All this, of course, took place before we were born, which begins to explain why shame doesn’t always have a clear starting date in our lives. We experience shame because we have ancestors who did something shameful and we are connected to them. We didn’t have to do anything to be contaminated by the family traditions. We just had to be born. Yet, once we are born into this family, we can replicate those old shameful traditions in our present lives. We can do shameful things.
