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Have you ever wondered why, in the moments you crave connection the most, you suddenly find yourself pulling back or feeling unworthy of love? It’s a confusing cycle—wanting deep intimacy yet stumbling over old shame and protective patterns that keep you at arm’s length from those who matter most. The echoes of our early relationships can linger, quietly shaping the way we trust, open up, and even interpret simple gestures of kindness. Left unspoken and unexplored, these internal beliefs can create barriers to the very closeness we long for.

In this episode, listeners are invited to take a compassionate look at how shame and childhood experiences impact our sense of self and our present-day relationships. Through real-life examples and insights from trauma and nervous system work, you’ll discover why you might struggle with receiving care, how protective behaviors like people-pleasing or withdrawal develop, and, most importantly, how healing and repair are possible within intimate partnerships. The conversation offers practical tools for recognizing these patterns, slowing down your reactions, and using curiosity and acceptance to gently shift toward deeper connection—with yourself and with others.

Dr. Arielle Schwartz is a licensed psychologist and a leading voice in the healing of trauma. She is an internationally sought-after teacher and award-winning author of eight books, including The Post-Traumatic Growth Guidebook, Therapeutic Yoga for Trauma, and Applied Polyvagal Theory in Yoga. As the founder of the Center for Resilience Informed Therapy, she offers a mind-body approach to therapy for trauma and informational mental health and wellness updates through her writing, public speaking, social media presence, and blog. She believes that the journey of trauma recovery is an awakening of the spiritual heart.

Episode Highlights

06:17 Uncovering attachment wounds and realizing childhood patterns in adulthood.

08:41 How shame and unworthiness show up in everyday relationship gestures.

10:59 The deep impact of relational trauma on trust and receiving love.

13:44 Cycles of childhood rejection and their lasting influence in relationships.

17:04 Understanding neuroception: Faulty safety cues and couple dynamics.

23:04 Common protective behaviors that mask shame and hinder true connection.

26:02 How longing to be authentically seen often leads to frustration and anger.

27:46 Facing shame: The role of curiosity, acceptance, and turning toward pain.

34:33 How slowing down and identifying underlying feelings in moments of reactivity allows for more vulnerable communication and understanding between partners.

37:03 Accessing and soothing shame through parts work and somatic awareness.

41:04 The power of presence: Attending to shame somatically and non-judgmentally.

42:57 Supporting partners in their activation: Invitations, patience, and repair.

Your Check List of Actions to Take

• Start noticing moments when you feel unworthy or defensive in relationships, and pause to reflect on what’s being activated inside you.
• Practice slowing down your reactions, even if just for a few seconds, to bring curiosity rather than judgment to your responses.
• When you notice shame or discomfort, try labeling it as just one part of yourself—remind yourself it doesn’t define your entire being.
• Invite more acceptance for uncomfortable feelings by turning toward them with compassion instead of pushing them away.
• If you’re in a reactive moment with a loved one, communicate with phrases like, “Can I run something by you?” or “The story I'm telling myself is…” to clarify your experience.
• Focus on building body awareness—notice where you feel tension, contraction, or the urge to hide, and gently stay present with it.
• When you notice a protective behavior like people-pleasing or withdrawing, ask yourself what underlying need or emotion might be driving it.
• In heated moments with your partner, offer supportive choices like, “How can I best support you right now?” instead of jumping into problem-solving or fixing.

Mentioned

The Polyvagal Theory Workbook for Trauma (*Amazon Affiliate link) (book)

The Complex PTSD Workbook (*Amazon Affiliate link) (book)

The Post-Traumatic Growth Guidebook (*Amazon Affiliate link) (book)

The Post-Traumatic Growth Deck (*Amazon Affiliate link) (book)

Therapeutic Yoga for Trauma Recovery (*Amazon Affiliate link) (book)

Brene Brown (website)

Emotionally Focused Therapy (EFT) (*Psychology Today) (link)

Polyvagal Theory (website)

12 Relationship Principles to Strengthen Your Love (free guide)

Connect with Dr. Arielle Schwartz

Websites:drarielleschwartz.com |resilienceinformedtherapy.com

Facebook:facebook.com/drarielleschwartz

X:twitter.com/DrAschwartz

YouTube:youtube.com/channel/UC5LUxnXbReV7I5cEzvb46sQ

Instagram:instagram.com/arielleschwartzboulder

LinkedIn:linkedin.com/in/arielle-schwartz-0756b62a

Connect with Dr. Jessica Higgins

Facebook: facebook.com/EmpoweredRelationship 

Instagram: instagram.com/drjessicahiggins 

Podcast: drjessicahiggins.com/podcasts/

Pinterest: pinterest.com/EmpowerRelation 

LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/drjessicahiggins 

Twitter: @DrJessHiggins 

Website: drjessicahiggins.com  

Email: [email protected]

If you have a topic you would like to be discussed, please contact us by clicking on the “Ask Dr. Jessica Higgins” button here. 

Thank you so much for your interest in improving your relationship. 

Also, I would so appreciate your honest rating and review. Please leave a review by clicking here. 

Thank you!  

*With Amazon Affiliate Links, I may earn a few cents from Amazon if you purchase the book from this link.

Episode Transcript

Let's start with today's episode. Arielle, thanks so much for joining us. 

Thank you, Jessica. It's lovely to be here. Yeah. 

I feel very privileged to have you on the show and your voice, and you've done so much to contribute to the field. And as we were just talking, my interest in focusing on your health and how people can tend to shame. And I would love to hear a little more about it. And then also as we look at the couple space and what gets activated in a relationship. So, for people who are just getting to know you. I know, I read your bio, and as it relates to this topic or anything you want to. What would you like to share with people getting to know you? 

Yeah, I'll share a little bit about my background. I've been a psychologist and have been working with Trauma and Complex PTSD, primarily focused on individuals who experienced Developmental Trauma in childhood due to repeated or ongoing dynamics. So the topic of shame is very central to all of that. 

Yes. And for people who are still not fully sure what Developmental Trauma or Complex PTSD is, often that's in the context of a relationship or even early childhood experiences. Would you like to say a little more? 

Yeah. I think when we are growing up in experiences where we don't feel understood, we don't have a deep core sense of belonging. There may be ongoing unrest or disruptions in those core relationships with our caregivers or our parents, those that are supposed to be sources of trust and safety and relational consistency and reliability. And so

Right. Like, it's very hard, especially in childhood, to reckon with the experience of these others that I'm supposed to be able to rely on. Maybe they're not safe, or maybe they're not trustworthy. And that's a difficult concept. But the feeling inside is something feels bad, or something feels wrong, something feels off. 

Maybe that's me, maybe I'm the bad one. And sometimes that's easier to work with than to confront the reality that they're the ones who are not behaving appropriately. 

When we need to survive. We're depending on them totally. 

Right. Like, that would be too frightening. And then on top of it, if I have no control over what they're doing or who they are, but if it's me, I have some control over that. So if I just fix myself, if I make myself a good child, if I make myself better, then maybe I'll finally be loved or get the safety that I need. 

Absolutely. And Ariel, it's my experience that this likely occurs, the level of severity, if you will, on a continuum. And there may be many people who don't even know that they have this operating in them. I know we're going to talk about that a little bit more. And sometimes some of these disruptions or ruptures of trust and belonging or safety in the kind of attachment language, like secure base or secure functioning, that occurs even pre-verbal. So we sometimes don't even have real cognitive memory. We just might have a body, which you do so much to help people. So, do you want to comment on that before we kind of steer more towards the shame here? 

Yeah, I think there's a lot of layers in what you just named. First of all, like, maybe I don't know that this is part of my history, because, as one of my clients likes to say, it was just the water I was swimming in. I didn't know that other children were having different experiences. And so this is what I had to make my reality, and I had to make my reality a good enough reality. 

And it wasn't until coming into adulthood and starting to get into relationships and starting to feel some of those missing pieces that then brought him into therapy and started to look more deeply at what is the working kind of operating system that I've got going on here, and how is that related to my history, which is, you know, again, seemed normal enough, and yet there were some very significant missing pieces. And so, you know,

But the other part that you named is that it can often begin so young, so early. Right. 

If we think about whether there were other stresses or other siblings in the home or stresses in the parent's relationships or differential approaches to parenting that put strain on the relationship, all of those layers that are being felt and experienced by us even before we have words, that begins in utero, certainly in the first few years of life, before we are developing more of our explicit memory functions where we have narrative and words for it. So we have to know how to work with that felt sense in the body. 

Yes. And this might tie into a question that I have. As people hear the word shame, they might associate that with this sense of, I feel broken, not enough, or just feel that something's wrong, as you mentioned, and also as you're talking, it sounds as though paying attention to ways in which we function or operate, there might be some deficits that could be a shame. I mean, some people think of it as a big thing that is all-encompassing. And sometimes people who are really highly functioning still have a lot of these aspects or deficits that they've learned to deal with. 

I think one of the biggest patterns that I see has to do with worthiness or a lack of a sense of worthiness, and the ways that can play out in a relationship. And of course, we'll talk more about that as we go. But, you know, one example being that, you know, these individuals tell me, get in this relationship and they get married, and that every day his wife would come and would bring him morning coffee, and that there was some part of him that just felt like, why is she doing that for me? And does that mean she thinks there's something wrong with me? Like, it would start to spin into this kind of deep sense of, I don't understand why someone would treat me so kindly. 

And it was all of a sudden, in the face of actually receiving kindness, receiving generosity, that he realized that it touched off something like, I don't trust this and that. That became the access point. Even though it seems so simple on the surface, you know, how lovely that you care enough about me to make my favorite cup of coffee and bring it to me. And that, you know, for many of us, we might just receive the coffee, but for this individual, it felt threatening. At a deep core sense. 

I'm so appreciative of you naming how this can show up, not just a difficult interaction, but in a gesture of kindness that we might feel. The cues of question or interrupt or tension I'm even sensing for people, or even myself at times, that I can feel we're going to talk about. I'm sure, because you do a lot to help people recognize how they've adapted, that we might have protector parts. So we might be like, “Oh, thank you for the coffee.” Now I have to think about something I'm going to do for you. Right. Instead of just like this, receiving, or is it okay for me to receive? Like, I feel like. Yeah, it could offer a little bit of a rattle there. 

“Do I deserve this? Or if you're bringing the coffee, you know, what are you wanting from me now?” So, like, all those subtle layers that can pop in that. 

So those are signals that you're saying here that could indicate there's some level at which we've learned to function where shame might be at play. 

Yeah. You know, one of the ways that I like to think about this, too, is 

But when we've experienced relational trauma, the cues that we might experience of invitations to get close can actually start to feel unsafe on the inside. Because maybe closeness also offered opportunities for confusion or mistreatment or surprise. Like, I'm inviting you to be close, but then I reject you. 

Or that the same person who's a source of warmth and connection and kindness is also sometimes untrustworthy. And as a result, we fast forward into our adult relationships. We have someone who's offering us all these cues of safety and connection. But inside, there's actually a part that wants to withdraw or recoil from those genuine bids for connection. And as you named before, that can be a protector in us, like this is how I coped for so long, as a way to survive the relational inconsistencies or the relational lack of safety that I experienced. 

And again, if we're turning towards or slowing down to notice what's coming up, that what we might use language here to say is related to shame. Another feeling I'm having or thought that I'm having as you're describing this, is experiences that have interrupted the connection that I've interpreted or that I've based on circumstances. 

Yeah. And I think one of the biggest sources of that is if you imagine a two-year-old for a moment, right? And like a two-year-old running towards open arms, kind of just like body first, just going towards the other, like hi. Right. And instead of being scooped up and super met with that excitement, we get told we're too much, we get rebuffed, we get a shock at the fact that we're not picked up at that moment. I'll give another example again, a kind of true story, working with an individual who brought home their artwork from school, only to find it crumpled up later in the trash can. Right. Like these moments. And they're both examples of where shame shows up in the rejection of that genuine, open-hearted. I want to show you the art I made in school. 

I want to come for the big hug. I want to give you my gift. And the gift gets rejected, right? Like, we can feel the impact of that. And it's generally not a one-and-done thing. It's like the accumulation of these experiences of my light or my gifts or my desire for contact gets rejected by the other repeatedly, and it starts to kind of wire in. Maybe it's not so safe to show up with the big open heart, or maybe it's not safe, so safe to be me or bring my gifts into connection. 

Oh my gosh, yes. Thank you for illustrating that. And this is likely, in my experience, a major contributor to the ways in which we approach relationships. It's this desire for this open, armed body's first feeling of being received and connection. And also the lived experiences of rejection and the fear, and how terrifying and painful and traumatic, and how we've learned to cope or protect, that they're both interacting in an individual in a relationship. It's like these two gas on, but break off. 

That's right. And then there's this way in which relationally we kind of ping off of each other. Right. Like I'm going to show up with my big heart. Ooh. But the other person's not so sure. And then they're not so sure that makes me feel rejected, and then I go into withdrawal. Then they feel rejected, and then we get caught in the cycle, and I smile, but it's not funny. It's so tender. It's so painful. When we're in those wash cycles, those, you know, spin cycles with each other. 

Oh, my goodness, it's awful. This is where people are again, that real desire to feel contact and not reach the person you love, or to have signals of rejection, which likely aren't signals of rejection. They're often the other person's protective, which is to smile. I think when we can see these ways that we're missing each other, we're speaking different languages, we're interpreting based on lenses that we don't actually know if that's true for the other person. So we can kind of get really spun out here in ways that make a lot of sense, but also not that it's unnecessary, but we can get quite stuck. 

Yes. I'm going to add a little bit of the lens of the nervous system in this conversation. In the applied polyvagal theory model that I work with, we have Dr. Stephen Porges. This word is neuroception. 

And sometimes we have accurate neuroception. We're basically picking up on accurate cues of threats, and we're essentially, you know, we can really trust our internal felt sense. That person doesn't feel safe with me, and there are some legitimate reasons why. 

But sometimes, and especially when we have a history of developmental trauma, we might experience what we call faulty neuroception or a mismatch between how I'm perceiving potential cues of threat or non-safety, and that it's based on my historical experience, and that for that individual, they actually are approaching with ample cues of safety and connection. But neuroceptively, historically, I don't trust that. And so my body is basically turning on the alarm systems, even though there's no flame, no fire. But I'm going in. I'm not so sure I can open myself or be accessible and available to this other person. And so defenses come in. And then my defenses can ping the other person's neuroception. They're giving off cues of threat. I need to attend to protecting myself in those cues of threat. 

And now we have a mutual threat system that's pinging on each other. 

Thank you for bringing neuroception and polyvagal science. And this happens in nanoseconds, right? The quickness of detecting threats. And that's as humans, we're wired to have that quick processing. And it isn't necessarily slowing down to get that information or checking the meaning, making out, or interpreting. Because sometimes even there could be ambiguous cues or cues based on culture that mean something to one but don't mean to the other. So there's a lot of layers here. I appreciate this. 

A lot of layers. And it's again where couples therapy or having a third party bearing witness and inviting that, slowing down, and even inviting that, asking. And we can build those skills for ourselves without that third-party witness. For example, can I just run something by you? This is how I interpreted this moment, and I just want to see if that's really how you're feeling. Or my favorite phrase that I learned from Brené Brown, when she says the story in my head is right. Like this is a story I'm telling. I'm not so sure it's true anymore. But let me run it by you. 

Yes, it's doing a lot to slow that pinging back and forth, that threat detection, and the closing and the layers of ways in which we protect. So, so helpful. Well, it feels helpful too. On the topic of shame, and I imagine you can speak to this pretty quickly, what you're describing in this survival way, of which we've learned, is the shame associated with that, or how we experience that is different than what you might say, values-based shame. Would you briefly discuss the difference there? 

You know, I'd love to hear your perspective on values-based shame, and we can talk more about that. I think for me, the kind of internalized shame as we've been speaking about this, or the experiences of historically derived shame, is something that gets so layered into our overall sense of self. Again, sometimes we don't even know that we're carrying it, but that it's a deeply internalized feeling, either, as you named before. There's something wrong with me, there's something wrong. If people really knew who I was, they probably wouldn't want to be close to me or love me. And I have to work really hard to hide that deep internal felt sense that there's something wrong in here or that there's this deep unworthiness that I'm carrying around inside. And I'd love to hear your perspective on the value of space shame. 

Well, I know there's been some work. I don't know, as you mentioned, Brene Brown, people who have really made arguments that shame is helpful for culture, that from a values or moral ethical as humans, there are certain ways in which shame is a functional emotion or experience, that it keeps us in that ethos. But that's it. Yeah, okay, so this is. That's very different from what we're talking about. 

That's very different. And I mean, yes and no. Like, I think that when we're talking about the feeling of shame and it's an accurate mirror for, like, I don't feel good about what I did. And sometimes we locate that as guilt versus shame. But either way, I don't feel good about myself at this moment because I need to make amends. I need to repair it. I have to take responsibility for what I did. And if we can't stay with shame long enough to garner that feedback for ourselves, 

And I hear that's really what you're talking about. 

I also like to think of it as a gift of regret. Can we regret long enough to really make a change? 

Oh, my goodness. I want to dive into how to tend to shame in a moment. And just one quick question. As we were talking about protective mechanisms that may indicate if we're not aware of these deficits or ways in which we might protect ourselves, would you be willing to give some examples of what that looks like? And you mentioned that hiding feeling. And I was also aware, as I mentioned earlier, for myself, this tendency to either please people or be perfect, or like, I'm just not worthy as I am, that I have to work really hard. So would you be willing to share just how these protective parts work with shame? 

Yeah. So if deep inside I feel like there's something wrong or that there's something that I don't want the world to see, then typically, basically what I do is I'll put on some kind of mask or layer or behavioral, you know, accommodation. That is a way that I will show the world what I think the world needs of me, to also simultaneously mask or protect what I don't want the people around me to see, because it might risk me feeling rejected or unloved yet again. And I don't feel like I can handle that any, you know, I've already had enough of that perhaps. And so I think it can lead to a few things. One is that, as you named, people pleasing, sometimes we refer to that as fawning behavior or appeasement. 

But basically, 

And besides, it's exhausting to engage with that all the time in the world.

And then I would say that the other big pattern that we might see is more of a kind of fight-or-flight energy. 

Either I'm just going to quickly go into defensiveness to avoid you seeing my own vulnerability that's underneath that. And sometimes that's deflecting responsibility. Maybe it's making you feel like you are the vulnerable one, so I don't have to be the vulnerable one. Or it's like flight energy, like I'm just going to be quick to retreat and get out of here before I would be vulnerable. As we can imagine, all of these ultimately can interfere with the depth of intimacy that relationships have available when we're ready for that. Yes.

And thank you for giving examples around how we might be able to recognize this. Just having specifics so people can identify. And also, as you were talking about, the people pleasing or any of the real tendencies when we are operating in that, we likely don't get to trust when the connection is there. Like if I had to work really hard to have that positive reflection or openness come back to me, do I have a felt sense that because of just who I am, or is it because of what I did? Right. Or if the flight or the fighting, is it because I fought hard enough, or is it because I got out at the right time, and then I timed it by coming back like that? We don't actually get to be in this exchange of real embodied presences of vulnerability that you're describing. 

Yeah. Sometimes it can even show up, like when the other person is actually really, you know, like, let's say we're people pleasing, then someone comes in and is kind to us or is genuinely expressing interest in us, then we feel angry at them because they actually got duped. Like, they didn't persist in wanting to really know who they were. They took us at face value; they took the mask. And it becomes a kind of funny cycle because it's a young part that maybe had to mask up to get love. Maybe I had to have people, please, or take care of mom, or take care of dad, to get my needs met. 

And the young part actually wants our caregivers, our primary others, our parents, to see through the mask, actually, like, get underneath it and be like, “oh, honey,” like, “I actually really see that you're scared or you're sad right now and you don't have to take care of me.” And so, you know, fast forward into adulthood. Right. If we are basically masking or pleasing and someone buys it, that young child that's still angry that they didn't take the time to actually really get to know us, that child part comes out and will push away well-meaning others who get kind of confused. I thought you were this. And now you're pushing me away when I've actually drawn toward you. So, as we can start to sense, it takes time to tease all of this apart. 

Thank you. For another example of how this manifests and can look. So, tending to shame, where would you like to start? Around a different approach here. 

Yeah. I think one of my very favorite perspectives on shame is this particular phrase that I'm going to offer here, which locates shame as the unextinguished longing for connection. And it's a powerful phrase. 

And so the shame itself becomes an access point to something very core and very beautiful that lives inside of every one of us. And that's where I think, you know, if we also go back into some of Brene Brown's research on shame, we can also look at that shame, which is so closely linked to vulnerability, ultimately can become an access point to the positive emotions of joy, connection, happiness, and satisfaction that I think we ultimately are longing for.

So rather than making shame something that we want to get rid of in ourselves or something that we then make bad because we feel bad. Right. Like it becomes its own cycle, what we want to do is learn how to turn toward shame and the felt sense of it. The beliefs that are carried about ourselves inside of it, the behaviors that give it are so automatic, connected to it, and to slow it all down. 

Oh my goodness, I'm very grateful. And for people listening, I imagine this is extremely encouraging, and that I find people have resistance to going towards pain and the fear that it's going to just consume or I'm now gonna wallow, or I'm gonna get stuck there. That's gonna be all my experience. And you're really inviting an understanding that there's a real, attached longing that's really beautiful. It mirrors and maps beautifully on the EFT/ Emotionally Focused Therapy work, and just really holds a lot of reverence for that deep core attachment need or primary emotion and the understanding there, I mean, that is so reparative as you're describing. So you're saying that phrase or that outlook, really. What might that do if somebody holds that in mind and slows down? 

Yeah. You know, one thing when you link it over to EFT/Emotionally Focused Therapy, and to that work, one thing that I think often and refer to as the antidote to shame is deep and profound acceptance. And that, like, even acceptance of the discomfort, even acceptance of the urge to withdraw or the urge to push someone away. Right. Can I be, and I'll layer another word that I use so much in my work, which is curiosity. You know, can we go toward those tendencies or those habits that are linked to shame with enough curiosity? And very often when we're sped up and when we're in reactivity, we have lost curiosity. Right. We've lost the ability to be mindful of what it is that I'm doing and how I slow this down and generate a much deeper round of what this is actually holding. 

Where does this come from? How is this feeling familiar? And as soon as I bring in curiosity and that slowing down around the discomfort and everything around it begins to shift my relationship to it. I'm no longer othering myself. And we actually allow other people to enter through this window of curiosity. They're willing to be closer to us because we are no longer emitting those cues of threat out there. Whether that's pushing you away or whether that's my withdrawal. Both of those are going to be confusing in a relationship. But it starts here. I mean, there are so many ways. And it starts, I think, often therapeutically, when we are in the presence of another person who's letting us borrow their non-judgment, their curiosity, and their acceptance and unconditional positive regard. Right. 

Like we get to sit in the presence of someone else who's not judging us. And that can often illuminate how we're judging ourselves sometimes without even realizing it. 

And the capacity to stay a little longer. 

Yeah. And even just seconds, microseconds longer can make a difference. 

Yes. And as you're speaking about these qualities, it's understandable, the acceptance and the reverence for what is there. And as you gesture for people who are listening, when our protective tendencies are at play, it is kind of this, no, no. Whether or not it's not to myself, or like, do something different, however we know our experience, but also no to others, like, don't go, no, let's not do this. And so even the gesturing of pushing away, so having that space of curiosity to wonder and be within the interest of understanding and accepting, and to you, as you're saying, just even, however small, that there's more room, we're not pushing. 

Yeah, it's very true. And I have a few personal examples that I feel a little drawn to share. One is slightly embarrassing, but it's a good example. Right. So. And it goes back many years. So I was new in a relationship with the man who's now my husband of 25 years, and we were not married yet. So, you know, we're going to roll back some 26, 27 years into our relationship. And my husband was a bike racer. And you put him on a bicycle, and that's kind of his association. He is off. 

Right. 

And were early in our relationship. I live in Boulder, Colorado. We have these wonderful bike paths, and you can go down the bike path by the creek. And we had decided we were going to go on a bike ride together. And I'm thinking of a cruiser ride, like chilling on the bike path. And we're still getting to know each other. And, you know, he has this very kind of Pavlovian association with getting on his bike. The bell rings and off he goes, you know, and so we get on our bikes together, and the next thing I know, he's way off ahead of me. And I felt totally abandoned, but rather than staying with the discomfort in me of that abandonment, what came right on the heels of abandonment feelings was anger. 

And by the time I caught up to him, poor guy, I was cursing him out, and “what the fuck?” And “why would you leave me?” And he's like, whoa, like, what happened to my girlfriend? And I couldn't even calm myself down to even get in touch with what had happened to me, and explain it to him. That happens once, while we decide to go on another bike ride, it repeats itself. And finally, he's like, “I don't think biking is a good thing for us.” And which, you know, again, maybe it isn't. But it wasn't until I did some deeper work with myself. And gratefully, I was in school to be a therapist and was in therapy, and I got to go underneath the anger, into the feeling of abandonment, and get clear about what that was. 

And at that point, I could go back to him and say, here's what was going on for me. It touched a really young part of me. And “actually, you didn't abandon me. You just rode your bike at your own pace. And if we're going to successfully bike together, would you be willing to know that you going that far ahead of me touches off something very tender inside of me?” 

So I can articulate that in a way he could hear. And because I was no longer cursing and yelling and blaming and shaming him for his behavior, he totally could hear that. And he was, “Oh, thank you for telling me. I get that. Right.” And sometimes he remembered, and sometimes he didn't. Right. Like, we biked together. 

Now again, 27 years later, we've biked together many times, and sometimes he goes ahead, and I can take care of that young part of me and know he's not abandoning me. Sometimes he slows down, and we cruise together. And that's really fun. And so it's this delicate dance of also articulating that, hey, it would be really kind, and I would love it if you would help me take care of my inner child. And sometimes our partners are up for that, and sometimes they're not. And even on the times when he's not, it's ultimately my job to take care of my inner child and to unhook him as the kind of parental stand-in. 

Yes, yes. I so appreciate your willingness to share personal example as it relates in relationship, what can get activated and how normal and quickly we might react and want to point the finger to the thing that hurts and when there isn't a capacity to wonder and slow down, that we can speak very differently, that allows our partner to hear and increases the likelihood of responding. Right. That was much more visible, like, that makes sense. Like, “I get that, and I want to help if I can. And sometimes I will, and sometimes I might not have the capacity and the visibility and the contact with self to recognize the need and to show up. Oh, thank you.” It's so distilled and helpful to have some scaffolding around what this can look like, albeit at times, it might not feel very skillful at first. 

And to validate. I lived in Boulder for five years, and there is a climate of people who go physically hard, whether or not it's ultra marathons or cycling over huge mountains, and these extreme skiers and rock climbers. So there is something to be said, and I can appreciate the like, “we're wanting to do this couple thing together.”

Totally. And he's like, you know, he shows up, and we're living together at the time, this was early on, and he shows up like in full-on bike gear, and I'm wearing my jeans and tennis shoes. And I was like, “Wait a second, what are we doing here? We had different associations with what it meant to go on a bike ride.”

Very, very. 

Yes. 

Okay, wonderful. Well, with this example you've mentioned, slowing down and curiosity, is there anything else that you want to encourage people? Maybe even you do a lot somatically to be with the body that perhaps somebody might be able to take a step in? 

Yeah. So in the initial anger that showed up, right. Like, if I were to kind of take you into my therapeutic journey of that story. Right. I had to work with the anger of that. We might call that a protector. Right. Like that protector energy of anger. And who was I really angry at? Was I really angry at my boyfriend? Yes, but. Right. Like there was something underneath it. And so I could get in touch with, and I'm going to use parts of the language here as well as somatics, but I had to get in touch with a young part of me, and that core wound of abandonment. And that really was not about my boyfriend, right? Or now my husband. It was a much deeper, older wound. 

And so I think that when we start to identify shame as actually being held by a part of us, it allows us to see that I am not the totality of my shame. Shame is a part of me. And as I build my capacity to be here and now and present and today self, I can turn towards the part of me that holds shame and the stories that are intertwined with that and the narratives and the felt sense of the body that's held inside of that part. But it doesn't have to define all of who I am. And I think it becomes a little bit less threatening when we turn towards shame as a part, rather than that's just me. Shame wants to convince you it's all of you sometimes, but it's not all of you. 

Thank you. The parts work and the “ifs” I highly recommend. And how powerful it is for someone. Just one follow-up question. For someone who might be in a moment of overwhelming shame, would they slow down? Would you recommend slowing down to just get some regulation or soothing, and to see if anything else opens up? Are there other parts that don't feel the shame, or how does somebody start to, if they're overly identified with the shame, start to see it as a part? 

Yeah. So I think that there are a few pieces in relation to that question. One is that as I build curiosity, the first kind of like leading edge of that story was the anger part, but the anger was covering up something else that actually had more to do with fear and more to do with vulnerability and more to do with shame. And maybe a core feeling of, if he was leaving, what does that say about me? Maybe I'm not lovable. If he's leaving, you know, there's something wrong with me. And so I had to get down to what we would then call more the exile that sits underneath that and to build the capacity to be with that. And whenever there is a part that's carrying that wound, there's usually some unmet need there. 

And then let's talk about somatics for a moment with this, too, because I think that sometimes parts work can get very conceptual, and it feels like we get kind of lost in the realm of the visualized repair, which is beautiful. That's a beautiful part of it. But there's also about letting that fully integrate. And when we're in the immediacy of shame, there's very often an accompanying felt sense in the body. Sometimes with shame, that is contraction or heaviness or an urge to get smaller, an urge to hide. Right. There's some way in which to be visible in shame. 

Actually feels more threatening because once again, I don't necessarily trust that the person who will see me is going to love me or accept me. I'm having a hard time loving and accepting myself. Right. Let alone letting somebody else do that for me. So we can go toward that heaviness or that urge to hide or get something small. I remember one time I was driving my car, I was in the car by myself, and that feeling of shame came over me so strongly, and I could feel the urge to want to run from it, like, as far away from that feeling as quickly as possible, because it was so uncomfortable. And instead, I somehow had the wherewithal or the presence of mind in that moment to say, “What happens if I just turn toward it? What happens?” 

And literally within seconds, that uncomfortable feeling that I thought would totally take over if I actually turned toward it. When you didn't reject me by not rejecting me, I felt okay. And it was such an amazing moment of realizing it doesn't actually take that long for something to shift when we deeply love and accept ourselves as we are, you know, it's profound.

It is profound. I'm deeply touched. 

Thank you. I see that in your eyes. It's so touching for me to bear witness to how it is. How does it touch you, too? Yeah. Thank you. 

You're welcome. And it is profound. I can feel it in my own body. Whether or not it's times where I've had my own experience of doing my best to turn towards and whether or not it's like, oh, that makes sense, or just like, oh, hello, or like, you know, things that I felt too terrified to wonder or turn towards, or moments where I'm supporting someone else and some version of this. And it's so healing. 

It's so healing. And I love the tears that are present for you because, you know, like, as we turn towards, what begins to emerge in us in those healing moments, our bodies are so wise. We call it sequencing in somatic psychology. But basically, like, one part of shame that was stuck in that contraction begins to move through, and it sequences out of us, and it comes to the surface with a new possibility. I mean, how beautiful is that? 

So, so beautiful. 

Yeah. 

I'm deeply inspired by this work and touched by it, and I do sometimes cry with my clients. It's the assistance to be able to feel repair, to feel integration, to feel the opportunity or possibility that you're describing. And I know we have used so much time here. What do you want to say? Would it be brief enough to say if one is noticing their significant other caught in some reactivity or activation? What one might do to support, not further escalating it. 

Right? Right. Like, I think sometimes we need to work within the language of invitation and choice because if we try to assume that we know what our partner needs in that moment, it can actually make things worse if we go into fixing mode. Right. Like

 So we can just go in with this loving intention and say, “How can I be most supportive for you right now? Is there anything that you need from me? Even if it's just me being here with you at this moment, that would just help you feel that I'm right here and that I love you.” 

It's sometimes that simple. Right. Like we don't have to be afraid of the other. And if it's a really hot moment, like, right. 

Like my bike moment, and I'm screaming and cursing. Right. 

I'm right here. I know something upset you. I don't even know what it was yet, but I'm willing to hear. 

Yeah. And the willingness to even convey that warmth, and also that we haven't resolved it. Like, we don't have our footing yet, and that's okay. And sometimes we might need it. I mean, for me, sometimes it's days, sometimes it's months, sometimes, depending on the thing, it's maybe even a year plus to really get to like this role, like what you're describing. So, thank you, thank you. Well, for people listening who are resonating with you, and you do so much in the world to support people, where would you like to direct people to learn more? 

Honestly, the best thing to do is, you know, get to know my work through either signing up for my newsletter@drarielleschwartz. I have two websites, resilienceinformedtherapy.com, and I run plenty of programs, some of which are on Zoom, some of which are. I have an upcoming, you know, seven-month immersion that is with the SHIFT Network. And I also run in-person retreats at Omega Institute and at Blue Spirit in Costa Rica, and in beautiful places in South Africa. In May, we do trauma recoveries for laypeople. This is for anyone who's looking for nervous system support and trauma recovery. And that one combines with safari, which is pretty amazing. We actually get to watch animals in the wild in their defense states and how it mirrors ourselves. 

One brief example of it from the last time I did the retreat. There we had this moment where some stuff was coming up for the group, and it was a little bit intense. And just at that moment, the matriarchy of the elephants comes through, and we watch them and the baby elephants, and the whole group's nervous system gets regulated by the elephants. Like you can't make this stuff up. It's extraordinary. So there are some beautiful offerings that I have out there, and all of which will be coming up in 2026, some of which start this fall. But yeah, so keep an eye out. Sign up for the newsletter at drarielleschwartz.com, the easiest. 

Okay, I will put the link on today's Shownotes and your other website, and perhaps a link to a couple of these workshops. And again, so much more can be found on your websites. I know. So thank you so much for all that you've shared here.