What if shame is something we learn before we know we're learning it?

In The Kitchen, Kaylee and Gabbi look at the rules that become ordinary through repetition: the things everybody seems to know, the corrections that don't always need to be spoken, and what happens when those rules follow us long after we've left the place where we learned them.

Through memories of church, family, school, clothing, and the small ways people learn to monitor themselves, this episode asks whether shame is only something we feel...or whether it can become part of the structure we move through.

And then Gabbi complicates the question: what if some of those rules were useful?

This episode interprets cultural patterns and personal experiences, not individual intent.

READING/SOURCES

Brene Brown - I Thought It Was Just Me (But It Isn't): Making the Journey from "What Will People Think?" to "I Am Enough" (Gotham Books, 2007).

Primary reading informing the episode's examination of shame, belonging, judgement, and the experience of feeling that something is wrong with the self.

Christina Sharpe - In the Wake: On Blackness and Being

Supporting reading, particularly Sharpe's writing on atmosphere. The episode draws carefully from the broader idea of conditions becoming ambient rather than treating Sharpe's specific historical and racial analysis as interchangeable with the experiences discussed in the episode.

TEXTURE/COMPANION READING

Vern Rutsala - "Shame"

as reprinted in Brene Brown, I Thought It Was Just Me (But It Isn't) (Gotham Books, 2007). A brief excerpt is read in connection with the episode's discussion of shame.

VOICES

Kaylee Graye - Host/Writer

Gabbi Graye - Co-host

The personal stories in this episode are told from the speakers' own memories and perspectives. Events remembered from childhood are not intended as comprehensive accounts of the other people involved.

PRODUCTION

Written and produced by Kaylee Graye

Featuring Gabrielle Graye

Edited by Kaylee Graye

Living in the Graye

A NOTE ON AI

Living in the Graye is conceived, researched, narrated, and produced by Kaylee Graye. The experiences, interpretations, questions, and editorial perspective expressed in the series are her own.

Generative AI tools were used during development as an editorial aid, including for organizing research and notes, testing structure, and assisting portions of drafting and revision. AI-generated material is reviewed, revised, and selected by the creator before publication. AI is not used as a substitute for the primary texts cited in the episode or represented as an independent source of factual authority.