Pursuant to yesterday's post on pity, this hit me like the smack of a dead, wet fish this morning:

http://femmedagger.com/2012/05/22/help-is-not-a-four-letter-word/At some point when I have the mental capacity, I'll try to give some thought to the difference between dependence, independence, and interdependence as I perceive them in the context of ( Read more... )

"Shame derives its power from being unspeakable... Shame hates having words wrapped around it."

Shame makes us voiceless.

"[...]Shame is the fear of disconnection-it's the fear that something we've done or failed to do, an ideal that we've not lived up to, or a goal that we've not accomplished makes us unworthy of connection. 'I'm not worthy or ( Read more... )

I cried myself to sleep last night for the first time in a while (I don't think the episode exacerbated the night terrors in any way; they remain reasonably consistent bed-mates more nights than not), and while the trigger is important for later contemplations it's largely irrelevant to this post ( Read more... )

Dropping this here for future reference:

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As I stumbled for better language to explain how shame stops us from feeling vulnerable and connected, I remembered my very favourite exchange from Harry Potter. "Do you remember when Harry was worried that he might be bad because he was angry all of the time and had dark feelings ( Read more... )

Some day, I hope to be able to tell which of the voices I'm learning to filter out in my head are mine, and which are those that have been living rent-free in this space for a lifetime. It took a long time to be able to discern the subtle difference between my Self and my weasels - which, while still a part of me, are short term wants ( Read more... )

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Both are things with which you do not wish to be smacked in the face at any time, let alone before 7am on a lovely mottled Sunday morning. But I've had Brené Brown's* most recent TedTalk about shame and vulnerability bookmarked in Chrome for a while now (it made the rounds of FB earlier this week, and perhaps understandably, I wasn't ready to ( Read more... )

Something a friend wrote earlier today sparked a thought that is the tip of a larger iceberg on the topic of the difference between feelings and thoughts (specifically, value judgments).

Also, today's Daily OM seems highly appropriate to the context: ( Read more... )

Today's Daily Om is as good a place to start this as any: ( Read more... )