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You feel ashamed or embarrassed when your Inner Critic faults your thoughts or behavior. That activates an intense young personality subself who floods you with shame. As an infant, if you sensed disapproval or indifference in your caregivers, you began to grow a wordless "bad me" feeling. You may also have evolved a Happy Child, who brings you "Good Me" feelings - pride, self respect, and self love. The Shamed Child is sure s/he is worthless, inadequate, unlovable, and undeserving. S/He may be living in the past, and not know or believe you're an adult with dependable talents, skills, and resources. In moderation, this valu-able young subself helps to balance the Egotist / Narcissist subself, who in-sists that the universe should revolve around your needs and opinions. When your Shamed Child and/or Guilty Child activates, several Guardian subselves activate to soothe them and hide your glaring worthlessness from other people. These may include your Liar, People-pleaser, Addict, Entertainer, Loner, Magician, Distracter, Victim, Preacher, Saboteur, Controller, and/or other subselves. When a Shamed Child and Guardian subselves dominate someone's thoughts and behaviors, they have "an inferiority complex" and are usually self-neglectful. Before personal recovery, shame-based ("1-down") people seem to repeatedly prefer each other for partners and associates. Family Project 1 provides an effective way to (a) entrust the Shamed Child to the loving Nurturer subself, (b) moderate the Inner Critic, (c) empower the Happy Child, and (d) help Guardian subselves to trust the resident true Self to provide reliable security. Over time, these changes shift excessive shame toward humility, healthy pride, and non-egotistical self-love. more detail / research / slides / guidebook and links / Q&A / close |
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