Say it out loud. Find someone you can trust to not just listen to you, but to really hear you, and speak your shame. To get past your shame you must be willing to bring it out of the shadows and into the light; you must be willing to be vulnerable. You don’t need to go all over town telling everyone you meet; find some people you trust to hear and not judge you. Sometimes our initial reaction is, “I must be a bad person for that to have happened to me,” when the reality may be that whatever happened really wasn’t even about you.

Brené Brown says that guilt is, “I did something bad,” while shame is, “I AM bad.” Learn to recognize the difference. If you feel guilt about something, make amends and use it to become a better person. If you feel shame about something, speak it out loud, bring it into the light, and let it go.