Ep 27 | Why Hating Yourself Won’t Heal You

Описание: In the aftermath of an affair, shame can become relentless.

It tells you that if you punish yourself enough, make yourself disappear, hate yourself more, you’ll finally make things right. That’s how you’ll become trustworthy again and undo the damage, right?

But shame doesn’t heal. In fact, it does the opposite. It pulls us deeper into the mud.

In this episode, I speak directly to the woman who is stuck in that brutal inner loop - the one who can’t get out of bed, who is replaying every detail, who feels fundamentally bad, broken, or unlovable because of what she’s done.

I share why self-hatred doesn’t create repair, why shame feels so unbearable in the body, and what actually begins to ease the pain, without bypassing responsibility or impact.

This is not about excusing your actions, it’s about understanding what led you here, without abandoning yourself in the process.

In this episode, we explore:
The critical difference between shame (“I am bad”) and guilt (“I did something outside my values”)
Why shame is one of the most painful emotions humans experience, and why so many women collapse under it after an affair
How self-punishment keeps you stuck, numb, or spiralling rather than helping you heal
The childhood roots of shame and how early experiences shape the voice in your head today
Why the part of you who cheated isn’t broken, but was trying to survive emotional deadness and disconnection
A powerful reframe: relating to the part of you who acted as a young, overwhelmed child rather than an enemy
What real self-responsibility looks like without self-abandonment
Why rejecting parts of yourself only tightens their grip
How compassion, boundaries, and nervous-system safety create the conditions for real change

If this episode landed
If something in your body softened as you listened, even just 1%, that matters.

The Softening Sessions are a once a month trauma-informed space for women in the aftermath of an affair who are exhausted from self-hatred, overthinking, and holding everything alone.

They are an opportunity to:
put down the inner punishment
come back into your body
be held without needing to fix or explain yourself
begin relating to yourself with compassion and steadiness again

You don’t need to do this healing alone.

Click here for more information on The Softening Sessions: https://www.alexcroxford.com/softening-ses...
Instagram: @iamalexcroxford