The first one is when a child is born out of wedlock, often the mother feels tremendous shame. She feels embarrassed about her condition, and she carries with her a sense of shame that can be imparted, so that the child even from birth, feels shame around their life, something's wrong with me. I wasn't wanted, wasn't expected, there's something not right about me. So a person can grow up not even being aware, that this thing has been in them right from the core of their being, right from when they first began. The truth is, God always wanted you, and your birth was not a surprise to Him. The lie is: you were never wanted, and with that powerless to change that thing, the feelings of shame, something's wrong with me.
The second area of course is that of physical abuse. When people hit, or beat, or slap around a child or an adult, the person feels very vulnerable and they feel ashamed of themselves, feel ashamed of being weak and vulnerable. Physical abuse inevitably leads to shame and fear. It always does, so it's a major doorway into people's lives. Hitting, beating, especially if there's anger, strong anger, so many parents will discipline their child in anger, and the message the child gets, is not what you're trying to get them to get. The message the child gets, is there's something wrong with me, they're angry at me, and they don't even connect the behaviour very much to what you're saying or doing; they've picked up the anger and the way they're being disciplined, and they take on a message of shame. They feel humiliated and walk away, and they start to begin to get feelings and beliefs of shame around their life.
Another one is verbal abuse. Verbal abuse is a major one. Verbal abuse is where people begin to shame someone by calling them names: you're stupid, you're this or you're that, or where they call them a name - Big Ears. You're just Big Ears, so the child gets a name, and that name associated with something they're powerless to change, causes them to feel tremendous shame about a part of their body, so all of us at some stage would have experienced shaming, where it came from whatever source, over words spoken to us, name-calling, where you were called a name. Sometimes a nickname is given - it's rarely ever to your credit. It's usually a nickname that's derogatory and shaming, and when you take that on-board and allow yourself to be called by that, you've allowed that shaming to come upon your life - very hard to live differently then. You have a name, use your name. Don't let people put a nickname on you that's shaming to you, or highlights some lack in your life - so verbal abuse, name-calling, scolding, labelling, and constant criticism, constant belittling: you're so this, you never do this, or you're this.
See those kinds of statements speak in and cause the person to become ashamed of themselves, and shame gets around them, then they begin to internalise it, then they begin to feel that way right through life. No longer is the person abusing them, but they still feel like they're getting it everywhere they go, and they react angrily. Sexual abuse also causes people to feel tremendous shame. There's almost nothing like sexual abuse to cause a person to feel ashamed. Sexual abuse means they were exposed to seeing something they never wanted to see, hearing something they never wanted to hear, being touched in a way, or forced to do things that they never wanted to do. That causes the person to feel a deep sense of shame around their life. Tamar in the Bible, in 2 Samuel, was assaulted and sexually abused by her stepbrother or half brother, and she said: where shall I cause my shame to go from me? The Bible says: she was desolate. The shame came around her life, and she couldn't hold her head up, she just covered herself and hid, and could not function properly in life as a person, because of the way she had been shamed.
This is the horrendous thing about sexual abuse, is the shaming it brings around people, and the child or as an adult then becomes covered over. They can never enter into intimacy, because there's this deep shame that grips them, if you see what I'm really like, and what was really done, and what I was a part of, then you'll reject me. Sometimes, because of the way the child responds when they're being abused, they then feel even more ashamed about how they've responded in the abuse, and feel more guilty. Most times an abuser will put the blame on the innocent person, so they feel as though somehow it was all my fault. Now when you get some cultures where sexual abuse is extremely rife, and no one's saying or doing anything about it, then the whole culture becomes riddled with shame, the whole family becomes shame-based, because of the way it operates.