Upcoming Events
SEPT 26
Relational practice • 7-9 pm EDT • Toronto • $20-$40
OCT 3
Discussion • 6-7:30 pm EDT • Online • FREE
OCT 28
Italian Webinar • 10h-18h CEST • Online • €40-€70
APR 6-27
4-week cohort course • Tuesdays, 1-3 pm EST • Online • $200-$400
Responding to Shame
A 4-week online cohort course exploring our powerful and important “master emotion”—shame. Learn to better understand and manage your shame patterns, reactions, and defenses.
Shame isn’t something that we can get rid of or “cure”, but we can learn to better understand it and respond to it in healthier ways that stop the spread of toxic shame in our culture and family system.
Shame is a primary emotion that we need to learn to live with, but that doesn’t mean we have to believe everything it tells us! Much of shame’s destructive power comes from our attempts to run away from the pain of it. When we can’t see shame, we are easily controlled by it, and unintentionally spread it, especially to those closest to us. The intention behind this online course is to help you reorient your relationship with shame in order to spot it, integrate it, and learn to manage it in more productive ways.
NOTE: This course is not therapy. Please come prepared to take responsibility for your own well-being and to set your own boundaries around how you participate and what you are willing to share.
What is shame?
A feeling & a belief
At its most basic, shame is when you feel bad about yourself—your actions, your social status, or even your very essence. Shame is an unpleasant spectrum of self-conscious sensations.
At the best of times, these painful sensations function as a healthy sense of guilt or remorse, an important and necessary warning that we’ve failed to live up to our own values and expectations. This form of shame is actually adaptive and helpful!
But for many of us, shame can also manifest as a toxic inheritance from the past connected to the belief that there’s something deeply wrong with us—that we are different, flawed, inferior, and therefore unworthy of love and connection. This debilitating side of shame is what we want to address in this course.
The Course
Each 2-hour session will begin with a short presentation about how shame functions, followed by interactive group discussions and exercises to explore how the concepts relate to your own life.
The course will be a live and intimate group experience on Zoom (4 to 8 participants) and will be highly interactive, a chance to connect with yourself and others. This class is for those who are ready to turn their camera on and openly explore their own shame in a group setting (if you’re looking for something more private, check out my one-on-one coaching instead). The course involves less than 1 hour of homework each week.
NEW: This cohort includes a 1-hour private coaching call for each participant with the course leader A.J. Bond (you can schedule the session at a time that is convenient for you after you’ve registered for the course).
WHEN
Tuesday in April:
- April 2, 9, 16, and 23
- 2 hour sessions
- 1 to 3 pm EST (10 am to 12 pm PST / 19h to 21h CEST)
- 1 private coaching call with A.J.
WHERE
Online:
- All sessions are on the video meeting platform Zoom
- Join from any private space with reliable Wifi
- Meetings will be recorded for attendees only
COST
You choose:
- Sliding scale from $200 to $400 CAD
- Choose the amount that works for you
- Contact me if finances are a barrier
A.J. Bond
Author, coach & educator
The course is hosted by A.J. Bond, a shame healing practitioner certified by the Center for Healing Shame in Berkeley and the author of the book Discomfortable: What Is Shame and How Can We Break Its Hold? published by North Atlantic Books.
