The emotional backpack; the hidden compartments and the impact of 'shame'

From a former 'self hater' with a dysfunctional child/adulthood who healed her relationship with herself and is now a therapist helping others to do the same...

Hello my loves! 

Today is a personal share through the lens of being a 'human' (and also a therapist) reflecting on my ‘backpack of emotions' and in particular ‘shame’.

Let me be real, shame is a f*cker of an emotion, and one of the most impactive on the way we live our lives, often related to 'being a bad person'. 

Before we begin, ponder for a moment if this is something you have the space and time to digest, and if the answer is yes, grab a brew, and let's settle in ☕

Ah, shame. 

A dear old friend of mine, that I used to carry around in my emotional backpack, until it became too heavy to manage. 

I have used the ‘emotional’ backpack analogy a lot over the years. 

Imagine you have a backpack on, that's invisible- you don't know what is inside it, and for a while you don't even feel the full weight of it. 

Like anything you carry, it gets heavier with time and it starts to inhibit what you do day to day. 

As you become consciously aware of the emotional load, you carry, and you may still not know what is in there but it starts to feel HEAVY. 

This is what ‘awakening’ feels like. 

The experiences of the past and associated emotions, all feel too heavy to carry anymore. 

My own awakening was in 2016, 10 years ago and this is where my journey to my ‘true Self’ began. 

At this point, my backpack was too full, and too heavy to keep going. 

I was burned out and needed to stop and start unpacking it ASAP.

Cut to 2026, having done lots of inner work through spiritual practise, coaching and therapy, I thought my backpack was empty…

What I didn't realise, was that the backpack has MANY hidden compartments and ones that I am still discovering… and it's often shame likes to live in the most secret of spaces.

Shame can be summarised as ‘a discrete, basic emotion, described as a moral or social emotion that drives people to hide or deny themselves and/or their perceived (or real) wrong doings’.

Moral emotions are emotions that have an influence on a person's decision-making skills and monitors different social behaviors, affecting who we believe we need to be in ‘public’. 

The focus of shame is on the self or the individual with respect to a perceived audience… the shame of being the ‘bad girl’ as a child can lead to all relationships being ‘the audience’.

Being the good girl becomes the performance that hides the bad girl… which is exactly what I (and many of you reading) will have experienced. 

Through therapy and lots of inner work, I realised I was never a bad girl. Far from it. 

But many people around me lead me to believe that I was. 

It was my fault. I had to fix it. 

I hid myself, I pleased and I endured my whole life because this was my blueprint for safety. 

My backpack became lighter over the years, as I consciously unpacked, processed and integrated the experiences, trauma, imprints, beliefs and unprocessed emotions that were there. 

But- and this part is important- some of those things are hidden until a ‘trigger’ shines a big light into the darkness and says… we aren't quite done yet. 

We've come to fear triggers, but actually what we really fear is what the trigger is showing us.

I've been very blessed to have grown and nurtured my therapy business over the years organically, without much attention to social media marketing. 

Therapy is one if those jobs where clients will move on as their sense of self changes, which also means to help more people I need to be seen by more people.

I have been on a marketing course for the last 6 months- in the past, any kind of ‘course’ has triggered the f*ck out of me, because it requires a level of pass/ fail which for me can lead to the narrative of me being good/bad. 

Which is my protection, and very likely yours too. 

I followed the course, doing all of the things- not focussed on ‘vanity’ metrics like ‘likes’ but instead on the authenticity, quantity and quality of my ‘delivery’. 

The culmination of the course was to be able to run adverts that would help me build my business and receive new clients, purely by connecting people to what I offer. 

No sales tactics, no manipulation, no false promises- just saying things that resonate and how therapy with me can help. 

I saw that ‘everyone’ in the group were having great results, so why wouldn't I?

I ran my advert, with that little flurry of ‘I’ve done all the right things'… and it didn't work. 

And with it not working came the hidden compartment in the backpack being well and truly opened- and along came my old friend shame. 

A part of me felt completely broken by it; and that part of me was ‘little me’ who couldn't control the outcome by being the good girl… and what was left? 

Those old familiar feelings of being the bad girl, the failure. 

Those familiar old thoughts and feelings came flooding back- I should give up, I am a piece of sh*t, how did I ever think I was good enough to do this.. repeat to fade.

It also connected to 'evidence' (which wasn't evidence at all) that this was ALL MY FAULT and that I had to fix it.

I was vulnerable. And I also knew this was not a place to run away from. 

Instead I turned towards the feelings, I took a deep breath, cried and journaled with little me, to help her realise:

💚 I wasn't a failure; yes the advert hadn't worked, but failure is a part of the journey towards it working. 

💚 I didn't need to be a success, perfect or ‘good’ to be safe; it's safe to fail as an adult, even if it wasn't as a child. 

💚 It was the beginning of the journey, not the end; perseverance and patience is needed with any journey. 

My old behaviours built to protect me at the very least would have left the course whatsapp group and at the most would have left being a therapist, which on reflection is exactly what happened in 2023 when I went ‘back' to my old corporate work… because deep down I felt like a failure as a coach (even though I wasn't). 

I leaned into what I needed to do next. As the great Brene Brown says, shame disappears when we share our vulnerability in safe space.

After leaning inwards, I turned outwards and spoke to my marketing mentor and also shared with the group how disheartened I was about my advert not working. Turns out quite a few people had also run adverts that hadn't worked, they just hadn't shared it.

It had suited my inner 'protector'- who wanted me to run away- to perceive everyone else in the group - who are all therapists/coaches too- had nailed it. But I didn't know that because I hadn't asked. 

This ‘isolation' is part of what shame does- it can bring about profound feelings of deficiency, defeat, inferiority, unworthiness, or self-loathing. Our attention turns inward; we isolate from our surroundings and withdraw into closed-off self-absorption. 

Not only do we feel alienated from others but also from the healthy parts of ourselves. This inward focus can intensify self-criticism and contribute to further emotional distress. The alienation from the world leads to further painful emotions and self-deprecating thoughts and inner anguish'.

This is one example where shame has showed up for me, but in the past this has been more explosive- it's affected my intimate relationships, friendship, my finances and my career decisions. 

In reality, hidden shame can take you into:

• Extreme ‘avoidance’ (flight/freeze mode- control though anxiety and criticism that shuts you down from people and ‘things’, and can include procrastination, hyper-independence, phobias, depression, various disorders, OCD and addictions)

• Extreme 'overdoing’ (fight mode- control through ‘high functioning’ anxiety and criticism that makes you try harder, and can include people pleasing, co-dependence, perfectionism, burnout, various disorders, OCD and addictions)

  
  

I told you shame is a f*cker hey? 🤯

I am honestly not ‘superhuman’ now because superhuman doesn't exist. 

What I am is better equipped to be the safe space for my inner child now, which means I can connect with the shame rather than squash it down and ‘try harder’ or give up and run away. 

We all have an emotional backpack- what is in there and how it impacts your life is personal to your experiences and to YOU.

The backpack initially needs a little bit of curiosity… might you be ready to have a little peak inside? 

To hear more on this, pop over to my podcast where I dive deeper into all things self love, and my latest is a 3 parts series on 'good girl conditioning' which is where a LOT of shame stems from.

If you feel ready to be supported in your journey by me, an accredited psychotherapeutic counsellor and coach, head over to my website to find out more about how I can support your journey to your finding - and loving- your true 'Self'.

See you soon, change creator!

Elaine 🙌

Disclaimer: This blog is to provoke new thinking and reflection in the given subject. It is not, therefore, a replacement for therapy, or in any way acting as therapy. The tips or advice given are to be taken as your own choice, and to explore what you may need to work through with a professional in a 1:1 setting. It is written as a more lighthearted exploration, rather than a formal academic piece, which reflects facts, theories, others and my own viewpoints that I feel connect with the subject.