Healing Shame and the Stories We Carry

Stories definitely bite back at us and one of the reasons is shame. Shame is a quiet weight many of us carry without realizing it. It isn’t as obvious as anger or as urgent as fear. Instead, it lingers in the background—woven into our thoughts, choices, and even our biology. Healing shame can be a crucial component of physical health. It affects us insidiously, hijacking our nervous system and leading to many immunological and neurological issues.

And here’s what’s important to know: the shame that affects your health today didn’t start with your health. It often goes back much further—childhood criticisms, moments of humiliation, or times you felt like you didn’t belong. Recent evidence suggests that it could be a function of your ancestors.

Wherever it originated, old shame has a way of showing up in the present. And if it’s unseen, it quietly shapes your health.

How Shame Leaves Its Mark on the Body

Shame is not just an emotion—it’s a full-body state.

When shame arises, your nervous system reacts. Your shoulders hunch, your breath becomes shallow, and maybe you lower your eyes. The body literally curls in on itself, protecting you.

If that state gets repeated enough, it can become the default. Your nervous system learns: This is how we survive—guarded, tense, small.

And over time, that survival strategy changes your biology.

• Stress hormones like cortisol and adrenaline stay elevated, raising your blood sugar levels and more.
• Your immune system drifts toward chronic inflammation.
• Digestion slows or becomes unpredictable.
• Your ability to rest, repair, and heal shrinks.

This isn’t “mind over matter.” It’s mind shaping matter. The stories and emotions we carry really affect the body.

The Way Shame Shapes Behavior

Beyond the biology, shame influences daily choices. Without realizing it, we often make decisions that align with our hidden self-image.

If somewhere inside you feel unworthy, you might:

• Put off seeking medical care.
• Downplay symptoms until they become crises.
• Reach for foods or habits that soothe in the moment but strain your health long-term.
• Stay in stressful situations because you don’t believe you deserve better.

This isn’t self-sabotage. It’s self-consistency. Your body and mind are simply keeping the old story alive.

This Isn’t About Blame

If you see yourself in this, please know: you did not choose this. Healing shame requires you to dig deep within your psyche. You didn’t choose the experiences that planted the shame. You didn’t choose to carry it forward. And you certainly didn’t decide to let it affect your health. Your nervous system was doing its best to protect you. What we’re doing now is simply bringing the pattern into awareness—so you can release it. Having compassion for yourself and others lubricates the process.

Meeting Shame with Curiosity

Shame thrives in the shadows. It has the most power when it remains unnamed and unspoken. Healing shame requires looking at your shadow. (I’ll have another article about the shadow later in this series.)

The moment you meet it with gentle curiosity, its grip loosens.

Here’s a simple practice you can try:

1. Notice the moment–when you feel the urge to hide, or the inner voice says, “You’re not enough,” pause.
2. Locate it in the body–where do you feel it? Chest, stomach, shoulders?
3. Name it without judgment-say to yourself: “This is shame.” Not “I’m bad,” just: This is shame.
4. Ask softly–“When have I felt this before?” Let memories surface. Sometimes they go back decades. Don’t worry if nothing comes. And you don’t have to remember incidents to heal.
5. Thank your body–it thought it was protecting you—and in a way, it was.

This isn’t about fixing shame in one session. It’s about slowly showing your body it’s safe to stand tall, breathe deeply, and release the old armor. Daily micro breakthroughs are how we change. 

Healing Without Forcing

The body doesn’t open under pressure. It opens when it feels safe.

That’s why in the Health-Story Workshop, we don’t push or pry. Instead, we create a safe space to explore the stories you’ve been carrying. When your body relaxes, your biology changes. And when your biology changes, healing becomes more possible.

Shame may have shaped your health quietly for years. Healing shame requires meeting it with compassion to loosen its hold.

Your body remembers how to be free. And when your body feels free, health has a way of following.

Ready to Go Deeper?

If this resonates with you, I invite you to join me for my upcoming workshop:
“Letting Go of the Story: Healing Beyond Diagnosis.”

We’ll go step-by-step through the process of uncovering and gently releasing the narratives that keep us stuck—and reconnecting with the parts of ourselves we’ve pushed aside.

Because the truth is, you are more than your diagnosis.
More than your past.
And more than the story you’ve been told.

Healing begins when you believe that.

👉 [Sign up here to be the first to know when registration opens.]

We’ve talked about how your health story is the ongoing narrative you carry — shaped by experiences, symptoms, diagnoses, and the voices of others. And in our last post, we explored how these stories can be incredibly helpful. They can guide you toward treatment, help you explain your experience to loved ones, and give meaning to what you’ve gone through.

But here’s the tricky part: the same story that once helped you can, over time, harm you.

The Shift You Don’t See Coming

It usually happens slowly.
A helpful story starts as something that explains your symptoms and gives you a sense of control. But over the months or years, it can quietly shift into something else — a limiter, a justification, or a hidden ceiling on what you believe is possible.

• You used to say: “I can’t run because my knee injury hasn’t fully healed yet.”
• Now it’s become: “I’m not a runner. I can’t do that. That’s not me anymore.”

The first statement leaves the door open for change. The second quietly shuts and locks it.

Why Stories Can Turn Sour

Your brain loves patterns. It wants to predict what will happen next so it can keep you safe. When you repeat a story to yourself, your mind takes it as a fact — something to plan around, not question.
This is a wonderful survival mechanism… until it isn’t. It’s like driving home from work on the same route every day for five years. You go on autopilot, creating danger if you stop paying attention.

If your story keeps you from exploring new options, trying something again, or re-imagining what healing could look like, it stops serving you and starts trapping you.

The Subtle Signs Your Health Story Has Turned on You

If you’ve been living with health challenges for a while, you might not notice when your story crosses the line from supportive to self-limiting. Here are a few subtle clues:

• You use your health condition to explain more and more areas of your life that feel stuck.
• You’ve stopped even considering certain activities, relationships, or goals because “that’s just not realistic for me.”
• You feel a sense of resignation — as if this is simply “your lot” in life.
• You notice you talk about your condition more than you talk about what you’re doing to feel better.
• You spend more time on the internet researching your condition instead of living your life.

If you nodded along to more than one of these, it might be time for a rewrite.

How to Begin Rewriting a Limiting Story

You don’t have to bulldoze your current narrative or deny what’s true for you. This is about gently loosening the grip of a story that’s no longer helping you heal.

1. Notice the language–listen to the way you describe yourself to others. Do your sentences end possibilities before they start?
2. Separate fact from interpretation–“My doctor said I have X” differs from “I can never Y.”
3. Play with “what if”–even if it feels silly, imagine how your life would look if this limitation weren’t there. What would you try? What would you reclaim?
4. Gather counter-evidence–look for even minor examples of you doing more than your story claims is possible.

Why This Matters for Healing

When you loosen a limiting story, you open space for your brain and body to explore new patterns. You may find new energy for treatments, lifestyle changes, or therapies that once felt irrelevant. And sometimes, the simple act of re-imagining what’s possible changes your physiology — because you’re no longer bracing for a future you’ve already decided is hopeless.

Your story is powerful. If it’s helping you, keep it. If it’s hurting you, rewrite it. You are not locked inside it — you are the author.

Ready to Go Deeper?

If this resonates with you, I invite you to join me for my upcoming workshop:
“Letting Go of the Story: Healing Beyond Diagnosis.”

We’ll go step-by-step through the process of uncovering and gently releasing the narratives that keep us stuck—and reconnecting with the parts of ourselves we’ve pushed aside.

Because the truth is, you are more than your diagnosis.
More than your past.
And more than the story you’ve been told.

Healing begins when you believe that.

👉 [Sign up here to be the first to know when registration opens.]

Last time, we explored the idea that holding onto a fixed story about your health can keep you stuck. Mind-body connection healing goes both ways. And here’s the thing—your story isn’t always the enemy. In fact, it probably got you through some very hard times.

Sometimes a story is like a walking stick when you’re climbing a steep trail: it supports you, keeps you balanced, and gives you the strength to keep going.

Maybe you’ve said things like:

“I’m a fighter. I don’t give up.”

“I’ve always been sensitive to my environment.”

“I just have to push through.”

Each of these could be part of a story that once helped you survive a health crisis, manage a chronic condition, or even protect your identity when you didn’t have answers. For a while, that story may have been a lifesaver.

A story sometimes gives us coherence and awareness. For example:

“Oh, I act that way in relationships because of how my parents treated me.”

“I reacted strongly to this situation because it reminded me of my ex.”

Here, the story gives context. We gain insight into our behavior or situation. This is powerful for many people.

Stories as Protection

When you first experience health challenges, the uncertainty can feel overwhelming. Your mind naturally reaches for meaning—something that explains what’s happening and gives you a sense of control.

In some sense, a diagnosis is a story. It paints a picture of what is happening in the body. For many, the diagnosis is a relief. Countless times, I have sat in front of patients who cry either knowing or not knowing what their diagnosis may be. And it can give you a roadmap of expectations.

A helpful story can:

Give you a framework for deciding.

Help you explain your situation to others.

Remind you that you can get through hard moments.

Offer comfort during times of fear or doubt.

When the Story Still Serves You

Is the mind-body connection healing or harming you? The test is simple: does your story expand your possibilities, or does it limit them?

If you’re finding new options for care, feeling more confident, and noticing progress—your story is probably still working for you.

For example:

“I can always improve my health.”

“My body responds well when I give it the right support.”

“I am learning what works best for me.”

These are empowering stories. They allow for growth, change, and new opportunities.

When the Story Holds You Back

But over time, even the most supportive story can become too small. Like a cast that once protected a broken bone, it can feel restrictive once healing begins.

If your story now keeps you from trying something new, exploring different approaches, or believing improvement is possible, it may be time to revise it.

That’s when the process I’ll explain in later posts will become important—learning how to recognize, question, and update your story so it works for your next chapter of healing.

Why We Start Here

Before we move into identifying and letting go of limiting stories, I want you to remember this: Your story likely helped you survive. It may have even saved you. That deserves acknowledgment—not shame or blame.

We’re not erasing your past. We’re making room for a future that’s even bigger than your current narrative.

Next time, we’ll talk about how to spot the moments when a once-helpful story has outlived its usefulness—and how to shift toward one that opens doors instead of closing them.

P.S. The Letting Go of the Story workshop will help you safely explore these questions—through guided journaling, somatic work, and small group healing. 
Join the interest list here

We all tell ourselves stories.
Some are easy to catch:
“I’m not a morning person.”
“I’ve always had a sensitive stomach.”
“I get sick every winter.”

Others operate more quietly in the background:
“I have to be productive to deserve rest.”
“My body is too broken to heal.”
“People like me don’t get better.”

We rarely see these as stories. They feel like facts. But what if they’re not? What if these inner narratives are shaping your health—your biochemistry, your immune system, even your pain—in ways you haven’t considered?

And what if the key to healing isn’t just in what you’re doing, but in what you’re believing?

Where These Stories Begin

Our health stories often start before we realize we’re telling them to ourselves. Maybe someone labeled you as “frail” or “dramatic” as a child.
Maybe a doctor told you your symptoms were “all in your head.”
Maybe you were the sibling who always got sick, or the student who couldn’t focus.
Maybe someone praised you for being “strong”—so you stopped showing pain, or acknowledged in yourself. 

Over time, we internalize those messages. They take root.
Not just in our minds—but in our tissues, our nervous system, our behavior.

These stories become our lens: how we interpret a symptom, how we respond to a setback, even how much healing we allow ourselves to expect.

What We Hide From Ourselves

Here’s something I’ve seen again and again in clinical practice:
The stories we carry about our health are often tangled up with parts of ourselves we’ve tried to hide.

We hide our fear of being seen as weak (or strong).
We hide our frustration that healing is taking so long. Or become impatient with our progress.
We hide our resentment at needing help.
We hide the parts of us that feel “too much,” “too sensitive,” or “not enough.”

This is the terrain of shadow work—making conscious what’s been buried.
When we avoid these parts, we don’t just hide them from others. We impede our healing process.

And here’s the kicker: the more we try to be perfect—flawless in our health routines, stoic in our suffering—the more energy we use up managing the image. Energy that could go toward healing.

The Hidden Cost of a Limiting Narrative

The problem with these health stories isn’t that they’re untrue.
They often come from lived experience. Trauma. Disappointment. Survival. Genetics.

But when a story gets repeated enough—“Nothing works for me,” “I’ll always be like this”—it becomes a kind of neurological script.
It shapes our thoughts. Our habits. Even our biology.

The nervous system listens. The immune system listens. The gut listens.
Every cell is paying attention to what you believe about yourself.

A belief like “I always crash after a trip” doesn’t just express caution—it can trigger the very stress response it fears.
A story like “I’m just broken” may keep you from fully committing to a new possibility.

And maybe the most dangerous belief of all:
“This is just who I am.”

It’s Not About Blame. It’s About Power.

If any of this resonates with you, please hear this clearly:

This is not your fault.

We all carry stories. Mostly, they protected us.
They helped us make sense of a world—or a body—that felt overwhelming. And if they originated in childhood, may have been a survival strategy in an unsafe place where you had no control.

But what protected you then may hold you back now.
The good news? These stories are not fixed. They’re editable. You can rewrite the script.

You can live in a new narrative—one where healing is possible, where your body is capable, and where your past does not get the last word.

Start With These Three Questions

Here are three powerful prompts to help you begin:

1. What beliefs do I have about my body that I repeat often?
   (e.g., “I have terrible digestion,” “I’ll never sleep well,” “I’m just high-strung.”)
2. Where did I first learn this belief?
   Was it something a doctor said? A parent implied? A role you had to play to survive?
3. Is this story absolutely true—or just something that has been true?
   And if it’s no longer serving you…
   what might be possible if you gently let it go?

Healing Happens When We Come Home to Ourselves

Most people skip this part.
They go straight to the supplements, the diets, the protocols.

And those things matter—deeply. But they can only take you so far if, deep down, part of you believes you’re unfixable.
Or unworthy.
Or too much.
Or too broken.

Real healing starts when we stop abandoning ourselves.
When we bring light to the places we’ve pushed into the shadows.
When we release the need to be perfect—and instead become whole.

That’s what this work is about.

Ready to Go Deeper?

If this resonates with you, I invite you to join me for my upcoming workshop:
“Letting Go of the Story: Healing Beyond Diagnosis.”

We’ll go step-by-step through the process of uncovering and gently releasing the narratives that keep us stuck—and reconnecting with the parts of ourselves we’ve pushed aside.

Because the truth is, you are more than your diagnosis.
More than your past.
And more than the story you’ve been told.

Healing begins when you believe that.

👉 [Sign up here to be the first to know when registration opens.]