Shame

One of the primary obstacles to a healthy loving attitude to self and a growth in self-love is the presence of shame within us. Shame is that emotion that comes to be when, in our formative years, our true self, with all its natural emotions and needs, met with disapproval, criticism and rejection. Shame is the inner response of the child to the experience of emotional abandonment (that is, significant others withdrawing or detaching from us when they don't like aspects of our true selves).The child internalises the experience of disapproval and abandonment as a comment on himself. He experiences himself as not good enough to be regarded unconditionally. His potential experience of his basic goodness is replaced by the experience of shame toward self.