Healing the Shame That Binds You

by John Bradshaw

I go through cycles of exercise; good nutritional, nonsugar diets, and then (usually after months of control) I eat a donut or a piece of carrot cake. Usually I do this while traveling. It is then that my loneliness and vulnerability are most exposed. I usually reward myself for all the hard work I’ve done. Once I eat the sweets, the release phase starts. I start obsessing on what I’ve done. I’ve blown it now. I might as well eat some more. I’ll binge just for today and start my control tomorrow. Ah! But tomorrow never comes! The sugar craves sugar. The mental obsessing keeps me thinking about sweets, and I’m off and running into the release cycle.

Here, as in all compulsive/addictive behavior, there is no balance. It’s all or nothing.

ADDICTION TO SHAME Shame-based people are always addicted to their toxic shame. It is the source and wellspring of all their thoughts and behavior. Everything is organized around preventing exposure. You can’t ever give up your mask and defenses against exposure. Toxic shame is like a herd of charging rhinos or a school of hungry, man-eating sharks. You cannot let your guard down for one second.

Life is a problem to be solved, rather than a mystery to be lived. Toxic guilt keeps you endlessly working on yourself and analyzing every event and transaction. There is never a time for rest because there is always more you need to do. Guilt puts you in your head a lot.

Thoughts and mental activity are also potentially addictive. Thought processes are part of every addiction. Mental obsession, or going over and over something, is a part of the addictive cycle.

Mental obsessing is a common element in all codependent relationships. Obsessing on one’s alcoholic spouse or lover or children or parents is a way to stay in your head and out of your feelings. Relationships can be tremendously addictive. People go from one bad relationship to another or stay in one that is destructive and life-damaging. The feeling and experience of love is a powerful mood-alterer and can be an addiction.

ACTIVITY ADDICTIONS Another form of mood alteration is through behavior or activity. I’ve already described the ritual and magical behavior that constitutes the ego defense of undoing. Certain obsessive/compulsive ritualized behaviors have the goal of taking one away from one’s fears of certain shameful desires, feelings or impulses. The more common forms of activities that mood-alter are working, buying, hoarding, sexing, reading, gambling, exercising, watching sports, watching TV,

and having and taking care of pets. No one of these activities is an addiction if it has no life-damaging consequences. But all of these activities can be full-fledged and life-damaging addictions. Each is a way to get so involved in an activity that one is mood-altered by doing the activity. Work addiction is a serious addiction. The work addict, who spends thousands of hours at work, can avoid painful feelings of loneliness and depression. I know of an experimental retreat that was conducted with ten CEOs of large companies. These people were asked to avoid anything during a four-day weekend that would take them out of their feelings. They were not to read, drink, smoke, watch TV, talk about business, use the telephone, exercise, etc. By the third afternoon, this troop of dynamic, high-rolling superachievers was depressed. They were in touch with their emptiness and loneliness. In many cases their children were in serious trouble with drugs or the law. Their children were often carrying their loneliness and pain. The same...

As one’s emotional energy is frozen and shame-bound, the dominant (analytic) part of the brain is seriously biased and impaired. The will loses its power to envision alternatives; the will loses its eyes, as it were. Without eyes the will is blind. It no longer has resource data from which to make choices. Without resource data, the will has no content outside of itself. With only itself as content, the will can only will itself. This affects a pathological relationship to one’s own will. Such a relationship is mood altering.

To be willful is to be full of will. This willfulness leads to self-centeredness, control madness, dramatic extremes and to willing what cannot be willed (unreality). Willfulness has no boundaries. Such willfulness is the core of all addictions. All addicts are ultimately addicted to their own wills. In AA this is expressed as “I want what I want when I want it.” It is also referred to as “self-will run riot.” Addiction to one’s own will is the way that toxic shame causes spiritual bankruptcy. This is why spiritual healing is necessary when it comes to healing the syndromes of toxic shame.

E-motions are energy in motion. They are the energy that moves us—our human fuel. Our emotions are also like the red light oil gauge on our car signaling us about a need, a loss or a satiation. Our anger is our strength; our fear is our discernment; our sadness is our healing feeling; our guilt is our conscience former; our shame signals our essential limitation and is the source of our spirituality.