Breaking Free From Shame to Access Hidden Desires

If you’re upset because your partner doesn’t initiate anything meaningful for you on special occasions like your birthday, it might be because you are ashamed (and possibly unaware) of your intense desire to be celebrated, so you hide it.

When you discover and bring light to shame, it removes a huge obstacle and frees you to connect with your true and otherwise hidden desires. Then you can even learn how to risk revealing them and change the unfulfilling patterns in your relationships into satisfying dynamics that bring you joy.

I’ll explain more with an example.

I have a client who’s frustrated and hurt when her birthday comes around each year because her husband (after multiple decades of marriage) doesn’t initiate any plans to celebrate and recognize her meaningfully.

And even though she wants meaningful plans to be made for her, she takes charge and makes the birthday plans herself anyway.

‘Managing’ is generally how she deals with it when she isn’t being noticed, recognized, or asked what she wants.

At this point, her husband simply expects her to make any plans because she always does. He doesn’t know there’s a problem.

But she’s not turned on about the dinner plans she made; it’s not what she actually WANTS for her birthday!

Her true desire is to be seen, celebrated, and recognized for who she is in an intimate and connected, authentic way. Period. It’s not about a meal, a location, or anything external. She wants to feel loved by being recognized.

But no one knows this— except me.

And it took empathy, understanding, nervous system awareness, and a few other attunement skills for it to come to light.

Like many people, she was taught to NEVER ASK ANYONE TO GO OUT OF THEIR WAY FOR YOU.

And that is how shame is born - when your natural desires and needs, or when you take space and enjoy attention— and being told by an authority figure that it is flat out unacceptable and wrong of you. I mean come on, how shameful!!!

And until you recognize it, that there’s shame there— it will dictate that you hide things about yourself and what you actually want from others, even though down deep, you actually want to be seen.

In my session with this client, I knew something was going on when she responded with “I don’t care; it doesn’t matter” to things that usually inspire aliveness in our conversations.

Until we talked about it, she didn’t realize she was upset and fed up with how her birthday plays out each year. She just felt unmotivated and didn’t know why.

She had no idea what her real desires were or that there was shame keeping them hidden from her. She was deeply embedded in the pattern that likely goes way back beyond her family and into ancient times.

Shame is hidden; it lurks in dark corners. A true blind spot.

So in this session, when she responded with seemingly dispassionate remarks such as "I don't care; it doesn't matter” I knew something big was happening.

Not only was there shame about what might have *felt* like incredulous demands on her part, but her words and body language were out of the ordinary and indicated to me that she was in a freeze response.

Freeze is a state of being that can feel kind of numb or muted, but it actually sits atop a peak of activated feelings that are just too much to be present with. It’s not a flaccid empty feeling, it’s an upright and tight feeling, that is also “checked out”.

I gently explored with thoughtful but guiding questions, without inviting a lot of feeling sensations, since she was already overwhelmed to the point of checking out.

Through our talking, she realized she felt numb on her own. So we continued slowly by talking about the value in finding out where the numbness was coming from, and how we might approach it at a pace that maintains her ability to feel safe.

Sometimes talking intellectually in this way is a distraction from sensing into the material that arises through our body’s wisdom.

In this case, being a little removed at first and talking about what was happening like it was over there, not here— was exactly what she needed to open the door to feel safe to take a step towards accessing the feelings, little bits at a time.

Seeing the value of dipping into tolerable but uncomfortable feelings before actually doing it helped her feel safe to proceed.

The session moved through a lot after that, and she got in touch with her real desires and even found language to articulate them!

This is part of how I lay the groundwork for meaningful healing and growth, by being attuned and flexible to follow what the client needs at any time. That’s why although I have a three step process, I always throw it out the window when something presents that needs a different kind of attention and care. (You can read about my three step process in the invitation post that’s pinned to the top of my profile).

So, if you were taught to shrink your presence, to be small, unseen, unheard, but very helpful… shining light on any shame you have that hides your desire to receive is part of what we work on in my 3-month 1-on-1 program.

We'll work together to untangle the threads of past conditioning that are still weaving into your current reality. This helps you rediscover your true self, paving the way for more authentic and fulfilling relationships.

I offer invaluable perspective and reliable insight when there’s a blind spot that would otherwise go unnoticed, so you can move forward without that as a hidden obstacle to fulfillment.

We’ll also spend a considerable amount of time learning and practicing how to feel into the experience you have in your body as a way of attuning to and accessing your most reliable ‘inner’ information.— You will take that skill and be able use it on your own for the rest of your life.

This is all in an effort to pave the way of receiving what you want in your relationship, as well as helping you clearly identify your feelings, needs, and boundaries, so you can communicate them from a place of more self approval and ease.

The 12 weeks are meant to help caring people who were raised as good girls and nice guys to develop into more whole and integrated people so they can be more resilient, effective (and celebrated!!!) in their relationships. Email me if you’re interested, and we’ll see if it’s a fit.