All of us have some degree of negative self talk that is our internal dialogue.
Some call it our old parental tapes some refer to that critical voice as automatic thoughts.
Shame based people have dominant, negative and shaming voices
providing in various degrees, self destructive messages.
We become aware of that partially conscious message and it's habitual activity in our heads
until we meet situations of when our shame is activated.
After a mistake one may say to oneself, "Stupid fool", or "There I go again."
Getting rid of the voices are our biggest challenge.
To understand how shame is activated is one of the first steps in challenging those thoughts.
As children are abandoned and the more severely are abandoned, (neglected, abused, enmeshed), the more they create the illusion of connection with the parent. This illusion is sometimes referred to as the "Fantasy Bond."
The purpose of the Fantasy Bond is survival.
Each child desperately relies on their parent for survival.
Thus, "parent's can't be bad, they keep me alive," is the child's internal belief.
The child cannot fathom the parents are bad because they need them for survival.
So the child develops the Fantasy Bond. The fantasy is that if the parents are not bad, then the child must be bad. This gives the child the illusion of safety and belief that there is nourishment and support in his life.
Many years later, when the child is grown up, this Fantasy Bond is intact internally.
What was once external, the parent's screaming, scolding and punishing voice --- now becomes internal. This internal message is maintained by the negative and shaming 'voice.'
The process of confronting our negative internal voice
and changing the message creates anxiety.
There is a great deal of denial towards changing this belief.
Remember, the belief was created in childhood to survive.
It is so important that you realize how powerful these inner voices can be,
and to also remember the voice developed from a parent's angry and rejecting place.
As children in shame based families we could not help but believe that we were bad and unlovable. We simply were not capable of grasping that our parents were shame based, needy or in some cases emotionally ill. If mom transferred her own shame by means of compulsive perfectionism about neatness and cleanliness, that critical perfectionism will be generalized to all other bad habits and personal defects. Children will treat themselves and others with the same ridicule, sarcasm and rejection that their parents foisted onto them.
We must remember that shame based caregivers or parents were once children themselves., The parent's defense against their pain and shame prevent their own feelings against their shaming parents from coming alive. The anger then is turned inward and became self hatred. The parent then, must stop his own child's neediness and pain so that he does not have to feel his own feelings of neediness and pain.
Clients who come to treatment with these 'negative automatic thoughts' or internalized negative self talk, are taught to externalize those thoughts or negative voices. By doing so they expose their self attacks on themselves and ultimately develop ways through verbalization, and their intense feelings are released.
The release of these feelings result in powerful emotional catharsis with accompanying insight. It takes time, however the negative thoughts can become positive, relief is possible.
John Bradshaw, Healing the Shame that Bind You
Robert Firestone, The Fantasy Bond
Some call it our old parental tapes some refer to that critical voice as automatic thoughts.
Shame based people have dominant, negative and shaming voices
providing in various degrees, self destructive messages.
We become aware of that partially conscious message and it's habitual activity in our heads
until we meet situations of when our shame is activated.
After a mistake one may say to oneself, "Stupid fool", or "There I go again."
Getting rid of the voices are our biggest challenge.
To understand how shame is activated is one of the first steps in challenging those thoughts.
As children are abandoned and the more severely are abandoned, (neglected, abused, enmeshed), the more they create the illusion of connection with the parent. This illusion is sometimes referred to as the "Fantasy Bond."
The purpose of the Fantasy Bond is survival.
Each child desperately relies on their parent for survival.
Thus, "parent's can't be bad, they keep me alive," is the child's internal belief.
The child cannot fathom the parents are bad because they need them for survival.
So the child develops the Fantasy Bond. The fantasy is that if the parents are not bad, then the child must be bad. This gives the child the illusion of safety and belief that there is nourishment and support in his life.
Many years later, when the child is grown up, this Fantasy Bond is intact internally.
What was once external, the parent's screaming, scolding and punishing voice --- now becomes internal. This internal message is maintained by the negative and shaming 'voice.'
The process of confronting our negative internal voice
and changing the message creates anxiety.
There is a great deal of denial towards changing this belief.
Remember, the belief was created in childhood to survive.
It is so important that you realize how powerful these inner voices can be,
and to also remember the voice developed from a parent's angry and rejecting place.
As children in shame based families we could not help but believe that we were bad and unlovable. We simply were not capable of grasping that our parents were shame based, needy or in some cases emotionally ill. If mom transferred her own shame by means of compulsive perfectionism about neatness and cleanliness, that critical perfectionism will be generalized to all other bad habits and personal defects. Children will treat themselves and others with the same ridicule, sarcasm and rejection that their parents foisted onto them.
We must remember that shame based caregivers or parents were once children themselves., The parent's defense against their pain and shame prevent their own feelings against their shaming parents from coming alive. The anger then is turned inward and became self hatred. The parent then, must stop his own child's neediness and pain so that he does not have to feel his own feelings of neediness and pain.
Clients who come to treatment with these 'negative automatic thoughts' or internalized negative self talk, are taught to externalize those thoughts or negative voices. By doing so they expose their self attacks on themselves and ultimately develop ways through verbalization, and their intense feelings are released.
The release of these feelings result in powerful emotional catharsis with accompanying insight. It takes time, however the negative thoughts can become positive, relief is possible.
John Bradshaw, Healing the Shame that Bind You
Robert Firestone, The Fantasy Bond
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