Top 70 John Bradshaw Quotes (2024 Update)

1. “It’s okay to make mistakes. Mistakes are our teachers – they help us to learn.”

— John Bradshaw

2. “We cannot heal what we cannot feel.”

— John Bradshaw

3. “I believe that this neglected, wounded, inner child of the past is the major source of human misery.”

— John Bradshaw

4. “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

5. “We move from the illusion of certainty, to the certainty of illusion.”

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

— John Bradshaw

8. “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

9. “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

10. “All these feelings need to be felt. We need to stomp and storm; to sob and cry; to perspire and tremble.”

— John Bradshaw

11. “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

12. “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

13. “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

14. “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

15. “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

16. “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

17. “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

18. “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

19. “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

20. “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

21. “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

22. “I know from my own clinical work that when people are beaten and hurt, they numb out so that they cant feel anymore.”

— John Bradshaw

23. “Shame is the root of all addictions.”

— John Bradshaw

24. “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

25. “Virtue is an inner strength. It expands your nature.”

— John Bradshaw

26. “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

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

— John Bradshaw

28. “When you learn how to re-parent yourself, you will stop attempting to complete the past by setting up others to be your parents.”

— John Bradshaw

29. “Chronically dysfunctioning families are also delusional. Delusion is sincere denial.”

— John Bradshaw

30. “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

31. “Most people have a way to go in terms of developing intimacy and connecting skills when they get married or enter a long-term relationship. But the great thing about a committed relationship is that the relationship itself is a form of therapy. If both partners are committed, most of their differences can be worked out and even appreciated. Shame as the root feeling of humility allows each partner to appreciate and accept the other’s foibles and idiosyncrasies.”

— John Bradshaw

32. “Children aren’t fooled. They know we give time to the things we love.”

— John Bradshaw

33. “Healthy shame is the basic metaphysical boundary for human beings. It is the emotional energy that signals us that we are not God – that we will make mistakes, that we need help. Healthy shame gives us permission to be human.”

— John Bradshaw

34. “I could not heal my being with my doing. To be who I am is all that matters.”

— John Bradshaw

35. “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

36. “Much has been written about codependency. All agree that it is about the loss of selfhood. Codependency is a condition wherein one has no inner life. Happiness is on the outside. Good feelings and self-validation lie on the outside. They can never be generated from within.”

— John Bradshaw

37. “Where are you, Adam? According to the book of Genesis, Adam went into hiding after the fall. By trying to be more than human, Adam felt less than human. Before the fall, Adam was not ashamed; after the fall he was. Toxic shame is true agony. It is a pain felt from the inside, in the core of our being. It is excruciatingly painful.”

— John Bradshaw

38. “Most people who have survived abuse have great strength.”

— John Bradshaw

39. “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

40. “The wounded inner child contaminates intimacy in relationships because he has no sense of his authentic self. The greatest wound a child can receive is the rejection of his authentic self. When a parent cannot affirm his child’s feelings, needs, and desires, he rejects that child’s authentic self. Then, a false self must be set up.”

— John Bradshaw

41. “There is also enmeshment and boundary confusion between the daughter and mother. The daughter is often carrying the mother’s repressed anger and sadness about the father. This feels overwhelming since these are deeply repressed emotions. Therefore, to starve and avoid eating is a protection against feeling these overwhelming emotions.”

— John Bradshaw

42. “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

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

— John Bradshaw

44. “Eating disorders. You don’t know when you feel empty or hungry. You eat to fill up. You eat to feel full.”

— John Bradshaw

45. “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

46. “PERFECTIONISM Perfectionism is a family system rule and a core culprit in creating toxic shame. We see it also in both the religious and cultural systems. Perfectionism denies healthy shame. It does so by assuming we can be perfect. Such an assumption denies our human finitude because it denies the fact that we are essentially limited. Perfectionism denies that we will often make mistakes.”

— John Bradshaw

47. “Playing roles and acting are forms of lying. If a person acts like they really feel and it rocks the boat, they are ostracized. We promote pretense and lying as a cultural way of life. Living this way causes an inner split. It teaches us to hide and cover up our toxic shame. This sends us deeper into isolation and loneliness.”

— John Bradshaw

48. “There is an absolutist quality to rage. Being angry all the time and overreacting to little things may be a sign that there is a deeper rage that needs to be worked on.”

— John Bradshaw

49. “Intimacy requires vulnerability and a lack of defensiveness. Intimacy requires healthy shame.”

— John Bradshaw

50. “The shared secret and the shared denial are the most horrible aspects of incest.”

— John Bradshaw