How Shame Can Show up for Women in Their Midlife

Allison Guilbault
Sep 19
4 min read

So the topic of shame has been coming up quite a lot lately—

With clients.

With friends.

With family.

Shame is actually something I love to discuss. I have an “Allison-ism,” if you will, that I often share with clients:

“Shame lives in the shadows, and silence keeps it there.”

Shame is one of the most suffocating emotions.

It can feel deeply—almost impossibly—immobilizing.

And wildly isolating.

The nature of shame makes us believe we’re alone in our experience.

That what we’re going through is so specific, so unacceptable, that no one else would understand.

And it’s under that weight that we feel the need to hide—cut off that part of ourselves from the world.

And shame rarely comes alone.

It usually brings a posse: embarrassment, fear of being judged, panic about being abandoned if anyone found out our “dirty little secret,” guilt… just to name a few.

The irony? Shame is actually incredibly relatable.

You may not know this about me, but I’m a big gambler (hello craps table 🎲), and I’m about to place a big bet:

You just read this and thought “fck… how did she know?”*

I’d also bet that only a very tiny handful of you thought, “what the hell is she talking about?”

Because maybe your brand of shame doesn’t look like mine.

Maybe it’s someone you slept with that you never want anyone to know about.

Maybe it’s a habit you’ve kept secret.

Maybe it’s a decision you deeply regret.

But the common thread?

There’s likely something you’ve done, said, believed, or experienced that makes you want to run and hide.

🖤 If shame lives in the shadows, and silence keeps it there—

Then speaking it into the universe robs it of its weight.

Inside my spaces, we go there.

We give shame the mic.

Let it hold court.

And then?

We kick it to the curb.

Sometimes it’s not as easy as speaking it aloud.

But sometimes… it actually is that simple.

Even when more work is needed, releasing it from the chokehold of secrecy—of being the skeleton in your closet—is a beautiful first step.

Sharing what keeps us small, what hurts our soul, what fills us with shame—it’s not just therapeutic.

✨ It’s empowering to others who haven’t yet found the courage to speak their truth.

So with that energy in mind…

I’ll go first.

I still sometimes feel deep shame about being a therapist (a premium rate therapist at that) who has suffered from her own mental health issues—anxiety, insomnia, and an eating disorder (now recovered).

When I was a drinker, I had phenomenal shame after a night out—even though my most toxic drunk trait was overtipping, buying rounds for strangers, and repeating myself.

Still, I’d wake up with a deep sense that I’d done or said something wrong.

That I was too much.

That I couldn’t hang like everyone else.

That something was wrong with me.

👉 (Spoiler: now that I don’t drink, my above mental health issues are WILDLY more resolved… more on that another time.)

And lastly… as you may or may not know, I went through IVF to conceive my daughter.

Truthfully, I didn’t struggle with infertility, aside from some typical age-related difficulties.

But a genetic consideration required my husband and I to do testing.

And while I sat in waiting rooms surrounded by the most powerful warriors of women (seriously—IVF mamas and mamas-to-be, I see you 🦸‍♀️),

I felt gut-wrenching shame that I wasn’t 100% sure I was making the right decision.

💡 (Turns out it was. My baby is the freaking BEST.)

The point of all this?

Maybe you related to my exact words.

Or maybe you just recognized the feeling.

That low, sinking weight that tells you you’re broken, wrong, or too much.

Too many therapists, programs, and coaches evade the subject.

They dance around it.

They keep shame in the dark.

Not here. Not with me.

I believe healing means going down into the basement…

Turning on the lights…

And discovering the monster in the corner is actually just a mop.

If this resonates with you—I’ve got your back.

No pressure.

Move at your own pace.

✨ But if you’re ready to take a small step forward…

That’s exactly what we’re doing inside Become Her.

Now extended from five to TEN days of support.

It’s a space where we get raw.

We speak our shame.

We ugly cry.

And we release.

💸 I’m offering it for basically free—just $27, and every dollar goes to charity—because I believe it’s a civic duty to help other women rise from shame and reclaim their power.

⸻

We begin 8/11.

🌀 10 Days of Telegram group support

🔥 3 Live Calls + Bonus Call

📅 Call Schedule

🕊️ 8/19 @ 2PM EST

Come As You Are: Welcome to the Circle

All of you is welcome here—the messy, the powerful, the unsure, the ready.

🔥 8/20 @ 12PM EST

The Sacred Release

What’s been weighing you down doesn’t belong to you anymore.

💎 8/21 @ 5PM EST