Monday Mentoring Moments for Young Women

I write in the preface of my book, Helping Teen Moms Graduate: Strategies for Family, Schools, and Community Organizations—my book came out in 2023, and it won two book awards— I write in the preface that one of the two most pronounced feelings that surface when I think of my childhood is shame. I felt that I was not good enough. No one said anything. I just felt I wasn't good enough. And the source was my birthright. I was born to an unwed teenage mother. She was shamed and I inherited her toxic shame. I didn't quite understand toxic shame until I read John Bradshaw's book, Healing the Shame That Binds Us. John Bradshaw writes that toxic shame is first developed in the family system by way of three dynamics. This is what today's Monday mentoring moment is all about-- three ways that toxic shame is first developed in the family system.

Toxic shame. The feeling that you are not good enough is agonizing. It is excruciatingly painful. No one wants to admit that they don't feel good enough. So, what we do is we hide our shame. We cover it up. We wear a mask.This whole concept of hiding and covering up our shame goes back to Adam's fall in Genesis. Before the fall, he was not ashamed. After the fall, he was ashamed. And his immediate response was to hide and cover himself up. And it is the same with us today. We find ways to hide and cover up our toxic shame, and this is what today's Monday mentoring moment is all about. Three ways that we hide and cover our toxic shame.