Shame is the fear we are unlovable

It crystal clear that shaming never helps us change.

Shame is a tool to teach young people the rules of our culture, and to maintain social order and hierarchy. It is meant to create an immediate bad feeling to arrest an action quickly. Ideally shaming of a behavior is followed by a repair, a connection, so we realize that we are not bad. It is our behavior that was not okay.

There is something inherently shaming in not being loved. The experience of feeling unloved generates the fear that there is something so fundamentally wrong with us that we are unlovable. We feel ashamed of who we are. Shame becomes toxic as we internalize the feeling there is something inherently and deeply wrong with us. We believe “I’m bad, I’m disgusting, I’m unlovable”. Shame drives the inner critic and core deficiency beliefs.

Everyday shame is what we all experience in daily life. We’re embarrassed when we’re clumsy and knock something over. We are called on in a meeting and we don’t know the answer. We’re left out of a conversation or sense other people think we are boring. We’re nervous, shy or self-conscious. Everyone experiences this at times.

Catastrophic shame involves humiliation, self-loathing, and disgrace. Contempt and ridicule, especially by parents, directly leads to believing we…