Healthy Shame Quotes

“From what you have seen so far it should be obvious that a major source of toxic shame is the family system and its multigenerational patterns of unresolved secrets.

More specifically these families are created by the shame-based people who find and marry each other. Each looks to and expects the other to take care of and parent the child within him or her. Each is incomplete and insatiable. The insatiability is rooted in each person's unmet childhood needs. When two adult children meet and fall in love, the child in each looks to the other to fill his or her needs. Since "in love" is a natural state of fusion, the incomplete children fuse together as they had done in the symbiotic stage of infancy. Each feels a sense of oneness and completeness. Since “in-love” is always erotic, each feels "oceanic" in the sexual embrace. “Oceanic” love is without boundaries. Being in love is as powerful as any narcotic. One feels whole and ecstatic.

Unfortunately this state cannot last. The ecstatic consciousness is highly selective. Lovers focus on sameness and are intrigued by the newness of each other. Soon, however, real differences in socialization begin to emerge. The two families of origin rear their shame-based heads. Now the battle begins! Who will take care of whom? Whose family rules will win out? The more shame-based each person is, the more each other's differences will be intolerable. “If you loved me, you'd do it my way,” each cajoles the other. The Hatfields and the Mccoys go at it again.”
― John Bradshaw, Healing the Shame that Binds You

“Some emotional abuse is nearly universal. I believe that everyone has been shamed to some degree by emotional abuse. The poisonous pedagogy is quite clear about the fact that emotions are weak. We are to be rational and logical and not allow ourselves to be marred by emotions. All emotions must be controlled, but anger and sexual feelings are especially to be repressed. I can't imagine many people in modern American life who were affirmed and nurtured in expressing their sexual and/or angry feelings.”
― John Bradshaw, Healing the Shame that Binds You