Shame is complex. And it’s often the silent driver behind inaction.

I just finished coaching a client who came to me after being diagnosed with pre-diabetes. She was post-menopausal, had never taken HRT, and her HbA1c was raised. She felt stuck. She knew she didn’t want to go on medication. In her words, it felt like “the slippery slope,” a signal that her body was failing, and that she'd failed too.

We started working together at the end of last year. She stayed on for six extra months of maintenance support. And now? Her bloods are improving. She is moving out of the pre-diabetic range.

Yes, we worked on the practical stuff: food choices, blood sugar balance, caffeine, movement, sleep, and stress. But what truly unlocked change wasn’t found in the food diary or fitness tracker. It came in what I call “the in-between.”

We uncovered the limiting beliefs she held about herself.

The most powerful one? Shame.

She was ashamed to even say out loud that she was pre-diabetic. Ashamed of what people might think. That she would be judged for letting herself get to that point. But it wasn’t really other people who were judging her. She was judging herself. Silently, harshly, relentlessly.

As Brene Brown says, "Shame derives its power from being unspeakable." And that’s exactly what we did. We gave it a voice. We named it. We explored it with curiosity instead of criticism. And that changed everything.

Because once she stopped fighting herself, she could start supporting herself.

She didn’t just change her blood markers. She owned her narrative, and that transformed her relationship with food, how she behaved day to day, and most importantly, how she saw herself.

I’ve long said the answers are inside us all. But we can’t always find the way forward alone.

I’m just about to start coaching a new lady this week. I can’t wait to see what I learn from this and how we change her trajectory together.

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