Shaming is not isolated to humans. An acquaintance has a five-year-old beagle who has an undesirable habit of urinating on the hardwood floor if not put outside on a timely basis. The dog has been trained entirely through rewards and only verbal shaming as punishment. But the effect of shaming can be quite profound. The dog knows that urinating inside the house is undesirable behavior and displeasing to the humans in the house, so the dog makes sure no one is watching when she goes. As an adult dog, she has never been caught in the act. One recent morning this acquaintance found the all too familiar puddle on the floor and turned to the dog right behind them, pointed to the puddle, and said, “No,” just, “No.” Not loud or even conveying much in the way of emotion, just enough to communicate displeasure. The response of the dog was rather extreme—tail between her legs and she wandered off to hide under the raised footrest of a recliner for a few minutes “until the coast was clear.” The acquaintance was a bit “taken aback” at the profound effect of a simple, “No.” This person does not shame the dog very often, and that may be one explanation for the exaggerated effect. What can Creator tell us?

We see this as a useful example of a disparity in awareness and understanding that leads to extremes of mistreatment and unhappiness out of frustration and an inability to truly solve a difference of opinion and perspective and make some kind of agreed-upon arrangement that will satisfy both parties. This has parallels in many situations among individuals involved in long-term relationships because, many times, likes and dislikes are poorly understood by the experiencer. They may be reacting to a karmic lesson revisiting them without any intellectual understanding of why they might suddenly take offense at something or feel threatened. They themselves might be conditioned by past trauma from childhood, for example, and even as an adult a similar situation leading to punishment and misery as a child may cause their adult self to overreact and dole out the same, or worse, to a perceived adversary who might step on a landmine of deep meaning for a perpetrator who has been wounded by life, without really understanding why they are perceived as a wrongdoer deserving of punishment. These kinds of misunderstandings are very commonplace, and this is because people simply do not understand their own emotions and their own inner beliefs. Many are outside of conscious awareness but will be honored and acted upon, regardless. Beliefs are the hardwiring; they are followed without focusing on them at all and even realizing consciously that is what a person is doing. The problem this creates is that without a true and often deep understanding that might be needed to put things in perspective, the frictions and discord that result from unmet expectations and the overstepping of invisible boundaries that seem perfectly clear to one party but to which the other is oblivious because it has never been defined, not being understood in the first place, there will be continued clashes and episodes of lashing out. And when the dissatisfied party stoops to using a shaming of their partner, it can be quite damaging, and this kind of chronic imbalance and mistreatment is often the way love relationships wither and lead to a breakup. This illustrates the problem is deeper than simply the painful episode of doling out and feeling shame by the parties involved.