Healing the Shame That Binds You

Since one feels his true self is defective and flawed, one needs a false self that is not defective and flawed. Once one becomes a false self, one ceases to exist psychologically. To be a false self is to cease being an authentic human being.

He goes on to say that without feeling, nothing matters, and with feeling, anything can matter.

During school age, the bright, shame-based child will attempt to develop inhuman ego defenses or defending scripts, such as perfectionism, blaming, criticizing, righteousness or being judgmental.

We cannot heal what we cannot feel.

Let me expand here on the process whereby healthy shame is transformed into toxic shame. The process is called the “absolutizing” or “internalization” process. The healthy feeling of shame is lost, and a frozen state of being emerges, whereby a person believes himself to be flawed and defective as a human being. This transformation involves three d

Toxic shame is unbearable and always necessitates a cover-up, a false self. Since one feels his true self is defective and flawed, one needs a false self that is not defective and flawed.

THE DYSFUNCTIONAL FAMILY RULES 1. Control or Chaos. One must be in control of all interactions, feelings and personal behavior at all times—control is the major defense strategy for shame. In the less-than-human shameless marriage, both parents may be cocaine addicts or addicted in other ways. They may be dishonest criminals. The children experienc

Another consequence of this emotional abandonment is the loss of a sense of self. When used as another’s narcissistic supplies, a person develops in such a way as to reveal only what is expected of him and ultimately fuses with his own act or performance. He becomes a “human doing” without any real sense of his authentic self.

Total self-love and acceptance is the only foundation for happiness and the love of others.