This notion of there being another involved in the dance of shame highlights the natural outflow of having been accused: judgment. I am not speaking of the word as it applies to wise discernment. Rather, to a posture of criticism and condescension that so easily and stealthily winds its way around our minds in response to our having felt accused. With little to no awareness, we seamlessly respond to shame with judgment, which emerges as words. But more significantly, these words carry the emotional arrows slung as much at ourselves as they are at others.
