I found this video from my favorite psychiatrist and although it’s geared towards borderline personality disorder, it pertains to things everyone goes thru on some level. I thought I’d share it for those of you who struggle with this kind of thing. It’s less than 10 mins long and I got a lot out of it. I hope someone here does too. 
Thanks for the posting, Lizzy.
I’m not sure how different it is now, but when I was growing up, at least in the culture that surrounded me, shaming was the number one approach to behavior modification. There may also have been physical punishment or other form of penance, but shame was always part of it.
Around the 2 to 2 and half minute mark, he mentions “shame installments,” and for some, after feeling a self prescribed amount of shame, it was okay to resume normal life, or as he puts it emotional “homeostasis.”
I suspect the habit of self shaming is how many of us take over for our parents or other authorities who used shaming as a disciplinary tool. Often, I have heard self shaming equated with self-discipline.
I believe the effect of self shaming is often even more insidious than it seems, because it erodes confidence in the ability to change or improve. With self shaming comes a feeling of ineptitude. Even after doing the “shame installments,” subsequent periods of emotional homeostasis, will, at some level, integrate persistent feelings of ineptitude/inability to sustain positive change. Around the 9:40 mark, he makes a similar observation, stating that a person can’t feel bad enough to do good things. That’s why our association with shame needs to be undone.
Like a fish that doesn’t know that it’s wet, society doesn’t seem to know that it has marinated itself in pathologic shame.
Guilt and shame conveys the message, “you messed up. Don’t do it again.” Once that reality is accepted, it serves no useful purpose.
When people stubbornly refuse to admit mistakes, isn’t that fear of embarrassment or shame?
I totally understand what you’re saying. I grew up in the 70s and 80s and receiving those shame installments. Like my father saying more than once, “good” when I would say I was full or not hungry. I was a little over weight, so he was referring to the fact that I wasn’t going to put food in my mouth.
I can remember other times, but yeah you’re totally spot on with your thoughts.