Shame based – after 50 years in the business I have come to the conclusion that almost any system of personal growth, which prescribes a formula for personal development can carry a sub-text of shame. For example, follow our rules and life will work out for you. Don’t follow the rules your life will be troubled. If our formula doesn’t work for you, there is something wrong with you (shame) or the way you do it (guilt). If you don’t do the practices we recommend then you are at core, defective (shameful). Emphasis here is on prescribed rules. I met this phenomenon first with evangelical christians (believe in the saviour and your past sins will be cancelled and your future assured). So if your life became a disaster or your past caught up with you, clearly you didn’t believe. Then in my field the primal scream was touted as the one session ‘cure for neurosis’. All you had to do was one primal. Over time regular primals were the recommended. If it didn’t work, then there must be something wrong with you or you’re doing it wrong? I noticed the same pattern in some practitioners of Gestalt therapy, encounter groups, AA, everyday zen, the Hoffman process, path of love, and now with the proliferation of mindfulness practices, here it is again. Just do the practice and your life will flow more easily, suffering will be softer in your heart and your relationships will grow with you or they will wither as a result of following our rules. To be fair, wise practitioners who discourage dependency on the teachers & preachers and on these practices, know the cultural and religious origins of saving people from themselves, and of the dependency needs of the students & followers. They inoculate students from the cargo cult mentality that they might have brought with them, or that they might take on with the good medicine of those practices. However, it is rare in my experience that teachers and preachers recommend you kill a buddha if you meet one on the road. That’s a recommendation to confront the truth that you are enough, and exactly what you’re supposed to be.
