Welcome to the Lead to Excel podcast. I'm Maureen China. I'm a neuroleadership consultant and I work with leaders, founders, and faith-driven professionals who want to understand how their thoughts, emotions, and beliefs shape their decisions, performance, and progress. Here we bring together neuroscience, emotional intelligence, and scripture to help you achieve clarity because when you understand how your brain works, you stop blaming yourself and start leading yourself differently. Today's episode is called Why Shame Keeps You Stuck. This conversation is inspired by day 108 Overcoming Shame from my book Rewire Your Brain with Neuroscience and Scripture every day. And you can get your copy from Amazon, Mindsight Store, or wherever you buy your books. You can also get digital copies from wherever you get your digital copies, Amazon, Kindle, or Amazon or Apple books, wherever you read your books. So get your copy. So this episode is inspired by day 106, but also by what I consistently see in my work with people who are capable, called, and committed, but quietly are held back. So let's look at what shame is and how it impacts on so many lives. Because it rarely shows up dramatically. More often, it's like carrying a heavy backpack that you probably forgot that you put on. You can still function, you still show up, but everything feels heavier. Confidence, decisions, courage, and even movement, in the sense that being able to or being unable to take the actions that you know that you want to take. And that's because shame is not an emotion. Shame is a belief that you have about yourself, a belief about how you see yourself, and it's it then comes out in the way your brain and body respond to this belief. And all this is done automatically. And that could be because of something that you did or something that happened to you. But what matters is not so much the source, but where the meaning settles. When shame settles at identity level, it quietly begins to govern your behavior. Shame is a spiritual weight that the brain carries as stress. From a neuroscience perspective, shame activates the brain's threat response. And this is the same system involved in social rejection. When identity feels at risk, cortisol rises, and the prefrontal cortex, that's the frontal part of the brain that deals with decision-making solution, you know, problem solving problems and being able to see into the future or visualize into the future rather, it becomes less active. This makes reflection, planning, and courageous action or the ability to take courageous action become more difficult. And it's not from a lack of discipline, it's more that the nervous system is protecting itself. Your nervous system is protecting you from what it perceives to be danger. So shame is like a smoke alarm that goes off every time you make toast. And so many of you will identify with this. The alarm is loud, your body reacts to it, but there's actually no fire. The system is not responding to danger at that point, it's responding to meaning. So you put in the toast, the smoke alarm goes off, and there's actually no fire, but because it's the smoke alarm has been set to detect any form of smoke, it goes off. So when you think about being seen, probably in you know, your visibility in your business or public speaking, or maybe you're about to start a new business or want to start a new business or step into a new leadership position, or just putting your or just stepping forward, putting yourself forward for something that is different from what you've been doing before. Your body reacts as if something is wrong because your brain doesn't identify this new thing that you are about to start or about to do. Even when nothing is creating the it or nothing is causing the threat, the body perceives this new action to be a threat. So in my work as neuro as a neuroleadership consultant, I see this constantly. People don't lack ability, usually. What they lack is faith, they lack identity safety. Because without identity safety, growth will feel dangerous because the brain has interpreted it as a danger. So whenever shame forms, the brain asks one fundamental question. What does this say about me? That's how shame moves from an experience into identity, or how an experience moves from that experience to become an issue of identity. Research on meaning making shows that after a threatening or painful experience, the brain often forms global beliefs about the self, not just about the situation. So those beliefs sound like I'm not enough, I'm not good enough, I'm unsafe, I should stay hidden. It's like looking at yourself through a cracked mirror. The reflection is distorted, but because it's familiar, it feels true. And when decisions are made from a distorted reflection, people shrink. Not because they lack capacity or capability, but because their identity now feels unsafe. And this is where Romans 8, verse 1 becomes the anchor. It says that there's now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. Condemnation and grace are very different things. Condemnation attacks identity and keeps the threat system active. Grace, on the other hand, restores identity and calms the nervous system. So while condemnation says you are the problem, grace says you are not defined by this. So condemnation is what keeps you in a courtroom where you're both the judge and the defendant, replaying evidence, handing down sentences never quite finished. Grace, on the other hand, closing the case. So this is not excusing behavior, it's creating the internal safety required for real change. When condemnation is removed, the brain can finally learn and progress to be able to achieve the desired results that you want in your life, your business, or your career. And this is how transformation actually works. So in the day 106 in my book, Rewire Your Brain with Neuroscience and Scripture every day, which the topic is overcoming shame. It explains clearly that shame does not motivate growth. It paralyzes it. What actually requires shame is not pressure, but self-compassion and reframing, reframing the situation, reframing the meaning that you've given the situation. So self-compassion is not indulgence, it's accurate self-assessment without attack. Reframing is not positive thinking either. It's replacing false meaning with truth, with the fact and not the perceived situation. Together, they create a new internal environment, one where the brain can learn instead of defend. So let's look a bit, and I want to go into a scripture here, because shame always pushes people towards hiding. We see this in scripture. When shame enters the story, hiding follows. Shame whispers, if you stay on seen, you stay safe. But scripture reframes this in 1 John 1, verse 7, and it says, But if we walk in the light as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another. And the blood of Jesus, his son, purifies us from all sin. So light is not exposure for punishment, light is exposure for healing. And it's you know, it's that that concept of if we walk in the light as he is in the light. So Christ is in the light, and we are made in his image. So we should be in the light. And it says we we then have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus, his son, purifies us. So when we walk in the light, which is the light of God, we then you know become it, we we get into fellowship with him, with one another, and with and the blood of Jesus purifies us from everything, which then sets us free from that thing or that the meaning of what we've given to the shape to what has caused the shame. And neurotience tells us the same thing: the brain does not learn safety through avoidance, it learns safety through embracing uncomfortability and repetition, which then is what helps rewire our brain and create the new outcomes that we desire. Because people stay stuck by convincing themselves that hiding is wisdom. But like from what we are reading here, it's actually coming out into the light, it's embracing the light that God has given us. If we walk in the light, so we've got to take an action, we've got to embrace the light, we've got to walk in the light, we've got to come out of hiding. You know, you've come you've you've really got to come out of the hiding and embrace light because hiding is in darkness, hiding is a way, so you've got to come out of the hiding to come into light to be seen. The brain changes through these repeated experiences, not insight alone. And I'm I I keep going on about this repeated experience because initially, when you come out of hiding, when you come into the light, when you walk in the light, it will be uncomfortable. And it would, it won't, you know, your brain would immediately tell you to go back. But you've got to keep going, you've got to keep walking in that light. Every time you respond to shame by hiding, you're reinforcing the same neural pathways that will then keep you stuck in hiding. It's like walking the same footpath across a field, and each time you walk it, the path becomes clearer. So it's either you're walking the path of light, that light becomes more, you know, because it becomes brighter, or you keep walking on the on the path of hiding, you know, hiding yourself, and then you find yourself even more stuck. When you respond differently, truth instead of self-attack, action instead of avoidance, you begin walking that new path of light. At first, like I said, it will feel awkward, but over time it will become familiar. And that is neuroplasticity, which is the brain's capacity to rewire, to create a new pathway, to create a new experience, to create a new a new outcome, a new result. So it's not willpower, it's repetition. So let's look at some practical examples. And you know, making this really practical. Someone wants to start a business. Maybe you want to leave corporate, start a new business, or branch out, or pivot in your business, or step into leadership, or just say yes to an opportunity. Shame doesn't show up saying, Here I am, I'm shame. No, it shows up as a sentence, as a thought that says, Who do you think you are? You're not ready. You're you'll be exposed, you'll get find, you'll get you get found out. You should be further along by now. You know that that narrative that keeps coming. You shouldn't be where you are, you should be further along. People have gone way ahead of you. That sentence is not motivation, it's threats, and the brain responds accordingly by pulling you back once you embrace that narrative. So, this is what you need to do, and I call this rewiring shame. Step one, identify the shame sentence. So, what is it saying? Not the feeling, but the sentence. What does shame say right before you hesitate? That's identifying it. The second step is reframe the meaning, not with positivity, but with truth, not with emotion, but the true meaning. So my worth is not on trial. I can learn as I go. Being seen does not equal being unsafe. And this is Romans 12, 2 in practice, where it tells us to renew our mind, renewing the mind by renewing meaning that we've given to situations. Step three, take one regulated action, and it could be one email, one conversation, or just one step forward. Doing something that you've been putting off, doing that thing that you've been avoiding. The brain learns from experience. Or rather, I can rephrase this and say, the brain learns through experience. Action teaches the brain, I am safe enough to move. That lived experience is what requires identity. So before I continue, I want to say this briefly. If this conversation resonates, this is exactly why I created Mindsight Women's Network. It's a space for women who want to grow in self-awareness, emotional intelligence, faith, and practical leadership without shame and without pressure. We don't rush growth, we practice it. You'll find the details in the show notes below or in the description wherever you're listening to this or watching. Here's the ark happening underneath everything that we've been talking about. Shame settles in identity, usually. Identity confusion is what leads to. Hiding. Hiding then blocks visibility. And without visibility, courage cannot develop. But when grace restores identity, the nervous system settles. Visibility becomes tolerable, and courage becomes trainable. Shame keeps you stuck because it convinces your brain that growth is dangerous. Grace tells the truth, and truth is what creates safety. And Romans 8, verse 1 is not just theology, it's a neurological wisdom. And I'm going to read it out again properly. So Romans 8, I want us to end with this. Romans 8 verse 1. Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. When condemnation is removed, learning becomes possible again. You don't need to try harder, you need to stop letting shame decide. Shame keeps its hand on the steering wheel. Grace doesn't remove responsibility, it simply takes shame out of the driver's seat. And when shame stops driving, movement becomes possible again. You're then able to do those things that you've been putting off. It's important that you take responsibility and start renewing your mind. Start rewiring your brain. Don't let your brain be in control and use the information that it had, which was wrong information, to direct your life. You take, you get back into the driver's seat of your life and let God's word be your guide. Embrace grace that God has given you to enable you to walk in his light. If you're listening and thinking, I want to grow in this, I'd love to invite you into Mindsight Women's Network. You'll find the details in the show notes or in the description. Thank you once again for listening and joining me on this episode of Lead to Excel Podcast. If this episode has helped you, please go ahead and share it with someone who might need it. And I look forward to seeing you in our next episode. Bye for now.