Avoiding the repair you need
when you hurt someone is keeping
you in a shame spiral.

Someone tells you that you messed up,
and your whole body floods.

You spiral.

You get defensive, or you over-apologize
until you've made their pain about your guilt.

Either way, no repair actually happens.

The shame ate it.

This is not a character flaw.

Dr.Jacob Ham describes how trauma
sends us into an amygdala hijack,
what he calls "hulking out," where
you're responding to an old wound,
not the actual moment in front of you.

Your body thinks being told you're wrong
is a threat to survival.

So you protect yourself the only way
you learned.

You disappear, you defend, or you collapse
into "I'm the worst, I'm sorry, I'm terrible."

But collapsing into shame is not repair.

Demeaning yourself to prove you're sorry
still leaves the other person's pain unattended.

Real repair needs you regulated enough to stay
in your body and say the plain thing.

"I did this. It landed like that. I see it."

No spiral, no self-flagellation, no disappearing.

That takes recognizing the shame spiral the moment
it starts, and knowing how to climb out.

christabelmintahnwankwo