Quotes from John Bradshaw

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.

Virtue is an inner strength. It expands your nature.

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.

We move from the illusion of certainty, to the certainty of illusion

Children are natural Zen masters; their world is brand new in each and every moment.

Healthy shame is an emotion that teaches us about our limits. Like all emotions, shame moves us to get our basic needs met.

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.

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.

The foundation for our self-image is grounded in the first three years of life. It comes from our major caretaker's mirroring.

It's okay to make mistakes. Mistakes are our teachers -- they help us to learn.

My brother Henry must heir the land, My brother Frank must be at his command; Whilst I, poor Jack, will do that That all the world will wonder at!

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.

To truly be committed to a life of honesty, love and discipline, we must be willing to commit ourselves to reality.

Hell, in my opinion, is never finding your true self and never living your own life or knowing who you are.

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.

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.

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.

The job of parents is to model. Modeling includes how to be a man or woman; how to relate intimately to another person; how to acknowledge and express emotions; how to fight fairly; how to have physical, emotional and intellectual boundaries; how to communicate; how to cope and survive life's unending problems; how to be self-disciplined; and how to love oneself and another. Shame-based parents cannot do any of these. They simply don't know how.

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.

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.

The feeling of righteousness is the core mood alteration among religious addicts. Religious addiction is a massive problem in our society. It may be the most pernicious of all addictions because it's so hard for a person to break his delusion and denial. How can anything be wrong with loving God and giving your life for good works and service to mankind?

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.

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.

Our sadness is an energy we discharge in order to heal. …Sadness is painful. We try to avoid it. Actually discharging sadness releases the energy involved in our emotional pain. To hold it in is to freeze the pain within us. The therapeutic slogan is that grieving is the 'healing feeling.'