Episode 103
How a Teacher's Public Shaming Liberated Her Voice
Today’s Featured Uplifter: Melissa Petro
I was standing in my kitchen the other day, staring at a pile of produce I'd optimistically purchased, thinking about all the healthy meals I wasn't going to make. That familiar feeling crept in—the one that whispers I'm falling short, not measuring up, failing at yet another standard that seems so effortless for others.
We all have these moments, don't we? Times when we feel the weight of expectations press down on us, making it hard to breathe. These moments aren't just about wilting spinach—they're about the stories we tell ourselves about who we are and whether we're enough.
That's why my conversation with Melissa Petro, author of Shame On You: How to Be a Woman in the Age of Mortification, feels like such a gift, especially as we celebrate Women's History Month and reflect on the silencing forces that have shaped women's stories throughout history. After reading her extraordinary book, I found myself noticing all the places where shame shapes our choices—not just in dramatic life moments, but in the quiet, everyday decisions where we make ourselves smaller to avoid the discomfort of being seen.
Melissa knows something profound about shame. After being publicly shamed and losing her teaching career for writing about her past experiences in sex work, she could have disappeared. Instead, she did something radical—she leaned into authenticity, refused to be silenced, and transformed her experience into insight that helps others find their voice.
Her Courage Practice: Turning Toward Vulnerability
What strikes me most about Melissa's approach is her dedication to staying open in moments when most of us would armor up. When someone shares something vulnerable, she doesn't gloss over it with platitudes or change the subject. Instead, she leans in, makes direct eye contact, and creates sacred space for that person's truth to be fully witnessed.
"It's so powerful to be vulnerable in that moment and to invite someone else to be vulnerable enough to receive that is just sacred," she says.
Listen to this if:
- You've ever felt the need to hide parts of your story
- You're curious about how shame influences your decisions
- You want to create deeper connections with others
- You're ready to consider what might be possible if you weren't afraid of judgment
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Transcript
Hey friend, it's Aransas Savas. And I'm so excited to welcome you to this episode of the Uplifters podcast. I'm talking to author Melissa Petro about her new book.
Shame on you how to be a woman in the age of mortification. I learned so much from this book. I learned so much about myself from this conversation.
We're going to talk about what happens when we are shamed, both in public and in private. How we internalize cultural messages about who and what we're allowed to importantly, how we reclaim our stories and live our boldest, bravest, most authentic lives.
It gets a little weird, I say things I've never said publicly before. I'm recording this opening a few days after our conversation, after some shame cycles and some fear and some worry and some decisions that I want to keep living with less shame. So I'm really grateful I got to read Melissa's book.
to have this conversation with her. And I'm especially grateful that I get to share it all with you. I hope this sparks some new conversations among all of us.
Aransas Savas (:I feel like I've been hanging out with you for the last 24 hours with your voice. So we've gone for a run. We've done dishes. We've cleaned the house. We put away all the laundry that I hadn't been putting away because I was like, I gotta keep going on this book
Melissa Petro (:We're besties. I didn't even...
Aransas Savas (:We're totally besties,
even though you have no idea who I am or that I exist, which is sort of a weird trip. And I'm super stoked to be with you here. I think it's very rare, but every once in a while, we get to read something that really opens up our lens to see our own lives and our own perspectives in new ways. And reading your book has been very much like that for me.
Melissa Petro (:what a beautiful thing to share, thank you.
Aransas Savas (:I mean, I mean, and I was glad you acknowledged this in the book because shame is not something that I think about a lot. It's not a word I use often. It's not a feeling. And again, you talk about this in the book, how difficult that feeling can be to describe and what the embodied sense of it is. A shame to have shame.
Melissa Petro (:you.
Because we're ashamed. We're ashamed
that we have shame. So instead of saying we feel ashamed, we might say we feel inadequate or we need to do better. That's kind of permissible. But I even circled that word for so long. It was suggested to me by my agent, you know, what is your memoir? It was then memoir. What is it about? I just didn't know.
Aransas Savas (:Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Melissa Petro (:And I think early, early in the process, she's like, maybe it's about shame. No, no, no, no. No, no, no, it's something else. And then two years later, really.
Aransas Savas (:No, no.
that's so interesting because your story begins, of course, with that moment of public shaming when you wrote about your past sex work and it was connected then to your former then current work as an elementary school teacher in New York City. And sort of the takedown and the public shaming that ensued as a result of public
perceptions of what women should be, what teachers should be, what sex work is. And so my assumption was that it was in that moment and in that story that you started to say, dang it, no, I won't be shamed. I will reclaim my voice.
Melissa Petro (:And sometimes I Sometimes I was in that
empowered place and I mean, I knew what was happening was wrong. I knew I felt humiliated. I don't know if I would have used that word. That's awfully vulnerable to admit then. I knew it was unjust intellectually.
Aransas Savas (:Mm-hmm. Uh-huh.
Melissa Petro (:what was happening to me, I had written about it. You know, it was no surprise that I was being treated unfairly as a woman and that the idea that I was both a sexual being and a serious public servant, the idea that that was incompatible, I I knew that this was alarming to some. I had thought about it, but to feel it on that level.
and to live in a place of empowerment and the awareness, no, I didn't stay in that place all the time. I blamed myself. thought what, for years, what could I have done differently to have avoided this, the relentless humiliation? I was stupid or not strategic enough. wasn't calc, I couldn't control.
the narrative in that moment, I came off looking however I felt I'd looked. I looked not the way I wanted to look. I wasn't in control of my image and my story. And that felt like a personal failing. And I felt ashamed often for years, for years, I felt ashamed of what happened to me. I did not know then that I felt ashamed. I only knew that
Aransas Savas (:Mm-hmm.
Hmm.
Melissa Petro (:I didn't want to feel this way and what could I do to feel differently and I have to write my book and I have to publish a book and that'll give me the validation I was seeking. It kind of did a little to be honest, profoundly validating.
Aransas Savas (:Yeah. And make it all make sense. You know,
there is something about that, right? Like in reclaiming our stories and seeing them. And this is, I'd say, again, we're over 100 stories have been shared here about women's challenges and change making. And that is one of the key themes is that when we have the courage to
own and acknowledge and share our stories and see them create impact and healing for others, it begins to allow us to find peace and healing within them. Yeah.
Melissa Petro (:And we begin to reclaim that narrative. And
I fought to maintain control of it the whole while, but part of reclaiming our narratives is acknowledging our vulnerabilities and our powerlessness. And at times we are not in control, neither of our narratives nor of everything influencing the choices we make. And we do make mistakes. So I didn't have a real right-sized view.
until I was able to tell that whole story on my terms with the support of a publisher and people telling me, people paying me for it. That was quite necessary in some ways. wasn't just, it was other people looking at me and telling me that this story is important and you do need to share it. And of course I got that over the years in smaller.
know, smaller settings, people assuring me that what happened to me was wrong and I have the right to tell my story. I have permission to share it not only do I have that right, but it's valuable, it's useful. Other people need to hear this story. That spurred me on for a very long time.
Aransas Savas (:Yeah, and not even just the specifics of your story, which I think are really important and way more far reaching than, you know, I think particularly around women's relationships with the sex industry. I think there's far more experience around that than we acknowledge. And we can talk about that more. But I also think that beyond all of that, it's all of these other
feelings of inadequacy and fear and shame that hold us back and keep us small and keep us in a place of self-limiting. one of the most fascinating things you said so far, and maybe the most surprising, connecting that the shame from that time actually comes from not feeling in control of your story, not from what they were shaming you for. Because that was a weakness, not having control.
Melissa Petro (:Right, right.
Right. And then sometimes like there's a tendency if we're being villainized, you might feel a temptation to lean into that character that they're portraying you as. It's fawning in a way, you know, I'll just be what you think I'm an asshole. I'll be an asshole. And in that way, we kind of like reclaim or seemingly we reclaim, you know, or we reclaim, we claim an appearance of power.
Aransas Savas (:Hmm.
Melissa Petro (:But no, powerlessness is really terrifying for us, right? And I did a lot of in researching the book, really realizing, you why do we feel ashamed when we are victimized? Well, one, we want to avoid it from happening again. Why do we shame others when they're victims? Well, we don't want to think of ourselves as ever being weak enough to find ourselves in that position. If she did something wrong and that's why it's happening to her, I won't do something wrong and it won't happen to me.
So that's why we really live in a society where we're constantly pointing fingers at others and saying what you needed to do differently. It's an individual problem rather than looking at the other factors that are sometimes harder to control. We think we can control ourselves and our behaviors and just dress right and don't drink too much and then it won't happen to you. But it's never our fault when someone harms us.
Aransas Savas (:Hmm.
Mm-hmm.
Yeah, and you in the book share a lot of stories of women who have been villainized in the media specifically. And it struck me as I listened to those examples collectively that a big piece of why they felt so captivating and scary is because they were just one degree of difference from how we saw ourselves.
And it felt like at any minute, we could be that woman. And I think that's part of how we keep ourselves in the state that we're in of being small and being not fully expressed because there is this fear that, if I make one wrong move or I get in one wrong position, I could become the villain.
Melissa Petro (:Right, so we end up siding with the perpetrator rather than the victim because it seems safer and more protected. So long as we follow these rules, we won't ever become victimized like she did. The problem is that the rules are impossible to follow. And I really discovered that, you know, I had...
Aransas Savas (:Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Mm-hmm.
you
I like want the section
where you go through what is in essence predating the Barbie speech, the America Ferrera. I was like, can we please have Melissa Petro and her Barbie speech on repeat everywhere? Because every freaking word of it is true, Melissa. Yes.
Melissa Petro (:Yeah, I knew exactly where you were going and I was like, this is where you taste Barbie.
And we all know it. It's so familiar.
We all know what we can and cannot be. And we all know how absurd it is because then there is nothing you can be because the rules are so contradicting and impossible. And even if you want to follow them, which oftentimes we don't, we want to go against that grain, they're not just. We recognize that. But let's say even if we were trying to follow those rules,
Aransas Savas (:Mm-hmm.
Melissa Petro (:It becomes so impossible and exhausting. And I didn't really realize this. I didn't realize it when I worked in the sex trades. I thought that was obviously going against the grain and I would be shamed for that. But then years later, when I transitioned out of the industry and became a mother, here it was again. The same surveillance and scrutiny and emp-
Aransas Savas (:Hmm
Melissa Petro (:possibilities. I could not get it right. And here I was doing, I thought, everything right. I'd become exactly who you want me to be, which in a way I had also become that as a public school teacher. But it was not, it was a losing game. I recognized that finally. That was like the real moment where I was like, this is really, and then actually there was a moment, like I'd said, that my agent helped
Aransas Savas (:Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Melissa Petro (:lead me to the word shame, that this is a book about shame. When my son started presenting a special needs, then I really wasn't gonna be a good parent. Good parent, I'm using scare quotes. Like I was never gonna follow the rules as what a mother was supposed to, because my child didn't, and bad kids, quote unquote, mean bad parents. And I actually did not give a fuck at that.
Aransas Savas (:Hmm.
Melissa Petro (:because my son needed me to show up for him and I go of so much and it was so freeing. I almost didn't even need to publish a book anymore, but then I was like, this is what this book is about. Letting go of that, all of that pressure and all of that impossibility and saving face for who? For what?
Aransas Savas (:Right, right. For who, for what? And I think one of the most damaging things about this, at least for me personally, and I think I hear this in a lot of stories, is this, because we hide, we never feel fully seen or fully known, and therefore we can't be fully loved, and we can't trust the relationships that we have to endure.
And that leaves us feeling incredibly alone. And so I've talked to other guests about this, that like when I got together with my husband, I was like daring him. So I was like, and I did this, and I've done this, and this, and this. And he was just like, wow, great, you're a really nice person. I really like you. And I was like, yeah, but also.
Melissa Petro (:Right.
I also introduced myself in that way. Like, let me tell you the very worst things about me and see if you're going to reject me. Cause if you do, let's just get that shit over with so I don't get attached. And I, I'm the less shameful those things felt, more they could kind of wait. Um, you know, I started when I, by the time I met my husband, it was like, okay, fourth date material. We'll start talking about.
Aransas Savas (:Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Melissa Petro (:Let him get an idea of who I am before he has to contemplate something. He might not have thought too hard about sex work politics in his life, so let's give him a date or two to get to know me. But yeah, we do want to lead with those things because if you're going to love me, you're going to have to love this about me too. And this is a hard thing to wrap your brain around.
Aransas Savas (:breath.
You need to know me.
Yeah. Whatever it is.
Melissa Petro (:Whatever it is. And when I say that, I don't
just mean sex work. I mean any concealable, stigmatized identity. know, any past that is presumably abnormal, individualized and pathologized, and it just makes us feel different with a capital D.
Aransas Savas (:Yeah.
Melissa Petro (:Those are the things we've got to get out, right? And those are... Right, right. And there are people who can just go through life with those things, tucked neatly inside. And I'm not one of those people. I need to be seen, heard, and understood. Like, let's make sure you can see, hear, and understand me. And to do that, you got to know about these things, and I bring them right out. Yeah, that's how I live my life.
Aransas Savas (:Different versus special.
Mm-hmm. Mm.
I suspect you have a greater sense of intimacy and length of connection with the people in your life as a result of that. Yeah.
Melissa Petro (:We get right to it. I don't have
any time for people that make small talk or, Brené Brown talks about, you don't want to trauma dump and that trauma bonding is not intimacy either. And I respect that. Like I said, I started to learn how to kind of, a little bit more composed with my story and my presumably shameful secrets. But I do believe that these
presumably shameful facts about us really are like the meat of life. This is like the human experience that we're just not talking about.
Melissa Petro (:So I am the type that like we're gonna be talking, you're gonna be in tears and I'm gonna be in tears and we're gonna be sharing the deepest heartfelt, you you're my bestie by the end of the coffee, cause I met you standing in line at Starbucks. Those are the kind of conversations I wanna have like all the time.
Aransas Savas (:Mm-hmm.
Melissa Petro (:Because I think that's really what life is about. Like the things that make us joyous and despair and everything in between. Like why are we wasting time? Like with being polite or I don't know. Like it's not, that's not me.
Aransas Savas (:Mm-hmm.
Well, yeah, I mean, I just feel like, again, it comes back to trust for me. I don't feel like I can trust people I don't know and who don't know me. when I saw your bio when we first connected, I was like, this is really interesting. Because I have somebody I work with, one of my clients, who on our very first session,
very successful person, quite well known in her own right. And she was like, just so you know, I have a history as a sex worker. And we've talked a lot about her shame related to this. And I was like, that's cool. I mean, I was a stripper in high school for a while.
I did not have a good experience. I don't talk about it. So maybe I have shame. I don't know. I don't talk about it because I don't know. I guess I feel shame. I feel like it's stigmatized. It was also just a terrible, it was a terrible experience. I felt like really degraded and really gross and really icky. And I would think I was feeling lots of shame under the male gaze more than I was.
Melissa Petro (:No, you are not!
Aransas Savas (:about like an interpretation of what sex workers do. And I also never thought of it as sex work. I just thought I was, I like worked at Baby Dolls for a brief period in high school. It was like two weeks. That probably counts. Yeah. But I just really haven't thought a lot about it.
Melissa Petro (:Mm.
and
If you can get fired for that as yeah, then you can probably that probably count
Aransas Savas (:And that woman, because we had that conversation right at the outset, it is one of the most intimately powerful coaching relationships I've ever had. Because every time we talk about something that feels ugly or shameful or like you shouldn't think it or say it or feel it, we are able to meet on this place of I'm not gonna judge you. I'm not gonna interpret that. I admire you.
Melissa Petro (:Thank you for
Aransas Savas (:and think the freaking world of you. And I just want to know what you think. And also, I feel better for having thoughts that I don't feel good about.
Melissa Petro (:Right. And those are such healing, healing relationships. I just want to say all of our triggers are different. So there are people with experiences in the sex trades who don't think twice about it. they didn't internalize it the way that I did. For me, it was like that grain of sand in the oyster was just bothersome. And I was just wrapping things around it, trying to make it better. And ultimately,
Aransas Savas (:that.
Hmm.
Melissa Petro (:I did, I did make meaning of it, but it was such a meaningful experience and such a burden for me. And all of our burdens, all of our shame is different. Some people are really burdened by, a lot of women are burdened by appearance, issues of weight. Yeah, I really wasn't until I started getting older. And now I'm like, wait, I just had like...
quote unquote, pretty privilege for so long. I'm just like, you know, like now it's, I'm losing something. Hmm, interesting. You know, and so like, like I write in the book, you know, it might not bother you at all to walk into a dressing room and have to try on a bathing suit, but chances are it does because a lot of women are experienced enormous amounts of self judgment in that experience. And
it's not unique to you. It's not a defect of personality. If you do have a certain trigger, that trigger has probably been planted in there. our culture has conditioned us to think there's something wrong with us. If you have experiences in the sex trade or if you have money problems or sex and relationship issues, all of these things we don't talk about because we've been taught there's something wrong with you.
Aransas Savas (:Mm-hmm.
Melissa Petro (:And then when we start to talk to each other and we
realize, it's not unique, it's not individual, I'm not the only one, it's quite liberating.
Aransas Savas (:liberating. Liberating is the right word, Because it frees us from the constraints that we have internalized about our own stories. And one of the things that I think is really interesting in your book is you talk about the dual nature of shame. as I was listening, of course, I was doing what I think, hope all humans do,
that is to listen to these things and think, well, what does this mean in my life? What does this look like in my life? What am I learning from this? What is its relevance? And I was thinking about that experience in high school, which I was dancing at Baby Dolls because I'd run away from home to smoke crack and live in a hotel room. Now that whole period of my life, which sounds really dramatic and intense, lasted less than a month. But it was shame.
that saved my life. And I really do believe my life was saved. My life could have gone a much different direction, but some woman came and said, you're going to break your grandma's heart if you don't come home. And the fear and shame of embarrassing my grandma, of disappointing my grandmother, meant that I was like, all right, let's go hard one more night and then go home. And I did. so let's chalk that up to the extraordinary power of love.
But also, it was shame that saved my life in that instance.
Melissa Petro (:I want to encourage
you to think of it as guilt.
Aransas Savas (:Yes. Yeah, that's funny.
I was thinking about that distinction too. Yeah.
Melissa Petro (:Yeah, because
you didn't think, oh, this is who I am. can't do any, my grandmother, I can't be someone else. This is who I am. I'm a drug addicted whore. You didn't internalize that behavior. You were like,
Aransas Savas (:It was guilt. Yes, yes, yes.
Yeah. No, I did
not think that too. I was like still a really good girl with straight A's.
Melissa Petro (:Instead, you're like, no,
I'm actually fundamentally good, but this behavior is wrong and it will disappoint my grandmother and I love her and so I'm and it's not right. She's correct. you didn't you didn't it wasn't who you were. It was what you were doing. And when it's something that we're doing, it's much easier to change. But if it's who we are, then it's that shame. We feel ashamed of who we are.
Aransas Savas (:Yeah.
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.
Melissa Petro (:Now what we're doing, it's so much harder to change. This is why shame isn't ever really a positive thing. We can feel guilty about our conduct and change our behavior, but when you feel ashamed of who you are and account for what you're doing as it's indicative of this deep, dark wrongness, that is very, very difficult then to change your behavior.
Aransas Savas (:Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Melissa Petro (:And that's why so many
people who are drug users or who are behaving in ways that is societally unpopular and harmful to themselves and potentially others, that's why it's so hard for them to turn around because they're being told they're just, you know, shit people.
Aransas Savas (:Mm-hmm.
They're bad.
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And I think it goes back to that villainous response that you talked about. Yeah. If you want to tell me I'm bad, then I'll be bad.
Melissa Petro (:Right, right. And I just, I'll just be the best bad person I could be or just enjoy it or just drowned the shame with more shameful behaviors that numb us or that feel pleasurable at the time or it becomes this terrible, terrible cycle. And I'm so grateful that you were able to lift out of there and you probably had a lot of resilient factors in your life that helped confirm for you.
Aransas Savas (:Mm-hmm.
Yeah.
Melissa Petro (:that you were a decent person who was making choices that felt wrong.
Aransas Savas (:Yeah, that's right. That's right. And there was definitely a foundation there that made it much easier. And I think genetically, I'm not predisposed to addiction. And so I just think that I had so many factors that supported me in that choice. And I was so freaking fortunate. And literally, I think this is the loudest I've ever talked about any of it.
Melissa Petro (:Mm-hmm.
Aransas Savas (:And so it was like for me, this whole detangling as I listened to your book between these ideas of guilt and shame and their role within this. And then I was thinking too, still on that idea of the dichotomy of shame, what we're learning about it now on a larger cultural spectrum, So it was like 2020, all these companies for fear of shame started, I think, at least this is my perception.
started passing all of these rules about DEI programs and being more equitable and more supportive of differences. And then now when we're seeing a change in the cultural tide, it feels to me like all of those decisions were made simply out of an unsustainable running from a shaming.
And that's why we're seeing such a quick change back over to, we don't do DEI anymore. We're over that. Next. We're not afraid of being shamed, so we're ending the program.
Melissa Petro (:So I'm very suspicious
of shame as a tool, political tool, that we can shame people into behaving differently. I think money talks for companies, and I think you can convince a company that it's in their economic interest to behave a certain way. But I don't believe in our capitalistic society that these companies are influenced by
Aransas Savas (:Yeah.
huh.
Mm-hmm.
Melissa Petro (:ideology so much as economic motivation. I mean, if an ideology is popular, then it's probably in their economic interest to adapt that ideology. And so I think there was an adoption of
Aransas Savas (:Hmm.
Aren't those links though?
Yes.
Melissa Petro (:diversity and the appearance of tolerance and, Target with their Pride month displays sold a lot of rainbow t-shirts. And that's their goal is to sell t-shirts. If it has a rainbow on it, okay. If it has something else, that's whatever. Doesn't matter to them. I mean, companies are not people with hearts.
Aransas Savas (:Thank you.
Melissa Petro (:But you and I are.
Aransas Savas (:I do think so. Yeah. Well,
and I think, think though, companies, influencers, individuals across the board, we saw people saying like, I believe in this, this is important. When there was fear of being called out. And then once it's like no longer popular, it's like, okay, now back to normal.
Melissa Petro (:Please.
People are so influenced.
Right. Now people will fall into what's popular and that's really what I encourage in my work for us to challenge. What do you believe? Not what's popular necessarily, but what do you know to be true? And it's very hard in a culture of shame to even know what we believe and what our goals are. And you know, we're always being told what we're supposed to desire.
Aransas Savas (:Yeah.
Hmm.
Hmm.
Melissa Petro (:what we're supposed to work towards, who we're supposed to be. We're getting inundated constantly with messages of what is right.
It's hard within all that noise to really think, what do I believe is right? These messages have been instilled in us since we were tiny. It's so hard and it's so hard to look at your culture and say, what you think is right is wrong. And we're living in a bizarro time right now, right? Where like the right is wrong and the wrong is right. And it can feel so alienating.
Aransas Savas (:Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Melissa Petro (:Shame is the feeling that
You are so unworthy that we will not love you or take care of you. you do not belong to this society. And there's nothing more terrifying than to think you won't be accepted. So we're very susceptible to that influence. What can I say or do so that you'll accept me?
Aransas Savas (:Hmm.
Thank
Melissa Petro (:So I do think when you start talking about influencers, now we're talking about people and now we're talking about you and I are influencers to an extent, right? part of it is economically driven. this is our job and we're paid for it. And part of it is what we truly believe in. And we do have to reconcile that and we all do. Every human being is walking around. How do I see that my needs are being met and that I feel like I belong and I'm taken care of by the society, but also stand up for what I believe in?
Aransas Savas (:Yeah.
Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.
Melissa Petro (:stand up for victims when I think they're being harmed and go against someone potentially more powerful than I because it is what I believe to be true and right. We're constantly being confronted with that every day. yeah, it's really hard in a culture of shame. You're going to receive a lot of messages about who you should be and what you should do that might not align with what you believe you should be.
Aransas Savas (:Mm-hmm.
Melissa Petro (:and do.
Aransas Savas (:Mm-hmm. And then the goal then is to use our own compass to make those decisions from a place of authenticity.
Melissa Petro (:Yes.
Right. so part of that is really aligning with people who affirm us and affirm what we believe to be true. So really finding and cultivating those relationships, curating your timeline, which is not to say that we don't want to allow diversity of opinion into our timeline. But if something is is reinforcing a shame trigger, get that shit out of there. You know, I really do not need to follow so many plastic surgeons.
Aransas Savas (:Mm-hmm.
Mm... Mm-hmm.
Melissa Petro (:I don't know how that happened, but I need to unfollow that shit. Because I don't have $200,000 for a facelift and this plastic surgeon's telling me that I need one. I don't need to hear that. That tithes my energy. I have so much more to give than any thought to that, right? So all of the things that just sort of insidiously
Aransas Savas (:No, no that's really not helpful.
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Melissa Petro (:Tax our power and autonomy as human beings. Get that shit out of there. Set a boundary. Do not let that family member undermine you as they do. which is not to say, shame on you that you're letting it get to you because that's like a huge lesson I had to learn. Like even though I'm a very, very smart person, I still feel shame. You know, even though I know a lot about shame, still, I still experience this very human emotion.
Aransas Savas (:Hmm.
Right.
Melissa Petro (:What I'm saying is actually it will get to you. So how do we stop it from even getting to us? really like being mindful about the influences we allow into our lives and that we really go where it's warm.
Aransas Savas (:Yeah.
into those spaces of acceptance.
Melissa Petro (:The spaces that are really going to accept our authentic selves. And then when we can be our authentic self, we encourage other people to be their authentic selves and we create more authentic communities. And I don't care what your authentic self is. I don't care what you believe. I've worked with hundreds of writers many with opinions that I disagreed with. Okay, articulate that. Help us understand what you believe and who you are.
I seek to understand and I come with a curious mind. And if we come from that place, we can find what we do agree on. And then we can have these really important, oftentimes difficult conversations about what we do disagree on. Shame-free, shame-free conversations.
Aransas Savas (:Hmm.
Mm-hmm. And that, I think, starts with you being curious and inviting that open conversation instead of immediately passing judgment, which is what we're going to do when we feel under fire.
Melissa Petro (:Right, so we're talking about being vulnerable versus purporting to be invulnerable and being defensive. If we could just be a little softer and less afraid that someone... Like I'm not saying like walk around with your deepest wounds.
Aransas Savas (:Mm-hmm.
Melissa Petro (:like splayed out for all to see and nothing bad will ever happen. I'm kind of like a poster child for actually shit does happen when you're honest. I lost my career for speaking the truth of my past. It can happen. We can be hurt. If it's a small conversation, we develop resilience. The more we turn towards people who
receive us positively, the more we have those positive experiences, the more resilient we are to negative ones. I have people who look at me like I'm a hemorrhoid because I say the thing and they're not my people, So I move on, I find someone else who can hear the thing and then we're having that deep, meaningful conversation. it also like it is a privilege to like be authentic, right? Some of us don't have the privilege to just be our true selves at work. We wear uniforms, figuratively.
Aransas Savas (:Yeah.
Yeah.
Melissa Petro (:and literally, but find the places where you can be yourself and really like just bask in that experience as often as we can.
Aransas Savas (:Yeah, was thinking about having this conversation with you today and sharing the story that I did, which, like I said, I've never talked about openly or loudly, maybe with a few individuals, but not on this platform at all. And I really thought to myself, like, OK.
What's the worst that could happen? Well, the worst that could happen is, I don't know, I don't think people are not gonna listen to the show because of this and not hear these other stories, like who cares? These stories are not even about me. Somebody might see that I am a person who has lived and had experiences, that's not so bad. Maybe there will be people who...
I really, can't think of anything all that terrible, right? And yet our fear response keeps us in place because We haven't really looked at what are we afraid of here? And I thought, well, what's the best that could happen? And the best is that there are people who...
brace more of their whole selves and feel more seen. And I could connect more deeply with people. And so I think that's one of the major themes in this book and certainly in this conversation is that the advantages, yes, you lost a career, but unbeknownst to you, you were creating an entirely different career, one that allowed you to be more fully expressed, seen, more impactful, reach more people.
and leave more of a positive legacy with your short little time on this earth.
Melissa Petro (:Right. And I think that if you do have the privilege to be out, like do that shit for people who don't. Because the more we make it permissible to have a complicated past or even a complicated present, the more that we create a tolerance as a society.
Aransas Savas (:Yes.
Yes!
Melissa Petro (:where we can instead of shaming individuals with those experiences, we can turn to them with some neutrality and some understanding because when something is shamed and we're silenced, there's no understanding about that experience. We don't have like a huge amount of current sex workers engaging in public conversations about their lives because they'll...
Aransas Savas (:Mm-hmm.
Melissa Petro (:It's criminalized. It's self-incrimination to step forward. And as a result, our legislation, our policies, and those public conversations are just uninformed. And this is true not just about sex work or any of these stigmatized or shameful, presumably shameful experiences are just uninformed because we're not talking about it because we're ashamed.
Aransas Savas (:Thank
Right. And we're staying silent. And so I think one of the questions I had as I read your book was you were pushed down and criticized and alienated and shamed all with the goal of making you be quiet. And
Melissa Petro (:Right.
Aransas Savas (:I think we all have our own moments of that in our lives, that we end up playing small and withholding our truth and operating outside of integrity because we're afraid we can't recover how did you get out of the freaking hole and reclaim your voice and own your story?
Melissa Petro (:I don't ever want to underestimate how difficult that was, that period. And like I said at the start, for a long time, I felt very ashamed that I hadn't taken a more defiant stance, that I had resigned. Why didn't I go to trial or fight forever? In some sense, I did surrender because those institutions were just so much more powerful than I.
I wasn't going to keep my job. I wasn't going to win that fight. They were intent on silencing me, on shutting me up. And, I had to...
acquiesce in a way to a reality that it wasn't my students' fight. It was a distraction to the community. And I think survivors need to hold themselves to account for their part. We talked about victim blaming and blaming oneself, but there always is a sort of, we do have some agency, even in our most powerless moments.
Aransas Savas (:Okay.
Mm-hmm.
Melissa Petro (:And so I think for me, really owning what I could have done differently, how I wanted to move forward, what was the, what was, did I want to be right or did I want to be happy? Did I want to be safe? And, sort of, and really acknowledging where, what I was powerless over helped me to move forward with what felt like grace in those moments as, as difficult as they were. And then
Aransas Savas (:Hmm.
Melissa Petro (:Following, you one step after another that path of truth I felt led me out of the immediate trauma that acute experience I did in some ways surrender to keep myself safe and I knew as Painful as that was that it was the right decision for myself and then in some sense I didn't just surrender because I just
double down on my belief that we have the right to share our stories and that sharing our stories is our salvation, individually and societally. This is the way we go. So committing to that, I mean, I kind of did become unemployable. And so I had to figure something out and I'm a creative person. So I kept writing. I teach transformative language arts. I...
I'm a hustler, so what, like for a long time I would do whatever to survive and to stay true to that belief. I had a therapist at the time and I was dating a guy at the time and she said, you could get married and take his name and just move on. And I knew I could not do that. What terrible, terrible advice. That was not the way.
Maybe some people can and do, and that is the way they move forward with integrity. But for me, I couldn't do that. I wanted to own all of me and live all of me out loud. And I wanted that to be the message. And so I really committed to it. It took me so long to actually write and sell a book, but that was always my like, that was what I needed to do.
Aransas Savas (:Mm-hm.
Mm.
Melissa Petro (:And thankfully, going back again to the beginning, it began as a memoir and it became so much more than just my story. I was able to interview 150 plus mostly women about their own run-ins with this feeling that just if we don't keep it in mind, can just run amok, run amok of our lives. Where is it arising in our lives?
And are we doing about it? of those 150 individuals, I met a handful of super shame resilient folks who really shared what they'd gone through and how they transformed as a result of that experience. And their brilliance was such a gift.
Aransas Savas (:What did you learn about shame resilience through those conversations?
Melissa Petro (:You know,
it was really interesting because it's kind of like, okay, exercise, movement, art, therapy. the same things kept coming up, psychedelics, which I've never done, but like that was a thing that a lot of people had turned to to really overcome just really devastatingly shameful in their experience, shameful experiences, know, difficult, difficult experiences that had they not...
Alchemize that shame into something potent and powerful They're there they would have just been other people and Instead they were made so much more brilliant as a result of these experiences, you know, they did the work They found supportive communities. They did individual therapy. They were writers. They were artists they were Public speakers they had podcasts, you know, they
shared the message about the truth of their human experience and invited others to do the same. And they just nurtured that authenticity that was revealed as a result of their presumably shameful experience.
Aransas Savas (:I think that word alchemize is really powerful here because I think the recipe I'm pulling together from what you said and it's not dissimilar from the seven courage practices. There's a ton of alignment in what I'm hearing and among them is alchemizing our pain into purpose. And another is radical self care. And I don't know radical is like.
buzz thing, but it's really holistic self care. It's taking care of our body, our mind, our spirit, all of it, our relationships, and it's communicating, it's sharing our stories, it's finding connection. And I think those themes, you know, they're the courage principles, they are the way through shame. This is how we own our stories and feel fully expressed and on purpose in life.
Melissa Petro (:Right. it's shame resilience. The most important step is the reconnection to community because the trauma of shame is the disconnect, that feeling we have to hide who we are and otherwise we will be expelled. we would not be accepted and we won't be taken care of. So when we begin to turn away from that false belief towards an intuition,
Aransas Savas (:Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Not hiding. Yeah.
Melissa Petro (:that we are lovable and good no matter what, no matter what we've done or what we fear about ourselves to be true. And we start to offer that to a space, like a group therapy or individual, another person in a therapeutic setting or creative setting. We start to make art that hints at our worst fears.
and it starts to be received positively or in conversation with a close friend or a loved one, someone that we feel won't reject us, and then they don't, that's when it happens. That's when the powerful stuff happens because that sense of self grows. And by self, like your best self, we'd start to turn towards her.
Aransas Savas (:Hmm.
Melissa Petro (:and nurture her and she gets bigger and braver. And that's beautiful.
Aransas Savas (:And that's something, and
we can do it for one another all the time. And you talk about in the book and it's really beautiful way you say, when somebody comes to me with their shame, they might start to giggle it off. And I lean in, I open my eyes, I look them directly in the eyes and I stay with it and really honor that place.
Melissa Petro (:all the time.
It's so funny. I can't
believe that's so funny that you're saying this because I was just we I had couples therapy yesterday and my therapist was offering that to me like a compliment and I was so suspicious and it was so uncomfortable. But it's true. It's so powerful to be vulnerable in that moment and to invite someone else to be vulnerable enough to receive that is just sacred.
I'm thinking about it today because it was powerful and even though it felt so awkward and uncomfortable, lean into awkward, be awkward, be uncomfortable. That's what we're here for.
Aransas Savas (:Yeah.
I have teenage daughters and they both have social anxiety and one of them the worst thing in the world to her is to feel or be perceived as awkward
Melissa Petro (:My five-year-old just yesterday was crying, big panic attack at the end of the day that someone will think she's weird. I don't know who introduced that word weird to her in that context, but like I'm the weirdest bitch I know and I love it. You know, like I love that, like identity, but she already knows it's not okay to be weird. I gotta talk to her about that.
Aransas Savas (:Mmm.
Yeah, yeah. And I think we get to keep talking about it. And we keep using those words as a way of reclaiming them. And we keep saying to our daughters, hey, you want to get weird? Let's get awkward. Right? Like, I want to celebrate that. And actually, the best stuff in my life is that my 50th birthday party, which is next week, I have decided that I reached out to the weirdest, most wonderful women I know. And I was like, can we get weird?
Melissa Petro (:Mmm.
Thanks
Love it. Love it.
Aransas Savas (:And
I wrote my kids and I was like, you know what I want for my 50th? I want to get weird.
Melissa Petro (:Yeah, but we have all of these words right that we're taught you're not allowed
Aransas Savas (:Yeah, I was like, let's put on frickin' fairy
wings and parade through town howling at the moon. Whatever!
Melissa Petro (:Now, I think it's really like
part of shame resilience is really about becoming critical of our culture that taught us that weird is wrong or nag. Like, can we like look at that a little bit more critically and look at the nag with a little more compassion or all of these other things we're not allowed to be. Can we just start to turn a curious eye on what that is? Why are people that way? Why am I a nag?
Aransas Savas (:Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Melissa Petro (:Where's that rage? that don't be an angry woman. Definitely don't be an angry woman if you're a black woman. There's all of these connotations. And a lot of them are ascribed to women that aren't men. So let's start by noticing, that's really only a rule for women. And then is that really a rule that I believe in? I think people are weird? What do we mean when we say that?
What do we believe in? Teaching kids what they believe in, it's such a wonderful way to remember what we believe in as adults. I have young children and it's just such an experience and opportunity to remember what it means to be human and what do we value and what values do we want to water and what do we want to let die in the dark.
Aransas Savas (:Yeah. And I think your book does that for us. It's an invitation to examine these labels, these beliefs, these thoughts that we've held that have limited us and held us in place and made us feel unseen and unknown and disconnected. think that was totally redundant what I just said.
but it's all true and it bears repeating. And it says, hey, is that what you want? Or do you wanna live this experience a little bit differently? And when we talk about you looking into someone's eyes and holding that space for them to share their shame, what you're describing there, I think is creating the world you wanna live in.
Melissa Petro (:Absolutely. Yeah, I think that we're right now is just really like I do want to acknowledge how difficult So many have it it's it's Exhausting and we are in such disagreement with the world feels so fundamentally
Aransas Savas (:really hard.
Melissa Petro (:broken. So to believe that we have any power is almost courageous. Just to imagine. But we do. When we ask someone how they're doing, do you wait for an answer or do you just expect fine? They're doing fine. We're all fine. Everyone's fine. Do we hold space for each other and ourselves?
through that pain that we may be encountering.
Aransas Savas (:I didn't think about it until you just said it that way, that part of the power of sharing our shames, Is that across these differences, we can see sameness.
Melissa Petro (:Yeah, I really like to imagine people in vulnerable states, not to like feel power over them, but to feel sameness. Like, I just picture people in their like most pathos. Like they're just, we're just like these human flesh sacks doing our best and sometimes it's our worst. I've been there.
Aransas Savas (:Yes. Yes.
Melissa Petro (:I mean, it's hard when you're being actively harmed by someone to feel compassion towards them. But when we're feeling actively harmed by everyone, like a lot of us are right now, I, as a woman, feel so mistrustful and so in a heightened state of alarm that I just don't trust my neighbors anymore.
Aransas Savas (:Yep.
Mm-hmm.
Melissa Petro (:One is to honestly get to know your neighbors. I mean, I said that and I was like, is that literal? Like maybe, yeah, maybe I do need to get to know those neighbors better if I don't trust them. And maybe I do need to see their soft sides and show them mine so that I don't feel so afraid. And so that then we can act from a place of intelligence and emotional intelligence rather than fear. Because right now we are a culture of shame and a culture of fear.
Aransas Savas (:Mm-hmm. That's it. Yes. I think it's literal. Yeah.
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.
Yeah, we are. And I think we see it in every domain. I'm really, really, really grateful you wrote this book, Melissa. I'm really, really grateful as a woman, as a woman who shepherds women's stories, as a mother, as a daughter whose mom was radically shaped by shame. I am really, really grateful you wrote this book. I'm really grateful I met you. And I'm just so grateful we got to have this conversation.
Melissa Petro (:Me
too, thank you. I love doing this. This is like, wow. Thank you.
Aransas Savas (:amazing.
Aransas Savas (:you
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