INTRODUCTION

I am not bound to win but I am bound to be true; I am not bound to succeed but I am bound to live up to what light I have.

Abraham Lincoln

Years ago I was visiting friends who lived thirty or so miles from the southern California coast. I looked to the west one morning and saw a nasty, deep greenish-brown layer between earth and sky that stretched over where Los Angeles could be. With a mix of shock and amazement, I blurted out, "Look over there!"

"Oh, yeah." My host seemed singularly unconcerned. "Looks bad today. But today is a good day. It's not so good when you can't see it, because then you know you're in it."

This book is about something as toxic as smog. It's a colorless, shapeless shroud that covers our eyes and holds us back from seeing what we see and knowing what we know. A murky layer that has a way of binding us up and keeping us from becoming the persons we were created to be.

What is this shroud? It's a set of rules based on shame that are common to most of us and largely determine what we believe about ourselves. As if that weren't enough, these rules govern how we interact in most, if not all, our relationships. These rules invite us to be fearful of being excluded at any moment, afraid we aren't good enough. And they invite us to fear being loved.

These shame rules are anchored by our learned, internalized sense of shame. This sense has us feeling so uncertain about who we are that we become outer-focused, that is, looking outside of ourselves for clues as to how we can be okay. What will my spouse think? What will my boss think? What will the neighbors think? Those of us who grew up amidst the shame-based rules are hugely vulnerable to being manipulated. Why? Because we've learned we shouldn't trust ourselves.

I heard or read a definition of shame a long time ago and haven't been able to find it written anywhere since. Attributed to philosopher Jean Paul Sartre, this short and salient definition of shame makes the most sense to me. Shame is the Self looking at the Self and finding that Self defective.

In this book, the words shame and humiliation are used interchangeably. However, it is possible to draw a distinction between the two. Shame is largely an individually-felt and privately-held belief that there's something wrong with one's core self. Shame is associated with personal feelings of not -enoughness, failure, inadequacy, wrongness, badness. I have used the word shame as both a noun and a verb. His shame was unearned or He was shamed unmerifully.

Humiliation, on the other hand, can be thought of as putting individuals or groups of people in a lesser place, or "in the dirt." Humiliation works better if the person or group being humiliated already believes in their defectiveness.

Humiliation, then, is a word used to signal a strategy that has one person or group getting their needs met at the expense of another person or group by impugning their worth and dignity as human beings.

Nevertheless, shame seems to be one's personal assessment of one's very being as faulty. Imperfect. Incomplete. These findings have a way of making us feel uncertain and insecure. We think if we make a mistake, others will see our defectiveness. The Other, all Others, will see we're not good enough. Even when we are trying hard to be right and do right, we seem, somehow, to fall short. "Shame on me." So we try to fit in where we can and do the best we can.

In many families, the rules that guide the relationships in the family are themselves, supposed to remain secret. They are not to be named, discussed, or negotiated. Therefore, they are never posted on refrigerators or bulletin boards for all to see. They are implicit, covert, and powerful. As such, they can be changed on a dime when it suits whoever's in charge. Keeping the rules "unknown" and fluid is a way for a family member or boss who wants the upper hand to maintain it.

How is it that we don't recognize the toxic effects of the rules? Because we've been marinating in them all the time we've existed. I have not met many families where the rules aren't unintentionally in effect. I say unintentionally because the rules are passed from one generation to another. They are as natural to us as breathing.

This doesn't stop with our families. As we move into the wider world, we take our assumptions and boundaries set by the rules with us to school, to the workplace, into politics and into other institutions in our cultures. We are only human, after all. We do what we know.

This book is intended to be more practical than theoretical. Knowing how to recognize shame in action is the first thing. Who wants to describe the river of sludge in which we float without some ways to get to the shore? There's a whole lot of that in this book. In fact, making the shift to new rules isn't nearly as hard as living by the old ones. There's nothing quite like the feeling of personal power we can find on the firm footing of the shore. And nothing to replace the pride of getting there.

The first chapter is devoted to thinking about how a system of rules works. The second chapter presents a way to think and talk about shame as it applies to everyday life. Both chapters lay a foundation for understanding why the shame rules work the way they do. Here's what you'll find in the next seven rules chapters:

What? The meaning of the rule in a system based on shame

So what? The effects of the rule on self-esteem and relationships

Now what? Tips for putting a non-shaming new rule into practice

The stories throughout the book are true or based on true stories told to me.

The ending chapters encourage us to put our feet on a shame -free path.

I'm hoping you're ready to remove the shroud that may imprison you in so many ways. I'm hoping this may be just the right time to take a good long look at the shame-based rules to see how they are, or are not, working to help you create the best life you can. I'm hoping we're all ready to experience joy and pride more genuinely and deeply.

Allow beauty to shatter you regularly. The loveliest people are the ones who have been burnt and broken and torn at the seams, yet still send their open hearts into the world to mend with love again, and again, and again. You must allow yourself to feel your life while you're in it.

Victoria Erikson

BEGINNING WITH THE RULES

First things first.

Know the rules so you may break them properly.

Dalai Lama

The seven shame-based rules...