Why Shame is an Attachment Wound and How to Transform That with Deirdre Fay
I’m excited to welcome Deirdre Fay this week, author of Becoming Safely Embodied: A Guide to Organize Your Mind, Body and Heart to Feel Secure in the World*. Deirdre's message resonates deeply with those who may look successful on the surface, but internally they may be plagued with shame, anxiety, distress, depression, wondering why they’re stuck in these repeating patterns. We had an honest conversation about what trauma really is and how you can feel the better energy you long to step into. She also opened my eyes to why shame is an attachment wound and provides ways to transform it.
Who is Deirdre Fay?
Deirdre Fay, author of Becoming Safely Embodied: A Guide to Organize Your Mind, Body and Heart to Feel Secure in the World*, works with people who have crummy histories to develop an inner platform for success to get their needs met for life. With decades of experience as a psychotherapist and educator, Deirdre brings together modern neurobiology and ancient wisdom into a practice of what she calls “becoming safely embodied.”
Deirdre's message resonates deeply with those who may look successful on the surface, but internally they may be plagued with shame, anxiety, distress, depression, and they’re wondering why they’re stuck in these repeating patterns. Experts in the field have described her practical methods as a “radically positive approach to healing trauma” and a way for people to “get better faster.”
When Deirdre was in her twenties, she actually lived in a yoga Ashram, surrounded by “wonderful” people, working out, meditating. And then she went to a workshop, and “during that workshop, I did the demo with somebody, and this unknown trauma history came up and like, blew me out of the water. And after that, I had to put the pieces back together. And I didn't realize like, what happened to me, how come? I was one way before and this way after, and how do I get back to that? Or how do I integrate it?” This was at a time that trauma treatment was sort of just beginning, so she didn’t really know to deal with it. So she started “studying the scriptures, the ancient texts, and I started asking a lot of questions and just being in an exploration inside myself.” This was also a time in her Ashram that trauma was shameful, they had to hide it from the world.
Then she left and was getting her social work degree as well as an internship at “one of the major US training hospitals and somebody heard that I had lived at the ashram. So they asked me to come and teach the people in the dissociative units trauma dissociative units at night on my own time. And I was completely game to do that because it's about giving back. How can I take what I've starting to put together and offer it back?” She then joined the team at a trauma clinic for “one of the premier figures in the world and on trauma” where she put together a core group she called “Becoming Safely Embodied.” She started leading them in her practice alongside her friend and colleague Janina Fisher. This all eventually led to the development of what she calls a “transformational model, which integrates attachment theory, trauma treatment, and the ancient wisdom traditions to really just help us see how do you get from here to here and close that gap. So you feel solid, steady, and secure inside?”
Feel the Better Energy You Want to Step Into
To really start feeling that good energy you’re longing for, Deirdre says to start simple. Ask yourself “what is it you want? Okay well, let’s say I want love.” So instead of thinking about how you look while you’re “going out for a walk,” think about how “does love look like out there? How do you hang out with that and let your body savor it? Because that's the other trick is, it's not, we can't just get it cognitively. We have to, I call it heart bathing, bathe our body, mind, and heart in this new experience.” You have to “hang out” with what you want over and over because “we know that our nervous system starts switching gears every 17 seconds. But if we're not continuing that 17 seconds, we're gonna go back to the old way. So the more you marinate in it and savor it, just delight in that experience without the content necessarily. Your body says that's what I want. I want more of that. And that begins the process of change.”
It isn’t about becoming self-absorbed or narcissistic in any way, it’s really just about being aware of “I need some basic goodness.” Deirdre brings up a study done by John Gottman at the University of Washington where “he put a couple in what he calls the love lab for 24 hours. And he monitored everything about them. But one of the key results that always fascinated me is that for every small, non-helpful comment or interaction between a couple, if that couple had five positive things, or five better feeling things to buffer that one, they were a couple that was going to last over time versus couples that didn't.” And she realized that if that was the case between couples, it had to apply to our own relationship with ourselves. We focus so much on everything we have to do and get done but “what if I said, okay, right now, I'm just going to like, enjoy the puppy in the park just like see it wagging its tail, like, so great. And then I have that buffer inside to handle the stress of the next piece of work that I have to do as well.”
Shame is an Attachment Wound
Deirdre’s thinking behind shame being an attachment wound comes from her own experience growing up with “a lot of shame and just like dying with shame a lot of the time and I talked to expert after expert or read and thought, and nothing seemed to work for me until I really took a deep dive into the attachment research. And what that's where I put these pieces together if I need to be loved, and nobody's out there loving me, I'm going to feel like there's something wrong with me”
She gives the example of kids crying and reaching out with their hands. If they’re being ignored or told “to shut up or whatever it is,” they shut down. This causes that “normal need for reassurance, love value, respect, whatever it is to get shut down. And that is the shutting down of that basic attachment need for love value, respect, care, connection. And it lives in the body as something's wrong with me. And then we grow up. And we're still holding that deep physiological panic or fear or distress for the lower volcano feeling inside that there's something wrong with us.” But naturally, we need to be loved, we need to be respected. It’s normal. For Deirdre, knowing that, “over time the system starts melting away that shame, but it is a painful dilemma.”
As with many things, transforming this attachment wound starts with acceptance. She was able to get to a “place where I thought, Okay, well, you know what, this is just the, it's a way of living, to be not like introspective to the point of ignoring the world. But just like, of course, something's going to happen. And of course, I'm gonna learn and grow and develop from it, and then I'm going to keep flourishing, but of course, the next thing is gonna happen, and then I'm going to grow and develop from that this is normal, it's normal, that's what's supposed to happen” Life isn’t meant to always be totally smooth, it’s supposed to disrupt us because that’s what leads to transformations. Even simple things like “if I'm breathing normally, and then I just as a practice, as a spiritual practice, hold my breath slightly, and then exhale completely. That's a disruption of the old pattern. But it's meant as a way to start orienting us in a new direction. So life is meant to disrupt us, life isn't meant to trigger us. I hate that. But it's true. So that we can become more of who we're meant to be.”
To listen to the full conversation click the links beneath the main photo to listen on your favorite platform!
Affirmation
I am safe within myself and express myself radiantly everywhere I go.
Links From the Show
Follow Deirdre on Instagram @dfaypics.
Get Deirdre’s Book Becoming Safely Embodied*.
Sign up for our daily emails here.
Follow us on Instagram here.
*This is an affiliate link. Purchasing through affiliate links helps fund The Good Space at no extra cost to you. Thank you for supporting us!
