REFRAME 7: Strategy Over Shame

The Shame Spiral

She sat across from me, shoulders contracted.

"I talked too much at that event. I overshared. People were uncomfortable. I'm too much."

This was the third woman that week saying the same thing.

And I realized: she doesn't understand why she did it.

So she's trapped.

Shame without information.

Guilt without understanding.

A promise to "do better next time" that has no strategy behind it

She'll go to the next event.

She'll be hyperaware of how much she's talking.

She'll either stay silent (and disappear) or she'll feel the urgency to communicate again (and shame herself again).

The cycle continues.

No learning.

Just self-policing.

What's Actually Happening

The shame wasn't the real problem.

The self-understanding was.

When you understand why you do something, you can be strategic about it instead of ashamed of it.

One woman realized she over-explains when she's nervous about being misunderstood.

So instead of shame-spiraling after meetings, she started building in buffer questions:

Does that land? Do you want me to go deeper?

Instead of providing all the information at once, she began offering it with pauses for connection.

Another realized she talks fast when she's excited—and her fast-talking energy actually energizes the room.

But she was killing it by second-guessing herself.

Once she understood it, she leaned into it intentionally.

The energy became contagious instead of chaotic.

Another discovered that "oversharing" was actually necessary in specific contexts—building trust through authenticity.

But she'd learned to hide it in "professional" settings.

Once she understood the mechanics, she could choose:

In this room, vulnerability builds trust. In that room, it might be misread. I'll adjust strategically.

Not from shame.

From understanding.

The Real Pattern

The unstoppable women weren't the ones who controlled their intensity.

They were the ones who understood it.

Their brains moved fast.

But they'd learned to ground that speed.

They had big feelings.

But now understood what those feelings were telling them, instead of trying to ignore them.

They moved with energy.

The intensity didn't disappear.

It became purposeful.

The Question

What behavior have you been ashamed of that you've never actually understood?

If you understood why you do it, what would change?

What would be possible if you moved from self-judgment to self-knowledge?

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