Top 72 John Bradshaw Quotes
#1. Most people who have survived abuse have great strength.
John Bradshaw
#2. Unfortunately, accomplishments do not reduce internalized shame. In fact, the more one achieves, the more one has to achieve. Toxic shame is about being; no amount of doing will ever change it.
John Bradshaw
#3. I believe that this neglected, wounded, inner child of the past is the major source of human misery.
John Bradshaw
#4. The foundation for our self-image is grounded in the first three years of life. It comes from our major caretaker's mirroring.
John Bradshaw
#5. Healthy shame is an emotion that teaches us about our limits. Like all emotions, shame moves us to get our basic needs met.
John Bradshaw
#6. Arrogance is a way for a person to cover up shame. After years of arrogance, the arrogant person is so out of touch, she truly doesn't know who she is. This is one of the greatest tragedies of shame cover-ups: not only does the person hide from others, she also hides from herself.
John Bradshaw
#7. The spiritual quest is not some added benefit to our life, something you embark on if you have the time and inclination. We are spiritual beings on an earthly journey. Our spirituality makes up our beingness.
John Bradshaw
#8. Since the earliest period of our life was preverbal, everything depended on emotional interaction. Without someone to reflect our emotions, we had no way of knowing who we were.
John Bradshaw
#9. My group ridiculed and made fun of anyone who was not like us, and that comprised almost everyone! People with negative identity drop out and stand on the sidelines of life, making fun of everyone else. In actuality I was terrified of life.
John Bradshaw
#10. There are plenty of quacks in the field. Fewer than you'd expect, though still plenty (in alternative medicine).
John Bradshaw
#12. Toxically shamed people tend to become more and more stagnant as life goes on. They live in a guarded, secretive and defensive way. They try to be more than human (perfect and controlling) or less than human (losing interest in life or stagnated in some addictive behavior).
John Bradshaw
#13. Ego is to the true self what a flashlight is to a spotlight.
John Bradshaw
#15. We move from the illusion of certainty, to the certainty of illusion
John Bradshaw
#16. Guilt says I've done something wrong; ... shame says there is something wrong with me. Guilt says I've made a mistake; ... shame says I am a mistake. Guilt says what did was not good; ... shame says I am no good.
John Bradshaw
#17. I try to get people thinking, to consider their pasts and presents, ultimately encouraging them and giving them the tools to embrace the work of reshaping their lives.
John Bradshaw
#18. When I walked out of the seminary, I was 31, but I was like a scared, frightened kid. I had no place to live, no license, no clothes. I was just a lost soul.
John Bradshaw
#20. Chronically dysfunctioning families are also delusional. Delusion is sincere denial.
John Bradshaw
#21. Children will invest as much energy as is needed to ensure the preservation of family harmony, even if it means sacrificing themselves to do so by developing psychological disorders. - Joel Covitz Emotional Child Abuse
John Bradshaw
#22. Thus, the Church of Rome gave its official sanction to cruelty toward cats. Anyone coming upon a cat after dark was justified in killing or maiming it, on the grounds that it might be a witch in disguise.
John Bradshaw
#23. All these feelings need to be felt. We need to stomp and storm; to sob and cry; to perspire and tremble.
John Bradshaw
#24. Recovery begins with embracing our pain and taking the risk to share it with others. We do this by joining a group and talking about our pain.
John Bradshaw
#25. In a sense, all of my books have been about a 'poisonous pedagogy,' which engenders a culture of obedience, this underlying theme of patriarchal systems.
John Bradshaw
#26. Love-that which biologists, nervous about being misunderstood call "attachment"-fuels the bond between dog and master or mistress.
John Bradshaw
#27. The more we know about how we lost our spontaneous wonder and creativity, the more we can find ways to get them back.
John Bradshaw
#28. I know from my own clinical work that when people are beaten and hurt, they numb out so that they can't feel anymore.
John Bradshaw
#29. In my family, as in all dysfunctional families, instead of parents who act as strong and nurturing role models for their children, you get these needy people who use their children. I was the kid who tried to take on the marriage.
John Bradshaw
#30. The figure of Satan and the fires of hell have been demythologized by modern Christian biblical scholars, theologians and philosophers.
John Bradshaw
#31. Virtue is an inner strength. It expands your nature.
John Bradshaw
#32. To truly be committed to a life of honesty, love and discipline, we must be willing to commit ourselves to reality.
John Bradshaw
#33. Many self-help books give you these neat, tidy formulas that are really illusions. They dupe people into thinking, 'Well if I can just do that, then everything's going to be okay.' My work differs in that I don't offer quick solutions and simple explanations.
John Bradshaw
#34. Children aren't fooled. They know we give time to the things we love.
John Bradshaw
#35. In 'Reclaiming Virtue,' I argue that we have had an element missing in moral education. That element is 'affect.' Affect is simply the technical word for feeling or emotion.
John Bradshaw
#36. Growing up means leaving home and becoming a self supporting adult. I think this the hardest task any human being hast to face.
John Bradshaw
#37. Our healthy shame is essential as the foundation of our spirituality. By reminding us of our essential limitations, our healthy shame lets us know that we are not God. Our healthy shame points us in the direction of some larger meaning. Our healthy shame is the psychological ground of our humility.
John Bradshaw
#38. When our instinctual life is shamed, the natural core of our life is bound up. It's like an acorn going through excruciating agony for becoming an oak, or a flower feeling ashamed for blossoming.
John Bradshaw
#39. Operant conditioning is not confined to deliberate training; it is one way that cats learn how to deal with whatever surroundings they find themselves in. Cats have not (yet) evolved to live in apartments; their instinctive behavior is still tuned to hunting in the open air.
John Bradshaw
#40. Evil is a source of moral intelligence in the sense that we need to learn from our shadow, from our dark side, in order to be good.
John Bradshaw
#41. In functional families the roles are chosen and are flexible. The members have the choice of giving up the roles. In dysfunctional families the roles are rigid.
John Bradshaw
#42. Science has so far been unable to tell us how self-aware dogs are, much less whether they have anything like our conscious thoughts. This is not surprising, since neither scientists nor philosophers can agree about what the consciousness of humans consists of, let alone that of animals.
John Bradshaw
#43. An immature parent with unresolved issues and repressed shame can also transfer his or her shame to us. This interpersonal transference of shame is referred to as induced shame.
John Bradshaw
#44. I have never met an aggressive person who wasn't a fearful person.
John Bradshaw
#45. To be shame-bound means that whenever you feel any feeling, need or drive, you immediately feel ashamed. The dynamic core of your human life is grounded in your feelings, needs and drives. When these are bound by shame, you are shamed to the core.
John Bradshaw
#46. The capacity for love that makes dogs such rewarding companions has a flip-side: They find it difficult to cope without us. Since we humans programmed this vulnerability, it's our responsibility to ensure that our dogs do not suffer as a result.
John Bradshaw
#47. Sam Keen points out that Zen masters spend years to reach an enlightenment that every natural child already knows - the total incarnation of sleeping when you're tired and eating when you're hungry. What irony that this state of Zen-like bliss is programmatically and systematically destroyed.
John Bradshaw
#48. The most paradoxical aspect of neurotic shame is that it is the core motivator of the superachieved and the underachieved, the star and the scapegoat, the righteous and the wretched, the powerful and the pathetic.
John Bradshaw
#49. Giving and receiving unconditional love is the most effective and powerful way to personal wholeness and happiness.
John Bradshaw
#50. The unlimited power that many modern gurus offer is false hope. Their programs calling us to unlimited power have made them rich, not us. They touch our false selves and tap our toxic shame.
John Bradshaw
#51. The idea of evil is always subject to denial as a coping mechanism.
John Bradshaw
#52. Condemning others as bad or sinful is a way to feel righteous. Such a feeling is a powerful mood alteration and can become highly addictive.
John Bradshaw
#53. It's essential to tell the truth at all times. This will reduce life's pain. Lying distorts reality. All forms of distorted thinking must be corrected.
John Bradshaw
#54. Hell, in my opinion, is never finding your true self and never living your own life or knowing who you are.
John Bradshaw
#55. Children need their parents' time and attention. Giving one's time is part of the work of love. It means being there for the child, attending to the child's needs rather than the parent's needs.
John Bradshaw
#56. Shame is internalized when one is abandoned. Abandonment is the precise term to describe how one loses one's authentic self and ceases to exist psychologically.
John Bradshaw
#57. The disowned part of self is an energy - an emotion or desire or need, that has been shamed every time it emerged. These energy patterns are repressed but not destroyed. They are alive in our unconscious.
John Bradshaw
#58. That's the trouble with the conventional doctors. They always say, 'How does it work?' but often there isn't any neat little answer ... Something simply works ... We don't really know how it works. We say we do. We know one or two things we can see and measure ...
John Bradshaw
#59. With the child already shame-based, the feeling of discouragement takes over the whole personality. As the shame-based child forms her primitive conscience, shame becomes immorality or neurotic guilt. The conforming child believes he can do nothing right,
John Bradshaw
#60. Children need parents who model self-discipline rather than preach it. They learn from what their parents are actually willing to do; not from what they say they do.
John Bradshaw
#61. Darwin knew that the mother of the blush was shame. For Darwin, shame defines our essential humanity. Silvan Tomkins views shame as an innate feeling that limits our experience of interest, curiosity and pleasure.
John Bradshaw
#62. As a child I was not allowed to express my feelings, so I had to go back through therapy and express the child's pain.
John Bradshaw
#63. It is a mark of soulfulness to be present in the here and now. When we are present, we are not fabricating inner movies. We are seeing what is before us.
John Bradshaw
#64. One is free from depression," writes Alice Miller in The Drama of the Gifted Child, "when self-esteem is based on the authenticity of one's own feelings and not on the possession of certain qualities.
John Bradshaw
#65. You can find more traditional Shakespeare than we do. But what we want to bring to these works is energy, passion, freshness.
John Bradshaw
#66. True love heals and affects spiritual growth. If we do not grow because of someone else's love, it's generally because it is a counterfeit form of love.
John Bradshaw
#67. Our beliefs create the kind of world we believe in. We project our feelings, thoughts and attitudes onto the world. I can create a different world by changing my belief about the world. Our inner state creates the outer and not vice versa.
John Bradshaw
#68. Children are natural Zen masters; their world is brand new in each and every moment.
John Bradshaw
#69. It's okay to make mistakes. Mistakes are our teachers - they help us to learn.
John Bradshaw
#70. DYNAMIC HOMEOSTASIS Dynamic homeostasis means that whenever a part of the system is out of balance, the rest of the members of the system will try to bring it back into balance.
John Bradshaw
#71. Children are curious and are risk takers. They have lots of courage. They venture out into a world that is immense and dangerous. A child initially trusts life and the processes of life.
John Bradshaw
#72. Anger is often blocked from conscious awareness and converted into more tolerable or family-authorized feelings, such as hurt or guilt. The person feeling anger no longer feels it; he feels the acceptable feeling.
John Bradshaw
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