you are (scattered, clumsy, bad with money, bad with love) were baked in during childhood. They were never the truth about you.
4. Beating yourself up makes you shrink. You get smaller, less visible, and less able to create what you actually want.
5. Radical acceptance of a messy life beats chasing a perfect one. Show me a person and I'll show you a messy life. Perfection is a setup, not a standard.
6. Real change comes from learning to have your own back: regulating your nervous system, growing your capacity for big emotion, shifting your perspective, and setting boundaries, again and again over time.

Come to my free class: I'm running a free class called The Anti-Hero on Monday, August 24th at 12:00 PM Pacific. It's all about shame, and about learning to have your own back in a way you've probably never heard before. Come find out what it feels like to stop being the woman who's always punishing herself, and imagine who you get to be on the other side of that.

Save your seat: amandahess.ca/shame1

You are not the only one. I promise you that.

Links referenced in this episode:

1. amandahess.ca/shame1

Hey, I'm Amanda Hess.

I'm a certified life coach.

But what you need to know is I'm a sensitive woman just like you, and I'm going to help you understand yourself better so that you can approach your life differently and feel really good about it.

Let's go.

If punishing yourself worked, you'd have healed by now.

This is something that I said in a class and.

And it's something that's important to hear.

What I notice is that most of us have been taught that if we're not getting what we want in our life, we need to punish ourselves.

And you might not say it exactly like that.

How you might say it is, I need to hold myself accountable.

How you might say it is, I need to make sure I don't make the same mistakes.

How you might say it is, any version of that, and I see it come up all the time.

How you might also say it is, I need somebody to ensure that I do this right.

Or what you might say is, I need a system to make sure that I don't miss this.

It hides in places that we just don't really realize.

It hides in lists that we have so that we can not have a scattered brain.

Right.

Whether you have an ADHD diagnosis, you suspect that you're adhd, or even if you just have a sort of general sense of yourself that you're a hot mess, and you sort of walk around with this hot mess identity.

And a lot of times we'll say things like this and it's very self depreciating, right?

I know for myself, I can be very self depreciating because of how I've been taught to be.

And the same is true for you.

One thing that used to really happen when I was younger and it's.

It's worth noting, it's something that I think back to and think, man, that was really not nice and also potentially extremely damaging is if somebody would make a mistake, if somebody would have an accident, drop something, fall down, hurt themselves.

Because that happened to me, I guess in my family's eyes, so frequently they would call them doing an Amanda.

So anytime anybody would screw up, make a mess, hurt themselves, that was called an Amanda.

And it's just really interesting to notice that as that's going on, that is something that I carried as a part of my identity.

It was ultimately hard baked into me when I was a child.

Right.

And so many of us have things like this hard baked into us.

So if you're a hot mess, if you're the One that's always scattered.

If you know you're the one that's bad with money, you're the one that's bad with relationships, you're not very good at math.

Whatever those things are, we start to really believe them about ourselves.

We start to carry them around and we start to encapsulate them into who we are.

And so when we talk about ourselves, we talk about ourselves in this way.

And where I see it becoming really damaging is when we're trying to create a new result in our lives.

So let's say you want to start working out, you want to start eating differently, you want to have body recomposition, right?

If you believe that you are a hot mess, you are going to believe that there's certain things about you that you need to fix.

So you're going to need to be held accountable because you're not very good at holding a plan, let's say, right?

You're going to need somebody giving you a schedule and holding you to it because you can't hold a schedule.

You will just have these beliefs about you.

For myself, right?

Oh, I'm a clumsy person.

So therefore I can't do certain things.

That's the belief that I'm going to have.

And that if I do do something, if I do mess up, if I do hurt myself, then now cue, this is the time to beat myself up.

Because look at this, I did this again.

This is what is wrong with me.

And it's just something that we really do without meaning to.

And it, it comes from a place of wanting to improve, but it ultimately comes from a place of shame.

So what I find is that I will get on a call with somebody and have a conversation about something that has happened in their life.

So it could be that they've gone through divorce, it could be that they've gone through infidelity, it could be that they've gone through grief or loss, or it could just be that they're not creating what they want in their life.

So they're getting on a call because they haven't been able to really create a situation where they have a long term partnership with another person.

They haven't been able to get the job they truly want.

Or even harder, I think is not knowing what they want at all, but knowing that they've sort of spent their whole life not getting what they want, or that they are the kind of person that is a pushover or that they're the kind of person that can't set boundaries or whatever it is they will Come to me with these.

These big things that are going on that they want, that they've experienced, that are going on that they would like to create, they come to me with these big things and then what they will do is they will tell me how this is the laundry list of things that are wrong with me.

And they will have tried for many, many years, possibly their entire lives, to fix that about themselves.

And you might be listening to this and saying, you know, Amanda, this is a self help podcast.

So of course people want to fix themselves.

And I just want you to know that that's not how I think about it.

I never think about people needing to be fixed.

That is, to me, what's wrong with society right now.

And it's.

It's ruining women's lives.

When you look at how people are so performative, not because they want to be, but because of how our life is set up and then how they get crushed underneath of that because the shame is eating them for lunch.

And they try and try and try to show up the way that other people want them to show up, but what they don't realize is it's not got anything to do with other people.

It's got to do with this set of rules that they got set up for themselves that they didn't even set up in the first place.

They didn't even set up those rules.

They came baked into us from childhood and parenting and society and what we're consuming and what other people are saying.

And now this lives in us.

And so when we start to try to change how we are in the world and how we operate in the world, what we cannot do is beat ourselves up.

What we cannot do is punish ourselves.

Because.

Listen to me, because you've already tried that, okay?

You've already tried that.

And maybe if it worked, I would be like, okay, possibly that's okay.

But what I've seen is that it doesn't work.

And in fact, it does the opposite.

So actually, what happens when we beat ourselves up, when we punish ourselves?

Like, oh, look at this thing.

I did it again.

What do we do?

We get small, we get tight.

We become less vulnerable.

We become less willing to go out and do big things.

We become less able to connect with other people.

We become less willing to go and be ourselves in the world and be visible and create the kind of life and world that we want.

We just shrink and we get so shrunken that we are so small that we feel so stuck there because we can't move anything, can't move Anything.

So our whole life becomes this big stuck thing.

I think about like I've been watching rewatching True Blood, which has nothing to do with anything, except I was thinking about these shape shifters in the show and they turn into flies.

And I was thinking how little change you can affect as a fly.

What can you do when you're the size of a fly?

Almost nothing.

Almost nothing.

Whereas what can you do if you're the size of an eagle?

So much more.

What if we take up more space, get bigger?

We can create more change, we can create more of what we want.

But because we're punishing ourselves, because this is what we've been taught to do, we get smaller and smaller and smaller.

And so this is ultimately where a lot of people end up, a lot of women end up, is in this place where we will be just doing things the way that we've always done them.

You know, I think about myself right earlier this week I was doing a trap bar deadlift and I had done a lot.

So I've been skating a ton because I have a competition coming up in September and I want to be ready.

I have been doing body recomposition with a trainer, so I have been doing progressively heavier lifts in the gym.

I've been doing really heavy lifting.

And then I went and did a couple of spin classes on the weekend.

So combining four days of skating with three days of lifting with two days of spinning, and it's not super shocking to me that my hip went out.

But here's what my brain wants to do.

And your brain probably wants to do this too.

My brain wants to say, I'm so mad at you, Amanda.

You knew better.

You knew you couldn't push that hard.

But the reality is that's not even the truth.

Because if I truly knew that I couldn't push that hard, I wouldn't have pushed that hard.

I was skating on an edge, of course.

So funny.

Just an interesting way to say that when I am talking about figure skating.

But I was riding the edge and we do ride the edge in our life and it doesn't mean anything.

It doesn't mean anything's gone wrong.

Nothing's gone wrong for me here.

Now I'm going to have to take care of this injury.

This is true.

But I could have gotten injured walking down the sidewalk.

And how cool is it that I got injured training my body trying to get ready for a competition as a figure skater, as a 50 year old adult.

This is pretty badass shit, I would say, but my training, what's been built into me is.

I'm so mad at you.

You should have known better.

So what do I do?

I have to learn how to have my own back.

This is a lifelong practice.

You know when people say to me, how do I do this?

I'm like, one moment at a time.

Oh, no, I'm not going to beat myself up for pushing my body to the max at all.

I'm just going to recognize it, like, oh, interesting.

Probably could have backed off on spin, and that probably would have been a different outcome.

Maybe, maybe not.

Skating is really hard on my SI joint, which is what's, you know, going on right now.

So maybe yes, maybe no.

I don't know.

Here's what I do know.

Everything happened exactly the way that it was supposed to happen, because it happened.

And it's a way that we can start putting down the idea that we need to hold ourselves accountable.

It's like, listen, it was supposed to happen that way.

I was supposed to have this happen.

Now I realize I need to start probably really looking at the stability of my pelvis when I lift and when I skate.

Great.

I'm going to go see a physiotherapist.

Fantastic.

Nothing has gone wrong.

And it's something that we do in coaching.

It's something I do in my coaching that is unique, because what a lot of traditional coaching does is holds you accountable, holds your face to the fire.

I don't think that's useful.

What I have really seen is most women that are listening to this podcast that come to me for help.

The last thing they need is to beat themselves up more.

Because if that worked, you would be healed by now.

Because you've done it right.

You've done it again and again and again.

Me too, my friend.

Me too.

It doesn't work.

So what does work?

What does work is learning how to have radical acceptance for the messiness of life.

Radical acceptance for the messiness of life.

We have been sold a line that there is a perfect way to live, and it is all bullshit.

Is all bullshit.

Show me a person and I'll show you a messy life.

We all have messy lives.

It's not a problem.

So we don't need to worry about perfection.

But we have been trained and socialized to be perfect.

And this is something that is getting worse and not better.

And the reason why is just because of the amount of perfect input we get to consume.

When you look at when you're going on social media, when you're going on the Internet, when you're going on A website even to an extent, being in real life with other perfection is being touted as the most important thing.

With the increase in AI and all of the wonderful things that it gives you.

One of the non wonderful things it gives us is this idea that we can be perfect.

I can look perfect, talk perfect, relate perfect.

I can have sex perfect.

My lips can be perfect, my nose can be perfect, my job can be perfect, my kids can be perfect.

My family life can be perfect.

So often what people ask me is, is this normal?

I'm like, it doesn't matter.

It doesn't matter if it's normal.

Does this support the life you want to be living?

Yes or no?

What can we change?

What can't we change?

What are we going to do here?

Are we regulating your nervous system?

Great, that's something we have control over.

Let's do that.

Have we really worked on growing your capacity for big emotions?

Great, let's do that.

Can we look at your perspective here and find other ways to look at it?

Great, let's do that.

And if we do all of that and it's still problematic, let's set a boundary.

And we do that again and again in repetition over time.

How do I have my own back?

How is it true that I'm actually a badass?

These are questions that have asked my clients to journal on every day.

Why?

Because it allows your brain to start working on what it wants.

The truth is that if we're always working on what's broken, what's wrong, what's not going right, our brain just creates more of it.

And it will do that without you asking it to do it.

It will just do that because it thinks that's the job it's supposed to do.

So be very, very careful.

The job that you give your brain to do.

Because do you want it to grow what you want, or do you want it to create more of what you don't want?

Do you want it to be perpetually judging you?

Do you want to try and make big waves with your wings, but you're actually going to be the size of a fly?

It won't work.

So we gotta raise you up, we gotta build you up, we gotta get in there and we've gotta understand that the shame and the guilt and all the other things that are going on for you, those are things we need to address.

Yes, but not in the way you're thinking.

We need to regulate your nervous system.

We need to stop spiking the emotion.

We need to go in there and go, okay, shame.

Okay.

Guilt.

I know how to process this in my body and I'm safe and I'm okay and I don't need to over identify with this.

And then I'm going to go and really think about what I want in my life and believe that I deserve it and believe that I'm the person that can go create it.

Believe that the world is good and has many things that are beautiful to offer me.

This is how we create a different way of being.

Now you might say to me listening to this podcast, because I even have clients say this on calls, right?

They're like, I already do that.

I'm like, yes, you do that once in a while.

But not nearly as much as you're beating yourself up.

Not nearly as much.

And don't forget beating yourself up.

Hides.

Punishing yourself Hides.

I could have done that better.

I should be a little better with my time.

Why am I always so scattered?

Why am I always so awkward?

You don't realize that that is beating yourself up.

That is punishing yourself.

How do we have your own back?

How do we advocate for you?

How do we decide?

Actually, I am fucking awesome.

That's the part we need to build.

If punishing yourself worked, you wouldn't be listening.

So what if it's time to try something new?

That is some food for thought for you this week.

Give it a go.

And hey, if you want some help working through this, I am running a free class on Monday, August 24th.

I would love for you to sign up.

It is all about shame.

You can go to amandahess ca forward slash Shame one, the number one.

Come and discover what it's like to have your own back.

This is something that I teach in this class in a way that you will not have heard before and it will give you an opportunity to really consider how you could change this for yourself and never have to go back to the person that is constantly punishing herself and imagine what that version of you would be like in the world.

Okay my friends, that's all I got.

If you want to look for that, you can also go to the Show Notes.

I'll have it in there and otherwise I will see her next time.

Bye for now.

Thanks so much for listening today.

If this podcast is helping you, please follow wherever you listen and consider leaving a review.

It truly helps this community grow and allows me to support more women like you.

I'm excited to see you back here next week with a a brand new episode.

Until then, take care, friend.