102 - Toxic Shame and Addiction
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What is Toxic Shame?
Toxic shame is the rejection of healthy shame.
Healthy shame allows us to recognize and accept our dependence upon others and God as we struggle to live fully in a tragic place.
Every child is “okay” being in need. When we lose our ability to be comfortable needing others, we develop toxic shame.
Ultimately, we become (a)shamed, which means “no healthy shame.”
Addiction grows out of the poisonous ground of toxic shame.
As toxic shame is developing, it begins to disrupt our normal sense of inborn worth.
Every child comes into life with a sense of self-worth. It is a God-given attribute of being created in His image.
Self-worth drives the child to cry out for his/her needs to be met. It drives him/her to have confidence that their craving is good.
Toxic shame occurs when the normal human responses of the child are rejected, neglected, abused, or simply ignored.
Normal human responses are:
feelings
needs
desire
longings
hope
These normal human responses move us to seek connection.
Every child has an inborn desire to belong and matter to his/her caregivers. This connection is the life-blood that increases confidence in one’s own makeup and self-worth.
When the child does not experience affirmation and confirmation from others, especially his/her caregivers, the child mistakenly believes that something is “wrong” with them. This “conclusion” is drawn because of the vital need for connection.
This mistaken belief leads him/her to reject their normal feelings, needs, desire, longings and hope.
This mistaken belief also leads them to believe they are defective, and this defect must be “how I am inherently created.”
He/She begins to believe that there are things that are “not be okay about me.” They begin to believe that how they feel, need, desire, long, and hope, and the way I express these things must be wrong.
Instead of normal development as a human being, the person begins to focus more on “doing.” Sadly, the person goes from behaving as a human being to working for affirmation as a “human doing.”
This mistaken belief about one’s worth becomes the force that drives the person to believe they must “earn” their worth.
This mistaken belief leads a person to the false solution that “if I do enough of a certain set of behaviors, then I will have the ‘right’ to have my needs met.”
This false solution actually leads to the problem of never being able to “do” enough to be worthy of being loved.
The results lead to:
distrust
resentment
contempt towards feeling and needing
disillusionment
distress
exhaustion
And yet, the only “solution” a person has to be cared about and/or loved is the path to toxic shame dictates.
The solution to toxic shame is to return to how we are created as feeling, needing, desiring, longing, hoping creatures, created to live fully in relationship with others.
The solution requires a great deal of work, but the results are worth the pain.
You and I are born with inherent worth, given to us by God.
We cannot lose our God-given worth, but it can be imprisoned by the power of toxic shame, until we reclaim our human being experience with others.
Dr. Chip Dodd
Voice of the Heart Center