Bread of shame 1 is a term Kabbalah uses for a situation when someone receives and receives, with no means, no desire, or no opportunity to reciprocate or earn it.
Welfare recipients eat bread of shame.
Adult children who don’t pull their weight live on bread of shame
And I have had some opportunities for bread of shame…
Receiving bread of shame is often the perpetration in the perpetration-withhold dynamic.
You receive unearned benefits… and to compensate, you get angry and hate the giver. Nasty dynamic. Sinister.
A weird type of bread of shame, when two people exchange value, but both considers their contribution unappreciated, and then there is mutual hate. This is what happened between me and my previous chiropractor. There was an agreement that he treats me and I coach him, but he felt he gave more, I felt I gave more, neither of us felt appreciated: now we don’t talk.
And then there are the very rare cases, when one is lavishly giving, and the other one has the capacity, a DNA capacity, a spiritual capacity, to reciprocate the gift with becoming successful, by using the gift as an opportunity.
It has happened to me twice.
I have never seen anyone have this capacity… that doesn’t mean no one has it… but I don’t suppose it is a common capacity, even among people who have 40 capacities.
It is a very high consciousness capacity.
I first experienced its power in 1964, when my father had to bail me out, so I don’t get kicked out of the high school that didn’t want me. It was going to be the second school within a year, and accurately he saw that it was going to destroy me.
So he went way beyond the call of duty, and curried favor for the school beyond what is ethical or legal.
I was allowed to stay. I felt I needed to make it worth his while. We never spoke about it, but I went from third to last, to second from the top in my elite class.
I grew wings, that was the only appropriate reciprocation of the gift he bestowed upon me.
My father has been dead 24 years, and I still get tears in my eyes, tears of gratitude and appreciation.
The second time it happened is over this past weekend: someone gave me the opportunity to continue my work.
Instead of asking me to be grateful, she asked me to increase my efforts to make a living.
Not as a condition… I would have resented it, but as a gift… a second gift. The gift of being a witness to my life, to me generating myself, to me returning to flying… instead of just surviving.
Life has been giving you all it has given, and you have never thought that life wants you to reciprocate. The the way to stop eating bread of shame is to make something of yourself, to become worth a damn.
People give lip service to gratitude and appreciation, but no one has thought of saying:
You live on bread of shame, your heart is full of anger and hate, because you never earned what you have received.
But, of course, you can’t. Because the capacity, I guess, even to see how it works, is a high level capacity, and you don’t have it activated.
But at least you see why your life is full of anger at life, and maybe even hate…
Two of my students would be able to keep the capacity open…
Comment below if you are one of them, or if you see why life has been typical of “bread of shame.”
- Kabbalah teaching on Bread of Shame:
A deeper analysis of human nature, however, reveals that requiring work, toil and effort from man was an act of ultimate and perfect goodness by G?d. When a person invests effort, he earns his reward. Even when he has not exerted great effort, but has merely pleased another person, the other might be moved to give him a gift. But in a case when even this factor of pleasing another is absent, and he receives a totally gratuitous handout, purely as a donation — this is “bread of shame” that does not satisfy, but distresses.
Make no mistake — nothing is free in this world. Nothing. We either pay now or we pay later with some form of chaos in our life. Nothing is free. Bread of Shame is a fundamental Kabbalistic concept and it is a fact and law of this universe. Bread of Shame means we receive nothing in this physical dimensions known as planet earth without earning it. Why? Because we, the souls of humanity, told the Creator we want to earn and become the very cause and creators of the fulfillment we receive. You see, there is something far more profound and infinitely greater than having endless paradise. What is that? It’s creating and becoming the cause of the paradise that we are experiencing — instead of having it handed to us for free.
… the Light loves us and gives to us unconditionally and it does create Bread of Shame, but that will never stop. The focus of the Light is not on itself, but to share. It is our responsibility to engage in restriction, sharing, and being loving so we can earn what is given to us continuously. Therefore, part of this process is to be “a Light-like being.”
The act of loving unconditionally is more important for us than the recipient. In acting like the Light we earn the connection with it. Many times, when you give or love unconditionally, it shines so brightly that it gives the other person the inspiration to become part of that as well. Generally, with spiritual work we should always focus on our own work and less on the work of another person.
Yes. definitely. the proof would be to check for affinity. My assertion is that what would be there is hate and resentment. And that always accompanies bread of shame.
Great question, Peter.
could bread of shame fall under actions to gain something from others by pretending to be their friends. An example would be. Make friends with people that are in areas of interests such as a hair stylist or veterinarian, etc to gain a discount from them. The intention is to gain something from another that you did not earn and your intention to be their friend is to gain something from them. Would this also fall under bread of shame?
Honestly, no one cares for a thank you. It reduces life to a mercantile, commercial, deal making paradigm, very low vibration.
No, what you get, you get to use, to blossom, to flourish.
The only thank you a parent wants is you making something of yourself, like you are.
Any child that isn’t, communicating that they want to punish the parent. All the parent needs to know that you turned out and their genetic investment in you paid off.
I might start by saying thank you to my parents, and being grateful. Let’s work on the rest.
Finding a way to see it as a debt, but one that I use to push myself forward into real achievement, and not one I use to anchor me in place.
so what can you do to complete the past and start with a debt you are willing to pay?
yes. as long as you don’t have a mile long lies behind you.
So the truth is you haven’t… and you will.
Sophie, it seems I have a deeply hidden anger toward my mother. Asked to explain it, I would say it was that she didn’t properly prepare me for life by overprotecting me, and by not “pushing me out of tre nest.”
Well, I’m ashamed of that attitude, as well as not having made good on the generous investment my parents made in me. It’s an unspoken unpaid debt. My return on that investment has been chiefly in not killing myself. It’s a low level of gratitude. The anger covers up my shame.
That’s true, I didn’t. But I also didn’t see them as incentive, only as a reminder of my unworthiness, I guess.
But now that I see it, I can start earning it. Every moment is new, right?
the question is: did you? or it was just an incentive and encouragement?
I can see the mechanism, Sophie, though it’s not 100%. It seems like this makes for an enormous part of my and other people’s misery.
What I took away from this article is a new way of relating to gifts received… I’ve always had the feeling that I didn’t earn them. Instead I could consider them an incentive and encouragement to becoming worth a damn.
I see the withhold now.I cease to be lazy and live on parents welfare.