This is the Therapy Is My Cardio episode for May — which means we're not just talking about emotional shame today, we're doing the reps. If last week's episode gave you the clinical foundation (what shame is, where it comes from, and how it hides), this episode is where you put that understanding to work. Jessica walks you through the specific kind of shame that wraps itself around your feelings — the inner voice that calls you too much, too dramatic, too sensitive, or simply not allowed to feel what you feel. It's one of the quietest forms of self-abandonment there is, and today you're going to start unlearning it.

In This Episode:

• What emotional shame actually is — and how it's different from general shame
• How early experiences teach us that certain emotions are "wrong" — and what that does to a child's developing sense of self
• The clinical term for what happens next: emotional self-dismissal, and why it's so hard to recognize in yourself
• Why chronic emotional shame cuts you off from your own emotions as information — and the real consequences that has for your body, relationships, and sense of self
• The Warmup: a simple check-in practice to notice what feeling you've been pushing away before you even start the reps

The Three Reps:

• Rep 1 — Name It: The neuroscience behind why labeling an emotion reduces its intensity, and how to create distance from shame-based thoughts using defusion language ("I am having the thought that...")
• Rep 2 — Reality Check the Story: A CBT-based framework using three questions to slow down the shame spiral and examine whether what you're telling yourself is actually true — or just old conditioning playing on a loop
• Rep 3 — Self-Compassion: The rep people most want to skip, why compassion (not self-criticism) is what actually softens shame, and a short hand-on-heart practice to try right now
• The Cool Down: A simple weekly log practice — no journaling required — to track how often the inner critic is actually showing up, because you can't change a pattern you haven't seen clearly yet

Mentioned or Referenced:

• Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) and shame
• Defusion techniques from Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT)
• The neuroscience of affect labeling ("name it to tame it")
• Self-compassion as a clinical intervention for shame

Next Week: Jessica heads into the Healing Lab to share personal experiments around self-worth that isn't tied to production or performance. You won't want to miss it.

Connect with Jessica: 📩 Newsletter & blog: healingismyhobby.com 📱 Instagram: instagram.com/healingismyhobby ▶️ YouTube: youtube.com/@healingismyhobby 🩺 Clinical practice: jessicacolarcolcsw.com

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Welcome back to Healing is My Hobby. I'm Jessica Kolarko, a licensed clinical social worker and your guide through the inner work. This is our Therapy is My Cardio segment for May, which means we're not just talking about the concept today, we're doing the reps. We're putting in the work. Last week, we laid the clinical foundation. What shame is, where it comes from, and how it hides in plain sight.

If you haven't listened to that episode yet, I encourage you to go back and start

It'll give you a lot of context for what we're doing today. Because today, we're going somewhere specific. We're talking about emotional shame. The particular kind of shame that wraps itself around your feelings. The inner voice that says your emotions are too much, too dramatic, too sensitive, or simply not allowed.

This is one of the most common things I see in my therapy practice, and it's one of the quietest forms of self-abandonment there is. So today we're going to warm up, do three solid reps together, And then cool down with something you can carry into your week. Let's go. Before we get...

into the workout, I wanna give you the rationale, the clinical reason why emotional shame is its own category and why it's worth addressing directly.

Most of us were taught somewhere along the way that certain emotions were acceptable and others were not. Maybe you grew up in a home where crying was seen as weakness, maybe anger was dangerous, either because it got out of control or because it was never allowed at all. Maybe you were told you were too sensitive so many times that you started to believe it.

What happens when a child's emotions are consistently met with dismissal, ridicule, or punishment is that the child learns something devastating, not just that the behavior is wrong, but that the feeling itself is wrong, that having that emotion means something is wrong with them.

This is emotional shame, and it creates what clinicians call emotional self-dismissal, the habit of invalidating your own inner experience before anyone else gets the chance to. In the therapy room, I hear it all the time. I know I shouldn't feel this way. I don't know why I'm so upset. It's not a big deal. I hate that I cry so easily. I'm being ridiculous.

These aren't just passing thoughts. They are the voice of internalized shame, a voice that learned very early that your emotional experience was a problem to be managed rather than a signal to be heard. I know for me, definitely, I heard so much I was too sensitive that I was too sensitive so many times when I was growing up.

And know, here's what makes us so clinically significant. When we are chronically ashamed of our feelings, we lose access to them as information. We stop being able to use our emotions as a guide. We override our own nervous system. And over time, that disconnection has real consequences for our relationships, our bodies, our sense of self. So today's workout is about rebuilding that connection one rep at a time.

Before we get into the reps, let's warm up. And any good workout, you don't go straight into the heavy lifting, you prepare the body. You get present, and we're going to do the same thing here. I want you to take one slow breath in through the nose, out through the mouth. And I want you to just do a quick

Is there any emotion sitting in your body right now that you've been pushing away or telling yourself you shouldn't be feeling? Maybe it's frustration. Maybe it's sadness. Maybe it's anxiety about something you've been dismissing as not a big deal. You don't have to do anything with it yet. Just notice it. Let it be there. That act of acknowledgement, just staying, just saying this is here.

is already the beginning of something different.

That's your warmup.

Now let's get to work.

All right, this is the workout where we do the reps, three of them today. And just like any good workout, the goal isn't perfection. The goal is showing up and doing the work.

Shame thrives in secrecy and silence. It grows in the dark. One of the most powerful things you can do is simply name it. Because naming an experience activates the prefrontal cortex and begins to regulate the emotional response. There's actual neuroscience behind this. Labeling an emotion

reduces its intensity. So here's the practice. When you notice a wave of shame or emotional self-criticism rising instead of fusing with it, instead of letting it become your whole reality, you create a little distance by naming it. You say, this is shame. This is not truth.

or even more specifically instead of I am not enough, you say, I'm having the thought that I'm not enough. Do you feel that difference? The first one is identity. The second one is observation. You are not the thought. You are the one noticing the thought. And that tiny shift, that sliver of space is where healing begins. This week,

Practice catching the shame-based thought and naming it out loud or in writing. This is shame. This is not who I am. This is an old story. The second rep we want to do is based out of cognitive behavioral therapy. This is clear and practical. Shame tells very condensing stories. And one of the things I love about cognitive behavioral therapy is that it gives us a framework for slowing down

and actually examining those stories rather than just accepting them as truth. Because here's what I know from years in the therapy room, the shame story is almost always distorted. It takes a real experience, a moment of failure, a relationship rupture, a feeling of inadequacy, and it catastrophizes it into a verdict about your entire worth as a person. So this rep is about reality checking the story.

When the shame voice shows up, you ask yourself three questions. One, would I say this to someone I love? Two, what is the actual evidence for this belief? And three, is this present day reality or is this old conditioning showing up? I am sure that we are telling ourselves these horrific shame-based stories every morning when we're getting up.

Right? Oh, I'm late. I'm always late. This is the worst. Why don't I get up? This is so ridiculous. I wish I would have gone to bed earlier. I should have blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, right? So would you say this to someone you love? Right? What would you say instead? I would tell someone I love, you'll get there when you get there. This is what happens. It's okay. Sometimes we're running a little behind. And is there evidence for the belief, oh, I'm late all the time? No, you're not late 100 % of

⁓ And is this old conditioning? Yes, it's old conditioning showing up. This is me being mean to myself and telling myself a negative story. And that third question is the one I find most powerful with clients because so much of what shame tells us about, because so much of what shame tells us isn't about what's happening right now. It's a recording. It's a voice of a parent, a teacher, an ex-

a a culture, playing a loop inside our nervous system. When you say, ⁓ this is old conditioning, this isn't about today, you take back a little bit of authority over your own story.

Let's move to rep three. Even if it feels a little bit awkward, we're gonna practice this today. This is a rep that most people wanna skip. And I get it. If you've been carrying shame for a long time, self-compassion can feel unnatural. It can feel embarrassing or performative or just deeply uncomfortable. Some of my clients tell me it makes them wanna cry because it's the first time they've extended kindness inward in a very long time.

But here's the clinical reality. Shame softens in the presence of compassion, not in the presence of self-criticism, not in the presence of pushing harder, in the presence of kindness. So here's the practice. I want you to place one hand on your chest, right over your heart. And I want you to say out loud if you can, or in your mind if that's what you need.

This is hard. I am allowed to be human. I can learn without tearing myself apart. That's it. That's the rep.

I want to normalize that this may feel awkward at first, especially if the shame voice has been your default for most of your life. You are essentially practicing a new neural pathway. And like any new movement pattern, it takes repetition before it feels natural. The awkwardness is not a sign that it's not working. It's a sign that you're doing something new. Just keep going.

Let's shift to the cool down and explore one thing to carry into your week. You know, every good workout ends with a cool down and it's a moment to integrate, to let the body settle, to absorb what you've done. And here's your cool down practice for this week. I want you to keep a small log, nothing formal, even just a note in your phone of every time you catch yourself dismissing or criticizing a feeling you're having.

Every time you say to yourself, I shouldn't feel this way or I'm being ridiculous or get it together and just notice it, write it down. You don't have to fix it yet. You just have to see it. Because as we talk about so much in this podcast, one of the first steps in changing a pattern is becoming aware of how often it's actually happening. Most of us don't realize how relentless the inner critic is until we start tracking it. And when you see it,

When you have five, eight, 12 entries in a week, you start to understand this is not occasional. This is a pattern and patterns can be changed. And that's the work, simple, unglamorous, but genuinely powerful. Shame wants you to shrink, hide, and stay stuck. Every rep you do, every time you name it, reality check it or meet it with compassion. And every rep that you do,

is you expanding back into your worth one small movement at a time. Thank you for putting in the work today. Seriously, you know showing up for this kind of inner work is not small and it matters. If you would like to read my blog or stay up to date, can sign up for the newsletter at healingismyhobby.com. You can follow me on Instagram at healingismyhobby or on YouTube at healingismyhobby. And if you want to know

And if you wanna know more about my clinical practice, you can visit jessicacolarcolcsw.com or follow me on Instagram at jessicacolarcolcsw. Next week, we're going into the healing lab and I'll be sharing some experiments I've been trying myself around self-worth and that isn't tied, around self-worth that isn't tied to production or performance and you won't wanna miss it. I'll see you then. Keep healing. It's worth it.