As we have seen, your family of origin can have a negative impact on you as an adult. As the noted author, speaker, & therapist, John Bradshaw writes in the preface to his ground breaking book Healing the Shame That Binds You1: "As a state of being, shame takes over one's whole identity. To have shame as an identity is to believe that one's being is flawed, that one is defective as a human being. Once shame is transformed into an identity, it becomes toxic and dehumanizing." I want to offer my thanks and gratitude to John and his wonderful book. It helped launch my own shame elimination journey. That expereince will influence a good deal of what you will be reading. A FRAMEWORK OF SHAME The word – SHAME, has a negative implication. However, it serves a useful purpose. As human beings, healthy shame gives us our limits. It sets our standards of right and wrong. "Shame is needed to establish limits, in childhood, since young children are unable to associate cause and effect by themselves. However, as children become better able to judge their own actions, guilt becomes the conscience former." TOXIC SHAME The Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary3 defines TOXIC as: Toxic shame is a character assassin. It corrupts your self concept and wraps your identity in a cloak of falsehood. This irrational thinking does not allow you to make mistakes, you ARE a mistake. Shame is no longer a limit for you. As toxic, it becomes a definition of you. This distorted form of shame is extremely harsh, malicious, and harmful. "Shame is often experienced as the inner, critical voice that judges whatever we do as wrong, inferior, or worthless. Often this inner critical voice is repeating what was said to us by our parents, relatives, teachers and peers." "Unfortunately, these criticisms become internalized, so that it is our own inner critical voice that is meting out the shaming messages." A healthy level of shame shapes our consciousness and informs our guilt. Toxic shame crosses the boundary of our self-esteem and skews our identity. Another detrimental aspect about toxic shame is that, if not dealt with, it will pass from generation to generation. This helps explain why a family can appear relatively favorable yet pass on the "family disgrace". This is done by shaming the identity of its members. Example: Let's say your great-great grandfather was a scoundrel who was discovered to be cheating his business partners. This results in a "disgracing shame" for the family. The critical thing to understand and recognize is that the sense of self you operate from may have a shame – base.
Your character is human. This means you will make errors in deed and thought. Guilt about something is a self-notification you have made an error. It is your consciousness about right and wrong. Mistakes are learning opportunities and can be corrected.
You can be neither; however, toxic shame will lead you to either be full of yourself or feel worthless. It will also influence your behavior in the direction your character belief is pointed. Example: When you are going the "more than human direction," you are right and everybody else is wrong. You pretty much act like an obnoxious jerk. Toxic shame will block any chance of a full healing for anything from your family of origin and influences your behavior today. It keeps your career path faltering, or your relationships rocky or your sense of well-being confused.
**REFERENCE: 1 Bradshaw, J., (1988). Healing the Shame That Binds You. Deerfield Beach, FL: Health Communications.
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