Healing the Shame that Binds You (Recovery Classics) Paperback – October 15, 2005

Shame is an absurd emotion that we all need to release and enjoy life as G-d intended for man to do. This book will help you on that journey. Though, it is not an easy road to make it through to the end. The book will open your eyes to the way that shame and guilt hold you back from achieving your goals, dreams and aspirations in life. 👍

Ah. So It has a name. That feeling that follows us through years and years, that keeps eating at us and deteriorating our life. At first you double the efforts to keep on functioning and achieving ("put your back into it!"). Some achievements come with that. But you feel increasingly drained, fearful of disasters and failure (which can lead you smack into some of them btw), and just so gd tired. And weirdly empty, disconnected and phony even to yourself. Soooo.... bit by bit you keep on trying to quench that nagging dissatisfied thirst with... well, just plain more. More work. More "fun" (a world of problems here, none of them fun at all). More money. More shoes. And always thinking "when I get that new (i) car (ii) job (iii) promotion (iv) title (v) ring etc etc etc, I'll feel better. More serene and real. I'll find "my" place, where I "belong"".One therapist once told me that this sounded like "when I grow up...". I never forgot that.This book is important. To me, it was an absolute revelation.If you identify with anything I wrote above, check this book out. It brings an almost immediate feeling of relief. What happens after the first eureka moment is up to each one of us and our individual stories. But, as a group, it's like realizing your symptons are documented and part of a disease that afflicts a lot of people and not just you - and which CAN be treated; which has nothing to do with your real identity.And that place? Where we belong? It's right there inside each of us, patiently waiting for us to come back. I'm trying to find my own way back, and this book was the most precise and clearest "guide" I found so far. For the first time in my life, I feel like I'm on my way. Using the right road and all. At the right pace.I do wish I had come across this before. But then again, time and place for everything, right?

Helps us to accept ourselves and others. We are all imperfect creatures and that's ok.We all have a journey and most of it is out of our control, so let go and let god.

This is a classic but still very applicable to today. Bradshaw covers toxic shame in depth from how it starts to how it can affect the rest of your life. He gives some decent tips for recovery and changing your mindset- as your subconscious beliefs are going to dictate so much of your life. I like that he pushes a 12 step mindset that not only helps if you are in recovery for another problem- but can give a life framework for healing from shame. The book is thorough and covers just about every aspect of shame that you may want to learn about. While I don't agree with everything he teaches-he gets a little too esoteric for me towards the end- there is enough that you can take what works for you and leave the rest. I also wish he gave more real life examples as opposed to quoting so many other sources. Overall, the book is an easy read and informative. Happy to recommend.

Great buck! Shame and guilt are the leading cause of addiction. You let go of the shame and guilt you can work on the addiction!

Definitely would recommend this is a very good read and helps you understand things that you don't even understand that are happening to you. It definitely helps you better understand things. Someone that's going through a lot of stuff and has a lot of craziness going on someone I would definitely recommend this for a good read.

I had only learned the concept of toxic shame just this year online. The online source I learned it from was lacking in terms of solutions though. This book does both well in my opinion, it describes the problem, and solutions. I found it very ironic when I started reading this book because after learning about the existence of toxic shame I had started doing the first few steps to fix the problem that he suggested in this book. As you can imagine when I got to that point in the book and read about it I was greatly amazed :) I almost have the feeling that God was guiding me in my recent life to help me with my psychological issues. You don't have to be religious to do what this book says though, and in fact it will tell you that if you are built in toxic shame you CANNOT be religious, and his solutions do not require religion at any step of the process.I had taken medicine and had even gone to a therapist with my psychological concerns and never felt that any progress was made. Some of the things suggested as solutions in this book were suggested to me by the therapist but he didn't really explain things in a way that got me motivated like this book did. I think you have to have a basic understanding of the problem before you can start work to fix it. That's the thing with toxic shame: hearing what you are doing wrong won't help, it just reinforces it, makes it worse. You have to understand that the toxic shame is the SOURCE of the problem before you can take steps to solve it.