This conversation is about the shame that can surface around breakups, sex, money, and relationships, and how that shame can keep you hiding, comparing yourself to other people, and overriding your own inner guidance. Victoria Stewart and Sarah talk about what happens when “I should have known better” becomes a loop, why shame makes it harder to experience real intimacy, and how turning toward the feeling with curiosity and compassion can begin to break the cycle. They also talk about asking for support, creating a “shame agreement” with a trusted friend, and learning to turn the walls you built for protection into discernment instead.
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Sarah Curnoles: All right, everybody, so I had a really wonderful interview with Victoria, and I think it wasn't even 24 hours, and I kept thinking about our conversation, and so I reached out to her again, and I was like.
Sarah Curnoles: We missed a really big topic that I feel like is in your warehouse… your, what's the word? In your wheelhouse. Yeah. Not… or your warehouse, I don't know.
Victoria Steward (she/her): The warehouse of knowledge.
Sarah Curnoles: your warehouse of knowledge, yeah, because Victoria has been doing money, and she did this really wonderful training about sexuality and sex and relationships, and I was like, we didn't talk about shame.
Sarah Curnoles: Because I feel like so much shame comes up in the people I talk to about with breakups, and I know, like, from my experience, from the people I talk to, money and sex are big areas for shame also.
Victoria Steward (she/her): Yeah.
Sarah Curnoles: So, let's just… and you graciously agreed to come on and do a part two, so thank you for being here again! My pleasure.
Victoria Steward (she/her): Thanks for having me. I was like, yeah, let's have a really fun conversation about shame, and I was like, that sounds weird.
Sarah Curnoles: Yeah, well, you and I will make it fun.
Victoria Steward (she/her): Yes!
Sarah Curnoles: And, I think let's begin at the beginning, and just, what is your working definition of shame?
Victoria Steward (she/her): I was thinking about it, and…
Victoria Steward (she/her): It's… to me, it's almost like a loop.
Victoria Steward (she/her): Of… where you feel guilty, or you feel like you should know something, or should have been able to do it.
Victoria Steward (she/her): And you get stuck in this loop of judgment.
Victoria Steward (she/her): Of, like, I should have, I should have known better, I could have done better. Like, it's just this…
Victoria Steward (she/her): loop of… Deep, icky, sticky guilt.
Victoria Steward (she/her): Not a very scientific definition of shame.
Sarah Curnoles: No, I love… I love, like, a working definition, and I always find it so important to recognize it, because it can have so many different faces with somebody.
Victoria Steward (she/her): Yes.
Sarah Curnoles: And it can shapeshift. It's like, it.
Victoria Steward (she/her): can even…
Sarah Curnoles: change, like, you can be… I can be working with a client for weeks, and it comes up in some other different way. And so noticing it as that icky, sticky.
Sarah Curnoles: should have, or I should have been able to recognize this, or I should have known, like, that's a really good…
Sarah Curnoles: Like a trigger phrase, almost, that.
Victoria Steward (she/her): You congrats.
Sarah Curnoles: onto. Like, if you're shooting, you might…
Sarah Curnoles: You might be dealing with some… some shame there.
Victoria Steward (she/her): Yeah, especially if it's something you can get stuck in, in a loop, right? Like, okay, I've worked through this, and then it comes right back, and you're like.
Victoria Steward (she/her): I thought I forgave myself for this already, and it's like, it's trying to drag you back down of, like, oh, but you'll never surpass this, right? Like, it's…
Victoria Steward (she/her): Which is obviously not true.
Victoria Steward (she/her): But it's one of those emotions that we… I think we try to avoid or put it to the side, rather than fully experiencing it, and then it just gives it so much more power.
Sarah Curnoles: Yeah, it really does thrive in the secrecy, it thrives in the shadows, and you're right, I think all of us, all human beings, do everything we can to avoid feeling it.
Victoria Steward (she/her): Yeah.
Sarah Curnoles: I guess because it… it feels so awful.
Victoria Steward (she/her): Yep.
Victoria Steward (she/her): Yeah, and you want to hide it, right? Like, so you're trying to even hide it from yourself a little bit.
Sarah Curnoles: Yes, yeah, you want to hide it from others, but you want to also hide it from yourself. I think… I always think shame is coming up… it's coming up from the parts of us that feel unlovable, that just want to be loved.
Sarah Curnoles: And they are the parts of us that we have rejected and pushed away, and we think,
Victoria Steward (she/her): Yeah, they're not worthy, right?
Sarah Curnoles: They're not worthy of love, yeah.
Sarah Curnoles: So why… why do you think money and sex seem to bring out our deepest insecurities around this?
Victoria Steward (she/her): I think it's because it comes back to…
Victoria Steward (she/her): outsourcing our power a little bit, right? Like, we are expecting whether
Victoria Steward (she/her): It's our income, making a certain amount of money that lets us buy something to kind of project to the outside world that we are worthy, that we've done the thing we're doing well.
Victoria Steward (she/her): And in sex, sometimes it's the same, where instead of being like, I am one sexy creature, right? Like, and I… you, like, fully love yourself, and…
Victoria Steward (she/her): like most women, right? We have all of these funny things happening about how we see our bodies, and…
Victoria Steward (she/her): Because of all these stereotypes that we have heard in society, family, culture.
Victoria Steward (she/her): that we're, like, always comparing ourselves to something outside of us, rather than what's happening inside, and how do… how am I staying in myself? Like, am I staying… like, how do I stay true to myself?
Victoria Steward (she/her): love myself, Provide safety for myself.
Victoria Steward (she/her): And we keep saying, oh, it's gonna be the money, it's going to be the partner, I won't attract the partner if I'm not like this, or if I don't perform sexually in this way, right? Like, it's… rather than being, like, what do I want? What feels good in my body?
Victoria Steward (she/her): what feels true to myself. We're like, okay, all of you.
Victoria Steward (she/her): tell me what you want, and then I'm gonna try to perform.
Victoria Steward (she/her): And then, if that's not really who you are, because for some people, it probably really is who they are, and it really lights them up, and, like, being a performer and doing all these things.
Victoria Steward (she/her): It might be really, really true for them, but for a lot of us, it then starts to destabilize our foundation.
Victoria Steward (she/her): Money, sex, relationships, all of it. And…
Victoria Steward (she/her): And the more unstable, the more insecure. Like, literally, you become insecure, right? Like…
Victoria Steward (she/her): You don't… you start to lose who you are, who… who you know yourself to be.
Victoria Steward (she/her): And then it just comes up in all places of your life.
Victoria Steward (she/her): Unless there's… there can be places where you're… you're really strong in yourself, right? Like, some… for some of us, it was our careers, at least for some portion of the time, because you knew, I know how to perf… I know how to be myself here. But at some point, we start overriding ourselves even there.
Victoria Steward (she/her): Because we've just… you know, we stop, like, reflecting, what is my life looking like? Do I still want to be working this hard? Do I still want to be young?
Sarah Curnoles: Yeah.
Victoria Steward (she/her): things.
Sarah Curnoles: And I think you're hitting on something of, like, in both of these areas, the shame is coming in comparison, where we're comparing what do I want, and what feels good to me, and we're comparing it to other people, because you can have the same…
Sarah Curnoles: you can have the same income, right? And, like, one person could feel shame about it, because they're not saving enough, or they're making more than their parents, or, you know, whatever. And then.
Victoria Steward (she/her): Or not as much as they thought they were going to. Exactly. Or their friends somehow take 15 trips, and they can… they feel like they can afford one, right?
Sarah Curnoles: Correct. Right. Right. And the same thing with sex, of like, am I weird because I like what I like? Is that wrong? Is that bad? Should I not like that? Should I be more like this? Should I… should I look a certain way? Because that's what it looks like on porn?
Sarah Curnoles: like.
Sarah Curnoles: It's very comparative, instead of, like you're saying, of turning inward and just letting your… internal guidance.
Sarah Curnoles: Be what dictates how you move forward.
Victoria Steward (she/her): And the problem then ends up being is that we've overridden that internal guidance for so long, a lot of us, especially if you have any sort of people-pleasing tendencies.
Victoria Steward (she/her): Right? Yeah.
Sarah Curnoles: Yeah, we're both pointing to ourselves on that one, yeah, totally.
Victoria Steward (she/her): That… You start not even knowing
Victoria Steward (she/her): What your inner guidance is telling you, because it's gotten so quiet, because you've told it to be quiet for so long that it takes… can take a whole lot of work to be able to hear it again.
Sarah Curnoles: So, why… why do you think… I mean, maybe we're hitting on it now, but.
Victoria Steward (she/her): Yeah.
Sarah Curnoles: But around sex and shame, especially with women, why do you think it's so common?
Victoria Steward (she/her): I think it's because…
Victoria Steward (she/her): we get told such conflicting information, right? Like, you need to be virginal and pure and virtuous, and also
Victoria Steward (she/her): everybody wants the party girl who is wild in bed, and you're like, I don't understand how to be both things. And so then, you start to try to be both things, and you begin to override what is true for yourself.
Victoria Steward (she/her): Because you're like, I'm just trying to figure… well, and maybe you're trying to also figure out what feels good for you, and what feels fun for you.
Victoria Steward (she/her): And then it gets really confusing, and…
Victoria Steward (she/her): most of us, I would cross our own boundaries, right? Like, we say yes when we really mean no. Maybe we say no when we really mean yes.
Victoria Steward (she/her): We say fast.
Sarah Curnoles: That's not in the second Anyway.
Victoria Steward (she/her): No, not in a sexy way. Well, because that would be being true to your boundaries, right?
Sarah Curnoles: No, I…
Victoria Steward (she/her): I'm new.
Sarah Curnoles: Right, I was being silly. I was like, you know, in bed, I was like, no, no, don't do that.
Victoria Steward (she/her): I really mean more. Yeah, like…
Victoria Steward (she/her): being like, what… like, I know for myself, I just kind of would be like, Wow.
Victoria Steward (she/her): it's enjoyable to a certain extent, no matter what, so whatever. And it's like, Really? Like…
Victoria Steward (she/her): Well then, it's no surprise that you don't quite know what it is that actually feels good for you, if you were like, just whatever, do what you would like, right? I'm just…
Victoria Steward (she/her): Enjoy, like, excite… like, in… Excited?
Sarah Curnoles: Whatever to, like…
Victoria Steward (she/her): Have… have the attention, right?
Sarah Curnoles: Are you describing, like, the, I'm just grateful to be here kind of thing in an awards ceremony?
Sarah Curnoles: I'm just grateful to be nominated.
Victoria Steward (she/her): Sounds terrible, but yes, right? Like, sometimes, because of the insecurities that have been created.
Victoria Steward (she/her): We talked about it in the last episode, of, like, that feeling of, like, I have to grab what is given me, and I have to hold on for dear life. And that can also be…
Victoria Steward (she/her): Because… because, like, a desperate energy isn't very attractive.
Victoria Steward (she/her): Because literally, it doesn't attract, it pushes away. So when you do somehow attract something.
Victoria Steward (she/her): Like, it feels like you have to really hold on, and just enjoy what you're getting.
Victoria Steward (she/her): Even if it's not something you actually enjoy.
Victoria Steward (she/her): Yeah. Which can be.
Victoria Steward (she/her): Even more destabilizing, because you're like, okay, something really is off here.
Sarah Curnoles: Yeah.
Sarah Curnoles: Oh, there was something you said that I wanted to go back to, but maybe it'll come back up. You know how that is, of like, that thing! Yeah.
Sarah Curnoles: I think we've already started to go into this a little bit, but how do you see shame getting in the way of creating intimacy between people?
Victoria Steward (she/her): I think because you're hiding, right? How can you… be…
Victoria Steward (she/her): open and intimate, like, really intimate with a person, right? We sometimes think intimacy is just sex, right? Like, we're getting naked, and we're touching each other.
Victoria Steward (she/her): But, like, to really be intimate, it's like you're making a…
Victoria Steward (she/her): soul connection, right? Like, you're being… two true selves are coming together, and if you've shoved half of yourself away in a dark closet.
Victoria Steward (she/her): That doesn't come out.
Victoria Steward (she/her): the other person's gonna sense it, that there's some part of you that's not here, that's not showing up, that's always kind of holding you back. It can be almost like an anchor, right? Like, you're always feeling like
Victoria Steward (she/her): something is pulling you back, like, weighing you down, rather than fully showing up. And I think also…
Victoria Steward (she/her): We assume we're the only ones who have some shame in our past, or that we feel shame about something that happened before, or…
Victoria Steward (she/her): every time we take our clothes off, we feel a little ashamed of our bodies because, oh, I could be looking after myself better, I could be working out more, I could be doing this, I could be that, doing that, oh, look.
Victoria Steward (she/her): I'm in my 40s, too bad, right? Like, but… then…
Victoria Steward (she/her): it's like, you're not there. You're not really there with the other person, but, like, we're assuming they don't have something also going on, and so we feel alone, even when we're together, and potentially the other person is experiencing something similar, but we assume it's just us.
Victoria Steward (she/her): But it's us alone, battling… This history, or this sadness, or this guilt, Because…
Victoria Steward (she/her): Right? Like, that darkness can only be in me, or that sadness can only be in me, when we're all human.
Sarah Curnoles: Isn't it funny how so many of these experiences…
Sarah Curnoles: are very paradoxical. Like, the experience of shame feels so isolating, and it feels like it's only me, but it is… it's universal. Everybody has shame.
Sarah Curnoles: We all experience it. And, people-pleasing, like… like you and I were saying, of, like, we're behaving as people-pleasers.
Sarah Curnoles: But, really, at the end of the day, if you look at it, it's manipulation.
Victoria Steward (she/her): Yeah.
Sarah Curnoles: Right? Where it's like, if I behave the right way, and I do everything to make you happy, then you are going to perform the way I need you to. Right? That's really what people-pleasing is about.
Sarah Curnoles: paradoxes.
Victoria Steward (she/her): Paradoxes. Well, and I think that's why your meetups are, like, such a magical thing, right? Because…
Victoria Steward (she/her): Then people are sharing their stories, and it's men and women, and they're sharing together, and all of a sudden, it's like, oh, wow, we are all in this human experience, having very similar experiences together.
Victoria Steward (she/her): Right? That's probably… that's probably… I have never experienced, like, an AA meeting, but I would imagine it's the same thing. Like, the more you share, the less…
Victoria Steward (she/her): the closet door opens, the light comes on, right? Like.
Victoria Steward (she/her): It's not so scary and… and…
Victoria Steward (she/her): creepy and, like, I'm the only one.
Sarah Curnoles: Yeah, I mean, I don't remember if I told you this, I used to keep my meetups separate. I had a men's group, and I had a women's group, and I just realized the conversations that were happening were the same.
Sarah Curnoles: And I was like, well, I should just bring them together, and they hear from each other, like you said, of this isn't a gendered experience, to have shame after a breakup, or to feel blindsided, or whatever.
Victoria Steward (she/her): Yeah, because when we keep it to ourselves, I even…
Victoria Steward (she/her): I wrote a newsletter about it, about this idea that I was surrounded… before I even left my job, I was surrounded by people who were doing well with their money.
Victoria Steward (she/her): But I didn't ask them for help, because I was ashamed. I was like, I can figure this out. Obviously not, because it had been, like, 40 years of me kind of, like, up and down, up and down, up and down.
Victoria Steward (she/her): But it's, like… we forget…
Victoria Steward (she/her): that it looks to us like they have their act together. Maybe there's something of your story that they're like, oh my gosh, that was exactly me two years ago, and I found this thing, and it's just changed things for me, right? But…
Victoria Steward (she/her): Unless we share and are open
Victoria Steward (she/her): Which is the hardest part when you're trying to… we've been told, like, these are shameful parts of ourselves. It's like…
Victoria Steward (she/her): It's so hard to get some help, and we assume everybody's gonna judge us, but most people…
Victoria Steward (she/her): Have had similar experiences, if not almost exactly the same.
Sarah Curnoles: But also, there's something, I don't know if it's cultural or what, that.
Sarah Curnoles: that is a pressure of you're supposed to know, or you should know, right? It's that should.
Victoria Steward (she/her): Yes.
Sarah Curnoles: Like, I could have figured this out by now, or I should be smart enough to figure this out, but you know what's interesting? One of the most, like, a magnetic, feature in a person is somebody who wants to learn.
Victoria Steward (she/her): Yeah.
Sarah Curnoles: Somebody who says, I don't know this, teach me, show me, what do you know? Share your expertise. It's actually…
Sarah Curnoles: It's really magnetic, not just in a, like, an attraction way, but.
Victoria Steward (she/her): Yeah.
Sarah Curnoles: People want to give to that person, like, yes, let me teach you.
Victoria Steward (she/her): Yes. Well, I had… the podcast episode that I issued… that was published today.
Victoria Steward (she/her): She's a dance teacher who was teaching for 20 years, and besides starting an Instagram account, the thing that started to change things for her is she went back to class, and went back to being a beginner.
Victoria Steward (she/her): Which was very, very uncomfortable. She's like, I'm a dance teacher. All of this should be easy. I should be able to figure out this choreography. And it wasn't! It was hard. And then…
Victoria Steward (she/her): she, like.
Victoria Steward (she/her): just because of that, and, like, talking to people who were also there, she got to teach at that famous London studio, and she ended up
Victoria Steward (she/her): choreographing a movie, like a short movie, right? Like, it's just…
Victoria Steward (she/her): Putting yourself back into, like, that beginner mindset, like you're saying, of, like, let me learn about this.
Victoria Steward (she/her): it draws, like, exactly like you're saying. It draws people in, right? Because you're curious!
Sarah Curnoles: I've never thought about this paradoxical point before of… I've never thought about it in terms of, if we're gonna look at healing shame, how can we look at the paradox of what is the part of this where you don't know.
Sarah Curnoles: or you are exploring, or you're figuring it out, or you're having a very human experience, like, I don't know, like…
Sarah Curnoles: diarrhea in a public place, right? Like, we all know how embarrassing that is, but if it happens, we're all mortified.
Sarah Curnoles: And yet we could all relate, right? Like, taking that and playing with the paradox of knowing the other human in front of you.
Sarah Curnoles: Is gonna be able to…
Sarah Curnoles: at some level, relate to it. Or maybe that's very Pollyanna of me, as I was saying it.
Victoria Steward (she/her): It may be, but it probably just depends on how you go into it, because…
Victoria Steward (she/her): even if you go into it being like, I bet this person has some of their own stuff that they're dealing with, I would imagine your heart starts to open, right? It doesn't feel quite so, like, I have to protect myself.
Victoria Steward (she/her): You get to be like, oh, okay, they're human too.
Victoria Steward (she/her): They're not some sort of Model of an ideal something or other.
Victoria Steward (she/her): And the more you can be with your heart open and, like, leading with compassion, love, connection.
Victoria Steward (she/her): they will reciprocate as well, even maybe if they're not… if we're talking about a sexual partner or a romantic partner, right? Like, maybe they're not the right one, but there's gonna be some sort of…
Victoria Steward (she/her): energy exchange. Maybe you start to learn how to show up more fully, more vulnerably. Maybe you're teaching them to do the same, because you're showing up
Victoria Steward (she/her): Ready to, like… open yourself up a little bit. Allow some of that…
Victoria Steward (she/her): Shame, maybe, to transmute itself a little bit, or to be experienced fully.
Sarah Curnoles: Yeah, and I'm gonna add in to your list of qualities of, like, open and vulnerable, I'm gonna add in discernment, right? Yes, that's very important. We wanna choose… we wanna choose the right people to be sharing this with. That was the Pollyanna bit of, like, I forgot the discernment piece of, like.
Sarah Curnoles: Not everybody can be trusted with your vulnerabilities, so… yeah.
Victoria Steward (she/her): And that goes back to kind… to the very… when we first started, like, what is creating these deep insecurities, right? It's the fact that sometimes, when we're younger, we don't know any different. You go out there, like, I… I'm just having a good time.
Victoria Steward (she/her): And then you kind of experience giving your trust to people who don't deserve it.
Victoria Steward (she/her): And then it's how do you convert, kind of, like, that wall you've created into discernment? Of, like, yes.
Victoria Steward (she/her): I didn't… there's a reason all these things happen. Yes, maybe I made some mistakes, but how do I learn from them rather than build this fortress around myself?
Sarah Curnoles: Yeah. Yes. Yep. So… let's… I want to pivot into… because I think we're going there naturally.
Sarah Curnoles: If someone's listening and they are realizing that they have shame around money or sex, or their breakup has brought up shame of, like, I shouldn't have stayed so long, or whatever story they might be saying, what are some healthy responses they could have to the shame that's coming up?
Victoria Steward (she/her): So, I think one of the easiest and hardest
Victoria Steward (she/her): At the same time, is to just let it
Victoria Steward (she/her): B, is to let it come up without trying to shove it away again.
Victoria Steward (she/her): Because it is just, like, just, right? Like, it's just in quotes, but it's an emotion, which is meant to be felt, and the more we shove them away, the stronger they become. And so…
Victoria Steward (she/her): And we get… we add a layer of judgment onto them.
Victoria Steward (she/her): when…
Victoria Steward (she/her): if you just… if you can allow it to come in… like, I have experienced this most acutely with fear, because it comes in like a wave, and I want to, like, shove the wave away, but it's like, if you allow the wave to kind of just crash over you in the moment…
Victoria Steward (she/her): You see…
Victoria Steward (she/her): it can… it will dissipate, just like in the ocean. It comes over you, and it draws away.
Victoria Steward (she/her): Same with sadness. Like, if you allow sadness to wash over you, if you just… if you allow it to happen, it has… like, it has been one of the most pleasurable experiences of just being in a moment of sadness, and then it kind of ebbs away, and you're like.
Victoria Steward (she/her): Wow.
Victoria Steward (she/her): Because of the leaving of it, feels just so good.
Victoria Steward (she/her): That we forget, like, it's… if we just allow them to come in and out.
Victoria Steward (she/her): and actually feel them without being like, this is bad, this is good, because it's just a feeling, it's an emotion. We're emotional beings.
Victoria Steward (she/her): And… Then, they kind of… they become less intense, because you're allowing yourself to feel them and experience them.
Victoria Steward (she/her): And that, I feel like, is the first…
Victoria Steward (she/her): step, like, slowing down the pushing it away, because it's not something you can do right off the bat. We're gonna… we have those reflexes built off of
Victoria Steward (she/her): Decades of experience for some of us. And…
Victoria Steward (she/her): Sometimes you can be like, oh, I waited 3 seconds before I pushed it away, and then maybe it becomes 5 seconds, and then maybe it comes 10 seconds, then the full 90 seconds of your emotion washing over you, and you can just sit with it, and then it moves on.
Victoria Steward (she/her): And then you're… You're through it.
Sarah Curnoles: Yeah.
Sarah Curnoles: I will say, I know my shame, and I… maybe that's something I should put in here, of… I think I've had to spend a lot of time getting to know how my shame shows up, of, like, being curious, of, like, what's it doing now? How is it showing up? What does it look like? But one of the things I realized really early is mine…
Sarah Curnoles: it's, like, a very tight loop. It's very hard for me to get the wedge in there to, like.
Victoria Steward (she/her): Yeah.
Victoria Steward (she/her): Doesn't give you space.
Sarah Curnoles: it doesn't give me a lot of space, so I had to… to even, like, bring any compassion to it. I had to get a couple friends. I had to recruit some friends to be like, when I feel shame, can I call you? And you're just gonna give me some compassion and some love, because it's really hard for me to do it for myself when I'm in that.
Victoria Steward (she/her): Yeah. Well, and that goes back to kind of, like.
Victoria Steward (she/her): Not trying to do this by yourself.
Victoria Steward (she/her): Like, it is so hard to do these things by yourself, and we're not meant to be solitary creatures. Right.
Victoria Steward (she/her): Right? And, like…
Victoria Steward (she/her): I've had friends say before, like, when you ask for help, you allow us to help, which feels really, really good.
Victoria Steward (she/her): to the person who's able to provide the assistance. And…
Victoria Steward (she/her): But that's a hard thing to actually put into practice if you've… if you're the kind of person who's like, I can handle everything on my own, because I don't want to put my heaviness and burden on somebody else.
Victoria Steward (she/her): But being able to just say, I could use a little help, I could use a little support.
Victoria Steward (she/her): And especially if you're very clear, like you said, just…
Victoria Steward (she/her): My sisters used to get so mad at me, because I'd be like, oh, so are we solving a problem? And I'd… my engineer brain would be like, would you like, like, here's something you could do, here's something you could do, until finally one of them was like, listen.
Victoria Steward (she/her): I don't want you to say anything, you just need to listen. We're not trying to solve the problem. And I was like.
Victoria Steward (she/her): Oh, okay. Yeah. Thank you.
Sarah Curnoles: Yeah, so if somebody wanted to recruit a friend to maybe be this compassionate witness, maybe what are the instructions they could give the friend?
Victoria Steward (she/her): Well, I think it's being, like.
Victoria Steward (she/her): I… right? Like, I'd be curious what you gave as your friend… to your friends as instructions, but it… I would imagine there's, like, a code word so that somebody knows, okay, this is this kind of call, I just listen, I say you're right, I see you.
Victoria Steward (she/her): Thank you for sharing. Yeah, and if you're like.
Victoria Steward (she/her): at the end, because I've done… we have a… I do a couple calls with some friends, and it's at the end, we're like.
Victoria Steward (she/her): Do you want feedback or not?
Victoria Steward (she/her): Yeah. You just want to be witnessed? And sometimes it's like, yeah, please, give me feedback, feedback away, and sometimes it's like, no, I can't… I won't be able to handle any feedback right now. I just needed to be witnessed.
Sarah Curnoles: Yep.
Victoria Steward (she/her): Yeah.
Sarah Curnoles: Yep, and that's pretty much what we do. We call it a shame spiral, which I think we had both read a Brene Brown book or something, and that's what she called it. Yeah, we'll say, like, I'm in a shame spiral, and the other person will pick up the phone and be like, okay, I'm here!
Victoria Steward (she/her): Yeah, and it's good to, like, identify a person, right? Because there's gonna be… I've tried to teach a bunch of my friends different practices that I really, really love, and they're like.
Victoria Steward (she/her): are you doing? Right? Like, it somehow doesn't compute, and I'm like, okay, that's all right, because I have these two other friends that I can do it with, because we learned it together, and it really means something to us.
Sarah Curnoles: That's why these conversations are valuable, because this is an episode you could send to a friend and say, listen to this quick episode. If they talk about shame, I'd really love to be this person for each other.
Sarah Curnoles: I really trust you, friend, and I want to be that for you also, so maybe we can have this shame agreement, and have our own code word, and pick up the phone when we're in a shame spiral.
Victoria Steward (she/her): Yeah, you don't want to be…
Victoria Steward (she/her): Trying to get yourself out of it yourself.
Victoria Steward (she/her): Right? Like, there's a reason it's a spiral already, if it's a loop.
Victoria Steward (she/her): And unless you have some sort of… amazing.
Victoria Steward (she/her): Something else that you can do that always snaps you out of it, like.
Victoria Steward (she/her): It is… it's much easier to gather.
Sarah Curnoles: And it's taken me… it's taken me so much work to be able to do anything by myself when it comes to.
Victoria Steward (she/her): Yeah.
Sarah Curnoles: It's, it's always been with… somebody compassionate has when… it's when I've made the most progress.
Victoria Steward (she/her): Yeah, and I think I… same with me, I think.
Victoria Steward (she/her): That, like, you start to notice
Victoria Steward (she/her): with somebody, and then as you get… build the muscle a little bit, build the practice, you can start to be like, oh, okay, I can catch myself now for a little bit.
Victoria Steward (she/her): Okay, now, now I'm past my window of tolerance, I need some help.
Victoria Steward (she/her): And that's… that's good, right? Like, you… you…
Victoria Steward (she/her): You ask for a spotter at the gym when you overdo it. Why wouldn't you do that? With our emotional lives?
Sarah Curnoles: Yeah. Yeah. And I think,
Sarah Curnoles: I almost want to answer… I know you didn't mean that as a question, but I can almost hear the answer from people of, like, well, because sometimes I've shared the emotions and they get thrown back at me, or, like, they… they… oh, it's like…
Sarah Curnoles: I love when we get alerts from the background, it's like…
Sarah Curnoles: The universe is saying, yes, you hit on something.
Sarah Curnoles: It's okay.
Sarah Curnoles: I find it as confirmation.
Sarah Curnoles: That's a deep… it's a deep thing. So, yeah, so sometimes I think that's how we know that that's not a safe person. If they are gonna use your insecurities back against you, that's not a great person to share your inner world with. It's not a person to be vulnerable with.
Sarah Curnoles: Yes, so asking for a spotter, emotional spotters in the right places.
Victoria Steward (she/her): Yeah.
Victoria Steward (she/her): It's funny, also, when you're in a house with, like, a landline, and it totally scares the bejesus out of you.
Sarah Curnoles: I haven't been in a house with a landline in a long time!
Victoria Steward (she/her): What!
Sarah Curnoles: It's just the universe reaffirming that our conversation has been, like, Spot on.
Victoria Steward (she/her): Yes, exactly.
Sarah Curnoles: If somebody's listening to this and they're feeling ashamed about something, whether it's money or sex or their breakup, is there any parting words that you would like them to hear?
Victoria Steward (she/her): I think maybe… Kind of going back to, like, how would you interact with another human being?
Victoria Steward (she/her): It's like, start to open up your heart.
Victoria Steward (she/her): do the same for you, right? Like…
Victoria Steward (she/her): We are all learning. We are all a work in progress. We are all, like, the product of our environments.
Victoria Steward (she/her): Remember that…
Victoria Steward (she/her): we need teachers, right? Like, examples, mentors, and if you've never had somebody model something different for you.
Victoria Steward (she/her): you'd be like a magical creature if you were able to transcend it on your own. So, provide yourself with some compassion, and be, like, curious about what it's trying to share with you, rather than judging it, and…
Victoria Steward (she/her): being… disappointed in yourself, disappointed in your experience, disappointed in all these things. It's like…
Victoria Steward (she/her): Give yourself a little love and compassion.
Victoria Steward (she/her): Because we're just all doing the best we can.
Sarah Curnoles: Yeah.
Sarah Curnoles: And if I… if I can celebrate you for a moment, there's something that you do beautifully, and the reason why I wanted to have this conversation with you is that…
Sarah Curnoles: you can talk about hard topics, and difficult topics, and serious topics, but you also can bring joy and playfulness to it, which I think creates so much space for people.
Sarah Curnoles: My hope and my intention is when we create that space, what can come in is the compassion.
Victoria Steward (she/her): Yes.
Victoria Steward (she/her): Well, thank you. That is…
Sarah Curnoles: So yeah.
Victoria Steward (she/her): Very generous of you.
Sarah Curnoles: Well, thank you so much for having this conversation. Is there anything I didn't ask you that you wanted to talk about when it comes to shame, sex, money?
Victoria Steward (she/her): I think it kind of goes back to, like, that whole analogy of, like, the door is closed on the closet, there are no lights on. As soon as you start
Victoria Steward (she/her): Shining the light on whatever it is that Feels super shameful.
Victoria Steward (she/her): something you're hiding from, especially with money. Like, a lot of us, you know, have experienced some variation of, like, blinders on, right? Like.
Victoria Steward (she/her): I just spend, and then without paying attention, and then I'm in this loop, and this, that, and the other thing, and then we get into this
Victoria Steward (she/her): chaotic relationship, and…
Victoria Steward (she/her): We don't want to tell anybody about it, because it's like, I don't understand how… why this keeps happening.
Victoria Steward (she/her): But if you turn that spotlight on, or you put the magnifying glass on it, nothing will survive. The shadows disappear, right? It just becomes information.
Victoria Steward (she/her): There is no judgment when you're looking at it like a scientist.
Victoria Steward (she/her): And being like, oh, look at this, right? Like, then you get curious, like, you pull out your magnifying glass, like, what's happening here? And so…
Victoria Steward (she/her): A lot of things that we don't want to pay attention to just get scarier and darker and scarier and darker, and if you have a way, and a lot of times it really helps to do this with somebody, whether it's your friends, hiring a coach, any of these, like.
Victoria Steward (she/her): working with a therapist, right? Like, there's so many different places you can do this.
Victoria Steward (she/her): And start, like, looking at all of these things, they just… they become a memory, they become an experience, rather than something that defines you.
Victoria Steward (she/her): Nothing really survives, like, the light.
Victoria Steward (she/her): So…
Sarah Curnoles: We love that.
Victoria Steward (she/her): Let's open the door.
Sarah Curnoles: Yeah, let's open the door, go in there with a friend with a flashlight, or a coach, or a therapist, yeah.
Sarah Curnoles: Yeah, you don't have to go to the dark corners alone.
Victoria Steward (she/her): No. No. Yeah. That's why you need a team.
Sarah Curnoles: Exactly.
Sarah Curnoles: Amazing. Well, thank you for coming back for part two. This is so good.
Victoria Steward (she/her): Pleasure.
Victoria Steward (she/her): My pleasure, thanks for having me.
Sarah Curnoles: Absolutely.