How a five-second interaction reminded me that our strongest emotional reactions are rarely about the present.
A few months ago, I was sitting in a restaurant enjoying a quiet evening. My feet were resting on the lower frame of the empty chair next to me, not on the seat itself. A young waitress, more than half my age, came over and asked me to take my feet down. I apologised and moved them, but something inside me shifted. The interaction lasted only a few seconds, yet it stayed with me for the rest of the evening.
I couldn't relax. My shoulders tightened, my thoughts started racing and I became painfully aware of everyone around me. I wondered whether people had noticed and replayed the interaction over and over again. It wasn't simply embarrassment. For a brief moment, I didn't feel like a capable fifty-two-year-old woman sitting in a restaurant. I felt about eight years old again. I felt as though I had just been told off by an adult.
That surprised me more than anything. Why would such a small interaction create such a powerful emotional reaction? The more I reflected on it, the more I realised that the restaurant wasn't really the story. It had simply awakened one. The experience wasn't just about what had happened in those few seconds. It was about the meaning my mind attached to the moment.
One of the things I have come to understand through Stillness in Motion is that our strongest emotional reactions are rarely created by the event itself. They are created by the stories we unconsciously connect to that event. This is why I often say that meaning creates reality. We don't simply respond to what happens. We respond to what it comes to mean about us.
Few emotions shape our lives as profoundly as shame. Unlike guilt, which says, "I did something wrong," shame quietly whispers, "There is something wrong with me."Shame doesn't simply make us uncomfortable. It makes us feel small. It has the extraordinary ability to make a confident adult suddenly feel like a powerless child. I believe this is one of the reasons we spend so much of our lives trying to avoid it. It isn't only the feeling of shame that hurts. It's the feeling of suddenly losing our sense of equality and slipping back into an old child-adult dynamic where someone else seems to hold the power.
From a neuroscience perspective, this makes sense. Our brains are wired to experience criticism, rejection and exclusion as potential threats to our safety and belonging. Long before modern society, acceptance by the group was essential for survival. Although our lives have changed dramatically, our nervous systems still react in remarkably similar ways. That is why a brief interaction today can awaken emotions that feel far older than the situation itself.
It is also important to distinguish between healthy shame and toxic shame. Healthy shame helps us recognise when our behaviour doesn't align with our values and can guide us towards repair and growth. Toxic shame is different. It doesn't tell us we made a mistake. It tells us that we are the mistake. When that message is repeated often enough, it begins shaping the way we see ourselves.
As children, we don't yet have the experience to question what adults say or how they treat us. Instead, we create meaning from those experiences. We don't simply remember what happened. We create stories about ourselves because of what happened. Over time, those stories become beliefs, those beliefs shape our identity, and our identity begins shaping our behaviour. Eventually, we stop asking whether the story is true because it feels as though it has always been true.
This is where Narrative Identity becomes so powerful. The meaning we attach to our experiences shapes the stories we tell ourselves, and those stories shape how we see ourselves and the world around us. One difficult moment can become a lifelong belief if we never question the meaning we attached to it.< One of the concepts I explore through Stillness in Motion is what I call our Protective Identity. This is the version of ourselves we unconsciously create to protect us from ever feeling that small again. It learns to avoid criticism, rejection and disappointment by staying quiet, pleasing others, striving for perfection or avoiding conflict altogether. These behaviours are not signs of weakness. They are intelligent strategies developed by a younger version of ourselves who simply wanted to avoid feeling like that child again.
This is why shame often sits beneath perfectionism, people pleasing and conflict avoidance. If I never make a mistake, perhaps nobody will criticise me. If everyone is happy, perhaps nobody will reject me. If I don't stand out, perhaps nobody will make me feel small. Without realising it, our lives slowly become organised around avoiding painful emotions rather than expressing who we truly are.
The beautiful thing is that stories are not fixed. They can be explored, questioned and rewritten. Not by pretending the past never happened, but by becoming curious about it. Instead of asking, "What's wrong with me?" we can begin asking, "Where did this story begin?"That single question shifts us from self-judgement to self-understanding.
This is the heart of Stillness in Motion. Through reflection, meaningful conversation and creativity, we begin recognising the stories that have quietly shaped our identity. As we understand why they were created, we can decide whether they still belong in the life we want to live. Because underneath every Protective Identity is the person we have always been, patiently waiting for us to come home.
