When Shame Dressed Itself as Modesty, Faithfulness, or “Being Good”

A Detox for my SOUL and my BODY

“You're not just an artist in the medium of paint—you’re an artist in the medium of soul and truth-telling.” -CF from Louisiana

Hey love,

If you’re anything like me, you didn’t call it shame. You called it surviving.
Doing what you had to do to keep the peace, to be liked, to be loved.
To stay useful. To stay needed.

Maybe you thought you were doing a damn good job at being all the things you were supposed to be: A wife. A mom. A woman who knows how to hold it all together.

I did too.

I thought I was good at it—until I realized I had vanished inside it.

I wasn’t a shrinking violet. I could be loud when I had to be.
But it didn’t feel like power. It felt like crawling out of my own skin.

Sometimes I got arrogant. Sometimes I turned people away—not because I felt strong, but because deep down, I was terrified they’d find out I wasn’t anything special at all.

Shame told me I was a fraud in a blazer.

And you want to know what else shame did? It stole my “No.” That word belonged to other women—confident ones. Worthy ones. Not me. I felt wrong just for existing.

So I said yes. To dinner parties. To church events. To expectations I didn’t agree to. Yes to everything and everyone, until I had nothing left to say yes with.

And I spun it all into a version of myself that people praised: “She’s so real.” “She tells it like it is.” “She’s a bossy broad.”

They saw confidence. But it was shame—with lipstick and a good blowout.

I want you to hear this: If you’ve ever felt like you were performing instead of being, you’re not alone. If you’ve confused being modest with being invisible, I see you. If you’ve mistaken being faithful with never asking for more, I’ve been there too.

I didn’t know how to be loved. I only knew how to earn it.

I wore loyalty like armor. I mistook silence for strength. And shame? Shame was steering the ship.

Its rules were clear: Don’t dream too big. Don’t shine too bright. Don’t want too much.

So maybe you did what I did: You deferred. You adapted. You waited.

Until one day—you realized you had disappeared.

When I finally shared my story—really shared it—my body reacted. I thought it would feel like a clean exhale. And it did. But it also knocked the wind out of me.