Shifting Shame: How Ontological Coaching Helps You Rewrite Your Story
Shame is one of those quiet forces that shapes us far more than we realise. No matter where we grow up - Europe, South Africa, Switzerland, Asia, anywhere we inherit stories about who we should be. Stories about strength, success, perfection, gender roles, achievement, or “keeping it together.”
And many of these inherited stories quietly plant the same seed:
“I’m not good enough.”
Most of us don’t say this out loud. We hide it under humour, overworking, perfectionism, withdrawal, busyness, or being “the strong one.” On the outside, life can look perfectly fine. On the inside, shame often lingers - quietly, slowly eroding our confidence and sense of worth.
Why Shame Is a Global Concern
Shame isn’t just a personal struggle; it shows up in global mental-health statistics. According to the World Health Organization, nearly 800,000 people die by suicide every year, and shame is one of the silent emotional drivers behind that number.
Here’s why shame plays such a powerful role:
Shame isolates.
It whispers: “You’re a burden. Don’t show them.”
This pushes people into emotional isolation, a major risk factor for suicide.
Shame closes down the future.
It creates resignation: “Nothing will change.”
When the future feels shut, despair grows.
Shame attacks identity.
“I made a mistake” becomes “I am the mistake.”
This identity collapse is deeply linked to suicidal thinking.
Shame fuels perfectionism.
It makes vulnerability feel dangerous and imperfection feel catastrophic.
Many people feel they cannot afford to fail or be “found out.”
Research confirms the link.
Studies across countries show high shame levels significantly increase suicidal thoughts and attempts.
Shame is global, human, and often invisible, but it is transformable.
How Ontological Coaching Helps
Ontological coaching works with three core areas of human experience:
Language, Emotion, and the Body.
It doesn’t treat shame as a defect, it treats it as a story and a mood that can be understood, shifted, and rewritten.
Language: Changing the Story
We explore the narratives you’ve inherited and help you rewrite the assessments that no longer serve you.
From “I’m not enough” → “I am learning to honour my worth.”
From “I must be strong” → “I can ask for support.”
A new story creates new possibilities.
Emotion: Opening the Future
Shame often lives in a mood of resignation.
Coaching helps you shift into moods that open the future with curiosity, ambition, acceptance, hope.
When your emotional world changes, your future changes with it.
Body: Reclaiming Presence and Dignity
Shame lives physically in the body - in a collapsed chest, downward gaze, shallow breath.
By exploring posture, breath, and grounded presence, you begin to inhabit a more confident and dignified way of being.
Small embodied shifts create big emotional shifts.
Shame is universal, and so is the desire beneath it: to matter, to belong, to be enough.
Ontological coaching offers a compassionate space to explore where your stories came from, how they shaped you, and how you can write new ones.
If you feel shame has been quietly influencing your life, you don’t have to face it alone. How about booking an appointment?
There is a way to recognise it, shift it, and eventually step into a more grounded, empowered version of yourself.
Until next time, Carine
