Transforming the Shame Triangle with Jessica Fern & David Cooley

Jennifer Norman:
What if the moments you feel most ashamed, the ones you hide, rationalize or silently carry, aren't signs that something is wrong with you, but signals pointing toward healing, truth and deeper connection? Today's conversation is an invitation to look at shame differently, not as a personal flaw, but as a relational pattern we can understand, soften and transform. I'm honored to be joined by Jessica Fern and David Cooley, two two powerful voices in the fields of trauma, attachment and relational repair, and co authors of the groundbreaking new book Transforming the Shame Triangle. Jessica Fern is an internationally recognized therapist, educator and author whose work has helped redefine how we understand attachment, trauma and love in modern relationships. With over 25 years of experience and a background spanning conflict resolution, internal family systems, somatic and spiritual healing, Jessica is best known for her influential books Polysecure and Polywise and for her ability to translate complex emotional landscapes into deeply human, compassionate insight. David Cooley is a professional restorative justice facilitator, diversity and privilege awareness trainer and the creator of the Restorative Relationship Conversations model, a process designed to turn conflict into connection. In his work with non monogamous and LGBTQ partnerships, David brings a rare blend of trauma, informed care, attachment theory, somatic practice, narrative work and mindfulness always grounded in the belief that repair is possible even after rupture. Together, Jessica and David explore how shame quietly shapes our relationships, fueling blame, withdrawal and self protection, and how we can interrupt those cycles with awareness, accountability and care. So in this episode you will learn how the shame triangle shows up in everyday moments, why it's so deeply wired into our nervous systems and culture, and most importantly, how to move through it with more courage, compassion and relational integrity.

Jennifer Norman:
So if you have ever felt stuck looping in those same arguments, disconnected from someone you love or caught between self judgment and defensiveness, this conversation offers language, tools and hope because I believe healing doesn't happen in isolation, it happens in relationship. And today's episode is about what becomes possible when we learn to stay present with ourselves and with each other right where shame once took over. So let's dive in. Jessica and David, how are you today?

Jessica Fern:
Good.

Jennifer Norman:
I love just shouting out the praises of other people and that's why I'm so glad to have you on because you do such unique work and I think it's really important and it's probably work that a lot of people aren't aware is around. And you've written so many incredible books that have been so meaningful for people who decide to live non traditional lives. So I would love to first of all, I think it's so important for you to be able to phrase in your own words. Jessica and David, when somebody is listening to this, what can they expect? Like, what do you really want for them to gain from this conversation that we're having today?

David Cooley:
I think the main thing is wanting people to know that the relationship that they have with themselves, in other words, the relationship that they have, the internal voice, the that speaks to them, can really be an ally, can be a genuine positive force in their lives versus an adversary, versus something that's taking away or suppressing or muting our sense of aliveness, fullness, expansiveness. So I'm really wanting people to recognize that we can be our truly own best friend.

Jennifer Norman:
Jessica, what about you? What do you think you really want people to gain from our conversation today?

Jessica Fern:
I loved what you said, actually. Language, I think tools and hope. And that hope piece feels so important. We're hearing through our language, people, given the language of this triangle we're going to talk about as a way to understand what's going on inside and interpersonally. And really the hope like this can change, this can transform. It doesn't have to be this way. And piggyback on what Dave is saying, that these parts inside us that feel so difficult and challenging and can be very problematic, they actually we can turn towards them and be with them and really they can actually shift.

Jennifer Norman:
I know you do such amazing work with internal family systems and we'll talk about that in a bit more detail because I don't know if my audience would be so familiar with it. But yeah, a lot of times people get confused. I think that that's where you guys are able to really dice this out for them. That is this my internal voice that is saying this, or is it somebody else's voice that is in my head? And are these multiple voices telling me conflic things? And what do I do with this? What is the real me? And how do I separate out all of these things that I might be feeling that are in conflict? Why do I feel like I'm in conflict with myself? And how in the world am I going to make peace with myself? So I'd love to just start there with what are some of the issues? Like why did you decide to write this book? Who is it really for? And what are the things that we are trying to resolve here?

David Cooley:
Yeah, I think one of the reasons why we wrote this book is because we are identifying some through lines in the work that we do with clients. And so because we have such an intimate relationship with each other. Jess and I, we share a lot of our insights. We're colleagues, we talk about what are the issues that continually hang people up or get them stuck in intractable patterns. And so one of the things that we were seeing is that really smart, creative, sincere, genuine people who are committed to transformation and personal growth were still getting caught in these really pernicious ways. And at the bottom of that was shame. And then when you start to dive into shame and really deconstruct it, you start to see it's not just a simple feeling, it's not just an emotion. It's actually a complex constellation of elements or facets of our own psychological internal world.

David Cooley:
And so recognizing this constellation and the complexity that that sort of implies really led us to work on a model that felt more practical and more really precisely targeted at what felt like the cornerstone of a lot of these pernicious cycles that people were finding themselves stuck in. So it was really born out of the work that we're doing with clients. Now, we're really wanting anyone who's struggling with relationships, whether with themselves or with others or both, to have access to this tool that we're now seeing is revolutionary in the work that we're already doing with clients.

Jennifer Norman:
How exciting. I can't wait to dive in. So let's hear about it. What is the shame triangle? How does it typically show up in our relationships? And not just theory, but like everyday moments that you're seeing with your clients?

Jessica Fern:
Right. So just to name the parts for everyone, so they have the triangle in their minds. It's an internalized version of the drama triangle. And most people are familiar with that. The drama triangle has the persecutor. That's the voice that's blaming someone or pointing the finger or trying to control kind of the bully, the villain. And then they're pointing the finger usually at the victim. And that is the role people take on.

Jessica Fern:
That's like, woe is me. I'm stuck. There's nothing I can do. It's their fault. But they're in this helpless kind of collapse position. And then there's the rescuer, which is the hero, the person who jumps in to save the day, to save the victim, to stop the persecutor. And so this is a well charted interpersonal model. And in working with people and seeing what was really getting in the way, I realized, oh, we have this internalized drama triangle.

Jessica Fern:
So our internal persecutor is our inner critic. That's the voice within us that's speaking Usually in second person and saying, what's wrong with you? How could you? You shouldn't. You should have. Right. It's doing that blaming and shaming. But I started to get curious and go, well, who on earth is this voice actually talking to that it has such power and realized, oh, our inner victim is what we're calling our shame parts that are the part of us that hears the inner critic and believes it, that says, oh, it is true, I'm fundamentally flawed, I am broken, I'm not enough or I'm too much. And so that dynamic is really difficult and challenging internally. And so our rescuers are what we're calling escape or parts which we can have a few of that jump into action to sort of silence our own inner critic and not feel shame.

Jessica Fern:
And we can do that in a lot of ways through over functioning perfectionism, achieving or zoning out and under functioning or getting aggressive towards ourselves or even others. And usually we have multiple ways that we'll have escaping and we'll jump back and forth. This strategy works here for a little bit and then the inner critic pops up again. So I try in a different strategy.

Jennifer Norman:
Yeah, this is so enlightening. It feels a bit schizophrenic. Like we all have so many different voices going on inside of us and different personalities and then we have do our best to just manage day to day and do the things that we need to do while all of this is going on. How in the world.

Jessica Fern:
Right, exactly. And I think before we had this model, right. This inner geometry of the shame triangle to kind of map it on, it felt like, what are all these parts? It was like this mess, this cacophony inside.

David Cooley:
Yeah. I think it's one of the reasons why we like the system of internal family systems as a modality for working.

Jennifer Norman:
Can you share what that is for those that aren't familiar with internal family systems?

David Cooley:
Absolutely. So it was started by a man named Richard Schwartz. In his clinical work, he was working with people who were severely traumatized in hospitals. And he was seeing that in people who had things, conditions like schizophrenia or disassociative disorders that often when he was able to really investigate underneath. So these different facets or these different personalities of these individuals that they would end up connecting to sort of a part of themselves that didn't feel like just one of these disparate parts, but actually felt like a coherent, grounded, solid, relaxed self. And sort of the simplest nomenclature, they would say, I don't know what to call it. It just feels like me and so he realized that even in people who are highly traumatized, there was always this self. And so he saw it as this anchor around which these different facets of the human psyche sort of revolve or play out.

David Cooley:
And it was such a revolutionary discovery on his part. And you realize, oh, this is something that we all have. And that not just schizophrenics or people with disassociative disorders. Right? We have this inner constellation or these internal family systems. There's these parts of us that relate to themselves as if they were other people. They have their own needs, they have their own feelings, they have their own agendas. And then there's the self that's able to really hold an awareness of those parts. The self doesn't have any agenda.

David Cooley:
The self is just being while the parts are really the doers. And so this is an interesting way to start looking at and reframing human consciousness. Instead of just thinking of us as one coherent, solid self entity, we started to recognize that actually maybe this might be an accurate description of the way that the human psyche functions. And you can think about it even in simple terms of your own experience. Like, there's nights where, yeah, I've got a party coming up and I'm ready to go. I'm excited to see friends, and there's a part of me that just wants to stay home and zone out and watch Netflix. Right. So you can have conflicting or contrary impulses and desires at the same time.

David Cooley:
How is that? What is that? Right? There can be parts of you that I can accept. Right. My partner's success and be really excited for them. And there could be a part of me that's also jealous and wanting some of that success for my own self. Right. And so recognizing that you can have these dual internal experiences and not see that as a problem per se, but that there's different facets or parts of us that are holding these different elements of our experience simultaneously.

Jennifer Norman:
Wow, that is really interesting. So it's almost as if it's giving a label to those different parts of ourselves, almost like an identity, if you will. Is that right? Where we can name them and then understand their role in creating these contrasting or contrarian thoughts, perhaps, or combative thoughts within ourselves, and then how they show up in relationships with other people.

Jessica Fern:
Exactly.

Jennifer Norman:
Interesting. Interesting. So how does one navigate that? And how does that relate to the shame triangle? Bring us home here.

Jessica Fern:
Right, right. So IFS offers this general model of how do you work with any part? And in the shame triangle, we're identifying here's the specific parts that we see getting in the... That are really particularly problematic for folks and that people were coming to us with all different types of complaints, and yet each we kept finding the same underlying shame triangle structure at the foundation of what on the surface looked like very different reasons for seeking support or challenges that people were having.

Jennifer Norman:
So what happens in the nervous system when shame hijacks connection? What is this feeling? It's not just a feeling, is it? As you were mentioning before, it's so much more than that. And it is complex, this constellation. Can you help us to explain what's going on when we feel shame?

David Cooley:
Yeah, that's a great question. What you're talking about is dysregulation, right? When the nervous system is starting to perceive something, whether internally or externally, as a potential threat. And that could be a literal survival threat or even emotional threat, a threat to a relationship which starts to undermine our sense of attachment to other people when we have a strong attachment or emotional bond, right? So when anytime we experience a potential disruption in our sense of safety and connection with attachment figures, right, we are going to feel significant amount of dysregulation, right? In the body, in the nervous system. And so it's usually some flavor of either the fight orf flight response, which we could call a sympathetic response, or it's kind of a shutdown, collapse, play dead, right? Sort of. There's nothing else to do. I'm going to conserve my energy and just hope that the storm blows over and doesn't take me with it. Right. Which is what we would call a dorsal vagal response.

David Cooley:
Right. So this kind of dysregulation is something that we use a lot to teach people how to track the sort of activity of parts, right? So when parts get active, it's usually sort of there's some corresponding physiological change in the nervous system that we can use to let us know, oh, something's happening right now. I'm leaving that connection to myself. I'm not feeling grounded and safe and connected anymore. And now I'm sort of being driven by parts.

Jennifer Norman:
For you Catholics out there, this year for Lent, I'm giving up. Period. So when somebody enters into this shame triangle, how do they know? I think that this is really intriguing to be able to identify. Oh, gosh, I so understand. Yeah. There are these things where I hear this voice, I should have done this, or you're not doing enough, or just really that person who is the persecutor. And then there's that victim mentality feeling like, well, I can only do so much or this is how I want to live my life. And then what is aside from like these non healthy, maybe these sabotaging kinds of rescuing mechanisms, how do we get to healthy mechanisms of rescuing ourselves?

Jessica Fern:
Yeah, great. I mean, and that's the point of the book is we're naming the shame triangle and then we're walking people through the process of it transforming to the self love triangle, where each of these parts can actually transform into something that is supportive in our system and like a resource within instead of something that is pulling on us as something that's depleting our system. So the inner critic, for example, it transforms into an inner coach. So this would be the part of us that still has standards, but it does so in an encouraging way instead of a self deprecating way. Our escaper parts, whether they're over functioning and busying or the withdrawing and zoning out, they're all trying to turn away from what we're actually feeling and experiencing. So those parts can turn into an inner nurturer that when we are suffering or dysregulated or uncomfortable or feeling whatever it is, we can turn towards ourselves and just hold it and be with it and work with it from there.

Jennifer Norman:
This sounds a lot like shadow work or maybe even some inner child work to kind of dissect like what have we learned? What are these things that have been indoctrinated in ourselves and really facing that demon, really going in and slaying that dragon to be able to move forward.

Jessica Fern:
Yeah, this is courageous work for sure.

Jennifer Norman:
It's not easy. That's why people shy away from it. They don't want to do that.

Jessica Fern:
The work is hard.

David Cooley:
One of the things that Richard Schwartz says, again the founder of Internal Family Systems, is that there are no bad parts. And what we're not trying to do, we're not trying to shut down parts, silence them or get rid of them them. We're trying to create an avenue through which they can really be seen and heard and we can really meet their needs because all of them are trying to tell us something important. So we're really wanting to recognize that the inner critic, the escapers and shame are all holding something important in terms of information about our own lived experience. And so we're really wanting to make this switch from the shame triangle to the inner love triangle, the self love triangle rather, so that we can glean that information. Right. Because a lot of these parts are holding really valuable keys to things that are important to us, like values. Right.

David Cooley:
About relationships or how we want to be in the world. It's just their strategy, their way of trying to go about to get those things or those needs met is destructive or harmful. And so we're trying to teach and essentially reparent those parts because a lot of these parts come from sort of younger places within us.

Jennifer Norman:
Right.

David Cooley:
A lot of the pain and hurt that we experienced when we were younger and didn't have a voice to really integrate that trauma of pain relationally in the past. Right. Was locked in the perspective of these parts. And so we're trying to reparent these parts in a way so they can have a place at the table, not feel exiled or excluded, seen and heard, and then reintegrated into sort of the ecosystem of our consciousness.

Jennifer Norman:
Can either of you give an example, just an anonymous example from maybe a client that you had where. Here is the pre. Here's how this person showed up in my clinic, in my practice, here's the kind of work that we did. And then here was the outcome.

Jessica Fern:
You know, I'm thinking actually of your audience around transforming beauty culture. And so I can even use a personal example of like my inner beauty shame triangle.

Jennifer Norman:
Yeah, right.

Jessica Fern:
So the shame triangle would have looked like this harsh inner critic voice that would say horrible things about the way I looked about my body. And that came from the world at large. But it also was specific things I heard. The way my grandmothers particularly would comment about other women. They didn't even, you know, I was little, they didn't even comment about me. But it was just the comments or the way my dad would make a comment, positive or negative about other women. Women, yeah. And so that became internalized.

Jessica Fern:
And here I am in late adolescence, early 20s, and I've got this harsh inner voice. And then the shame felt just deflated and horrible and wanted to collapse, wanted to hide my body, wanted to not be seen, didn't want to show myself. Right. And then the escaper parts were like, I don't want to feel this way. So I had two different ones. One was the zoning out. Well, I just want to numb out, so I'm actually going to wind up overeating to numb those feelings.

Jessica Fern:
And then there was another escaper that was this I'm going to start over exercising, and if I over exercise and I become a runner or whatever I was doing and I really restrict my food or even under eat, then I won't feel the same kind of shame and my inner critic won't be as loud.

Jennifer Norman:
That's a great example, and it really is very reflective of my own journey in beauty as well. I was adopted. I was an abandoned child and adopted into a white family. And I could not figure out why I felt like a fish out of water my entire life. I just felt like I just didn't belong and that I was ugly, that I. Because I looked different and all the cues. And even with my adoptive parents, my mom was obese for most of her life.

Jennifer Norman:
But I would hear my dad, like, we would watch these beauty pageants as we typically did, sit around the TV when I was young, and he would say things like, look at the body on that. Look at. And I saw how it would make my mom feel. And I also saw this objectifying and this power that beautiful women have had in captivating men. And I think somewhere along the line I picked up this cue that beauty was power. And I became like hyper vigilant. I also went into the beauty industry, frankly. I did all the surgeries that you could possibly imagine. Like all the Botox. I did it all, and I had the eating disorder.

Jennifer Norman:
I did all of the things that were just like hating, like I had such self loathing. And it also impacted my relationships with others because I was so insecure. I had this deep seated insecurity where I was like socially paralyzed almost. It was like I would want to show up wearing the right thing, but if I felt like something was wrong, like if my lipstick was not right or my hair, I'd have crippling anxiety, just ridiculous. But truthful.

Jennifer Norman:
And my audience knows this story. But it wasn't until I feel like I did all of this work and it was really around the birth of my son and knowing I gave birth to a boy and when he was two years old, he almost died. And he has this. He suffers from an extreme genetic disorder which renders him with a mitochondrial disease. So he's non verbal, he's non mobile, and he's this beautiful, beautiful soul. And mothering him and caring for his health, it was like, why am I giving a shit about all of this other stuff? Like, this is what matters. It's love.

Jennifer Norman:
And look at him. He is so beautiful. Like, I just could see his inner light. Like, he's non typical. He's like my little Buddha. He just sits there silently and meditative. And I reflect on him like some people meditate on a candle. And he speaks to me in ways that are just so soulful.

Jennifer Norman:
I know that you've practiced Shamanism and all of that. And it really gets into that aspect of my journey. And I became so okay with myself. I forgave that former me. I forgave all those other voices. And I came to this beautiful understanding that there's just so much life to be lived if we can get out of our own way and really forgive ourselves and see the beauty that is really before us and take nothing for granted, like be so grateful. And that's where that, when you talk about this, the transformation into this self love triangle, that's where for me it came. But it came at like, it came with great challenge.

Jennifer Norman:
It came with, as many people would say, like, oh my God, this is so terrible this happened to you. But I was like, you know what? But it was such a gift. It really was. It like saved me. It really did. And I think that that's the hard reality, is that this is hard work. And sometimes you will be met with a crucible that you will bear. And then it may either break you or you can say, you know what, I can do this.

Jennifer Norman:
And believe in yourself that you can do the work. Especially if you've got amazing guides such as Jessica and David behind you that can really help you do this so that you are not by yourself doing this work by yourself, because it is tough. This is really like doing shadow work, doing this understanding of shame and unraveling all these years of trauma and recognizing all of these different parts in you. This is long term work. It's a lifelong journey, it truly is. But once you do it, you realize how good life can really be when you have ownership and empowerment and agency over yourself. And it does really require us to transmute all of that shame into that self love. So, David, how about you? I'd love to hear a story.

David Cooley:
Yeah, I mean, for me, I was thinking about your story. I'm just really appreciating that level of vulnerability. Obviously you've got a platform where people are used to hearing you be vulnerable like that. But for me, it never ceases to touch me that people are willing to share their stories publicly, even when it's... So I just wanted to acknowledge that and appreciate that. You know, for me, I. There's several things that have been hard in my life and I have an auto. Pretty relatively severe autoimmune condition that I've had for decades.

David Cooley:
And so I was thinking about sort of what's the male equivalent to the female experience in terms of body image stuff, because when I first got sick, I mean, I was an athlete before I. When I got sick, I got really skinny. I lost about 30 pounds in six months. And so I just physically couldn't eat the things and do the things to create this body that I thought I needed to feel masculine, strong, and worthy. And so it's really been an interesting journey to reclaim that sense of okayness from a masculine perspective with this work. Recognizing the places where the inner critic shows up and really uses that voice. Choice of, you don't look the right way, you don't look strong enough. You should have more muscles, you should be fitter, you should.

David Cooley:
Whatever the should is right. That the inner critic is inflicting on me in any given moment. And then the shame that comes from that. And it's. What I see is that it's been harder to sort of find community around that because of the way that men are socialized to be very quiet and silenced about their shame and the way that they do actually struggle with a lot of these things that we're not supposed to struggle with. We're just supposed to shoulder on and push through, through. And it's not supposed to affect us emotionally. So it's been really revolutionary to be in my own journey of accepting that, yeah, I've got a body that's can't play the game that other people play.

David Cooley:
And thank God, because as you said, that's given me the opportunity to focus on different things. And I think you're right that some of the biggest motivations for personal change are when we start to recognize how important relationships are and the quality of relationships, and when we find relationships that really matter and we're able to really prioritize those, it starts to also influence the relationship with ourselves and vice versa, and it creates this really beautiful feedback loop. But I think this is something that we're not taught explicitly as part of our culture or society, how important relationships really are in determining our quality of life. And I think it's just something that things like the work that we're doing, the podcast that you have. Right. Is just starting to be the beckoning edge of a new cultural shift. So I'm excited to be at that edge, but I'm really looking forward to when we mainstream sort of this relational intelligence as part of just our birthright as human beings.

Jennifer Norman:
Thank you for sharing that, too. Yeah. I remember hearing Brene Brown talk about, you know, if you want to cut a woman to the bone, tell her that she's ugly. If you want to cut a man to the bone, tell him that he's not strong, that he's weak. And so it gets down to some core thing about our femininity and our masculinity. And yeah, that is a super, super vulnerable place. For sure.

David Cooley:
It is. We have to redefine what strength means. So for me, from. For a man to be emotionally vulnerable and for that to now be. Strength is powerful. It's a new kind of power.

Jennifer Norman:
Yeah, yeah. So with both of your work, you do have an emphasis on non traditional relationships, non monogamous relationships. Is there an emphasis on that in this new book as well? Or is this more holistic in terms of it doesn't matter what your relationship is?

Jessica Fern:
Exactly. This is. Yes, our previous works have focused on more polyamory and non monogamous relationships. And we joke this is the inner polyamory, that we have many inner parts and how do we do that inner relationship with multiple sides of ourself. But, yeah, we're diverting from our previous non traditional relationship work. And this is really for the more general audience of anyone who wants to do inner work, inner healing.

Jennifer Norman:
Now, David, with your work in restorative relationships in the Justice Department, I'm curious how that. How shame came up in that aspect of your work, because as I was mentioning before the cast, I was not familiar with the type of work, but you seem to almost be like a mediator or you acted before almost as a mediator between parties to try to have them come to some common ground and a better way forward. Can you speak a little bit more about that and what shame might have to do with that?

David Cooley:
Yeah, absolutely. There's a couple things where this work originated for me is in the field of restorative justice. Right. So this is a field where we're trying to provide an alternative to the traditional court system, which is really based on sort of punitive and retributive responses to crime. One of the things that you see when you start looking at the experience of people who are incarcerated, especially young people, is that there's a tremendous stigma attached to. Attached to the identity of a person who's now labeled as a criminal. And that identity starts to create a feedback loop, almost a confirmation bias, where people start to live into that identity label that's been put onto them by a system that I would suggest in its essence is not just imbalanced, oppressive for a lot of people. And so that stigma creates this cycle where people start to really internalize a negative self image, and that shame starts to perpetuate the expectations that society now has of you.

David Cooley:
And so what we see is that when people are allowed to go through a process like restorative justice, and instead of going through the courts and getting charged formally and actually sitting down with the people who they've impacted through their actions and take responsibility, the recidivism rate goes down exponentially. Which means, right. That people don't, when they've had the chance to make amends and really have a relational restoration of the broken trust in the community that's been created by their actions, they don't recommit crimes often. There's an awakening that usually happens in response. And so because of that, it was a real eye opener for me of seeing the impact of our criminal justice system is actually more subtle than we realize, and it's having a larger impact, especially on marginalized communities, than we realize in this label of you've now been convicted of a crime and what that then sets you up for, especially if you're young.

Jennifer Norman:
Right.

David Cooley:
And so one of the things that I saw then is that we've really internalized what I call an adversarial paradigm of conflict. Right. That's based on this criminal justice system that we have at the societal level and what we've done, even on an interpersonal level, between partners, right. Husbands and wives and whatever the configuration of your partnership may be. We treat intimate others as if they are adversaries in the moment that we feel threatened or upset, often unconsciously. That's a tragedy that people who love each other find themselves in these unconscious adversarial cycles. So what I'm really wanting is for people to have an alternative, an option that's not adversarial but restorative, which is about repair and accountability. Right.

David Cooley:
If I harm you or do something that ruptures or destabilizes your sense of safety and connection with me, I really need to be able to hear that without getting defensive or critical, or to protect myself from your feedback that I've hurt you, I need to really be able to say, yeah, I see the way that my actions have harmed you or made an impact. Right. Even if I didn't intend to, I still hurt you. That requires that I don't collapse into shame. If when you tell me that I've hurt you or wronged you and I collapse into shame because I'm hearing you say that I'm a bad person because my actions or my behaviors impacted you, but I'm taking that as a judgment on my personhood, I'm not going to be able to hold that accountability. I'm not going to be able to hold that space where I can allow your hurt to be there, because I have to protect my identity against that feeling of shame. So shame is actually one of the single biggest obstacles to relational repair. If we don't know how to address it for what it is, when it happens in the moment we often see this is where people start looping in those intractable cycles.

Jennifer Norman:
Wow. I'm curious if there is a sequence within the conversation where you're able to kind of break through that armor, because as you were saying, you know, people are coming in and they're a bit combative and they've armored up and impenetrable and they're trying to shroud their shame or their ego gets the best of them. How do you break down those walls? In order for there to be receptivity and for these conversations to begin, well.

David Cooley:
We have to do a lot of front loading in terms of conceptual work. I'm really trying to train people that before we skill build, we're really wanting to make ourselves aware of the paradigm that we're bringing into a moment of hard conversation. We're also wanting to be really aware of what our nervous system does in response to challenging conversations. So those are the two key pieces I'm really wanting to educate people on. Do you even sort of, are you able to track, one, what your nervous system is doing and can you stay regulated in a hard conversation? And then two, are you aware of what's informing your paradigm or your mindset around the conversation and what's happening? If you just default automatically to an adversarial frame of mind or mindset, you're not going to get any traction in a restorative process. So I'm really teaching people the patterns of behavior, the way of thinking, the way of communicating, the way, way of feeling, even on a somatic level, conflict. Recognize those patterns and then start to interrupt them and then introduce new restorative alternatives.

Jennifer Norman:
I'm going to throw out a real world example that I have unfortunately been plagued recently, but I think it's super timely. And it's one where I've constantly come across the situation where I'm like, I don't know how to respond to this and I wish that I had a better way forward. It's coming into a situation with a loved one where there is encouragement or there's a striving of encouragement to do the right thing. And this is a person who may have had addictions in the past and is falling back into previous behaviors. And I hate to use the word confront, but if you come to the person and try to have a conversation about it. It seems like a confrontation. And immediately that person's like, you're right, I'm no good. I can't. Forget it. It's not even worth it. I'm just like a bad person. And that is the response.

Jennifer Norman:
Or it might even be something where they're showcasing that they might end their life. I mean, it gets that serious. It's like, I may as well not even be here anymore. Because it's not. It just gets to. It's like, how do you navigate such dicey situations with a person that seems so fragile and is seemingly like, so filled with shame, but wants to just, like, use the escape hatch constantly and is not willing to have these kinds of dialogues? Is there some magic trick? Because I'm sure that people who are listening have been like, oh, yeah, that's a common one. I know that person.

David Cooley:
Yeah, well, I've been talking a lot, Jess.

Jessica Fern:
Oh, you're going to pass that one to me. You're the one doing this relationship repair. I'm curious about your answer. I mean, I think you're describing a very difficult situation. And that person is in shame and escapers, and that's the parts of them that you're interfacing with. And it can feel near impossible. And sometimes there is opening in a different moment to say speaking from love to that person, not giving advice, not trying to even think where their life should go or shouldn't go. Just speaking from love that you see that they're coming from shame or the escape hatch of I shouldn't even exist, and wanting them to get support for that or wanting to talk with them about that.

Jessica Fern:
It may or may not work.

Jessica Fern:
Right. You can hand them the book. They may not read it. We can love people and they won't necessarily receive it, or we can want the best for them. And it doesn't necessarily always work. Yeah.

Jessica Fern:
Because you're actually describing a very more extreme psychological structuring and armoring that's happening. So you might not be able to penetrate through that armoring, but you can offer resources that they might be receptive to.

Jennifer Norman:
Yeah, yeah.

David Cooley:
One of the key facets of my work is that I'm working with people that have the capacity and willingness so that two important factors of success is I'm vetting any potential client, both parties, if it's a couple coming to me, and I'm saying, are you aware of what your contribution to the dynamic is? If they can't answer that question. I won't work with them because I have to have some conscious awareness of capacity and willingness. Some people are willing, but they don't have the capacity yet for whatever reason. Some people, maybe they have the capacity, but they're not willing to do it. They're not ready. They're just not ready there. I think that the thing that I wouldn't do, though, just as kind of an initial option for you, is one of the things that parts. Because what I'm hearing is that the shame parts are really strong, really deeply embedded, probably linked to some really significant relational trauma.

David Cooley:
We don't want to get into logical confrontations or reason battles, reasoning battles with parts. It's kind of like fighting with a child who's really upset, or a drunk person. It's futile to try to convince a part that their logic is faulty. And so we never want to argue with parts. What we want to do as much as we can is validate what we hear is the emotional experience underneath the surface and then ask questions.

Jennifer Norman:
Yeah.

David Cooley:
Try to understand and show the part. Right. We're not trying to acquiesce or just lay down to their will or whim. We're trying to disarm the activity, the protective activity of parts. So often, if you can build. And sometimes this takes time. It's not always in one conversation.

David Cooley:
Like, I have this with clients. I have to build rapport and trust with their parts before their parts will actually trust me as an intervening source in their process. So I have to learn about them. Like, why is this so important to you? Or why is this so trigger. Yeah. What is this connected to? I really want to understand your experience or I hear how intense this is for you. Can you help me understand where this comes from in your lived experience or that must be pain. Right. So I'm always validating and inquiring with parts to gain their trust and help settle them so that they know they're in a safe place if possible.

David Cooley:
So that's one helpful sort of initial strategy that might work just for making things feel less stuck.

Jennifer Norman:
I appreciate that.

Jessica Fern:
Right. If it's you in that situation with the other, I'd want to explore the rescuer side of you that's coming up and have some dialogue and some work with that part too, that wants to rescue. That might be overextending. That might be too much in someone else's life or business.

Jennifer Norman:
Savior Complex.

Jessica Fern:
Yes. And it can be a fine line between support and help and then into rescuing.

Jennifer Norman:
Yeah, definitely that is such a tricky one because then you realize that it's like, oh, my gosh, I'm enabling. Like, I'm doing too much for that person. They're not learning how... I'm actually...

Jessica Fern:
Disempowering them and keeping them in the victim.

Jennifer Norman:
Yeah, yeah, that's very common. And I see that on a lot. A lot, a lot. Wow. So it sounds like your book is going to be so helpful for so many. At the end of reading it, what do you hope that readers will feel? What will they gain from having read it? How do you sense that their relationships will be once they've read it?

Jessica Fern:
Yeah, after reading it, I think they'll have a lot of clarity, a much clearer picture of what's been going on inside that might have felt really muddy. They're going to have the actual skills and capacity to be dialoguing and tending to and transforming their parts. They will have unburdened a lot of their shame and of beliefs, so they will feel unburdened. And I think most importantly is we want people to feel agency. The shame triangle keeps us stuck in our survival strategies that once were there for good reason, but now they're running the show and not serving us, us anymore. And so we see this. You go through this threshold of this kind of transformation, so you're actually living your life, your authentic expression with choice and agency.

Jennifer Norman:
Beautiful. David, did you want to add to that?

David Cooley:
Yeah, I just want to echo. I think it's. It's really what's central to me is that sense of choice. Right. When it comes to the kind of relationship we have with ourselves first. And one of the big facets, and I think it's something we haven't touched on so much as much in this session, is I'm really wanting people to really have a clear, at least clearer sense of what self really is and feels like. I think a lot of people are living in sort of a vacillation or a back and forth between parts. And one of the things that we say in IFS is we don't want to speak from our parts.

David Cooley:
Right. We want to speak for them parts. Right. Like an ambassador. Right. So often when we're blended with our parts perspective, that's where you get a lot of the conflict dynamics, gimmicks, because we can say extreme things that the part is feeling but isn't representative of the totality of our real self. When we're regulated and feeling safe and connected, we wouldn't potentially have said the extreme thing.

David Cooley:
Like, I don't love you anymore. This isn't going to work. Right. And so if we can recognize that we have access to this really profound source of compassion, clarity, confidence, creativity.

Jennifer Norman:
Right.

David Cooley:
If we can recognize and feel a sense of choice about shifting in and out of parts versus self, then I think we can do something that's really tangible and practical in terms of how we change or transform our relationships. I'm really wanting people to start anchoring their experience in the self and using that as a tool to really leverage this transformation that we're. We're talking about here.

Jennifer Norman:
Amazing. I think a very common reaction that people have is if something is going wrong with the relationship, they will tell their version of the story to a friend or some third party and say, well, what would you do? What do you think? And they're looking for validation back. It almost reinforces this lack of self in terms of like what the message is that they are inculcating. How do you think it's best for people to find what that self is when they are so used to these different parts kind of running the show and then also looking externally for advice or cues?

Jessica Fern:
Yeah, we offer a bunch of exercises because it's usually not a one time I experience self and that's it. It is something about me.

David Cooley:
Yay.

Jessica Fern:
Yeah.

Jennifer Norman:
Right?

Jessica Fern:
We don't eat well once and have a healthy meal and suddenly we're healthier. You know, one bicep rep and suddenly we have our biceps that we want.

Jennifer Norman:
Don't we wish.

Jessica Fern:
Right. So it really is. We give a bunch of exercises in the book for people to have different entry points into accessing self. And then you just have to practice and you repeat it. But eventually with time, you find, oh, this self can be the more stable presence within. And then I'm aware when certain parts are jumping in or I even want this part to be what's. Who's talking right now. And there's choice of that happening.

Jessica Fern:
Yeah.

David Cooley:
But I will say just from a higher level kind of in terms of give people a philosophical or conceptual framework to think about it and create a little bit more point of reference is I think we touched on it earlier. But just to reiterate, you know, self doesn't have an agenda. Self's not trying to make something happen. You don't help self along. You can't hurt self.

David Cooley:
Right. Self's not trying to make your life better. Self is just this place where you come into a really grounded present state. It's just what is. So it's really the being facet of our human beingness. It's kind of like stepping into a waterfall. And when you're in the waterfall, you're just really present with all of the sensation. You're in the waterfall. You know you're in the waterfall. It feels good, you feel alive, you feel connected to your body. You feel connected to the source, which is the water, and you're in it,

David Cooley:
And then you step out of it and sort of there's this more parts-led complex experience that's focused more on getting things done. There's agendas, there's things to attend to, right? There's all of the ways that the ego is trying to make something happen. A life. Self doesn't have to make anything be through action. So again, that can take time if you're not used to that concept or that, that switch. But that's sort of a frame to help people think about what's the difference? We're really helping people slow down, stop, and tune into almost like a different frequency on the radio, right? Which is what is stillness like? What is existential being like?

Jennifer Norman:
Wow. I'd like at this moment to invite my listeners to really just stop, pause, meditate, reflect on where shame might be showing up in their lives and how it might be impacting their relationships. This work and the book, the shame triangle, could be something that could be extremely valuable for you to help dissect all of that and cut through it and get back to self understanding. I know that it seems a little bit esoteric right now, but I think that with practice and with reading into the book and how it is explained, you will get to know yourself so much better. Like the real self, not the end, perhaps all of those parts, too.

Jennifer Norman:
You'll get to recognize all those parts of your personalities that might be pushing and pulling and guiding your life in ways that perhaps you yourself may not necessarily find as beneficial for you. So I think that it would be great to just stop and think about, you know, how is shame showing up? What is a pattern that you notice? Maybe a destructive pattern that is just constantly coming up in your life, this looping. And is there something that you want to practice differently after hearing this episode? Some kind of healing and some kind of an improvement in a relationship with yourself and your relationship with others.

Jennifer Norman:
So now, Jessica and David, this is the time when I ask three constant questions of my guests. You can answer separately. These are really three questions that help to bind us all. Beauty, humanity, and truths that we live by. So my first question is, what do you think makes you beautiful?

Jessica Fern:
I'll just say quickly. My heart.

Jennifer Norman:
Love it.

David Cooley:
Yeah. I'd say sensitivity.

Jennifer Norman:
Love those answers. What do you think it means to be human?

Jessica Fern:
I think about this one a lot. Yeah. And I'm not sure what it means to be human, but I do think the more we allow ourselves the full range of the human experience, the more we actually feel spiritual and transcendent.

Jennifer Norman:
Yes.

David Cooley:
Yeah. I would say just being open to the vulnerability of interconnectivity. Right. I think when we start to really touch into how inextricably connected we are to everything and everyone around us and the impact that everything has on us, it can be overwhelming. So being willing to be with that truth and sit with that truth. Truth, I think, is. Is the invitation of being human.

Jennifer Norman:
My last question is, what is one truth that you live by?

David Cooley:
I think one truth is that especially relationally, there are no disposable moments. Like every moment matters in relationship and that we're that...

David Cooley:
Just always a good moment to work on strengthening our connection with ourselves and other people.

Jennifer Norman:
Gorgeous.

Jessica Fern:
Yeah. For me, it's when I see something in someone that looks. Looks challenging or that I want to judge or I don't agree with. Just knowing that in all difficult expressions of behavior, there is something deeper going on that needs support.

Jennifer Norman:
Love it.

Jessica Fern:
Yeah. Something that. Right. Loving what people are struggling. Yeah.

Jennifer Norman:
Oh, wonderful answers, you both. I want to thank you so much for being my guests on the podcast today. I think that you are both such beautiful humans. Thank you very, very much.

David Cooley:
Thank you, Jennifer, for having us. It's really great to be here.

Jennifer Norman:
As we come to a close, what stays with me most from this conversation is a quiet but radical truth. Shame isn't the enemy. Disconnection is. What Jessica and David offered us today isn't a way to get rid of shame or to somehow rise above it with more self discipline or better communication skills. Instead, they invited us to slow down enough to recognize shame as a signal, a nervous system response shaped by hindering history, attachment, culture, and survival. We heard how shame so often pulls us into familiar roles of being a persecutor or being the victim or being the rescuer. But this isn't because we're broken. It's because at some point, these strategies kept us safe.

Jennifer Norman:
And yet, when left unnamed, these same strategies can quietly erode intimacy, trust, and our capacity to truly be seen. What feels especially powerful is this reminder that repair doesn't begin with perfection. It begins with being present. That self of being present with no agenda, with noticing the moments that our bodies might tense, with pausing before the reflex to defend or disappear, with choosing curiosity over certainty, compassion over control. Jessica spoke to the importance of meeting shame gently, without turning it into another part of ourselves, to exile. David reminded us that accountability and care aren't opposites, that that true repair invites both honesty and humanity, especially when harm has occurred. Together, they showed us that transforming this shame triangle isn't just personal work, it is relational work. It's something that we practice with ourselves and with others, in real conversations, in imperfect moments, again and again.

Jennifer Norman:
And maybe the most hopeful takeaway of all is when we learn to stay present, where shame once took over, we don't just change our relationship, we expand what love, safety and connection can actually feel like. So as you step back into your life after listening to this episode, I will leave you with this gentle invitation. The next time that shame arises, can you pause long enough to listen? Can you ask what it's protecting, what it's afraid of, and what it might need instead? Because you know, healing doesn't always ask us to be flawless, it just asks us to stay. And in that staying something beautiful becomes possible.

Jennifer Norman:
Thank you for listening to The Human Beauty Movement podcast. Be sure to follow, rate and review us wherever you stream podcasts. The Human Beauty Movement is a community based platform that cultivates the beauty of humankind. Check out our workshops, find us on social media and share our inspiration with all the beautiful humans in your life. Learn more at TheHumanBeautyMovement.com. Thank you so much for being a beautiful human.