How to Break Up with Your Inner Narcissist | Emma Lyons | 168

What if the biggest block to your growth wasn’t fear... but shame, disguised as perfectionism, procrastination, or self-sabotage?

In this powerful episode of Manders Mindset, Amanda Russo sits down with Emma Lyons, a trauma-informed healer and founder of The Trauma Matrix, for an unfiltered conversation about breaking free from the invisible grip of shame. Drawing from her own experience as a childhood scapegoat in a covertly narcissistic family system, Emma shares why shame is never about care... it’s always about control.

Together, Amanda and Emma explore how shame becomes internalized, why emotional abuse is so often dismissed, and how to break up with the inner narcissist that’s been stealing your voice. Through deep insight and grounded tools, Emma introduces her signature D.R.E.A.K. method to help listeners finally step out of the shame trance and into their full power.

This episode is for anyone who’s ever felt like too much and not enough at the same time, or who’s ready to reclaim their worth, voice, and visibility.

💡 In this episode, listeners will discover:

🧠 Why shame is not a normal emotion and where it really comes from
 ⚠️ The inner narcissist: how shame disguises itself as your own voice
 🔥 The D.R.E.A.K. Method to dismantle shame and reclaim your truth
 🚫 Why “feel your shame” might be the worst advice you’ve received
 👀 How perfectionism, procrastination, and imposter syndrome are all shame in disguise
 🧘‍♀️ The body’s role in healing emotional trauma and releasing shame
 🧠 How to become “shame-less” without losing empathy or humanity

⏰ Timeline Summary:

[2:10] – The scapegoat child: Emma’s early story of invisibility and emotional abuse
 [10:45] – Covert narcissism, emotional neglect, and the silent trauma no one talks about
 [19:30] – Why society protects mothers even when abuse is present
 [26:50] – Shame as a cultural implant: control, compliance, and colonialism
 [35:40] – The hidden cost of perfectionism and how shame hijacks the nervous system
 [41:05] – Breaking free with D.R.E.A.K: the 5-step method to release internalized shame
 [55:50] – Shame vs. guilt: how false compassion keeps us stuck
 [1:04:15] – Somatic healing, Breathwork, and the path to authentic empowerment
 [1:12:20] – Final reflections: your shame voice is not you and you don’t owe it anything.

To Connect with Amanda:

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To Connect with Emma: 

Substack: https://traumamatrix.substack.com/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/trauma.matrix/#

Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@trauma.matrix

Chapters

• 0:00 Welcome And Guest Introduction
• 1:06 Not Safe To Shine And The Double Bind
• 3:48 Family Roles And Covert Narcissism
• 9:20 Being Tracked Not Seen: Internalizing Shame
• 13:45 Culture Excuses Mothers And Invalidates Abuse
• 18:46 School Years, Self-Hate, And The Inner Narcissist
• 24:20 No Contact And Early Liberation
• 27:20 Human Rights Work, Disillusionment, And Purpose Shift
• 32:10 Finding Healing, Nervous System, And Grief
• 38:12 Why Cultures Use Shame As Control
• 44:00 Becoming Unshamable And The D-R-E-A-K Method
• 50:20 Social Shaming, Projection, And Power
• 55:20 Group Work, Releasing Intergenerational Shame
• 1:00:25 Self-Sabotage, Manifesting, And Receiving

Transcript

SPEAKER_00: 0:00

Welcome to the Manders Mindset Podcast. Here you'll find both monologue and interviews of entrepreneurs, coaches, healers, and a variety of other people, where your host, Amanda Rousseau, will discuss her own mindset and perspective, and her guest mindset and perspective on the world around us. Manders and her guests will help explain to you how shifting your mindset will shift your life.

SPEAKER_03: 0:28

Welcome to Manders Mindset, where we explore the power of shifting your mindset to shift your life. I'm your host, Amanda Buster, and I am so excited to be joined today with Emma Lyons. And she is a trauma-informed healer and the founder of Trauma, the Trauma Matrix, where she helps women break up with the shame voice that's been sabotaging their success, relationships, and visibility for years. Thank you for joining me. Great to be here. Thanks so much for having me, Amanda.

SPEAKER_01: 1:00

So who would you say Emma is at the core? Well, that's a really big question. I mean, I didn't know who I was for a big part of my life. Because I was kind of under the family's shadow. I was the family scapegoat, so I had no idea. So it's only in you know fairly recent years that I've started to get in touch with who I am and my power and get it out there. I mean, it's so hard to put who you are into words, but I believe that everyone is really powerful. Everyone has an amazing potential, everyone has an amazing gift to offer and is here to shine. And this is the thing that I'm working on. I was taught that it's not safe to shine, and I really feel like I've got that power in me. And I've got a really important message to share with the world. And I've been on a lot of podcasts, and a lot of people have said that the way that I talk about things changed the way they saw things and kind of started to shift things in their life. So I don't know if I answered your question, but that's a tough question. But I have so much to say.

SPEAKER_03: 2:08

I noticed. Now you mentioned you would try it's not safe to shine.

SPEAKER_01: 2:14

Oh, yeah. And I think that's so common for lots of people, especially women. You know, we're taught to be the wallflowers, to sit in the background, to be quiet. I was not allowed to be angry. I was allowed to be depressed. No one noticed that I was depressed from a very young age. But if I got angry, I was told that was not acceptable. You know, if I started to feel angry and really expressive, I was told to tone it down. So I learned pretty quickly that in order to survive, that I was too much and not enough. This is the double wine that I noticed lots of people have, not just me. You believe you're too much, so oh my god, it's not safe to shine. I better hold myself back, and that's shame. And then I'm not enough. Oh, I'm a failure. So I don't want people to see that I'm a failure. Again, that's shame. So shame is kind of tying you in, was tying me in for from both sides. And it was just like being in a strait jacket. And until I started getting that second thing off, things really didn't move in my life, and it was really frustrating because I was constantly grinding and doing the right things, but it was kind of like doing feng shui in when the house is on fire, it's kind of not a priority now. Let's put the fire out first. So this was the healing I did. It made me feel better in the moment, but because this foundational piece, this shame for my upbringing was still very much in place and continually being reinforced, none of that great healing really stuck.

SPEAKER_03: 3:48

Now, can you take us down memory land a little bit? Tell us about your upbringing, family dynamic, childhood, however deep you want to take that.

SPEAKER_01: 3:58

Yeah, sure. So I was the middle child, I was the most sensitive child, I was the quietest one, and I was chosen as the scapegoat, which is it's estimated about 70 to 80 percent of families in Western cultures are dysfunctional. So that's most families, right? Most families are dysfunctional. So you get these, she would get assigned these shame roles. I was the scapegoat, I was also the invisible child, so I was off, nobody cared about me, nobody looks at me. And I internalized all this shame, realized fairly recently also that my mom is very, she has very strong covert narcissistic tendencies. So she's kind of the vulnerable narcissist. So poor me. So not the obvious, you know, Donald Trump look at me kind of narcissism. And she would kind of use manipulation and guilt and shaming to get what she wants, and remember times in my childhood. And it's very subtle with covert narcissism because there aren't big incidents like death by a thousand cuts. So there were times where, for example, I was traveling and she told me that if I didn't phone her every day, that would mean that I didn't love her, for example. And she made it feel like that was about my safety, but really it was about her soothing her anxiety. And there were many situations like that. There was one time when I was, you know, about 18, where I where because I was walking in front of her one day, she got really offended, started crying, and told me that she would cut me off, you know, things like that. That looking back now, just so disproportionate with what actually happened and seemed crazy. But in the time I was like, oh my god, this is my fault. I've done something terrible. So I need to go and appease and make her feel better. I had no idea what I was dealing with. And this is the thing about when you're in the role of the skateboat, you are basically the depository for all the family dysfunction. So I said my mother was a covert narcissist, and I found out, I mean, I knew my grandmother, my mother's mother was not a very nice person, but I've spoken to my uncle, who was kind of exiled from that family system, and he was also the scapegoat. So he was actually sexually abused by her, and she was also quite sadistic, you know, she would get him to do things and say things to other children and get a kind of kick out of it. So this is the person that my mother grew up with, and my mother would say, Oh, she wasn't that bad, she was just a bit anxious, you know, she gave us everything, but she couldn't really give us love. So there's a real downplaying of how bad this, you know, sociopathic, malignant, narcissistic woman was. And it obviously gets passed down to the children. And my mother, for example, she never did any work on herself. But you know, when I was in the 12 steps, she never even asked me why what I was in the 12 steps for. You know, when I told her that I'd been depressed all my life, she had no questions, like zero curiosity about my inner landscape. But she was very much into knowing where I was and tracking where I was. So there was constantly when I was growing up this feeling of being tracked and watched, but not really, never really seen, ironically, because my family never really wanted to see me. So I was like the invisible one and internalized all that shame and put it against myself. And this is why shame is so toxic, because so many of us, it's not just me, we internalize shame because we think that if I shame myself enough, then it won't hurt so much when other people shame me. So it becomes kind of a sword, as it becomes a kind of shield as well as a sword. You know, we think, oh, I'm protecting myself if I just shame myself, and if shame makes you shrink, it makes you shrink and become little and become as small and quiet as you can. So obviously, you bring those patterns, they don't just stay in your childhood. I was always striving to be better and to do things, but it was like I was constantly, and this was when I was little as well, constantly feeling like I was trying to drive, go into second, third, fourth gear, but I had the handbrake on the whole time and could never get out of second gear. That's kind of been the story of my life until I realized the toxic kind of substrate where I had been based all my life. And then only then, and I started to validate that little girl and speak to people who could validate that as well. Because so many people still, especially if you're the victim of this kind of covert abuse, people minimize it. People tell you didn't really happen, it wasn't that bad, you should just forgive her, you know. Well, and it's like really, you wouldn't say that to someone who had been smacked around or someone who had been sexually abused, but emotional abuse seems to get a pass. And people are just very invalidating about it because the mother and the family is kind of like a sacred cow that you can never leave. But if you're trying to individuate and you're in a toxic environment, it's never gonna happen. You have to separate yourself, you have to create distance in order to grow personally and to become the person that you're here to be.

SPEAKER_03: 9:30

That makes a lot of sense. A lot of people do have that mindset, if you will, like your mom is your mom, you know?

SPEAKER_01: 9:38

Yeah, you've got to love her no matter what if she doesn't love you? What if she what if everything, everything that she says, like when I told my mom I need a bit of space, I can't speak right now. For a cold. So there's a lack of respect for boundaries there. And our culture is very accepting for mothers. Mothers can do anything and it's allowed, it's accepted. You know, when my mother did that emotional abuse thing when I was traveling and said I had to phone her every day, when I went home and said it to other people, they were like, oh, she was just scared, she was just worried about you. But no, she wasn't worried about me. Because think about it, me calling her every day does not make me any safer. That's not about me. That's about looking after her anxiety. It's nothing to do with my safety. But so people shield mothers, people make excuses for mothers when really they're actually being quite selfish. They're not thinking about their child, they're thinking about their own feelings and their own safety. And this is so toxic. So many children are made to be responsible for looking after their parents' emotions. And that's true in covert abuse as well. The children are made to be responsible. You have to look after my feelings. So if I'm feeling sad, that's your fault, and you have to fix me. And it means that we that these children myself, you grow up super attuned to how other people are feeling, trying to fix everyone else and really disconnected from how you're feeling yourself. So it makes for very dysfunctional and very difficult life. And you have to separate from that BS, you have to create distance, you have to separate from that dysfunctional Wi-Fi, so to speak, in order to reclaim your power. Because while you're in that, you are controlled, you're within the system, you're not allowed to be you. And if you're in if you're unlucky enough to be in the scapegoat role, guess what? Your life is not supposed to work. That role is designed to be constantly struggling and striving and never get anywhere. You're like the garbage disposal for the family's dysfunction. And that's not a nice job. It's designed to keep you in your little box and stay there and shut up and not complain and just keep taking it. It's abuse, but it's silent abuse. So culture deems it not that bad, but it is extremely damaging for people. Like the beliefs you come out, if you've been through that kind of abuse, it's very comparable to people who've been sexually abused. It's the exact same kind of shame-based system that you internalize, and it destroys your life quite literally.

SPEAKER_03: 12:19

It's so true about how you mentioned society as a whole downplates emotional abuse. We hear all the time, it's still your, even if it's not mom, it's still your whatever, it's still your brother, it's still your even more so, mom. But like we hear so often, but they're still your family. Like you mentioned, if someone was sexually abused, I've never heard anybody say, It's still your so-and-so, you know, but a lot of times with emotional abuse, there will be somebody that will say, But it's still your mom. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 12:50

They're getting old now, you have to look after them, you're gonna grow grab it, you know. Oh, poor mom, she's really sick now. You know, it's this is more guilt trimping and invalidation. So you have to be really careful, and this is something that I would say to people who are resonating with this, be really careful about who you talk to about this, because most people are not safe. Even spiritual people will tell you, oh, you know, just forgive and forget, move on, or they'll tell you, like me the other day, I was talking to someone who is I'm studying the Course in Miracles, and she said, Oh, it didn't really happen, you know, and it's just so invalidating and hurtful, especially when you've been made invisible through your whole life. You've been invalidated, your feelings have been invalidated. And for someone to do that and think that it's spiritual is just it's just really ignorant, to be honest.

SPEAKER_03: 13:45

I completely agree. I want to backtrack it, Chad.

SPEAKER_01: 13:49

How was school for you while you were at Berman in like high school and well, I just remember feeling a lot of shame in school and constantly turning red and wanting to disappear and feeling like I internalized all these belief systems, like I'm ugly, I'm a failure, I'm stupid, I hate myself. And this is really typical for scapegoats because in order to survive, we know why mom and dad are treating me like this. Oh, something wrong with me. So we take on all these really toxic belief systems. So I had all that in school. If someone tried to be nice to me, if a boy likes me, I'd be like, there's something wrong with them. And it set me up for a life where if someone got too close, I became very emotionally anorexic and love avoidant. So it wasn't so much food anorexia. We talk about anorexia for food, but there's also anorexia for love and pleasure, sexual and emotional anorexia. And that's where you don't let love in. You don't let pleasure in because you're under the grip of shame. And it's all about control. This is one way that you can kind of control things and keep yourself in the gnome. And it is the grip of shame that we're held under. So that was me in my childhood. I just remember feeling very shamed and constantly, you know, being very studious and studying all the time in order to try to prove that I was enough, but obviously never being enough because you know, the inner critics, I've recognized that it's an inner narcissist for so many people because it gaslights you, it shames you, also it moves the goalposts. You know, it ticks all the boxes of a narcissist. You know, okay, you get the A and then you'll be good enough, and then you get the A and you're still not good enough. You've got to get the next thing. So this narcissist that I've they internalized has been harassing me and destroying me my whole life since I was a child. So since I was a child, I had suicidal ideation very regularly. I wanted to disappear, I want to not be here. I've had a lot of all those fantasies because I just thought, you know, life is too painful. So I remember kind of really having a lot of self-pity. This is how I comforted myself through self-pity and feeling sorry for myself because nobody reflected back my feelings within my family. I didn't have one safe person to speak to. When I got my period, I had no one. Why did I not tell anyone? I actually just Googled it and thought I was dying of cancer or something, you know. So this is the level of kind of neglect or emotional abuse, really, that was getting because nobody cared enough to check if I was okay. And that's true in adulthood as well. No, no, I've gone, no contact with my family, and nobody has said, Are you okay, Emma? They're just like, When are you coming back? When are you coming back? This is what's happening. It's just uh it's just really insane because a normal family wouldn't behave like that. They'd be concerned or curious about how you're doing, rather than just where are you? What's your address? When are you coming back? When are you normalizing things? So it just shows you the extent and to which my family is toxic. It's extremely toxic, and knowing that has been so painful, but in a way also kind of liberating because I've managed to cut ties with them now emotionally. And this is there, there's a liberation, it's very difficult, obviously, but there's a freedom in escaping, getting out of that toxic Wi-Fi that I've been living under my whole freaking life.

SPEAKER_03: 17:34

Now, if you don't mind me asking, about how long ago did you go no contact?

SPEAKER_01: 17:42

It is about six months, so it's not even that long ago. But I'm gonna keep it for as long as it feels right, and I am you know anticipating the flying monkeys. At the moment, it's kind of just soft. They send me emails, they don't have my phone number, so it's not that long really. But the liberating thing is they can phone me and arrest me, they can only send me emails and I could choose how I respond to that and really take my time.

SPEAKER_03: 18:11

Now, transitioning back in terms of schooling, did you go to college?

SPEAKER_01: 18:18

I did. I did a degree in languages, and then I did a master's in human rights law. So yeah, I have a degree at a master's.

SPEAKER_03: 18:30

What made you decide to get your master's in human rights law?

SPEAKER_01: 18:34

Well, I always wanted to help people, I suppose, as a way to and I went to Palestine and really there because there's scapegoats. We're talking about scapegoating these family systems, it also fractals out in the world. You see it everywhere where that same pattern of abuse. You see it in collectives, you know, immigrants are the current target, the current scapegoat in many countries, and you can see that in regions, certain cultures are the golden child. You know, these are the golden group, and then they scapegoat somebody else. You can see that happening in the world in its most malignant form in genocide. So I always wanted to help people, so I thought this would be a great way to help people, but it just made me very sad and depressed for the state of the world because when I was there, it was just uh very depressing because there's this whole human rights framework, but it never had any teeth. It could never do anything, it was always designed as a kind of proc, so to speak, to make it look like the governments gave a damn with when really nothing could be done and governments could continue to do whatever they wanted and get away with it.

SPEAKER_03: 19:47

How and when did you transition out of that?

SPEAKER_01: 19:53

Well, I've always been into law. After I did my master's, I also did a law degree course, and then after that, I was like, oh hell no, this is not for me. And I had a quarter life crisis, which was very unpleasant, by the way. It's like a midlife crisis, a bit earlier. And from that, I was like so lost, so depressed. Who am I? What am I doing? And I found this healing work, this energy healing and yoga, and I found it very soothing, and I loved doing it. And I was like, yes, this is what I want to do, this is my purpose, and I was so excited about it. And I remember talking to my mother about it, bad idea, because I didn't know she was a narcissist then, and she gave me like an hour-long lecture down the phone about why it was impossible, why I could never do it, why I should never do it, why it was not realistic. And again, it's about her, it's about her because it didn't feel safe for her, not for me. She was not thinking about me at all there, but she made it seem like it was about care, and it was really about shaming and controlling, which is what shame always is. Shame always is about controlling, it's never ever about care. Even when you shame someone else or you shame a child, we've all done that. If you look very closely, that's for your comfort, it's not for the comfort or benefit of the other person, if you're really honest. So the that really was, and then I was doing this healing work, the yoga for years and years, and nothing really changed for me until I started to uncover these deeper patterns. And once I started uncovering that, things started to really flip because it's stored in your nervous system. You know, when I realized this covert abuse, my body like got diarrhea, your body kind of rip reacts, you know, because your nervous system is holding all this tension, even cognitively, if you're not aware of it, it's there in your body, stored. And when you become aware of it, your body just like, wow, we can let go of this now. Wow, this has been a heavy thing that we've been carrying all those years. So this was kind of the shift that started to really move things for me. And it's been super challenging. And you go through grief and you go through rage and you know, these spirals. It's not like you're going to go through grief and you're finished. You might go through grief several times because it's like all the life that you could have lived, the person that you could have become if you'd just been nurtured, if you'd just been valued, if you'd just been told that you could, rather than ignored, neglected, abused, and shamed, you know, and basically told, even if not verbally, you're told energetically that you're useless, that you're no good. Although my dad did say that to me one time in the car, he was like, You're useless because I was late. So he called me useless, and I still remember that. But the reason why it hurts so much is because I had already internalized that belief, because my family had shown me through their actions that's how much they valued me.

SPEAKER_03: 23:08

You know, I I think it's great that you mentioned the grief with this. I don't think everybody touches upon that, and there's grief in everything, I personally believe. And I think there's grief in even the shame that people experience and feel. It doesn't have to be a loss of someone or something for it to be grief.

SPEAKER_01: 23:32

No, it's all the things that you could have been, the boyfriends that you could have had, the things that you could have done if you'd just been, you know, held when you were a child rather than shamed and told that you weren't enough, you know. So all of that, because all the potential was there the whole time, but no space was ever made for it. So I was just left to cope on my own and nobody even saw that I was desperately depressed because not because they didn't see, but because they didn't want to see. Because that would have ruined the facade that they're a good family, that they care and that they're loving and supportive when really it's super toxic, enmeshed, and dysfunctional.

SPEAKER_03: 24:15

Now, why do you think and this I honestly is probably just a personal opinion, but why do you think people shame children the way they do and as much as they do?

SPEAKER_01: 24:27

Oh, I know. I'm very I know why that is, because shame is not a normal emotion. Shame is a cultural implant, and if you look like a like I shared before, it's always about control. And there are two shades of guilt of shame, if you like. There's kind of uh collectivized shame, which is what they have mostly in the Far East, you know. Not only, but it's like this honor-based system. If you step outside what's acceptable, then you're shamed because you've done something unacceptable, right? You've stepped outside, you've shamed the family, you know, so you're shamed for that. But in the West, we have this kind of individualized form of shame, which I feel is even more malignant because it comes from the Christian template. This is where it kind of originated and came to its peak. And with capitalism, it's like the individualized, it's this idea that you're a sinner, there's something wrong with you, and you have to forgive the underpinning of our culture. And a straight jacket that you can never, ever get out of. And it's the basis of all Christian culture and Judeo-Christian culture. And guilt, you know, guilt is served up very rarely is guilt served up without a healthy portion of shame on the side. Guilt is the belief that, oh, I've done something bad, right? And shame is said to be that belief that I am bad. But actually, shame is much more than that. Shame is a contraction of the body, shame is a shrinking, shame is I don't deserve to be here. And the belief I am enough kind of stems from that. But shame is a lot more insidious, in my opinion. So shaming is a kind of cultural implant that's designed by Empire to keep everybody in their space and to keep everybody performing and in their role and to keep it keep doing it and not complain. And because once people internalize that, you don't have to police them, people police themselves. And so this is where shame comes from. It's not a normal human emotion. All other human emotions, if you look Amanda, they have a positive, like fear. Something dangerous is there, you need to run, you know, anger, you need to stand up for yourself, you need to put a boundary. It's not exactly a nice emotion, but shame is right there at the bottom. There's nothing good about shame. And people who defend shame are they talk about it, they say that shame is normal and natural, and that you have a thing called healthy shame. You know, this is just completely ludicrous. It comes from this Eurocentric perspective because shame is so normalized, but it's not normal. In indigenous cultures that were more nomadic, they did not have this concept of shame. So this is a Eurocentric point of view. And it's always about control, like I said. Shame is indigestible, it's not something that we can digest, it's not something that we can process. We need to either we either internalize it and self-destruct, or you find someone else and project that shame on them. And that's what most people do. They either do one or the other are a combination of the both. So this is why women pull other women down, because women collectively, we've been scapegoated culturally, historically. We've got that shame going on, we've been shamed for our bodies, for the weird smell, for having the peering for all this stuff, for having too many wrinkles, for being too fat, too thin, whatever. So, what do we do with that? We pull down other work crabs in the barrel. We pull other women down in order to feel better about ourselves. So that is a long way of answering your question. We shame other people because it momentarily gives us some relief from the shame that we're feeling that we've internalized. It doesn't work, obviously, because we feel a bit better in the moment, but the shame doesn't go away. It gives us some relief in the moment. So this is why we shame each other, because we think it gives us some relief. And this is also why people do alcohol and drugs. Yeah, I mean, I'm from a country that has a very deep shame culture. We also have a very deep drink culture. That's not a coincidence, because when we drink, it puts the pause on that shame voice, and we get momentary release from it. Otherwise, we're just swimming around in shame every day. And this is how most people live our lives. We're swimming around in shame, normalized shame, and we're told that it's good for you. We even it's it's encoded in our language, Amanda. Don't be sh don't be so sh you're so shameless. You know, every other word in the English language that ends in the L E S S means you're free of that thing. But when we accuse someone of being shameless, they're more than likely acting from the press or shame that they've done they've disconnected from themselves. Or the alternative is they might be one of those rare people who's acting fully authentically and we feel triggered. So we project our shame on them. So it's even encoded in our language that we need a bit of shame in order to be good, in order to be humble, in order to know we're not God. And you know, even very good therapists and speakers like Brene Brown says that if you don't have shame, then you're basically even that means you're a psychopath. So they again they've normalized shame and accepted it as the because it's the cultural substrate of our culture. But it's not it's normalized, but that doesn't make it normal or okay, something that we should accept it. But we're just gap. To believe that it is.

SPEAKER_03: 30:03

Just because it's normalized doesn't mean it's normal. No. I feel like there's a lot of things in society that are normalized but not necessarily normal. And shame being one of them. Like yet, even certain things that like maybe you wish you wouldn't have done, maybe you have a regret, like a lot of people do. It doesn't mean that you need to have you know, the shame's normal. Like we all make mistakes, but it doesn't mean you need to internalize that and shame yourself. But I feel like society so much says that we should. Like you did this and it was wrong, and you should feel that shame.

SPEAKER_01: 30:42

Absolutely. And I'll just say one more thing about that, because shame also it kind of gives you a pass. I've done something bad, but I feel shame about it, so that's okay. So it's oh, I did this terrible thing, but I feel so ashamed about it. So I'm still a good person, you know, and this is complete BS. We don't need shame to be a good person, we need empathy, and shame actually in the brain, it shuts down our ability to empathize. So this is complete gaslighting, and it's everywhere. Psychologists, therapists talk about it everywhere, even very clever people. It's a huge blind spot in our culture.

SPEAKER_03: 31:19

So, do you have a suggestion for people to not be as weighed down by shame?

SPEAKER_01: 31:28

Well, yeah. I mean, first you've got to recognize that the shame is not you. I mean, I the way I frame it, because it I you internalize this shame voice, it's called the inner critic, and we're told to take it to therapy and to sit down and feel our shame. And this is the exact wrong approach with when it comes to shame. It's like it's really funny because if we meet a narcissist out there in the world, we're told don't engage with them, don't give them any room. But with the narcissist, the voice that we internalize that gaslights us, that shames us, that moves the goalpost, that puts us down all the time, that minimizes us, that projects its feelings and its shame on us. We're supposed to send it love and take it to therapy and treat it like a wounded child. That hell no, that's the wrong thing to do. You just give the thing more power. Think of it like a ghost or a shell or a light bulb. It has no power or parasite, it has no power without you. It's sucking your energy and it's not you. This is the thing we're told that this voice is you and it's so confusing. And is it helping me or is it not helping me? If the voice is shaming you, it's not your friend, it's not your higher self, you've got to break up with that voice. D-R-E-A-K. So the first one is break the trance. Recognize that this voice, this energy, it's not you, it's a spell, it's a pattern, it's a trance that we've been under. So you don't argue with the trance, you just catch it, you interrupt it, and name it. This is a trance, and that automatically disrupts the loop. Then you go on to R, which is your views to engage with it. And this is the thing. We're taught to engage with it, to take the therapy. No, that's what you don't do with a narcissist. Dr. Ramini, who's an expert in narcissists out there in the world, she talks about D. So don't engage or don't defend, don't engage, don't explain, and don't personalize. That's the same. When the voice says, Don't get up on that stage, you're stupid, don't defend yourself, don't engage with it, don't explain because all of that just gives it power. Just say, not today, not today, bitch. It ain't working. Try again tomorrow. You know, you don't owe it any politeness or anything. This is not your brand. It's actually trying to destroy you, okay? Then you go on to E, which is expose the lie. So call out that shame-based programming. Recognize that it's about control, that it's trying to control you. It's trying to say you can't sing that song, you can't do that thing. It's trying to limit you, it's not trying to help you, it's not your story, and speaking the truth really automatically starts to disarm its power. That's expose the lie. Then, and you're gonna like this one because this is anchor it in your body, because shame, when it comes, it kind of hijacks your body like no other emotion, takes you out of your think of the heat, your body actually shrinks. So you've got to anchor in your truths. That means come back to your body, feel your breath, plan to your feet, say your name, the year, and just remind your nervous system I'm safe, I'm sovereign, and I'm here. And then finally, you kick that thing out, right? You kick it out. That means shake it off, stomp it out. This is not mine, and evict that spell from your body and mind. So, this is the antithesis of what people are taught to do with shame. Just say goodbye, stop performing for it and let it die on its own because it is a parasite. If there's a parasite inside your digestive system, you don't send love to it, you flush the thing out, and you've got to do the exact same thing with this shame voice. And it's the root, it's the reason why we self-sabotage, it's the reason why we procrastinate, why we are perfectionists. It's all different disguises for shame.

SPEAKER_03: 35:33

No, that makes a lot of sense. But you've got to break the trance, interrupt. Wow, no, this makes so much sense, but also needing to acknowledge it as well. Yeah. And feel sorry, go ahead. In feeling it in the body, like coming back into the body.

SPEAKER_01: 35:52

You know, that makes because it's not like any other emotion, no other emotion hijacks the body and the nervous system the way shame does. And anyone who's had a shame attack, and I have had several, you will know that. Shame is super malignant. And also, without this inner narcissist, nobody would commit suicide. Because think about it, you know, you need if somebody comes to you and says, you know, you're a Coca-Cola, you think, Oh my god, this woman is crazy, right? In order for you to feel shame about that, you need the voice inside to say, Oh my god, my nose is really big. Oh my god, I look really stupid. You need that narcissistic voice to resonate in order to be shamed by someone else. So liberating ourselves from this inner narcissist is how we liberate ourselves from shame. We become shame, we become unshamable. And this is why my program, I have a five-week program where I take people through. It's called Reclaim Your Shameless. Not to say, bitch, you take your back, take back your power from that shame demon because it has no power, it has nothing without you. It's a parasite that's been sucking your energy dry for 20, 30, 40 years. You couldn't stop it. You just have to recognize the spell. It's like you're under a magical spell. The witch has you've eaten that apple and you're waking up from the trance, and then you can reclaim your power back from it because it has nothing without you. It's a shell, it's a ghost.

SPEAKER_03: 37:18

Now you mentioned the inner noses, and you mentioned no one would die by suicide without that. Can you elaborate on that?

SPEAKER_01: 37:30

Yeah, absolutely. So, in order for you to actually, so say your life is falling apart and it's terrible and things are really bad. In order for you to actually take that step, you need the narcissist inside your head to say, you would be better off dead. Nobody cares about you, you know. There's the you need without that, no matter how grim things get, you're not going to take the step. You know, this is the power. You do not have to take the shame in. It's like a lock and a key, right? So I come along and try to shame you. You need to have the resonating hook for it to latch on. So if I come to you and say something that's trying to shame you, you need that voice in your head, the narcissist, to say, yeah, you do have a big nose. Yeah, what you said is really stupid. And then only then do you experience shame. So you can't experience shame without that. You need the inner narcissist to resonate or to agree with what's being said to you in order for you to experience shame. So once you unhook its power, you become shameless in the true sense of the word, not in the sense that shameless is thrown around in our culture to promote shame as uh as something that makes you good. This is about reclaiming you're shameless, because we do not need shame to be a good person. That's a complete lie. That's a complete gaslight, and it's complete bullshit, to be honest.

SPEAKER_03: 38:53

So why do you think so many people use that a tactic? Like when somebody does something like in utilizing the fact that I don't know that I want to say utilizing, but almost embracing that they're ashamed of it.

SPEAKER_01: 39:08

Well, shame is like I said, it's normalized. So and it's a weapon and a shield. So the quick way to get someone to do this, why it's so common on social media, because it's quick and I and it's effective. If I tell a child that to shut up and sit down that he looks stupid, no, he's gonna do it pretty quick. He's gonna feel shame and do it, right? So it's quick and effective, but it's always toxic. And like I said, it's always about control, even if I'm deluding myself and saying, oh, I'm saying it because I care about you. No, I'm doing that because I'm uncomfortable. So I shame you in order to for my comfort. So it's about making ourselves feel better, and again, finding a target because we've all got shame that we've internalized. So when we shame someone else, we feel like we lose it for a second. We project it on someone else, on an external object, so we don't have to feel it so deeply ourselves. Because you know, we've all been shamed. We live in a narcissistic world world where shame is normalized and even glorified. So no surprise that there are so many narcissists running around because shame is at the root. I mean, psych therapists talk about this how many narcissists are that this is one major theory about how narcissists are formed. They're operating out of a lot of repressed shame. And that's true for so many mental conditions, you know, people operating out of a shame, depression, classic example. I was depressed for years. That is shame running the show. And you know, suicide, shame again. You might as well not be here. There's your life is useless. You need that voice to tell you that in order for you to do the act. Otherwise, you're not gonna do it no matter how bad your life is, or it seems on the outside.

SPEAKER_03: 40:52

No, that makes sense. I liked your analogy of it being quick and effective, you know, like even the kid you tell to shut up because what they said was stupid. Like they're gonna, you know, and it's an instant, it's like an instant, it is the control, but it's quick, you know, like it's impressive. I feel powerful. Even outside of it being normalized, you know, like and the control, they want that quick, it's gonna happen, you know. Like even if you try to and I'm just thinking uh of a different example of like if they try to scare the child, it's not necessarily as effective or as quick, you know, to get them to change or stop whatever behavior it is.

SPEAKER_01: 41:39

Yeah, and this is the way we've all been trained. Our mothers, our fathers, they use shame to train us because guess what? Their parents use shame and maybe beating them up to train them. So this is literally beaten into our culture.

SPEAKER_03: 41:56

And your five-week program helps people to beat this.

SPEAKER_01: 42:00

Yeah, because I help people release shame. I don't get people to sit down and feel shame. I help people to release it because it's stored in the body, and with the energy work that I do and also the training that I take people through, they start to recognize when shame is attacking. And also what's really important is to recognize because we're taught it's not you, it's a narcissist, it's an invader, it's not you. When we dissociate, that's such an important step because it's like I talked about a magical spell. You know, if we think that magical spell is us, we don't have a chance. You know, we're totally associated with. We've got to recognize that it's separate, we've got to dissociate from this thing, recognize that it's separate before we can take our power back. And this is really a crucial step because society tells you that's your voice and that's you. Shame, I shaming, I shame myself. That voice is not you. And when you start recognizing that, you already take your power back, and that's a huge step. But and also recognizing that it's not helping you. This is the other gaslight that we're told that the voice. So if you're sabotaging yourself, it's because the voice just wants to keep you safe. No, it doesn't want to keep you safe, it's trying to keep it safe. Just like the narcissist punches you in the face and tells you, oh, I'm doing it for your own good. The narcissist that we internalize does exactly the same thing. Oh, you're stupid. Don't get on that stage. You look like a fool. It's not doing it to help you, it's not doing it to protect you, it's doing it to protect its goddamn self. And once we realize that's so powerful in really taking our power back from that thing, it's not a wounded child, it's not something that you can take to therapy and heal. It doesn't work like that. Narcissists don't work like that. We need to just cut off its power.

SPEAKER_03: 43:55

Note that makes so much sense. Because feeding into it is just gonna expand it.

SPEAKER_01: 44:02

Exactly. You give it what's called narcissistic supply. When you perform for it, when you try to argue with it, you're just feeding it. It's getting more and more energy, just like the narcissist out there. We need to start treating it like a narcissist out there in the world. And this is the thing that really struck me. We're told two different things for the narcissist outside. When the narcissist that we've internalized, we're taught to send it love. Imagine if you have a parasite living in your intestines. No, you flush that thing out. You flush that thing out of you. You don't send it love. Get the thing out of you. We've got to do the same thing with this implant of shame that we've all absorbed because culturally we've been trained into thinking that this thing is normal when it's absolutely not.

SPEAKER_03: 44:46

It's so true. And it's just been normalized because it seems like it's been happening for a long time.

SPEAKER_01: 44:53

Jesus didn't teach shape, the church taught shame. Why do you think that is? To get people to follow what they were preaching about. Jesus wasn't trying to control people, he was trying to care for people. So this is the distortion that's happened. And again, because shame is very effective, it's very quick, you can see the results very quickly. It looks very oppressive. I feel very powerful when I shame someone and they stop doing what makes me feel uncomfortable.

SPEAKER_03: 45:26

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 45:28

Yeah, shame is a great way to get them to stop it, but it creates more toxic energy. You're putting more toxic energy out there in the world. So we need to recognize how often you shame people. Watch as you walk around today or tomorrow. Notice how often you notice shame being used, how often you shame yourself, how often you see shame being used around you, because we are swimming in it. It's everywhere. And we don't have to take it in. Once we disconnect from this inner narcissist, we become unshamable. Nobody can shame you. They say somebody brings you a gift and you're like, no, thank you. Return to sender. That's what we can do when people try to shame us too. And you don't when you unhook yourself from that inner narcissist, you take back your power so powerfully.

SPEAKER_03: 46:16

I really liked your example of paying attention to how often you shame other people or you shame yourself to bring awareness into our own lives to see. Because we all definitely do it, whether people realize it or not.

SPEAKER_01: 46:31

Just notice. Recognize that it's not serving you. Because that's the thing. Once you realize that shame is it's always toxic, it never serves you. And we've been trained, like men, you know, all of our culture, it's we're trained to believe that shame makes you better. The hustle culture, ooh, I've got to fight, I've got to show I'm better. This is all shame-based. So it's not just women, it's also men. They're operating out of shame, but in a slightly different way. Our whole culture is built on shame. And this is why we have a narcissist epidemic. It's no surprise, it didn't come out of nowhere. The cult the substrate of our culture is shame. And then you have genocide and genocidal states and genocidal countries. That's the obvious consequence of this. Because people operate scapegoat people, people who've been scapegoated looking for the next target, they project all their shame on them and do things like genocide. This is the pinnacle of narcissistic empire. And it's super toxic. And when you shame yourself and when you shame others, you are feeding into that machine. Yeah, it's just another form of abuse. It is abuse. So stop abusing yourself, stop shaming yourself, and stop shaming other people, stop abusing other people in the world. But we've been taught to do this. So we can unteach ourselves too. We can entrain ourselves to no longer do this. Because it is a spell, it's not real.

SPEAKER_03: 48:09

No, yeah. And so you would say the first step is bringing awareness into where people are experiencing shame.

SPEAKER_01: 48:17

That's a good way because then you realize how big a problem it is for you, you know, and how big a problem it is out there in the world, how much it's affecting you. And yeah, it's a good way to start. Then you start realizing, wow, this narcissist that I've internalized, it's really doing me damage. So maybe it's time to break up with it. That makes a lot of sense.

unknown: 48:41

Wow.

SPEAKER_03: 48:41

And now, your five-week course, is it a live course with you? Like what type of program is this?

SPEAKER_01: 48:49

Yeah, it's a weekly course. There are there are calls with me and the group, but it's also a collective of women working together on this shame, and I work with people individually as well. So there's a program that I take people through to really start recognizing and releasing this shame voice everywhere in their life. Because once you disconnect from this shame, it's so liberating. Nobody can shame you. Nobody can shame you unless you have the narcissist inside that's shaming you. And you can break up with that now. I love that.

SPEAKER_03: 49:23

With the analysis inside you.

SPEAKER_01: 49:26

Yeah. And you can do that because it's feeding off you. It's a parasite. It's got nothing, it's got no power without you. It gets all its energy, all its fuel from you. So if you've been feeding that for 20, 30, 40 years with shame and performance and arguing and defending yourself, you know, it's got some steam behind it. But working with a group is a really powerful way to break out of that. Working with the group. Well, yeah, working with the group. I work with groups and I then people kind of bring their shame situations and I work with them and work with the group. What I do, it's energetic work. I help people to release their shame and the sources of their shame. Very often it's from childhood. You know, pretty much all the time it's from childhood. I work with a lot of women who have been scapegoated because women who have been scapegoated people who've been scapegoated, they carry, they're carrying that intergenerational shame from generations that the rest of the rest of the family didn't want to deal with, and they're left carrying the load. And often we have very high-functioning women or women who are, you know, constantly striving and never arriving and wondering why things are so difficult for them. But it's because they've been stuck with all that shame. And the scapegoat's life is not supposed to work. Think about it. That's the whole idea. The scapegoat is supposed to be, it's supposed to hold all the dysfunction. And you don't have to do that anymore. It's time to let it down. It's not your job. So this is what I teach, and I work with the body, with the nervous system somatically, with a lot of breath work, with movement as well. And yeah, I do run retreats and things like that as well in person. So all of this is very powerful, or be in a group where shame is something that stays outside the circle. This is something that's very new for people because even in spiritual circles, shaming is so common too. You know, people, even spiritual people shame people all the time. You know, there's so much spiritual shaming going on and spiritual gaslighting and spiritual bypassing. It's even more toxic because it comes wrapped in that, oh, I'm so holier than thou, shame voiced that can really take people in and fool people.

SPEAKER_03: 51:50

That makes a lot of sense. Wow, I love all of that. Not the shame, but like of being able to break it.

SPEAKER_01: 51:59

Yeah. It's got no power without you. It feeds off you. It's been feeding off your energy for however many years you've been alive. And once you stop feeding it, it dies. It's a parasite. It's got nothing without you. So once you stop feeding it, it just fades away.

SPEAKER_03: 52:20

Would you say self-sabotage falls into some aspect of this?

SPEAKER_01: 52:26

Self-sabotage is directly correlated to shame. Yes. Self-sabotage, if you sabotage yourself, and I'm an expert on this from the inside out, you know? So when you sabotage yourself, it's because you're operating from shame. You feel like you don't deserve, or it's too hard, or you're not good enough, or it's I have to stay small, it's that minimization, it's that shame. And like I said, shame is more than just the belief that I'm not enough. It's like a whole frequency level that's extremely low. So even if you're doing all the manifesting, all the rewiring of your nerve or your brain, if your nervous system is laden down with the generations of shame, you're gonna struggle. You're gonna take one step forward and two steps back, you know? It's it's like I said, if you're moving the furniture on the Titanic, you know, it's not you're not going to get any real headway. You've got to you've got to release the shame first, or at least at the same time, in order for those positive affirmations to really affect your energy and your frequency, your nervous system, so that you can actually rise to a level of being open. Because if you think about shame shuts you down, shame makes you close yourself. So you're not in receiving mode, you're in close mode. So even if you're manifesting all this wonderful stuff, you're too closed to receive it. And so when we release shame, we open ourselves up so we can finally receive all the cool things that we've been manifesting all this time, and we can allow ourselves to receive it into our life. So self-sabotage, perfectionism, procrastination, imposter syndrome, these are all different words for shame. Embarrassment, it's shame, it's all shame, but people don't like using the S word.

SPEAKER_03: 54:18

They don't like using the S word. I agree with that so much more in general.

SPEAKER_01: 54:26

Yeah. The shame is taboo. Nobody wants to say they feel shame. People want to pretend that is shame. You are operating from shame if you are trying to be perfect. That's shame underneath. That's your real problem. So why not deal with the root problem rather than snipping away at the branches?

SPEAKER_03: 54:46

I completely agree, Emma. It makes so much sense though. The way you explained all of this, I really appreciate it.

SPEAKER_01: 54:54

Yeah, you're welcome. Yeah, if people feel inspired by what I'm saying, I would really encourage people to take to take action on that. Listen to that, because that's probably not the narcissist that's telling you that's something else that's speaking. So listen to that. Because the more you listen to that and you stop listening to the narcissist, the more you empower that. So I have a free gift for you guys. It's called Five Signs that it's time to break up with your inner narcissist. And it gives you five very things that you're going to recognize in yourself that if you're doing them, that it's really time. This thing has got taken too much of your life force, and it's time to take back your power. And you can find that. And it's also got strategies about how to start breaking up with it as well. So you can find that at tinyurl.com forward slash not today narc. That's N-A-R-C. Not today narcissist, not today narc. And you can also find me on social media, I am trauma.matrix, and trauma matrix on Substack, where I write these essays about shame and the trauma matrix, and how the real matrix is not AI, it's our own trade, our own shame and our own trauma that we're carrying in here. That's what's really keeping us stuck and keeping us trapped. It's not something out there, it's something inside us. And it's it's an illusion that we can break through, like this shame thing, this narcissist, it's got nothing without you. When you take away, it's it disappears. It's smoke and mirrors. Thank you so much. Pleasure to be here. Thanks so much, Amanda.

SPEAKER_03: 56:33

Have you heard of a man named Jay Shetty? Yes. So he's got a podcast called On Topus, and he ends it with two segments, and I've incorporated those two segments into mine. First segment is the many sides to us. There's five questions, and they need to be answered in one word each. What is one word someone who was meeting you for the first time would use to describe you as? Maybe deep.

SPEAKER_01: 57:14

Maybe one word, chum.

SPEAKER_03: 57:16

What is one word you'd use to describe yourself? Powerful. What is one word that if someone didn't like you or agree with your mindset would use to describe you as? What is one word you're trying to embody right now? Empowerment second segment is the final five, and these can be answered in a sentence. What is the best advice you've heard or received?

SPEAKER_01: 57:51

You don't owe shame a damn thing. Take back your power.

SPEAKER_03: 58:00

What is the worst advice you've heard or received? That shame voices you. What is something that you used to value that you no longer value?

SPEAKER_01: 58:15

I mean, I hate to sound like a broken record here, but yeah, I used to be very attached to my shame.

SPEAKER_03: 58:23

If you could describe what you would want your legacy to be, as if someone was reading it, what would you want it to say?

SPEAKER_01: 58:31

I'd want people to know they can live shamelessly and that they actu that's possible and that they can that's there's nothing wrong with that. That's actually who we are.

SPEAKER_03: 58:42

If you could create one law in the wall that everyone had to follow, what would it be? And I want to know why.

SPEAKER_01: 58:52

Well, I think really d stop shaming yourself. But we need a whole cultural evolution here because it's so deeply embedded in our culture. But we need to get out of the shaming culture. We need to step outside of it, and it's not gonna come from the top down, it's gonna come from the bottom up.

SPEAKER_03: 59:14

That makes so much sense.

SPEAKER_01: 59:16

Thank you, Emma. Yeah, thanks so much for having me, Amanda. I hope this gives your audience some food for thought.

SPEAKER_03: 59:23

I'm sure it will. Do you have any final words of wisdom you wanna leave the listeners with? No pressure. I just I like to give it back to the guests.

SPEAKER_01: 59:34

I mean that voice, it's not who it's who you are. It's got no power unless you give it power. You give it all the power that it's got. It's a parasite, and you don't owe it anything, you don't owe it politeness, you don't owe it, it's not a wounded child, it's not trying to protect you. That's all BS. It's trying to destroy you, and you don't owe it a damn thing, but you do owe yourselves everything. So stop giving your power away to something that doesn't give a shit about you and take your power back.

SPEAKER_03: 1:00:10

Oh, you're so epic. Thank you so much, Emma. I really appreciate it. Thank you so much. And thank you guys for tuning in to another episode of Mandy's Mindset.

SPEAKER_02: 1:00:29

In case no one told you today, I'm proud of you, I'm booting for you, and you got this. As always, if you enjoyed the show, I would really appreciate it if you would leave me a five-star rating, leave a review, and share it with anyone you think would benefit from this. And don't forget, you are only one mindset shift away from shifting your life. Thanks guys, until next time.