Toxic Shame I met with her many times. Being chronically ill, she ended up in the hospital often. Regardless of what we started talking about – her health, her grandchildren, her attempts to find a place where she could be at home – we always ended up talking about shame. For most of her life, people who claimed to loved her behaved as if they hated her. They told her she was stupid, ugly, worthless, and hopeless. They beat her, they sabotaged her efforts to achieve, they denied her the right of personhood. According to them, she couldn’t do anything right. Certainly she couldn’t “be” right. Her burden of shame…
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The Enneagram and the Mother Within
Mothers on Display We were at the playground, my children running, sliding, and swinging, when I noticed shouting. At the wading pool, a girl of about twelve or thirteen sat, her shoulders hunched, her feet in the water. Thin hair hung across her shoulders. Her knees bulged from her emaciated legs. Beside her, an obese woman chastised her for hanging out in a pool for babies, but whenever the girl tried to stand, the woman pushed her back down. As the woman recited a list of sins the girl had committed and told her she was stupid and worthless, the child stared silently at her feet. The bullying was horrifying.…
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Self-Acceptance, Shame, Samson, and Grace
The Importance of Self-Acceptance Today we will discuss look at the importance of self-acceptance, for us as individuals and as a society. By self-acceptance, I mean not just that we like and are comfortable with ourselves, but that the self we accept be as close as possible to who we really are. Until we understand our true nature, we cannot be healthy, generous, or free. We cannot love or respect what we do not understand. Understanding ourselves has benefits beyond our own satisfaction, however, When we see and accept our own true self, we learn also to see, accept, love, and respect others. Thus self-acceptance is important for our communities.…