Welcome to the Daily Dad podcast, where we provide one lesson every single day to help you with your most important job, being a parent.

I'm Ryan Holiday, and I draw these lessons from ancient philosophy, modern psychology, practical wisdom, and insights from

parents just like you all over the world. Thank you for listening, and we hope this helps.

Don't give them this. The biggest impediment to happiness in life, something that many of us

picked up very early in our lives. It's not a virus or a disease. It's not a bad habit or bad

luck. It's much simpler and sneakier than that. It's something that gets in the way of enjoying

so many of life's wonderful features,

from sex to food, to trying new things, to losing yourself in the rhythm of music. It's shame.

Shame is guilt's evil twin. Where guilt is feeling bad about things you've done, shame is

feeling bad for who you are, for things about yourself that you don't

control, having normal biological urges, being uncoordinated, having unique artistic tastes,

struggling with social cues, having a limited palate or an extremely adventurous one.

There's almost no limit to the things about ourselves that we are capable of

feeling shame over. What's so tragic about shame, though, is that it doesn't come naturally. Watch an

innocent child play intently with their food or pretend completely to be a princess or a dragon.

There isn't a whisper of shame to be heard, because they haven't yet been made to feel ashamed about

those things. Shame is inherited. It's passed along so easily and so often by parents on the

back of cutting remarks, unnecessary judgments, and thoughtless choices. We've all experienced our

own version of this as kids ourselves, who hasn't had a parent

say offhandedly or out of anxiety or out of frustration, things like, don't be a clutz or don't embarrass

me. Can you just be normal? Don't wear that. It makes you look, whatever. What's so sad is that if you

were to talk to your parents about those things, they said to you and that planted those seeds of shame, they would likely look at you like you have two heads. They tell you they love you and always wanted nothing but the best for you, and they're not lying. They're just blind to the fact that in all their efforts to bury or overcame the shame that they grew up with, they managed to pass it along

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