Shame

On this site I’ve written extensively about unconscious shame. Here I want to connect shame to arrested development. Arrested development is a colloquial term, popularised by the TV show of the same name, for what is technically known as ‘developmental disorder’, where crucial developmental tasks in a child’s life don’t unfold correctly. Arrested development is […]

In What is ancestral trauma? I describe the key psychological wounds that humanity suffered as a result of the drought, desertification and famine that gave rise to patriarchy. Here I want to focus on the fourth of these wounds: humanity’s unconscious slave mentality. I’m not referring to modern slavery, nor to the millions of slaves […]

One of the more curious effects of the 2020 coronavirus outbreak has been to highlight potential sexual indiscretions in South Korea. This conservative Asian nation is highly sensitive to perceived sexual impropriety, i.e. sexual shame. Official health notices intended to curb the spread of coronavirus have been used to identify potential sexual activity that’s socially […]

Late in 2018 I chose to challenge myself. I joined a public speaking club, did a 43-metre bungy jump, and contacted Life Drawing MK about modelling. Why life modelling? Two decades ago, travelling frequently as an IT consultant, I became addicted to pornography. Through personal development I overcame the addiction—only to find it stemmed from […]

Carl Jung wrote, “Until you make the unconscious conscious, it will direct your life and you will call it fate.” Despite this admonition from one of the leading figures of psychoanalysis, and despite the recognition that we all have unconscious aspects of ourselves, few people seem to ask the questions that start to unravel Jung’s […]

Leonardo Da Vinci’s drawing, the Vitruvian Man, has always fascinated me. Drawn around 1490, Da Vinci’s drawing is named after the Roman architect Vetruvius. He not only stipulated the physical proportions of the ‘ideal man’ but also hypothesised that such a figure would fit inside both square and circle. The complex geometry of the Vitruvian […]

I’ve been reading Mark Richardson’s Zen and Now – On the Trail of Robert Pirsig and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance. Richardson, a Canadian journalist and motorcyclist, was sufficiently inspired by Pirsig’s philosophical travelogue Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance to fuel up his own bike a few years ago and retrace Pirsig’s 1968 […]

I have been writing about shame for a long time. About how patriarchy created societies where everyone was ashamed of the emotional and sexual aspects of their lives because these conflicted with other qualities—strength, intelligence, obedience—that were required to ensure survival. This shame exists as layers of emotional toxins stored in both the emotional body—what […]

I have written extensively on this site about unconscious shame in general and sexual shame in particular. In my Are YOU ashamed? toolkit I’ve listed some of the common effects of shame—such as a fear of public speaking—which are so widespread they are simply considered to be normal human behaviour. Yet if shame is both […]

NOTE: When I began writing about inherited issues, I used the term ‘generational shame’ as I clearly perceived the unconscious shame associated with them. What I didn’t see so clearly was the associated trauma and the possibility of arrested development. I now use the more encompassing term ‘generational trauma’. My introduction to healing generational shame […]