The Fear of Being Seen: Overcoming Shame, Invisibility, and Social Anxiety

Joe: You go into a meeting, you're just, "Oh, there's the person who hadn't said anything," and somehow or another they're like right there at the table, but nobody can even remember they were in the meeting. It's like this amazing magic trick almost, right? There is a fear that is, if I get seen, I'm going to be seen as inherently bad.

All of the fear of being seen is a belief that there's something inherently wrong with you. If they see me, they will find out that I am broken, right? And so one of the ways to work on it is to actually open your heart to yourself and say, "What is it that I need?" Because that flies exactly in the face of me worried about what you think 

Brett: We've been getting a lot of questions from people about the fear of being seen, why they want it so much, but they're also so scared of it, and right when they're about to be seen, about to be known, they turn away and run from it.

So let's do an episode where we dive into that, and then talk about what people can do about it. 

Joe: Great. Perfect. Yeah. 

Brett: Awesome. So let's just start with, like, what is this? There's a lot of different ways that this can show up for folks. 

Joe: Yeah. So the fear of being seen, it can be split into two categories.

There's the category that people who are just, like, acute in this feel, which is, "Oh, I am scared. I have social anxiety. I can figure out how to be completely, like, invisible." You go into a meeting, you're... It's like, oh, there's the person who hadn't said anything, and somehow or another they're, like, right there at the table, but nobody can even remember they were in the meeting.

It's like this amazing, this magic trick almost, right? For those folks, it's very much about "Oh, this isn't safe, and so my job is to avoid." And so there's oftentimes there's a strong avoidance pattern, and oftentimes what happened was somebody in their childhood taught them that, like, to be seen was going to be not good.

One of my clients who had this a lot, doesn't have it anymore luckily, but had this a lot, he lived in an Eastern European country, and it was before the wall came down, and his parents were, like, tall poppy, no good, particularly his mom. His dad had gone, and so his mom was constantly, "Don't be seen. Don't be seen. Don't play the music. Don't be too macho. You're gonna get cut down. You're gonna be taken out." And so he was at once dominated by somebody's fear, and he was told, like, "Do not be big."

Brett: And that might have been true in that culture. 

Joe: Absolutely. And so he... I remember he disappeared from the first time he did Groundbreakers. Just wasn't even in the room. 

Brett: Not physically. He was physically in the room. 

Joe: He was physically in the room but nobody could remember him. It was literally as if he was doing a magician's trick of being unseen while being seen.

It was amazing to watch him, and we've now seen that pattern lots of times. The other form of not being seen is something that we all have, that I don't think anybody has ever showed up at a rapid fire coaching and been completely not nervous, right? And so there's a core way in which we all are scared of being seen, and that's some shame, some way that we're scared that we're actually not good.

We're not inherently good, that we're inherently broken in some way. And so to be fully seen in that is, is a whole nother thing that just kinda hits all people on some level. And so both of them are ways of it that happen. One is this very acute thing, and one is something that happens for everybody.

Brett: How does this often play out to the point in someone's life where they start to experience that this is holding them back, and what typically happens at that inflection point? 

Joe: Yeah, it's an interesting thing. I think on some level, depending on how hardcore it is, right? So if somebody's got deep social anxiety, they immediately know this is holding me back. There's this fear that somehow or another they want to be liked. There's this desire, "Oh, I wanna be liked," and there is a fear that is, "If I get seen, I'm going to be seen as inherently bad." And so they have kinda two choices at that point. "I'm gonna just seclude myself," in which they become more and more and more lonely, or, "I'm gonna go out into the world and interact in the world, and maybe I get more lonely depending on how real I am, or I just stay really quiet in a crowd, and then I feel even more lonely 'cause people don't see me."

And so the loneliness builds and this idea that something is wrong with me builds over time, and they're not even able to see how people actually see them, right? So I've seen people who have, like, either the social anxiety or scared to say the thing in the meeting, and everybody thinks they're really, really smart, and they really want the feedback, but they can't actually see it.

Brett: Yeah. 

Joe: And so career-wise, this totally stifles people. It's gonna limit you in, like, any kind of executive or leadership role. And so they start to see that, they start to recognize that that's what's going on. And then for most of us, for the folks who are scared of being seen in the existential way, which is, most everybody, what starts happening is they just feel unsatisfied.

Like, the sense of connection in their life, they know it can be stronger, and it's just never particularly there. And it doesn't really go there until they start really seeing themselves. To some degree, all of the fear of being seen is a belief that there's something inherently wrong with you or somebody else is gonna find it out 

Brett: How does this show up in, say, romantic relationships and in family? We've talked a lot about going out into the world- 

Joe: Yeah ... 

Brett: and, you know, in work meetings, but what about, what about in love relationships? 

Joe: Devastating. Like it, it's super devastating because basically what it means is I'm not gonna tell you what I need and what I want and who I am.

And what's interesting is some people, they can be in this very safe environment, and they can share that. And then some people can't even share it in that environment. And some people can go out into work and be like, "This is what I think," blah, blah, blah, blah. But when they come home, they can't share what's really there.

They can't share whether it's, like, that kinky sexual thing that they want, or they can't share the fact that they really wanna be rich, or they can't share the fact that they really think your mom sucks and I don't wanna be with her. They can't share all the, like, little things that happen in life.

And so they start walking on eggshells and start being different people. And so it just starts to erode any relationship because eventually you're gonna get resentful over the fact that the person across from you isn't actually considering you or understanding you 'cause we can't read each other's minds.

Brett: Right, so they can't possibly consider you if you're not showing yourself. So then you start to collect evidence over time that you're not being considered. 

Joe: And that you're bad. 

Brett: Yeah. 

Joe: That's the golden algorithm, which we go into, you know, obviously in other podcasts and stuff, which is, oh, the more that I am scared to be seen, the more evidence that I can collect that shows that, oh, if somebody sees me, there's gonna be a problem.

Brett: Yeah. 

Joe: Right? Because I show up incredibly scared. People are not as receptive to fear as, as confidence. That I'm hesitant in the way that I talk about something. I'm viewing other people's responses that might just be curious and full of wonder as they don't believe me, they're challenging me, and see, I said something that was bad.

So it's one of those things that it does accumulate on itself because the emotion that we are scared to have, we are avoiding the exact way that we are actually inviting it in. So I'm scared to be seen, and therefore, like, when people see me, they see this scared thing, and I don't get the love that I want. See, I've proven that I'm no good. 

Brett: Yeah. So we've talked about this belief that I'm unworthy, I'm bad, I'm wrong, I'm unlovable. 

Joe: Yeah. 

Brett: So how does that show up on the different levels, like the head, the heart, the gut? 'Cause a lot of times when somebody freezes, they intellectually know I'm not bad. I have something valuable to share right now. What is making my entire body seize up? Why is my throat clenching?

Joe: That's a great question.

Brett: Why am I sweating? Why did that entire meeting happen without me even recognizing what was occurring? 

Joe: Yeah, it's an interesting one 'cause that's exactly what you see when rapid coaching is happening.

People are like, "Eh," but their head knows on some level that they've raised their hand. They want this thing. And then when the spotlight's on them they're like, "Ah." Each one of these things, whether it's the head or the human side, the emotional side or the mammalian side, or the nervous system side, each one of these things can be on or off.

But if they're on, the head is basically saying, "These people don't like me. if they see me, they're gonna think that I'm bad. I'm bad." That's what the head is doing. And it's constantly self-correcting. You said that wrong. You should have said it this way. Why didn't you say it that way? 

Brett: Yeah.

Joe: Like, all that stuff. 

Brett: I can solve this by intellectually figuring out the way to be to get my needs met. 

Joe: Right.

Brett: Yeah. 

Joe: As if, like, people need you to be perfect to like you, and so that's what the, the head is doing. If the head isn't doing that and it's just happening in the, in the emotional center and the nervous system, then the head is like, "Why am I... why don't... just speak. Why aren't you just speaking?" You know? Which is the criticism of the parent or the teacher or whatever saying, "Just do the thing." So it's like you've actually turned the eye of Sauron on yourself and so you're under attack. 

Brett: Yeah. 

Joe: And so, and the more you're under attack, "Why aren't you doing this thing? Why, why isn't this going right?" The more the rest of your system starts freezing up. 

Brett: And it ultimately can become a panic attack, a full-blown literal panic attack. 

Joe: So it's amazing when you think about it. It's like to some degree there's that external eye of Sauron, like, okay the world is now paying attention to me, somebody is going to criticize me. And the truth is like, there's no time you're gonna be in public where somebody's not having a judgmental thought about you. Whether you're confident or non-confident, whether you're scared or not scared, whether you have social anxiety or don't have social anxiety, we're all facing that same reality.

And then there's the internal eye of Sauron, and when that clicks on, then that can really rev up the emotional or the nervous system side of it. So the emotional side of it is typically fear. Some version of fear and shame combined. And so there's fear of the being seen, but there's also the shame of like, if they see me, they will find out that I am broken, right?

And so the I'm broken and the fear together is pretty much what's going on in those moments. Then the nervous system side is just like fight, flight, or freeze. That's what's happening. Oftentimes folks, when they are being seen in a meeting or something like that, they'll just freeze.

Brett: Right. 

Joe: Or some of them will please. "Oh, I'm gonna, I'm gonna... I'll say the thing that makes everybody happy." And then da da da, and then they're like, "Oh, okay, great. Da da." 

Brett: Yeah, just blend in. 

Joe: Blend in. Yeah. And so it's one of those two things is gonna happen on the nervous system level. and it's gonna be very activated. They're gonna feel hot. They're gonna feel, like a lot of charge in the system from the nervous system. 

Brett: Yeah. Okay. So you, you've got all these layers of a stack here. Yeah, yeah. You've got the thoughts, the emotions, the, the nervous system, and sometimes they're just fighting each other.

Like intellectually somebody knows I have something valuable to share here. I showed up to this coaching session because I wanna see through my patterns. 

Joe: Yes. 

Brett: And the nervous system's locked up and maybe even vice versa sometimes. So I'd love to talk about now where can somebody start working on this first? Of all these different ways that this shows up, what's a good entry point for somebody to start investigating to change the pattern? 

Joe: Yeah. So like I'll tell you a story. I had dinner the other night with this husband and wife team. They're like really super powerful, doing great stuff in the world.

And the wife, every time she saw that I saw her, she would you know, now she is, like, amazing on all fronts. She's a beautiful person. She's a beautiful woman, physically beautiful. She's done crazy cool stuff in the world, achieved stuff that most people would dream about achieving, and is a mom, and loving and sweet. Like, just like, wow, right? And every time I saw her, she would look up, look down, and at one point in the meeting, her husband got up, went to the bathroom, and I started talking to her and she was basically saying some version of, like, "My kids, I'm worried about my kids not getting their needs met.

I'm not worried about me not getting my needs met." I'm like, "Oh," and she's like, "Yeah, basically my needs are met." And I just went through really emotional needs, needs being met, no, seen, and she just, like, shut down. Her husband came back, and he's like, "Well, did you open up more? Like, what did you say now that I was gone?"

She goes, "No, no, no, I just shut down even more." And then they laughed about it.

Brett: She said that? 

Joe: She said it. Yeah, it was great. And so it was self-aware too, right? Amazing woman. And then they both laughed together. But that's, like, the quintessential thing of like, okay, well, what is it that makes her this amazing person, but not being able to admit her own needs?

Is very much exactly the same thing as being seen and what made her scared, which is this shame of like, "Oh it's not okay for me to have needs," or, "The needs that I have aren't okay," or, "Who I am generally isn't okay. And so I'm gonna just evacuate all of my own things that I need, that I want, because they must be bad."

And so those two things are part and parcel of the pattern. And so if you're working on the pattern, there's lots and lots of ways to work on it. But one of the ways to work on it is to actually open your heart to yourself and say, "What is it that I need?" Because that flies exactly in the face of me worried about what you think. Because I'm now all about you. I'm worried about you. 

Brett: Which is another way of trying to take care of your needs. So if, if my needs directly aren't safe, aren't welcome, aren't good then if I take care of yours, then by proxy my needs might get taken care of.

Joe: Except for it never works. 

Brett: Right. 

Joe: Or eventually it doesn't work. Which is why just going, "Oh, what do I need?" can totally start changing this pattern at a core level. So that's one of the ways that you can really work on how do you change that basic fear of being seen?

Brett: Yeah. 

Joe: So that, that's one. The other one is to actually deeply see yourself. Right? Like, what's actually true? 

Brett: Right. How does somebody do that? 

Joe: Well, the dilemma is that most of us have, like, soul dysmorphia, right? Like, like we see ourselves differently, just the way that an anorexic person looks in the mirror and sees themselves as fat.

Most of us see ourselves, like, not very clearly. And so if you want to have a clean lens of seeing yourself, Connection Course View is, like, one of the best ways because if you're vulnerable with yourself, if you're impartial with yourself, if you have empathy with yourself, if you have wonder about yourself, that's where you start to see yourself more clearly.

Brett: Yeah. And that ties together with the recognizing your own needs because you're not gonna be seeing yourself if you're just seeing everyone around you or reading their minds, trying to fix them, trying to get everything okay for them in order to be safe. 

Joe: Yeah, exactly. And so the weird part is, like, the vulnerable with yourself, like, that's the tricky part here 'cause what most people think is gonna be vulnerable is like, "Okay, vulnerably, I..." And I had a client that did exactly this. So I was like, they had this fear of being seen. I'm like, " let's be vulnerable with yourself." He's like, "The vulnerable thing is that everybody doesn't like me." You know what I mean?

Brett: That's still about everybody else. It's still the dysmorphia. It's still the same pattern. 

Joe: And it's also you're not being vulnerable because you've told yourself that story 100 times.

So what's the actual story that actually makes you go, "Ugh."

It's like, what is that? And can you see some place where somebody actually really liked you and you couldn't acknowledge it or let it in? And he immediately, he felt how much more vulnerable that was than to say, "People don't like me." That wasn't vulnerable at all. And so the only thing I'd say, the impartiality, the empathy, and the wonder, that all clicks with this pattern. The vulnerability with yourself in this particular pattern doesn't mean I'm admitting that I'm bad. 

Brett: Yeah. 

Joe: It means I'm admitting a truth about myself that I don't want to see, right? And so that's, that's, like, part of, like, switching that around. 

Brett: Yeah. So, I mean, that example brings up a really interesting nuance, which is that if you, if you say, "Okay, I wanna be vulnerable with myself. I'm gonna look at myself and see myself clearly," the first thing that's likely to happen is you're gonna see yourself exactly the way you've been seeing yourself already. 

Joe: Correct. 

Brett: And you're gonna hide from yourself exactly the things you've been hiding from yourself already. 

Joe: Yeah. 

Brett: So there's, it seems like in that case, in that, like, coaching moment- 

Joe: Yeah

Brett: something very specific that happened was actually directing the person's attention to counter-evidence for what they actually currently thought. So if you're going internally and you're like what's vulnerable with myself right now? Nobody likes me." Okay, if I just assume that is actually the story I've been telling myself already, and I haven't seen anything new, how do I completely invert what I think I'm seeing- 

Joe: Yeah

Brett: and look for the truth in the other side of it? 

Joe: Yeah, so the nervous system is what's gonna tell you that, or the, like, the pucker is what's gonna tell you that quicker. Right? So intellectually, you can do it by just saying, "Okay, let's look at counter-evidence, and what's the counter-evidence I don't wanna admit to?"

Brett: Yeah. 

Joe: That's the easy question intellectually. 

Brett: And that can surface the pucker. Like, oh, wait, I have actually been seen and loved before, and then the pucker shows up. 

Joe: Yeah, exactly. Ugh. Right? And then when you feel that pucker, then you know you're actually in that vulnerable place rather than in the place that you're normally telling yourself or normally beating yourself up with. So that's another one. The other thing that you can do if you're scared of being seen is to open your heart to the other person. Because what you've done is you've stopped love and connection from flowing between you and the other person. You're worried about what they're gonna think, which means you've disconnected.

Brett: Yeah. You've objectified them in a way. There's a way that they are now an object in your game of self-regulating and feeling safe.

Joe: Also, you're rejecting them. 

Brett: Yeah. 

Joe: Like, there's a way in which you're gonna hurt me. Basically, what you're saying is, "You are gonna hurt me," which is a form of rejection.

Brett: Yeah. 

Joe: And so you've already dismissed them. And so a counteraction is to actually open your heart to them and say, like, "How open and loving can I be to this person no matter what they think or feel about me?" That doesn't mean that I'm not gonna draw boundaries. It doesn't mean I'm gonna take abuse. It doesn't mean that I'm gonna be, like, a punching bag for somebody. But it does mean, oh I'm gonna actually stay connected with you. So what's amazing is that if I choose to be connected with you, it doesn't really matter if you're connected to me from my experience. If I'm connected to you, and like, anybody who's listening to this right now can just do it. You can just say, "Okay," like deeply connect with Brett. Brett is not connecting with you right now. Brett's connecting with me. But, like, connect with Brett and notice how much less you give a shit what Brett thinks about you and how much that connection doesn't really require Brett So that's the amazing thing is like, oh, I can open my heart, I can connect with somebody, and that dissipates my concern with what they think about me, which is, like, mind-boggling. And like it's just so reverse of the way that you think things.

Brett: Right. And as it dissipates the concern for what they think about you, it increases the wonder for what they're experiencing, which might be thoughts about you. But the wonder replacing the concern is an interesting shift, and opens up the nervous system, opens up the sense of safety and the receptivity to new data, new information.

Joe: Yeah, and then wonder is another great one. So let's just say you're showing up, somebody sees you. You're like, "This is going horribly wrong." Like, use wonder. Oh, what are you seeing right now that's got you upset? Or how upset are you at me right now? Or how are you feeling about this relationship? There's a thousand questions that will teach you that a lot of what you think is just not true at all about the other person. 

Brett: What if the other person has been running the same pattern, and so you ask them those questions, and then they finally have the opportunity to dismiss you and do all the stuff that you've been doing?

Joe: Yeah. Great. 

Brett: And so you take that personally. You're like, "I knew it. They don't like me." 

Joe: Yeah, so let's just assume that for a second. Let's assume that you are not being liked by somebody. Well, the first question, is it you that showed up? Or is this frozen, scared?

Brett: Right, so I'm bad 'cause I get frozen and scared. That's just me, and people don't like the frozen scared, and I don't know how to change it. What do I do? 

Joe: Right, exactly. So the first question is, like, is that you? That's the first question you have to ask yourself. Is that frozen, scared thing you? What's you? What do you have to do to show up to be you?

And the second question that's really good to ask yourself, are you happy with you? Is this how you wanna be? One of the things that I notice is that when somebody's being the way that they wanna be, they care a lot less about what other people think.

Because they're not in their own shame. This is actually, I'm really proud of this. So oftentimes if someone's, like, preparing for a meeting or preparing for, like, the first date, they're thinking about what the other person's gonna think about them, and they're trying to manage that situation. But if they go in and say, "What's the way that I can behave that will make me super proud no matter what happens?" Everything starts changing. 

Brett: Right.

Joe: Yeah, because you're loving yourself. You're opening your heart to yourself, and the opening the heart works, whether towards the other person or towards yourself. 

Brett: You're also moving from an orientation to outcomes and more towards an orientation to something that's a more direct feedback in yourself in the moment of, how do I want to be? Am I the way I want to be right now? Am I showing up how I wanna show up? And then everything else that happens, I don't need to be tracking, predicting, futuring, taking personally. All those things get to fall away if my direct feedback for my behavior is if I'm showing up in a way that feels great to me.

Joe: Right, which is another version of what is it that I need. 

Brett: Yeah. 

Joe: It's another version of that, which is, oh, if I'm gonna be proud of myself in this moment, how do I wanna behave? But so none of these things are gonna work absolutely except for if you have the access to be able to open your heart.

That one's like a very quick absolute thing. So what happens for other folks is they're like, "I wanna behave this way," but then they get in there, and they're in that nervous system, fight or flight or freeze because oh my gosh, it's, like, this deep trauma of it. And so there's another way of working with it, which is just exposure.

So you see this happen a lot when people do our work, all of our courses. There's a lot of being seen, and as they are seen, they become more and more comfortable with themselves. I mean, it's this amazing thing. You know, how many people have we seen go through the connection course and they get deeply seen by five different people over the series of the course, and then they're just, like, so much more comfortable in who they are.

And so it's the same thing that you see in, like, 12-step programs or group therapy, where the more I speak about the thing and I'm seen in it, the less I care what people think, you know? So I remember there was a time when I was in my 20s, and I'm like, "My dad's an alcoholic, and everybody's gonna judge me." Now I'm like, "Yeah, my dad was an alcoholic." I don't see that because I have no shame around it anymore. 

Brett: Yeah. 

Joe: And the places that I am... I'm not, where I'm scared to be seen are the places where I have the shame, and which tells me this is the place where I have the freedom. And shame, one of the best ways to, to just address the shame is to share it with people and notice, oh, they're not ashamed. They don't think there's something broken with me. Or to notice, wow, we all have that. Like everybody has a parent... not everybody. Most people have a parent that was addicted to something somehow, emotion, television, something. Like, most people have shame. Most people have fear. Like, these are all human experiences. 

Brett: Yeah. So it's interesting. It's like both of the ways out are either recognizing I'm not alone in thinking this, or I was alone in thinking this. Like, this was only a thought in my own head. Like, I'm the only one. I invented this. 

Joe: Exactly. 

Brett: It's kinda funny how that's, like, both of those seem to be a way out. 

Joe: Both, yeah. And the exposure. Just oh, I am going to little ways be seen every day. 

Brett: Yeah. 

Joe: And the thing that that does is that most of the people who feel or are scared of being seen but wanna be seen, another experience that they have a lot of is that they're lonely.

And so this stops the loneliness. So, like, recently I was talking to my daughter, and she was just noticing, like, she's got friends in college and everything like that, and she's like, "Oh, I'm starting to feel lonely." And my question to her was, like, "What are the ways that you're not being yourself? What are the ways that you're not showing up, asking for what you want, saying what's wrong, having the hard conversations? Because if you aren't doing that, you're not actually with anybody. You're by yourself in this reality." And so literally, I think it was like three days later, 'cause, Esme's amazing.

She called me up and she was like, "I've had three hard conversations in two days. I feel so much better. Like, I just looked everywhere that I wasn't saying the thing or being the person that I wanted to be, and I s- just did it. And I feel so much better." Yeah. And it's, and it happens just like that.

It's amazing how quickly loneliness can be cured if you actually show up in a way that you're proud of saying the things that are important to you. 

Brett: Yeah. And, and I also wanna talk about another aspect of the shame in this pattern which is often people will show up with "I really want to be seen. I should be seen. I should be doing the thing. I should go have the hard conversations." And so that exact set of behaviors you just described could be something that somebody tries to force themselves into or beat themselves up into as a part of this pattern. What would you say to, to that, to somebody who's like "I should really show up more. I should really be seen. I should really be vulnerable?" 

Joe: What I would say is I would point back to the beginning, which is what do you need to take care of yourself? What do you need to open to your heart, or to yourself, and to other people? Because that framing prevents it from being, "I should do this, I should do that, I should do this other thing." Because there's a, like a self-care, there's a love, there's an expansion in that feeling. There's an opening up to yourself and to the other person. 

Brett: Yeah. 

Joe: And so that can't coexist with, "You should do this. What's wrong with you? Da, da, da, da." 

Brett: Yeah. 

Joe: Your question is a great pointer, because it is emotionally going from what to, "Oh, I can actually just love this moment, you, myself."

And that's really what's changing on the emotional level is you're going from a contraction to an openness, whether it's through wonder or whether it's through love or whether it's through admitting and owning your needs or what would I be proud of? All these things are emotionally opening you up to the experience of what's going on. And when you are closed down and contracted emotionally, you're not actually experiencing reality. 

Brett: Yeah. 

Joe: You're experiencing your thought of what reality is. 

Brett: But what about also the need for safety? If I see myself as bad or wrong for hiding, for all the hiding I've done in my life, what about acknowledging the need to feel comfort, the need to feel safe that pattern provided for me, even while it limited me in many ways? 

Joe: Awesome. Yeah, I think that's a great thing to do. 

Brett: Yeah. 

Joe: Right? That's another version of loving yourself. That's another version of honoring who you are. 

Brett: So addressing this pattern isn't about, "Oh, I've been doing it wrong all this time. I've been hiding, and I should be getting out there and getting seen." 

Joe: Correct. 

Brett: Yeah. 

Joe: Yeah. But, like, if you beat yourself up, like, we talked about this earlier in the episode, if you're beating yourself up, then you are now the Eye of Sauron turned on yourself. 

Brett: Yeah. 

Joe: So any way in which you are, like, putting that same criticism on yourself, to undo that is gonna be incredibly useful for this pattern. Right? Because that self-criticism is the shame, right? And so any way that you can really look at that shame, and there's lots of ways to look at the shame and start to unwind it. One is with people that we talked about. But another way to really look at that shame and unwind the shame is to just ask yourself would you criticize somebody else for it?

And that, for some people, that's gonna get rid of, like, 80% of it. "Oh, so somebody else was, like, scared as a kid, and they learned to hide."

Brett: Especially if it's somebody they care a lot about. 

Joe: Exactly. Yeah. Are they an asshole? Are they bad? Do they need to be fixed? And so that's another way to just really quickly say, "Oh, wait, if it wasn't me, would I treat myself this way?"

Brett: Yeah. So I wanna leave people with one, like, specific concrete thing that they can do. 

Joe: Yeah.

Brett: Next time they show up to, say, a meeting or a tense conversation with their partner, and they're freezing up, they're hiding, they recognize those patterns alive, this podcast is ringing in their head. And that little tiny part of the limbic system that's still active is like, "What do I do? What's a thing?" 

Joe: Open your heart to that person. So stop objectifying them. Recognize that you've already cut yourself off from them. You're judging them. You're basically saying in that moment, "You're gonna attack me. You're a bad person. You only care about yourself. You can't see me, and you're totally self-obsessed and focused on you."

That's what you're saying about the other person, so you've already, like, fully disconnected, and you're worried about what they're thinking about you, but you're basically thinking all those things about them. And that's the hard thing for people to, like, really just grok is, like, oh, if I'm scared about what you're gonna say about me, I have judged you, I have categorized you, I've boxed you, I've made you into an enemy.

Brett: Yeah. 

Joe: Which is everything you're scared that they're gonna do to you, you've already done to them. And look, they don't seem to give a shit. 

Brett: Yeah. Which I think that's where, like, a lot of the fear, when people come to a coaching session about this comes from, is, oh, if I actually see how I've been treating myself and I see the way that I've been treating others, then I have to feel a fuck ton of grief.

Joe: That's right. 

Brett: And possibly in front of these 300 people on this call. 

Joe: Right. Yeah. 

Brett: But in front of myself especially. 

Joe: Exactly. 'Cause that's what shame's job is, is to stagnate an emotional experience, right? Yeah. And so when that shame relieves, there's gonna be grief and other emotions that need to be felt that are gonna be scary. 

Brett: Yeah. Like, you might find yourself on a podcast and be like, "I'm Joe Hudson, and I just realized that I've been pronouncing Eye of Sauron wrong this entire episode." 

Joe: I knew I was doing that. What is... Is it Sauron or Siron? Sauron. Siron. I'm gonna call it Siron.

Brett: Yeah, Siron. Go for it. 

Joe: Sauron. Yeah, exactly. It's horrible. Everybody's gonna judge me.

Brett: Everybody who judges Joe for that, please, they're already commenting. It's already been there. It's been happening. 

Joe: What a pleasure. Pleasure to be with you. 

Brett: Yeah, you too, Joe.