shame won't get you there faster

some thoughts freezing time

If you subscribe to this community, you know that I recently embarked on a fertility adventure with my friend Monica Padman, and that we had far too much fun doing it. And while I’m intent on brightening up your feed, I’ll always be honest about some of the more arduous portions of my life, too. The last episode of our podcast captures both beauty and tragedy in our egg retrieval results, in short, they were very different from what Monica and I expected.

We documented our egg retrieval, and in pure post-surgery fashion, we lost half the recording!! But thankfully, the inimitable Dax Sheppard popped in for our redo, and actually made it so much more rich with details and hilarious with his color commentary on our absolutely fabulous life. The episode is all about how loss and joy often co-mingle to create this beautifully messy thing called life. We had so much fun making this show and I hope you can feel it when you listen to it too.

A lot of my work can be serious and hard, so it felt nice to make something that felt effortless and playful. As I’ve written about before, what is easy— is sustainable. I’m still unlearning the limiting belief that I will only grow or improve when it feels difficult, especially when it comes to work. One of my resolutions for the new year is to lean into what’s uncomplicated. If you grew up in dysfunction, peace might feel unsettling at first or even uncomfortable at best, so it might take some getting used to, but once you let it in, more of it will find you too.

Contrary to popular belief, you can’t have too much compassion. I’ll often catch myself operating from a place of shame as if it’s going to help me succeed when shame has never gotten anyone anywhere any faster. In fact, it’s quite the opposite. It makes us distant, withdrawn, less nice to ourselves and therefore less open and receptive to others. When I look back at the most stagnant parts of my life, it’s often when I was stuck in a shame spiral, convinced that if I went further into the darkness, I would eventually figure out the light. But sprinkling more shame into your life won’t improve anything. Shame is corrosive. Don’t let it spread. Like any virus, it needs a host to multiply. So the quicker you notice it, interrupt it, and replace it with more realistic thoughts, the more you’ll become like teflon to it.

I love you!

Liz-