Where Shame Meets Love, We Grow
Reclaiming sex, G⟡d, and money as living currents within us, remembering our power to shape the world we’re part of.
I’ve dealt with a lot of shame in my life, we all have. Shame about family, shame about struggles, shame about privileges, shame about failures and mistakes, shame about successes that may have left others behind. No matter the catalyst, shame is one of the most universal human experiences. It’s woven into our bodies, our histories, our lineages.
When I feel into the body-sense of shame, I instinctively want to curl up. To make myself small. To become invisible. Meeting that instinct and gently unraveling it with loving witness? This is one of the most powerful choices in the world, one that I find myself choosing again and again.
Shame can be a doorway to joy and growth and maturity if we know how to move through it. Not alone, not in silence, but in the loving presence of others who can see us without flinching. Who can meet us with care, curiosity, and the kind of attunement that says,
I see all of that, and you belong. You are worthy. You are loved.
A few years ago, in the Trauma of Money training program, Seth and I learned a term, the “prosocial shame ladder.” This is connected to insights emerging from psychology that affirm that shame isn’t inherently toxic. It becomes corrosive when we’re left alone in it, when it festers in secrecy, isolation, or judgment. But when we are witnessed in our shame with care and presence, something extraordinary happens. The shame becomes a signal. A pointer. A place where we can grow not by rejecting who we are, but by loving ourselves more fully into who we’re becoming.
Shame isn’t inherently toxic; it becomes corrosive when we’re left alone in it.
We live within economies and cultures that profit from our confusion, shame, and disempowerment—especially in the realms of sex, money, and spirituality (we’ll get to that in a minute)— this kind of healing is not just personal. It’s collective. Because these aren’t just individual experiences, and none of us should be left to figure out how to work with them on our own. They are deeply shaped by the cultural, economic, and institutional forces around us, systems that teach us to suppress desire, outsource meaning, and equate our worth with our productivity or wealth.
When we learn to move through shame by letting it illuminate where we’ve internalized harmful norms, where we’ve disconnected from ourselves or others, it becomes a source of profound liberation. We begin to re-pattern.
Internally, through how we relate to our own needs and worth.
Interpersonally, through how we show up in intimacy and accountability. Institutionally, through how we participate in (or resist, or redesign) the systems that shape our lives.
Two years ago, Seth and I recognized the profound undercurrents linking sexual shame, financial disempowerment, and religious trauma in our culture and specifically in the lives of those we work with. We saw that the shame, stagnation, and disempowerment in any one of these areas often mirrored and intertwined with the others. Once we saw it, it was obvious and we began seeing the pattern everywhere. We realized no one was talking about this because no one else had studied all three in quite as much depth and systemic analysis as us. We realized it was our responsibility to bring this as an opportunity for people to actively excavate the stories that live in our bodies around these, to see their connections with one another, and to consciously choose the relationship we want with each of these currents as we move forward in our lives.
So in the summer of 2023, we hosted the first iteration of Sex, G⟡d, & Money. And over the course of those 12 weeks, we, and our participants, went through a developmental journey that would gently and deeply shift the trajectory of all of our lives. Now, we’re offering it again, with a structure adjusted for deeper embodiment, somatic release, and personal empowerment.
Over the years, I’ve felt shame on all sides of these currents. In my sexuality, I’ve felt shame when my desire didn’t match my partner’s, and shame when my desire felt too bold, hungry, or inconvenient. As a new mother, I’ve grieved the death of an identity I’d built around financial self-sufficiency, taking on debt for the first time in my life last year and meeting both the shame of not earning enough with the tension of the shame of having had the privilege to avoid debt in any form for 30 years. And spiritually, I’ve walked the tender terrain of being born into a complex subcultural community, and to parents deeply steeped in Hindu and Buddhist lineages while navigating the complexities of whiteness, cultural inheritance, and my own responsibility to these living traditions.
These experiences have challenged me deeply. When I’ve been in the depths of the shame of them I wouldn’t have dared write publicly about them. But now they are easy, joyful even, to share. It’s not that they’re over; sexual desire and even identity will always be waxing and waning, financial circumstances are often beyond our control and we will always be unpacking the ways that our institutions shame us for their own inadequacies, and though I feel deeply clear and rooted in my spirituality, unpacking some of the, let’s say, unhealthy, doctrines of the spiritual community I was raised in will probably last my lifetime.
So each time we run Sex, G⟡d, & Money, we also receive its medicine. We also excavate whatever is living within us still that is asking to be seen and known and loved back to wholeness. We too are transformed little by little back toward our own wholeness.
When I write about The Living World, I’m not just talking about rivers or forests or mycelial networks as living ecosystems outside of us. I’m talking about us. Our bodies. Our desires. Our stories. The ecosystems inside us are shaped by the same forces shaping the planet: institutions of extraction, systems of disconnection, and inherited patterns of suppression.
Through the work we do at EMUNAH, we are remembering, reconnecting, and regenerating our personal power—through education, embodiment, and empowerment. Because when we root into these deeper truths within ourselves, we grow our capacity to shape meaningful change in our relationships, our communities, and the wider world.
We welcome you to go deeper with us. Sex, G⟡d, & Money will be a beautiful 12 week journey of reclaiming power and agency in your own life, and you’ll get full community member access to the EMUNAH ecosystem through the summer. Likewise, all paid subscribers on Substack (here or over at
) get full community member access.We’re the epitome of a mom-and-pop operation, just on the internet (the rent is cheaper and the community gets to be beautifully international). But being online doesn’t mean we don’t deeply prioritize human relationships. So if you’re interested, but want to talk, ask questions, or just feel into it a little deeper, feel so welcome to reach out. We’d love to connect with you.