Thursday, July 31, 2008

Detoxifying Toxic Friendships

This is a picture of one of my beautiful non toxic friends, Mariclaire. I just got out of one of these relationships-I put up with ridiculous bullshit for 2 years. I do not want anyone else to put themselves through that to try and savesomeone from themselves. People have to want to heal, period.


Detoxifying Toxic Friendships as seen on Divine Caroline dot com.

Detoxing is not just for rehabbed celebutantes, no no no. Now, no relationship is perfect. Relationships are indeed complex and dynamic. But toxic friendships exist whether we like it or not. Toxic friends engage in a pattern of sliming us with their toxicity. Toxic people are very adept. You know the ones of which I speak—she is the one who doesn’t do anything too blatant and egregious. That way, you can’t actually call them out on it. Most of the time that is. Sometimes they do, and you take them to task, asserting yourself, only to watch as nothing changes.
If you find yourself in a relationship that begins to feel, or has always felt, too intense, too draining, too yucky, it maybe time to cut the cord. “‘Toxic friend’ is pop psychology,” says Jenn Berman, PhD, a psychologist in private practice in Beverly Hills, Calif. “I would say it’s someone who, after spending time with them, makes you feel bad about yourself instead of good; someone who tends to be critical of you—sometimes in a subtle way and sometimes not so subtle; a friend who drains you emotionally, financially, or mentally, and they’re not very good for you.” They are psychic vampires. Toxic friendships wreak havoc on one’s personal sense of well being and peace. A toxic person can be described in many ways: that “friend” who is always negative, always critical, the one who after you have spent any amount of time with leaves you feeling drained. She thrives on drama. She talks about others, how stupid they are, and she giddily expresses happiness at other’s misfortune. She talks at great length about how much money she and her spouse make … every single time you talk. You have problems—which she claims to want to hear about—but it always magically ends up being about her problems. She accuses you of not caring when she is the one behaving in an uncaring manner. In other words, she projects her flaws on to you. She tries to manipulate you.
Toxic people always have a complaint about something, with the world; they carry a grudge about everything. Toxic friends can constantly disappoint you or break promises. This is usually the result of childhood wounding. We usually put up with this crap for the same reason. Enough. It is time to emancipate ourselves from the need to fix or rescue people. This can be incredibly difficult for those of us who were brought up in unstable homes with parents we had to parent rather than us being parented. The real question is—why do we put up with this nonsense, especially as women?



Why do we allow people to exist in our lives when they do nothing but bring us down? We feel we have to, we do not want to make others angry, and we do not want to be judged. If we no longer “play the game,” the toxic friend will seek out others to prop themselves upon. Love yourself and put your needs first. This friend will find another target in order to prop up her own fragile ego.
Friends should lift us up, leaving us feeling happy and at peace after interacting with them. Their care feels evident and sincere. A primary element in a healthy, positive friendship is that both friends can feel that they can be themselves; they don’t have to put on masks or impress one another. One key in healthy relationships is reciprocity. Reciprocity is about balance. Are you always the giver and never given to? We need to exchange the right amount of affection, attention, and care for relationship harmony to prevail. Does your friend reciprocate in your friendship? I have a wonderful friend, Mariclaire, who never fails to complement me on things, whether it be my mothering, my creativity, my marriage, or my ass in a new pair of Seven jeans. I have never sensed one iota of competition with her. I reciprocate with her as well. Even on the ass compliments! She has a great one! All joking aside, Mariclaire, or MC as I call her, is also a fantastic mother, wife, and friend.
Setting boundaries is essential. Don’t answer the phone. Sometimes we need to talk it out. Try asking “And why do you think that?” or “Do I really need this from you?” This may make them stop and think, and it shores up your self respect. Sometimes it seems we try to no end to express our feelings only to see no results. That’s because people must change themselves; nothing we say or do can alter another person. Just because you have a history with someone, that doesn’t mean you have to repeat it. If you feel as if you can not share your joy with a “friend,” ask yourself why. Are you afraid it will make them jealous? Angry? Is it visibly obvious? Do they get defensive or pseudo-excited? This is not friendship, but an attachment, a fantasy, an illusion of bonding. It is not healthy.


Many women have an excruciating time extricating ourselves from these relationships. These include: women who like to feel needed, people who feel like they do not deserve a healthier, saner, more balanced relationship, women who are stuck—either feeling angry, guilty, or sorry for their distressing “friend.” Detoxing is the way to clean ourselves out. Think of it as relationship Feng Shui—the idea is to purge the clutter. We do not have to fix or rescue or tolerate the shenanigans of these desperate people. Have compassion, but also for yourself, and with some people, have all compassion you want, from afar. Do not become enmeshed. Declare your independence.Take a Toxicity Inventory about your friend. Is her life full of chaos and negativity and even at times downright maliciousness toward others? Suggest professional help. A toxic friend might need a professional. If she comes from an abusive background, she definitely does. Her toxicity will affect her career, emotions, and family, though she’ll most likely never admit it. How can you approach this touchy subject? Point out to your friend how she is treating you and ask her to stop, and if she continues, take it to the next level. Say to her, “I know you are a good person, but maybe you want to seek help.” If you have tried this to no avail, throw in the towel.
If we have a friend who is always in need, always in crisis, always attempting to one up us, who is toxic, it is time to detox. You can say, simply, “I have changed and wish to end this friendship as it has become painful and draining to me.” By standing up to pseudo-friends, in reality you are losing nothing and gaining self-esteem, self respect. Once we get past the illusion of this friendship, we can see that we are losing, yes. What we are losing a whole lot of pain. Decide to surround yourself with positive feminine energy; you will be much happier for it.
My mantra for this issue is this: Alice Walker says:

No person is your friend (or kin) who demands your silence, or denies your right to grow and be perceived as fully blossomed as you were intended. Amen, Awomen.

Alice Walker, author of The Color Purple, has written fiction about African American women's experience. Alice Walker has also been an activist on environmental, feminist, and womanist causes, as well as working for racial and economic justice.

Monday, July 28, 2008

River



The river was so clear.

I saw it and at once felt my madness fall away.

You were the river.

The river Troy,

the long, clear, quiet river.

Long and clear,

quietly flowing,

you were a river I had to dive into.

My feet were burning, and sure, my heart was a raging fire as well.

It would make sense,

since I was indeed on fire,

to jump,
fearlessly into water.
And yet, many rivers did not put those fires out.

Those fires were fully propagated,

those fires were not even reasonable.

I passed through many rivers,

walking through,

then running,

bare feet slipping and clinging and bleeding on broken stones.
But you,

you-I jumped into, slipped quietly inside of.

I threw off my burning clothes,

I jumped into your clear blue water.
You cooled the hell of my child feet,

my heart was singed but the fire no longer burned.
I spent my life, a whole life running from demons,
Tripping,
Falling on thorns,
Skin tearing,
Dying to escape the shadows I had been born into.
And then you,
A clear blue river with mosaic sun warmed golden stones,
You stopped me.
My heart was shattered into ruby ashes, black dust.
But you, you took my heart,

what was left,
You held it in your hands.
All pieces held by you.
Each piece an emotional truth.
You showed me all of me,

even her.
She was hiding within the flames,
Living in terror.
The little girl diamond that no fire could destroy.
It glimmered amongst the ruin,

and as your poetic fingers touched it,

my heart seized back to life.
I felt myself, as a little girl,
Rise from the agony.
Growing, mending, vines of love wrapping this heart.
You polished that diamond and put the little girl back in my hand,
And I put her back inside of me, into my heart where she deserves to live.
You showed me these things,

your gentle blue river eyes,

staring into my green ones,

you showed me.
At your touch, I began to glow.
You are the clear blue river,

I am heart stones, green and golden and clear,

flowing with the water of you.

I Am Looking



I am looking at myself.
In the dog.
How he wanders, dallies, cleans his nails.
I am looking at a blanket, velvety yellow on the floor

where bad things can happen, the floor.
A feathery shiver traces my spine, then goes away.
Red chairs like twins,
sitting before a window full of trees.
A bookcase, dark brown espresso like I love.
I am looking at myself.
A house in my head, a longing for Mother,
not the one I have,

but the one I want, one who wanted me.
A page, from a tree.
I am looking at a tv, not blaring,

but here.
I am looking at books,

lives within them, the news.
Flowers on my pajama pants,

purple buds clinging to green vines.
A large pewter Buddha that blesses this home,

I am looking at.
My mind, the way she swirls with self persecution.
The way she loves fierce and primal.
I am looking at straws sticking up from the counter,

peeking over,
all colorful and funny.
A waxy candles waiting to be lit.
I am looking at 3 yoga mats, health, vitality.
I am looking at carpet stains,

vomit and spaghetti sauce,
reminds me of those bad things that happen to little girls on floors.
When I was little,

I pronounced spaghetti, “pas-getti”.

I knew how to say it, you see,

but I was looking to get my father to see me as cute,
and as I am looking now,
I wanted him to see me as a child,
a little girl who says “pas-getti”.
I am looking.

Saturday, July 19, 2008

What Does It Feel Like



What did it feel like
As you walked away
From me
Your daughter?
What does that feel like,
Walking away from your child?
How does the air move around your body?
What shoes does one wear to do this?
Did you tread gingerly,
The dusty ground making crunching sounds?
Did perhaps the ground slip out from under you,
Quaking under your feet with the knowledge
of what you were about to do?
Or did you run,
Fast and hard and away
so as not to feel My heart
Two years from my birth,
Break apart.
Did you tilt your head as you walked?
Did you look back and see me?
Did you then drive to your mother’s for comfort,
Or to forget,
Did you walk hastily through to her backyard,
Falling to your knees,
Praying to the bluebirds you found there?
Did their wings tell of my loss?
Each flap my execution.
In those moments after your exit,
Did my scent remain with you?
At the sight of the stars,
did it smash into you,
Smearing you into the oily Earth,
The realization that,
God help you,
I was probably looking at the same stars,
Alone,
Lips quivering,
Without you?
And later, when you sniffed the piano key white powder deep into your nose,
Did you think your heart,
And therefore mine,
Could forget
Through numbness?
Did you think, at all?
And when it stormed, late into the night,
Did you ever awaken with a start, panicking that I too,
May be somewhere in my tiny girl body,
Wracked with thunderous grief,
With the total annihilation of your leaving?


And when my father took me, at three years old,
For himself in his bed,
Could you feel it?
When you shopped at the market every Saturday,
Bumping into that sweet ole Creole lady,
As you Mumbled, ‘Excuse me, Maa’m…”
and the sun colored oranges caught your darting eye.
Did you wonder, then,
Does Sarah, my daughter,
Like oranges?
Or were oranges oranges and storms storms and mother’s hearts just numb.
And what of your father, your mother,
What did they teach you that you believed I was better off with anyone but the woman who birthed me,
You,
My Mother?

Darfur Mother

Mother swings Child
Up up Whoosh
Lands on Mama's hip
Me and her,
The same.

Tuesday, July 8, 2008

Healing Shame

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Toxic Shame

Toxic Shame

FROM JOHN BRADSHAW'S BOOK:

"HEALING THE SHAME THAT BINDS YOU"



"SHAME AS THE SOURCE OF SPIRITUALITY"


Abraham Maslow, the pioneering Third Force Psychologist, once wrote,

"The spiritual life is...part of the human essence. It is a defining characteristic of human nature....without which human nature is not full human nature"

From--"The Farther Reaches of Human Nature"

"What is spirituality? I believe it has to do with our lifestyle. I believe that life is ever unfolding and growing. So spirituality is about expansion and growth. It is about love, truth, goodness, beauty, giving and caring. Spirituality is about wholeness and completion. Spirituality is our ultimate human need. It pushes us to transcend ourselves, and to become grounded in the ultimate source of reality. Most call that source God.

Our healthy shame is essential as the ground of our spirituality. By signaling us of our essential limitations, our healthy shame lets us know that we are not God. Our healthy shame points us in the direction of some larger meaning. It lets us know that there is something or someone greater than ourselves. Our healthy shame is the psychological ground of our humility."


Coming Soon A.J. Mahari's Ebooks Shame and Borderline Personality Disorder

SHAME AS TOXIC


Scott Peck describes both neuroses and character disorders as disorders of responsibility, Peck writes;

"The neurotic assumes too much responsibility; the person with a character disorder not enough. When neurotics are in conflict with the world, they automatically assume that they are at fault. When those with character disorders are in conflict with the world, they automatically assume the world is at fault."

From his book--"The Road Less Traveled"

"All of us have a smattering of neurotic and character disordered personality traits. THe major problem in all of our lives is to decide and clarify our reponsibilities. To truly be committed to a life of honesty, love and discipline, we must be willing to commit ourselves to reality. This committment, according to Peck, 'requires the willingness and the capacity to suffer continual self-examination.' Such an ability requires a good relationship with oneself. This is precisely what no shame-based person has. In fact a toxically shamed person has an adversarial relationship with him/herself. Toxic shame--the shame that binds us--is the basis for both neurotic and character disordered syndromes of behaviour."


Ebooks by A.J. Mahari on various aspects of Borderline Personality Disorder

NEUROTIC SYNDROMES OF SHAME


"What is the shame that binds you? How did it get set up in your life? What happens to healthy shame in the process?

Toxic shame, the shame that binds you, is experienced as teh all pervasive sense that I am flawed adn defective as a human being. Toxic shame is no longer an emotion that signals our limits, it is a state of being, a core identity. Toxic shame gives you a sense of worthlessness, a sense of failing and falling short as a human being. Toxic shame is a rupture of the self with the self.

It is like internal bleeding. Exposure to oneself lies at the heart of toxic shame. A shame based person will guard against exposing his inner self to others, but more significantly, he will guard against exposing himself to himself.

Toxic shame is so excruciating because it is the painful exposure of the believed failure of self to the self. [selves to selves too we believe] In toxic shame the self becomes an object that can't be trusted, one exeriences oneself [selves] as untrustworthy. Toxic shame is experienced as inner torment, a sickness of the soul. If I'm an object that can't be trusted, then I'm not in me. Toxic shame is paradoxical and self-generating. There is shame about shame. People will readily admit guilt, hurt or fear before they will admit shame. Toxic shame is ghe feeling of being isolated and alone in a complete sense. A shame-based person is haunted by a sense of absence and emptiness..."


Audio Programs by A.J. Mahari on various aspects of Borderline Personality Disorder

"SHAME AS AN IDENTITY --INTERNALIZATION OF SHAME"


"Any human emotion can become internalized. When internalized, an emotions stops functioning in the manner of an emotion and becomes a characterological style. You probably know of someone who could be labeled 'an angry person', or someone you'd call a 'sad sack'. In both cases the emotion has become the core of the person's character, her identity. The person doesn't have anger or melancholy, she is angry and melancholy.

In the case of shame, internalization involves at least three processes:

  • 1)Identification with unreliable and shame based models
  • 2)The trauma of abandonment, and the binding of feelings, needs and drives with shame
  • 3)The interconnection of memory imprints which forms collages of shame

Internalization is a gradual process and happens over a period of time. Every human being has to contend with certain aspects of this process. Internalization takes place when all three processes are consistently reinforced."


Ebooks by A.J. Mahari on various aspects of Borderline Personality Disorder and Shame

IDENTIFICATION WITH SHAME BASED MODELS


"Identification is one of our normal human processes. We always have the need to identify. Identification gives one a sense of security. By belonging to something larger than ourselves, we feel security and protection of the larger reality.

The need to identify with someone, to feel a part of something, to belong somewhere, is one of our most basic needs. With the exception of self-preservation, no other striving is as compelling as this need, which begins with our caregivers or significant others and extends to family, peer group, culture, nation and world. It is seen in lesser forms in our allegiance to a political party or our rooting for a sports team.

This need to belong explains the loyal and often fanatic adherence people display to a group...their group.

When children have shame based parents, they identify with them. This is the first step in the child's internalizing shame."


Audio Programs by A.J. Mahari on various aspects of Borderline Personality Disorder

ABANDONMENT: THE LEGACY OF BROKEN MUTUALITY


"Shame is internalized when one is abandoned. Abandonment is the precise term to describe how one loses one's authentic self and ceases to exist psychologically. Children cannot know who they are without reflective mirrors. Mirroring is done by one's primary caretakers and is crucial in the first years of life. Abandonment includes the loss of mirroring. Parent who are shut down emotionally (all shame based parents) cannot mirror and affirm their child's emotions.

Since the earliest period of our life was preverbal, everything depended on emotional interaction. Without someone to reflect our emotions, we had no way of knowing who we were. Mirroring remains important all our lives. Think of the frustrating experience which most of us have had, of talking to someone who is not looking at us. While you are speaking, they are fidgeting around or reading something. Our identity demands a significant other whose eyes se us pretty much as we see ourselves.

In fact, Erik Erikson defines identity as interpersonal. He writes:

'The sense of ego identity is the accrued confidence that the inner sameness and continuity...are matched by the sameness and continuity of one's meaning for others.' From --"Childhood and Society"

Besides lack of mirroring, abandonment includes the following:

  • Neglect of developmental dependency needs
  • Abuse of any kind
  • Enmeshment into the covert or overt needs of the parents or
  • the family system needs"


Ebooks by A.J. Mahari on various aspects of Borderline Personality Disorder and Shame

FEELING NEED AND DRIVE SHAME BINDS


"The shame binding of feelings, needs and natural instinctual drives, is a key factor in changing healthy shame into toxic shame. To be *shame-bound* means that whenever you feel any feeling, and need or any drive, you immediately feel ashamed. The dynamic core of your human life is grounded in your feelings, your needs and your drives. When these are bound by shame, your are shamed to the core."



THE INTERCONNECTION OF MEMORY IMPRINTS WHICH FORM COLLAGES OF SHAME


"As shaming experiences accrue and are defended against, the images created by those experiences are recorded in a person's memory bank. Because the victim has no time or support to grieve the pain of the broken mutuality, his emotions are repressed and the grief is unresolved. The verbal (auditory) imprints remain in the memory as do the visual images of the shaming scenes. As each new shaming experience takes place, a new verbal imprint and visual image attach to the already existing ones forming collages of shaming memories.

Children also record their parent's actions at their worst. When Mom and Dad, stepparent or whoever the caretaker, are most out of control, they are the most threatening to the child's survival. The child's survival alarm registers these behaviors the most deeply. Any subsequent shame experience which even vaguely resembles that past trauma can easily trigger the words and scenes of said trauma. What are then recorded are the new experience and the old. Over time an accumulation of shame scenes are attached together. Each new scene potentiates the old, sort of like a snowball rolling down a hill, getting larger and larger as it picks up snow. As the years go on, very little is needed to trigger these collages of shame memories. A word, a similar facial expression or scene, can set it off. Sometimes an external stimulus is not even necessary. Just going back to an old memory can trigger an enormously painful experience. Shame as an emotion has now become frozen and embedded into the core of the person's identity. Shame is deeply internalized."



SHAME AS SELF-ALIENATION AND ISOLATION


"When one suffers from alienation, it means that one experiences parts of one's self as alien to one's self.

For example, if you were never allowed to express anger in your family, your anger becomes an alienated part of yourself. You experience toxic shame when you feel angry. This part of you must be disowned or severed. There is no way to get rid of your emotional power of anger. Anger is the self- preserving and self-protecting energy. Without this energy you become a doormat and a people-pleaser. As your feelings, needs and drives are bound by toxic shame, more and more of you is alienated.

Finally, when shame has been completely internalized, nothing about you is okay. You feel flawed and inferior; you have a sense of being a failure. There is no way you can share your inner self because you are an object of contempt to yourself. When you are contemptible to yourself, you are no longer in you. To feel shame is to feel seen in an exposed and diminished way. When you're an object to yourself, you turn your eyes inward, watching and scrutinizing every minute detail of behavior. This internal critical observation is excruciating. It generates a tormenting self-consciousness which Kaufman describes as, 'creating a binding and paralyzing effect upon the self.' This paralyzing internal monitoring causes withdrawl, passivity and inaction.

The severed parts of self are projected in relationships. They are often the basis of hatred and prejudice. The severed parts of the self may be experienced as a split personality or even multiple personalities. This happens often with victims who have been through physical and sexual violation.

To be severed and alienated within oneself also creates a sense of unreality. One may have an all-pervasive sense of never quite belonging, of being on the outside looking in. The condition of inner alienation and isolation is also pervaded by a low grade chronic depression. This has to do with the sadness of losing one's authentic self. Perhaps the deepest and most devastating aspect of neurotic shame is the rejection of the self by the self."



SHAME AS FALSE SELF


"Because the exposure of self to self lies at the heart of neurotic shame, escape from the self is necessary. The escape from self is accomplished by creating a false self. The false self is always more or less than human. The false self may be a perfectionist or a slob, a family hero or a family scapegoat. As the false self is formed, the authentic self goes into hiding. Years later the layers of defense and pretense are so intense that one loses all awareness of who one really is.

It is crucial to see that the false self may be as polar opposite as a superachieving perfectionist or an addict in an alley. Both are driven to cover up their deep sense of self- rupture, the hole in their soul. They may cover up in ways that look polar opposite, but each is still driven by neurotic shame. In fact, the most paradoxical aspect of neurotic shame is that it is the core motivator of the superachieved and the underachieved, the Star and the Scapegoat, the 'Righteous' and the wretched, the powerful and the pathetic."



SHAME AS CO-DEPENDENCY


"Much has been written about co-dependency. All agree that it is about the loss of selfhood. Co-dependency is an condition wherein one has no inner life. Happiness is on the outside. Good feelings and self-validation lie on the outside. They can never be generated from within. [until one begins to recover] Pia Mellody's definition of co-dependency is a 'state of dis-ease whereby the authentic self is unknown or kept hidden, so that a sense of self...of mattering... of esteem and connectedness to others is distorted, creating pain and distorted relationships.' There is no significant difference in that definition and the way I have described internalized shame. It is my belief that internalized shame is the essence of co-dependency."


Ebooks by A.J. Mahari on various aspects of Borderline Personality Disorder

SHAME AS BORDERLINE PERSONALITY


"Kaufman sees many of the categories of emotional illness which are defined as DSM III as rooted in neurotic shame. It seems obvious that some of these types of disorders are related to symptoms of shame. These include: dependent personality, clinical depression, schizoid phenomena and borderline personality. My own belief is that toxic shame is a unfying concept for what is often a maze of psychological definitions and distinctions. While I realize that there is clinical and psychotheraputic value in the kinds of detailed etiological distinctions offered by accurate and precise conceptualizing. I also think some of it is counterproductive.

My own study of James Masterson's work on borderline personalities, as well as my experience with watching his working films, convinces me that there is minimal difference in the treatment of some toxically shame-based people and his treatment of the Borderline Personality. I'm convinced that Masterson's Borderline Personality is a syndrome of neurotic shame. It is described as follows:

  • 1)Self-Image disturbance
  • 2)Difficulty identifying and expressing one's own individuated thoughts, wishes and feelings and autonomously regulating self-esteem
  • 3)Difficulty with self-assertion Borderline Adolescent to Functioning Adult: The Test of Time

Ebooks by A.J. Mahari on various aspects of Borderline Personality Disorder and Shame

SHAME AS HOPELESSNESS --THE SQUIRREL CAGE


"Toxic shame has the quality of being irremedial. If I am flawed, defective and a mistake, then there is nothing that can be done about me. Such a belief leads to impotence. How can I change who I am? Toxic shame also has the quality of circularity. Shame begets shame."



FUNCTIONAL AUTONOMY


"Once internalized, toxic shame is functionally autonomous, which means that it can be triggered internally without any attending stimulus. One can imagine a situation and feel deep shame. One can be alone and trigger a shaming spiral through internal self- talk. The more one experiences shame, the more one is ashamed and the beat goes on.

It is this dead-end quality of shame that makes it so hopeless. The possibility for repair seems foreclosed if one is essentially flawed as a human being. Add to that the self-generating quality of shame, and one can see the devastating, soul-murdering power of neurotic shame.

The reader can begin to see how dramatic it was for me to discover the dynamics of shame. By being aware of the dynamics of shame, by naming it, we gain some power over it."

"The excruciating loneliness fostered by toxic shame is dehumanizing. As a person isolates more and more, he loses the benefit of human feedback. He loses the mirroring eyes of others. Erik Erikson has demonstrated clearly that identity formation is always a social process. He defines identity as 'an inner sense of sameness and continuity which is matched by the mirroring eyes of at least one significant other'. Remember, it was the contaminated mirroring by our significant relationships that fostered our toxic shame.

In order to be healed we must come out of isolation and hiding. This means finding a group of significant others that we are willing to trust. This is tough for shame-based people.

Shame becomes toxic shame because of premature exposure. We are exposed either unexpectedly or before we are ready to be exposed. We feel helpless and powerless. No wonder then that we fear the scrutinizing eyes of others. However the only way out of toxic shame is to embrace the shame...we must come out of hiding."


In any emotionally revealing way Bradshaw shows us
how toxic shame is the core problem in our compulsions,
co-dependencies, addictions and the drive to
super-achieve. The result is a breakdown in the family
system and our inability to go forward with our lives. We
are bound by our shame. Drawing from his 22 years of
experience as a counselor, Bradshaw offers us the
techniques to heal this shame. Using affirmations,
visualizations, "inner voice" and "feeling" work plus
guided meditations and other useful healing techniques,
he realeases the shame that binds us to the past.

This important book breaks new ground in the core
issues of societal and personal breakdown, offering techniques of recovery vital to all of us.

This classic book, written 17 years ago but still selling more than 13,000 copies every year, has been completely updated and expanded by the author.

"I used to drink," writes John Bradshaw,"to solve the problems caused by drinking. The more I drank to relieve my shame-based loneliness and hurt, the more I felt ashamed."

Shame is the motivator behind our toxic behaviors: the compulsion, co-dependency, addiction and drive to superachieve that breaks down the family and destroys personal lives. This book has helped millions identify their personal shame, understand the underlying reasons for it, address these root causes and release themselves from the shame that binds them to their past failures.