The Shame-Free Community
Find all the tools you need to help you connect more deeply and heal from shame in community with others.
Introducing the Shame-Free Community
The Shame-Free Community is a membership community with daily content that can help you to reconnect with:
- Yourself – through short, evidence-based self-care tools like yoga, meditation, self-compassion and self-reflection.
- Others – through a community chat page, discussion prompts and live online monthly meet-ups.
- Spirituality – through soul care meditations.
Hi I’m Helen
I know how it feels to be desperate to break free from the shackles of shame. Perhaps you know too?
I spent years trying to ‘fix’ myself, including shaming myself for the behaviours caused by my shame. But in the end I found that gentle, compassionate acceptance and reconnecting to myself were the answers.
I wish I could click my fingers and magically heal you from your shame. I’m not going to do that but I am going to offer you heartfelt, authentic tools to help you break free one day at a time – and they’re the same tools that have helped me so much.
Here’s a short clip of me teaching a gentle grounding practice.
Perhaps you feel…
✓ disconnected from yourself:
- You reject and criticise yourself over and over because you think you’re not good enough.
- You strive to meet everyone else’s expectations but ignore the cries of your own heart.
- Your relationship to your body is a complicated one.
✓ disconnected from others:
- you hold people at arms length, scared of what they’d find if they got to know you.
- You desperately long to connect and try to fit in with everyone else but feel like you don’t belong.
- You feel as though you’re the only one and no one else would understand.
✓ disconnected from your spiritual nature:
- You feel you’ll never measure up to God’s impossible standards.
- You don’t feel forgiven.
- You know that God is love but find it hard to believe that God could ever love you.
I believe that you can experience genuine connection in just 10 minutes a day…
1. Connection with self
Are you ready to finally feel connected to yourself and fully at home in your body?
When you’ve believed for so long that everyone else matters more than you and that your needs don’t count, taking time for yourself just feels selfish. That’s why all the daily self-care tools in the Shame-Free Community are under 10 minutes – so that you can build a daily habit of self care without feeling guilty or overwhelmed.
2. Connection with others
Are you ready to join a safe, supportive community, where you can finally be fully yourself?
When you are experiencing shame, authentic connection feels impossible. It’s a catch 22. You need connection with others to heal from shame, but shame is the very thing that keeps you from connection. That’s why all the community interactions in the Shame-Free Community are founded on clear boundaries, facilitation and communally-agreed ground rules to keep you safe.
3. Connection with spirituality
Are you ready to finally find freedom in your spiritual life and to feel connected to your spiritual nature again?
For so many of us, our relationship with God can be our greatest source of shame. Spritiual communities can heap shame on us, and scrupulosity (religious OCD) is also believed to be primarily rooted in shame.
That’s why the spiritual practices in the Shame-Free Community are founded on autonomy and non-coercion, without interpretations or commentary, so that you can connect with God safe in the knowledge that you’re not going to be shamed or told what to believe.
What you’ll get
✓ To help you connect with yourself:
- Daily pre-recorded self-care videos, including: yoga, meditation, self-compassion, journaling, grounding, breathwork and restorative yoga.
✓ To help you connect with others:
- Monthly facilitated online community meetup
- A whole community chat area
- Weekly discussion prompts
✓ To help you connect with spirituality:
- Weekly prerecorded Imaginative prayer
Try a sample
Below is a sample self-compassion audio meditation from the Shame-Free Community:
“It’s gentle mentally and physically and will help so many people. You have a gentleness that comes over and comes out in your work. There is no other way to get help like this, so it can only be a great thing.“ – Sue
Who is the Shame-Free Community for?
✓ It’s for you if…
- You’re fed up of living with shame
- You want to connect deeply with others
- You’re willing to put in the work
- You consider your healing worth the investment
- You’re open-minded and willing to try new things
- Your mental health is stable
- You’re willing to get therapy if you need it
- You’re ready for change
- You are respectful to others
It’s NOT for you if…
- You’re in a mental health crisis
- You’re looking for a cheap alternative to therapy
- You want a quick fix
- You don’t want to connect with others
- You don’t want to invest in your healing
- You have an agenda or motives for joining other than healing from shame
- You are a perpetrator of abuse or you have perpetrated abuse in the past
About me
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)
General membership FAQs
- How does membership work? You pay a recurring subscription fee to gain access to pre-recorded online resources and live sessions. Your access to these benefits lasts until the end of your subscription period.
- What are the payment terms? Payments will be taken from your account on a recurring basis unless you stop the payments via your dashboard. For more information on cancelling your payments, please read the section about cancellations below. Your membership will start straight away once payment has been received. In the event of non-payment, your access to the community will cease. It will be reinstated if you pay the required amount. The price is subject to change but you will get at least one month’s notice before it does, usually more. Any price changes won’t come into effect until the end of your billing period.
- What payment types do you accept? Currently we accept card payments – credit or debit cards.
- Will my subscription payments automatically renew? Yes, unless you cancel before the end of your billing period.
- Can I cancel at any time? You can cancel at any time via your customer dashboard. However, please note, the cancellation won’t come into effect until your next payment is due. This means that if you make a monthly subscription payment on 1st May but cancel your membership on the 15th May, the cancellation won’t come into effect until 31st May, at the end of your billing period. You will have access to your account until the end of the current billing period. Under UK law, the 14-day cooling off period on online purchases doesn’t apply to streaming services such as the Shame-Free Community. Refunds will only be given in exceptional circumstances. For any questions or for help with cancelling your subscription, please get in touch via the contact page.
- Can I join the community membership as a replacement for personal therapy? Community membership is not, and should never be, a replacement for therapy. It can’t help you with certain things like exploring the root of your issues or supporting you with mental illness. We can’t offer tailored support. Instead it’s designed to work alongside counselling. We recommend seeing a professional, accredited counsellor if you need further support.
- What time commitment is involved? I would suggest allowing for 10-20 minutes a day but you can spend a lot longer if you choose to. All the daily self-care classes are 10 minutes or less. The classes are all prerecorded and can be done at your own pace. You can choose what you want to take part in and there’s no pressure to do any of it. If you miss a day then there’s no need to catch up, just move on to the next one.
- How do I access the content? When you pay for your choice of subscription, you will receive an email with a link to your dashboard where you can manage your details and payments etc. You will also receive an email with a link to log in to the members area where all the content is hosted. In your members are (called the ‘Shame-Free Hub’), you will see links to the daily self care tools, previous days’ content, a link to your journal and a form to sign up to a small group. To log in, you will need to use the email address that you registered with and the password you set when signing up. Please keep this information somewhere safe. If you have any problems logging in, please get in touch using the contact form at the bottom of this page.
- What are the technical requirements for accessing the Shame-Free Community? To connect to the Shame-Free Community, you will need: 1) A device, such as a computer, smart phone or tablet; 2) An up-to-date browser on the device, for example Firefox, Chrome, Safari or Microsoft Edge; 3) A stable internet connection. All the videos are streamed over the internet. You won’t need to download anything and can access the content from anywhere, as long as you have the three things listed above.
Connection with self FAQs
- Do I need to be in good shape/fit/strong/flexible for the yoga? This isn’t yoga for fitness, flexibility or strength. Instead it uses gentle, mindful movements to help you become more present in your body, become aware of what your body needs and respect and honour your body’s boundaries. You don’t need to be fit, strong or flexible to take this class but if there are movements you find challenging, I usually offer alternatives or you can just sit that one out if needed. In everything, I advise you to notice pain and stop as soon as you feel it.
- What equipment do I need for the self-care tools? You don’t need any specialist equipment to do the classes but you might like to have something underneath you like a towel or blanket or yoga mat. There will be some restorative yoga so for that you can use cushions, pillows, or a rolled up duvet, blankets, rolled up towels or bosters – basically anything soft. For the seated or kneeling postures, you might like to have something to sit/kneel on. I can recommend using a folded towel or blanket. The meditations can be done in any posture and don’t require any specialist equipment.
- What clothes do I need for the yoga? Anything comfortable that you can move around in – baggy or stretchy clothes are ideal. I teach yoga classes in lightweight baggy trousers and a comfortable t-shirt, but when practicing yoga in the privacy of my own home I like to wear my pyjamas – they’re the perfect combination of comfortable and moveable! If you already have yoga clothes you can wear them but if not I wouldn’t recommend buying them especially because they’re expensive and not necessary for these classes.
- What if I have an injury, recent surgery or some other form of pain? I would advise you to get clearance from your doctor to participate in yoga. However, it’s ultimately your body and your decision. In every situation I would advise you to listen to your body’s signals and back out of a posture if it’s causing you pain, discomfort or rapid breathing/holding your breath (breath is the nervous system’s way of saying that something isn’t right). I offer some modifications but I’m not a medical professional so if you have any questions, please speak to your doctor or physiotherapist.
- Is the yoga suitable for pregnant people? I would advise you to seek professional medical advice before taking part in classes. If you do take part, I would recommend applying modifications. I will offer some general modifications for informational purposes but you may need modifications specific to your own body – I’m not qualified to offer these.
- Are there seated/lying down options available for the yoga? I want to make the yoga as accessible as possible because it’s about healing from shame rather than fitness. However, some of the classes will be standing. I will offer alternatives where possible, for example, a lot of the standing warmups can be done seated or lying down. I will also make sure that there’s a range of seated and lying down classes available every month. Hopefully you will find something here that suits your body.
Connection with others FAQs
- How do I know that it’s safe to share with others in the group? When you join the Shame-Free Community, you will be asked to agree to some basic ground rules as part of the terms and conditions. These include confidentiality, gossip, bullying, abuse etc. Every community member will have signed up to these ground rules as a condition of joining. These ground rules will be linked to wherever community interaction takes place, for example on the daily discussion comments. At each of your meetup sessions, you will have a facilitator present to make sure that everyone has a chance to speak.
- Are the live meetup sessions the same as group counselling? The meetup sessions are NOT the same thing as group counselling.
- What do I do if another community member has harmed me in some way? Please get in touch with us as soon as possible. We will then decide on the appropriate action to take.
- What are the community ground rules? By signing up as a member of the Shame-Free Community, you are agreeing to:
- Honour and respect each other and take a zero-tolerance approach to bullying, harassment, gossiping, abusive behaviours and discrimination within the group (for example by refusing to engage in these behaviours and reporting them)
- Keep everything shared by others confidential
- Keep the identities of other community members confidential
- Listen to other community members without judging or comparing them
- Honour other people’s boundaries – for example if they don’t want to do something, don’t force or pressure them to do it
- Be aware of your own needs and triggers and take a break if needed
- Taking active steps not to trigger others – for example, please don’t go into details when sharing about abuse or other trauma
- Give other people the freedom to make their own choices
- Only give advice if it’s specifically requested
- Not share anything offensive, abusive or inappropriate with other members
- Be fully present during sessions and only using your phone when it’s necessary
- Use ‘I’ statements when talking about how you feel (for example ‘I feel angry at what you said’ rather than ‘you’re ruining everything’)
Connection with spirituality FAQs
- Is this the same as spiritual direction? No! I’m not a spiritual director and these soul care practices are not the same as spiritual direction. I would recommend seeing a qualified spiritual director if you need ongoing support in your relationship with God.
- Do I need any special equipment to take part in the soul care practices? You don’t need any special equipment – just bring yourself
- I’m not interested in spiritual practices/I’m not a Christian, am I losing out by not taking part in this? The soul care practices are completely separate from the daily self-care tools and are completely optional. When working out how much to charge for the membership subscription fee, I didn’t factor in the spiritual elements, with the idea being that these are optional extras just for those who want it. You don’t have to take part in these sessions and you’re not losing out if you don’t.
Disclaimer
Click to read the disclaimer
It’s your responsibility to make sure that you’re mentally and physically safe, ready, well and able to take part safely in the practices offered in the community, including, but not limited to, yoga, mindfulness, self-compassion exercises, self-reflection, readings and community meetup sessions. This may include:
- Seeking and following advice from a medical professional, a mental health practitioner, physiotherapist or other professional before taking part in the practices if:
- you’re pregnant,
- you have an injury,
- you have had recent surgery
- you are experiencing pain or severe discomfort
- you are having difficulty breathing
- you have another physical or mental health condition which may affect your ability to participate safely in the practice
- you are experiencing trauma symptoms such as flashbacks, hypervigilence or overwhelming emotions or body sensations
- you’re experiencing any unexplained symptoms or undiagnosed conditions.
- Making sure that you don’t push through pain, discomfort, trauma symptoms, overwhelm and any other physical or mental symptoms that may arise when taking part in the practices and stopping the practice when you need to.
- Modifying your practice where appropriate.
- Following the contraindications offered (and any other advice from your medical professional) and avoiding practices that aren’t suitable for you.
We, and our associates, cannot accept responsibility for any harm caused by you neglecting your responsibilities as listed above. Participation in the community membership and its practices is at your own risk. We cannot guarantee any specific results from this membership
The practices and any modifications, contraindications or advice are for information purposes only and don’t constitute medical advice. The modifications and contraindications are not an exhaustive list and can’t be tailored to your personal needs.
This community membership is not intended to replace therapy or other professional support, but it may be used alongside.
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