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As humans we are fallible, we make mistakes, it is part of the human condition. However, sometimes we engage in behaviours that harm ourselves or those around us, sometimes this can lead to feeling ousted or rejected or feeling you are in some way 'bad' or unforgivable. Shame can be a helpful tool in understanding that what we have done has come up against our core values and beliefs e.g. telling lies or saying something unkind or cruel to someone. Sometimes shame emerges as a complex response to grief and the pain of loss. 

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Shame is, in its own way, a tool to help us navigate our way through the complexity of our experience and it reflects our humanity and our emotional connection and will to stay true to ourselves - the feeling, whilst often experienced as debilitating, as anxiety and as rumination, is a way of slowing down to understand and listen to what has happened, what occurred for this even to take place, or for us to reevaluate our paths that we are taking. 

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Too frequently people may abandon themselves or feel abandoned as a result of engaging in challenging behaviours and feel that they cannot open up and share because the pain would be too great and they could lose too much. However, the fear of approaching these feelings can keep you trapped in the cycle of fear and self-flagellation. 

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In therapy, I invite you to metaphorically 'take a load off'. To spend time building safety together and to recognise that in this space you are safe to explore these behaviours without judgement, and instead with an empathetic ear and a way forward. 

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'Bad choices' and decisions aren't 'excusable' because of trauma, but so often those who engage in challenging behaviours do so as a result of self-sabotage, and as a way to cope and survive such experiences. 

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Your 'bad move' or difficult times and choices does not have to become your new identity, it can be a place of reckoning and a place where you decide to choose differently, to gently explore and bring light to the pain in the shame, and to create new life for yourself through accountability, compassion, and self-awareness. 

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You do not have to do this alone.