Shame, Guilt, and Self-Rejection

Without a repair for - shaming events, the Child and Child Self can be left with the distinct impression that they indeed have something wrong with them.

When we are shamed as children—shamed for who we are, what we think, how we feel, how we look—we can sustain injuries to our psyches that last through adulthood. For many of us, our caretakers used guilt and shame to get us to do or be as they wanted, and, in turn, we internalized guilt (“I’m responsible”) for their disappointment and then shame (“I must be defective”).  This can result in a continuous cycle of self-doubt, poor self-esteem, and self-rejection, which I refer to as the “Self-Rejector.” 

Breaking out of this cycle is not easy and takes conscious work. It takes identifying the times in our lives marked by this cycle and following their trajectory to the present in the way you treat yourself, your partner, and your children. 

As adults, we may not even realize when we are shaming our children. We know it when we see a parent publicly shaming a child by calling them names or putting them down.  It may be less obvious when we or others correct children with guilt: “You keep throwing your toys, are you trying to hit grandpa in the head?” In our culture, it is considered reasonable and acceptable to use guilt to get children to do as we wish. However, our children suffer the consequences—they internalize shame and guilt, which can have far reaching effects long after childhood.  

At a young age my mother suffered from a birth defect that resulted in long hospitalizations. She experienced deep shame for being different and received guilt-laden messages from the adults in her life. For instance, when she came home for visits, she was told to leave her toys behind for the children who could not leave the hospital and therefore needed them more than she did. Simply wanting to keep those toys filled her with guilt, while her disability filled her with shame. 

As she raised my siblings and me, her unconscious psychological wounds played a role in how she navigated the world and parented us. Even though my mother’s physical condition was not obvious to others, she still felt defective and had a strong desire to be accepted by society. Her shame became our shame. While she did not publicly embarrass me, her own unconscious Self-Rejector was on the prowl for my imperfections. Perhaps unconsciously, she saw them reflecting poorly on her. And most of what she saw as imperfections in herself were actually characteristics she could not correct. I was a casualty of my mother’s fear of rejection and her Self -Rejector. This became part of our family legacy. 

Silent self-shaming comes when we are quiet about some awkward or ridiculing thing that our Child or Child Self experiences from the outside culture. For example, an indirect negative comment about your child’s weight or appearance: “She’s a big one.”  A grandparent saying to an eight-year-old, “You look great, you lost so much weight!” or a comment about style, “So that’s what the kids are wearing today,” or “I would never get a tattoo” (in response to your new tat or your Child’s), all are shaming and rejecting. 

Without a repair for these shaming events, the Child and Child Self can be left with the distinct impression that they indeed have something wrong with them. 

Assumptive statements made in your Child’s or Child Self’s presence that you don’t correct or address with them later, can be shaming. For instance, imagine you’re with a group of people and someone refers to one child positively as being “outgoing” and to your child, in a somewhat demeaning manner, as being “very shy.” Perhaps you can’t correct that person without humiliating them, but you can lean into the little one and say: 

”It is funny how people need to use that word, you are not shy. You choose when to be friendly and when to be quiet, that is your choice. I like that about you.”

As long as you, as the parent to your Child Self or your Child, let it be known that you are okay with them, shaming can be stopped in its tracks, or at least put in the lap of those responsible for it without your silent collusion. 

When you find that your little one is different from you, pay attention to your feelings about it since discomfort may arise from your own childhood injuries. Your Self-Rejector may take those feelings out on the Child. Since I was about five years old, I have been finely attuned to animals and nature. For years, I hid this about myself because of the reactions of others, especially my mother. For years, I felt unacceptable to my mother. I felt shame about how different I was from her and felt guilty about that. 

How could my mother have better served me? My mother did not need to join me in the dirt—it was not her. However, she could have accepted me for who I was and appreciated our differences. If she had tended to her Child Self about feeling different, she could have tended to my differences with respect and curiosity. Later, when I chose to farm and do wood working, she sent me a box of manuals on those endeavors. She had figured out it was not a threat to her that we were so different. 

From a very young age, Sarah loved and understood what was fashionable without being possessed by perfection, guilt, or the tastes of others. At home, she received appreciation and support for her tastes and her interests, but no one there shared her interests. Her parents never shamed her and never joined others in verbal or non-verbal ridicule of her. They broke the cycle that had threatened her, had gripped her mother, and others in the family. They refused to convey that being different (especially from them) was shameful, or that she was obligated to make them comfortable, or that she was guilty of disappointing them. 

We can choose to be authentic about who we are and honor our children’s differences.  

To someone like Sarah, something helpful may have sounded like this: 

“Let’s find someone who works in fashion, I bet they will know the answer to that fashion question better than I do.” Or, “I don’t like fashion programs on TV, but call me in if something exciting happens, I want to know what interests you.” 

Our children will have loves and interests that we do not understand. Even when we find outside ways to support them in their interests, they will want our feedback, if we do not shame them for not being us. And sometimes their exasperated and eye-rolling responses to our responses, sting. But if they know our intention is free from shame and guilt, they will still ask. 

As parents to our Child Selves, it is important to listen when our own shame and guilt surface—what are the stories behind our feelings, what was happening, and who was with us? When we feel inadequate, intrinsically flawed, or blame-worthy, we are most likely re-experiencing the Child Self’s injuries inflicted by others because of their own shame and guilt.  

Affirm to the Child Self: 

“I’m sorry that I got embarrassed by your behavior, it was not your fault. I inflicted the shame on you that my parents/siblings inflicted upon me when I did not act—or even want to act—as they desired.” 

My artist friend shared with me about his own childhood experience of shame and guilt. 

“As a child I loved making art and still do.  My parents devalued this passion and drive because art would not help me move up in an affluent, well-educated society, not like a medical or law degree would. They thought I would never have a secure way to make a living. Even though they were somewhat supportive, I felt guilty for disappointing them. When I was seven, I went to art class and fell in love with clay. It was oily, smelled odd, and felt even odder. I wanted it so badly that I took it, even though it was supposed to stay in art class. As I approached my house with the clay, I felt dread, I was certain that as soon as I stepped through the door I would cause or be blamed for something bad. My guilt was so strong that I dropped the clay into one of the two spreading yews by the front door.  Later, the yew browned and died off, and I was certain I had killed it with the clay. I had killed it with my love of making art just as I was doomed to disappoint and worry my parents.” 

As children, we can see our actions as having almost magical powers, capable of causing harm to our parents and others horrible things, because we have been shamed and feel guilty for who we are.

When we inadvertently shame a child, what we say and do next matters, and what we don’t say matters even more. 

A child of three has mastered the use of a fork and is diligently, joyfully, and purposely feeding himself. He takes the fork and lifts a spiral pasta from a bowl and dips it in bowl of sauce before eating it. This requires refined, small muscle control and concentration. Sitting across from him, his uncle laughs joyfully as he observes the child’s actions and focus. He is touched by his cuteness and full of love. The boy looks up, puzzled, and asks “Why you laugh?” He isn’t assuming that he is being mocked or celebrated, but he knows that eating is not usually a laughing matter, and he knows it’s about him and wants to understand. His uncle replies: “I am just filled with joy at how wonderful you are, you are such a cutie.” This works well, and the boy returns to his task. If the uncle had answered, “No reason,” or “You are funny,” or “I’m not laughing at you,” or any other unconscious or untruthful response, the child may have experienced it as a shaming moment.  

Adults need to be strong enough to leave the innocent child and the innocent Child Self out of the blaming cycle. Our Child Selves need us, the adults, to correct past injuries with the words that would, and should, have protected us from shame and guilt when we were young. And this takes consciousness; when you notice feelings of shame, trace it backwards—recognize the guilt and shame you experienced. This teaches your Child Self to say “NO” and stops the cycle.  

Shame and guilt—so human and so hard to release—have outsized power and influence over us. A young child reasons, “I must be guilty otherwise no one would shame or blame me.” The young child has no defense. The result is a habitual thought pattern: “It’s all my fault, and I am not good enough or worthy.” This Self-Rejector, regardless of its strength, can be transformed and the cycle broken. We need to transform it for our children and ourselves.