“Compassionate people ask for what they need. They say no when they need to, and when they say yes, they mean it. They’re compassionate because their boundaries keep them out of resentment.”
God I love Brené Brown! She’s sassy and funny and smart. And 23 years clean and sober to top it all off. During a recent interview, Brené Brown and Russel Brand discussed sobriety, vulnerability and compassion among other things. And one of the things that surprised me most was what her research taught her about compassion. When she asked Russel what he thought the most compassionate people had common, I paused the video, I wanted to guess. I guessed empathy, self-love, self-compassion — that all made sense to me. But her research showed that when they analysed the data about what the most compassionate people that they had interviewed had in common, there was one variable that they shared:
Boundaries of steel.
Very compassionate people who were interviewed repeatedly said:
I’m compassionate because I do not subject myself to the abuse of other people.
From this research, Brown and her colleagues developed the idea of BIG:
“What Boundaries need to be in place so that I can be in my Integrity and be Generous toward you”
Wow — I don’t know about you, but from a young age, I learned to people-please; I learned to say yes even when I didn’t want to do something; I learned to smile and laugh things off even when they hurt; I learned to ‘go with the flow and not make waves and get along with people.’ I certainly did not learn to say no.
Most of us who grew up in chaotic and abusive homes learned to survive and/or escape by doing whatever it took, I learned to be a people pleaser and to numb the pain of losing myself.
“We do that by numbing the pain with whatever provides the quickest relief. We can take the edge off emotional pain with a whole bunch of stuff, including alcohol, drugs, food, sex, relationships, money, work, caretaking, gambling, affairs, religion, chaos, shopping, planning, perfectionism, constant change, and the Internet. And just so we don’t miss it in this long list of all the ways we can numb ourselves, there’s always staying busy: living so hard and fast that the truths of our lives can’t catch up with us. We fill every ounce of white space with something so there’s no room or time for emotion to make itself known.” — Brené Brown
It was only when the pain got too much and the numbing out didn’t work anymore that I started to do my own work and learn about boundaries. I learned about boundaries in recovery rooms and in therapy rooms and by reading a lot of books!
Brené Brown’s books have all been instrumental in my healing journey. I love her Ten Guideposts for Whole Hearted Living from Rising Strong:
1. Cultivating authenticity: letting go of what people think
2. Cultivating self-compassion: letting go of perfectionism
3. Cultivating a resilient spirit: letting go of numbing and powerlessness
4. Cultivating gratitude and joy: letting go of scarcity and fear of the dark
5. Cultivating intuition and trusting faith: letting go of the need for certainty
6. Cultivating creativity: letting go of comparison
7. Cultivating play and rest: letting go of exhaustion as a status symbol and productivity as self-worth
8. Cultivating calm and stillness: letting go of anxiety as a lifestyle
9. Cultivating meaningful work: letting go of self-doubt and “supposed to”
10. Cultivating laughter, song, and dance: letting go of being cool and “always in control”
And I would add to this:
Cultivating boundaries of steel: letting go of people pleasing and resentment, and developing compassion.
In my on-going desire to grow and be the best person I can be, again I turn to Rising Strong, and take this list to heart. I strive to cultivate these traits:
Boundaries — I create clear boundaries and will respect your boundaries; and when I’m not clear about what’s okay and not okay, I’ll ask. And I’m willing to say no.
Reliability — I’ll do what I say I will do. I will be aware of my competencies and limitations so I don’t overpromise and am able to deliver on commitments and balance competing priorities.
Accountability — I own my mistakes, apologize, and make amends.
Vault — I don’t share information or experiences that are not mine to share. I need to know that my confidences are kept, and that others are not sharing with me any information about other people that should be confidential.
Integrity — I choose courage over comfort. I choose what is right over what is fun, fast, or easy. And I choose to practice my values rather than simply profess them.
Non-judgment — I can ask for what I need, and you can ask for what you need. We can talk about how we feel without judgment.
Generosity — I extend the most generous interpretation possible to the intentions, words, and actions of others.
That’s a potent list, and I know it’s a matter of progress not perfection. I will keep cultivating these traits. And for today, I will choose to be compassionate. And that might mean that I say no, and that might mean that someone is less than pleased with me. And that’s OK.
I’ll Close with that incredible interview between Russel Brand and Brené Brown. Take time to watch it, it’s really great!
I’d love to hear about how you set and keep boundaries, and does it help you stay more compassionate?
And as always, thank you for taking the time to visit. I appreciate it.
I heard in a meeting once that getting sober and staying sober is one of the most rebellious things you can do in an addictive society. I like that, I like to think of myself as a rebel, I always have.
Last week, someone messaged me on my blog site and asked me about my ‘back story.’ Thank you for asking. I really enjoy being around curious people. So I looked back over the past several years of blog writing and I realized I haven’t really talked much about who I am and why I’m here writing. So I decided to take the plunge and give my ‘back story’. It’s rather long, and it feels sort of self-indulgent to write it out. I’ll try to keep it succinct, but I can’t guarantee it. Feel free to jump to the end if you get bored.
Most of the people who know me well, know that I don’t drink, that it’s a choice I made many years ago. Being sober isn’t ALL that I am, but it’s a very important piece of who I am. I made the choice for all the right reasons, but it’s not a straight-forward story.
I grew up in a chaotic home, with an alcoholic mother and father. My mother was the identified alcoholic, because she drank at home and got drunk and looked sloppy. My father looked good, drove a good car, had a good job, and also drank a lot, but functioned well. Both were alcoholics, both hugely impacted my childhood obviously. I remember every holiday had massive amounts of booze, family members drank, got drunk, and there was inevitably someone locked in the bathroom crying. There weren’t huge fights often, although they certainly happened. Mostly the drama was sadness, my mother listening to opera records in the kitchen crying, while the ironing piled up next to the ironing board that was always out. The curtains stayed shut at our house, the house remained in perpetual dimness. That’s my memory.
When I was 12 and my sister was 16, my father decided that he didn’t want to live in that dim house anymore and he took off; it was the day before Christmas Eve. The pain was immense. And it became our secret. My mother made us vow not to tell anyone that he had left, it was too shameful. So my sister and I added another shameful secret to our repertoire. Don’t invite friends home; they might see our mother drunk; they might notice our father gone.
I learned early on that booze numbed the pain and helped deal with the shame. I was about 13 the first time I drank and got drunk. It was pretty inevitable. I drank, I felt cool and rebellious and comfortable in my skin. My memories of high school weekends all involve alcohol, usually of me getting sick and passing out somewhere, wherever we were drinking. Somehow I always made it home, often not remembering how.
Then at 16, my world collapsed. My mother died of alcoholism. I didn’t know how I was supposed to carry on. That period is hazy, I remember drinking a lot and smoking a lot of pot. The pain was too big. I didn’t believe there was any alternative but to numb it out.
Fast forward through high school and college, partying a lot, somehow surviving and graduating. The day after graduating from high school, I moved away for the summer and partied most days. And soon after graduating from college, I left CA to drive across country, staying in campsites across the country, always ending the day with a 6 pack of beer. Eventually I moved up to Juneau, Alaska and became a bartender at The Red Dog Saloon, a kid in a candy shop. There was always plenty of booze and the added elixir of cocaine now became prevalent. It felt fun, dangerous, outrageous and oh so rebellious . . . until it didn’t . . . and then it felt scary and like a trap. I remember thinking to myself, if I continue down this path, I am going to die here, either in a car crash or just burning my body out. I remember so clearly imagining standing at a crossroads and having to make a decision: Stay here and continue this life style or get out. Luckily I had the option, an invitation from Jeff, (my friend then who later became my husband) to go travel. So I packed up and left.
We spent the next 4 years travelling and working around Asia and the South Pacific. When we returned to the US in 1987, I started drinking heavily again. And I got scared. Interestingly, it was an astrologist who confronted me. I went to see an astrologist in Ashland, Oregon where we were living at the time to get my chart done. She pointed to an area in my chart and said: “Looks like a lot of addiction in your system” – and I said yeah, my mother died of alcoholism; and she said, yeah but there’s more here, and I said yeah my father is also an alcoholic and she looked me in the eye and said: “Yeah but this looks personal… Are you an alcoholic?” Boom! I collapsed in her little room and sobbed. Confronted, the shame was aired, the secret was out, I couldn’t hide.
That same day as the reading, Jeff and I were driving to Tucson, AZ for Jeff to finish his BA. We got to Tucson in January 1988. Two days before my 30th birthday, I went to my first AA meeting. I walked into a woman’s meeting and I felt love, acceptance and at home. Grateful beyond measure.
I’d love to say I’ve been sober and happy ever since, but as I said earlier, it’s not that straight-forward. I wanted to stay sober because Jeff didn’t like being around me when I was drunk… fair enough, neither did I. And I was committed to being sober for the children that Jeff and I were planning to have; I was fiercely determined not to be my mother.
In 1989, Jeff and I got married, we had a sober wedding; it was beautiful. In 1992, we moved to New Zealand, Jeff got a job teaching and we decided NZ would be a wonderful place to raise a family. We had our two sons in a small town in NZ on the coast of The Coromandel Peninsula. Life was good, I felt content.
I found a very small AA community in our small town and went to meetings. I do not want in anyway to blame anyone in that community… but I began to feel estranged, I felt like I did not belong. It was so different from my women’s meeting in Tucson. It was mostly old men in the rooms, and most of them did not want to talk about emotional sobriety, or talk about much else besides ‘Just don’t pick up and go to meetings!’ When I did talk about feelings and discomfort and didn’t respond well to ‘Just don’t pick up and go to meetings’ – I felt bullied and quit going to meetings. It was about that time that both boys were in school, and my full time motherhood role was diminished. And the social scene I found myself in often consisted of wine on the deck of one of the mother’s houses, while the kids played outside. The wine was alluring, the scene was cool and I felt like I didn’t belong with the sober people in town.
I was also feeling strongly that I understood my drinking habits, that I understood the underlying causes . . . I had done A LOT of therapy at that point!
So in 2000, after 12 years of sobriety, I decided that I could drink a bit and I’d be fine. I made deals with myself; I could have 2 glasses of wine on the deck with the other mothers, but no more. I could have 2 beers at the pizza party with the other families but not more. I was fastidiously ‘controlling’ my drinking behaviour . . . until I wasn’t. After several years, I was hiding how much I was drinking, making sure no one noticed when I refilled my glass, hiding wine bottles at the bottom of recycling, lying to people about how much I was drinking on a regular basis. I wasn’t drinking every day, I wasn’t getting in trouble, I lied about it being all under control, but mostly I was lying to myself and I knew it.
In 2014, just before my youngest son left for college, I had this thought in my head: “Once the kids are out of the house, I can drink as much as I want to!” and I knew that was really sick thinking, terrifying. I journalled and thought about where I was, who I was and who I wanted to be. I wrote about being My Best Self . . . and realized that that best version of myself did not include alcohol. So on the first of November 2014, I gave up alcohol again, this time, hopefully, for good.
And what I’ve come to realize about my sobriety this time is that I have decided not to drink anymore for ME. Not because I want to be a good mother, although obviously that plays into the decision hugely, I do want to be a good mother to my sons. And my decision to not drink was not made to hang on to my husband, although Jeff has said many times that he likes me a lot more when I’m not drinking. No the decision not to drink came because I want to like me, I want to be proud of me, I want to feel good about myself. I was ready …
And I believe that this is an act of rebellion in this day and age.
Just check out the social media groups: Moms Who Need Wine have over 700K likes; Mommy needs a beer over 990K likes; Women and Wine; Women & Wine; Wine Women – several hundred thousand likes, and Mommy Needs Vodka over 3.5 million likes.
Search online, and you’ll find hundreds of memes that joke about why women need a drink to get through the day or week — whether it’s related to their kids or their job. There’s an endless supply of products around this topic — like wine glasses emblazoned with the words “Mommy’s Little Helper.” A Facebook group called “Moms Who Need Wine” has more than 700,000 members. And #WineWednesday is often a trending topic on Twitter by midweek.
After that rebellious decision to quit drinking, I knew I needed to find like-minded people. I joined quite a few ‘sober communities’ online, but I didn’t want to return to the AA rooms here in my small town. But then a wonderful thing happened; I saw a couple my own age that I recognized from past times in the recovery community here. I approached the woman and asked if she was still in recovery and she said yes. And to make a long story a bit less long, we created our own meeting, focusing on emotional sobriety, free of bullying and open to anyone wanting to deal with any kind of addiction. We follow the tenets of NA, but are open to everyone dealing with any addiction. We are focused on love and openness and community.
I guess I did not ‘come out’ completely before now because I am in a small town and it feels like a big deal to lay it all out there. But what I have found, is that almost every time I talk about my recovery and choosing not to drink, someone asks me more about it, and often people reach out to me for help. And that feels important. And I guess with all the ‘sober influencers’ now, it feels safer to ‘come out’ – Instagram Hashtags like: #SoberCurious, #SoberLife, #SoberAF, and #SoberIsSexy are becoming common in the social media universe. Celebrities are coming out as sober; people are talking about it as a sane choice in an insane world. My mentors like Brené Brown are celebrating their sobriety publically.
Quotes like this one from Mary Karr are found popping up:
“When I got sober, I thought giving up [alcohol] was saying goodbye to all the fun and all the sparkle, and it turned out to be just the opposite. That’s when the sparkle started for me.”
So I decided to ‘come out’. The Instagram Influencers and celebrities made it a bit less intimidating, but to be honest, I really believe that this lifestyle that I’ve chosen is rebellious as hell! To choose not to drink and use in a society where drinking and using is pushed on us continuously feels like a very rebellious act, and as I said I’m Patti and I’m a Rebel.
3) How and why can people learn to lead happier and more flourishing lives?
Professor Lyubomirsky runs a Positive Psychology Lab at University of California, Riverside, and studies people who are happy. After hundreds of hours studying what makes people happy, she has compiled a list of the 6 major components leading to happiness:
Be grateful – Gratitude evokes positive feelings
Look on the bright side – optimism maintains a sunnier disposition. Lyubomirsky explains:
“My students and I have found that truly happy individuals construe life events and daily situations in ways that seem to maintain their happiness, while unhappy individuals construe experiences in ways that seem to reinforce unhappiness.”
Savor the moment – Savoring positive moments offsets our negativity bias
Exercise – Exercise releases chemicals that lead to positive feelings
Meditate – Less stress, more happiness
Cultivate Relationships – Positive Social Connections are considered by many as the most important factor in well-being.
First of all, what is positive social connection?
Brené Brown does it beautifully:
“I define connection as the energy that exists between people when they feel seen, heard, and valued; when they can give and receive without judgment; and when they derive sustenance and strength from the relationship.”
Recent research shows that people with good social connections are not only happier overall, but live longer than those with poor social connections.
The probability of dying early is 20% higher for obese people, 30% higher for excessive drinkers, 50% higher for smokers… but an incredible 70% higher for people with poor social relationships.
Throughout our lives we long to love ourselves more deeply and to feel connected with others. Instead, we often contract, fear intimacy, and suffer a bewildering sense of separation. We crave love, and yet we are lonely. Our delusion of being separate from one another, of being apart from all that is around us, gives rise to all of this pain.
This contraction and fear that Salzberg describes can often be linked back to infancy, and even pre-natal trauma. In a wonderful interview, Diane Poole Heller explains how we are designed for connection but how experiences in infancy and childhood can cause disconnection. Heller describes the impact of Attachment Trauma and Developmental Trauma:
In terms of the original blueprint that we’ve received, attachment patterns can be described as an unconscious blueprint that is in our body memory.
The ideal patterning is Secure Attachment:
Secure Attachment would be a positive holding environment. That means that people around you are attuned to you. They get a sense of what your needs are. Really attuned parents can eventually understand a baby’s needs, but it’s hanging in there long enough with somebody to get to the real need. And often, good mothers just naturally do that. They just have a sense about it, or they learn it as they’re having an on-going relationship with their children. And most important, of course, in all of our life and all of our situations, it’s to show up and be present. For a Secure Attachment, there is this consistent responsiveness.
According to Heller, only 40% – 50% of us have Secure Attachment patterning. The rest of us however, must learn to overcome Insecure Attachment patterns: Ambivalent, Avoidant and Disorganized.
Very briefly –
Avoidant patterning occurs in an environment that is highly neglectful – this Avoidant patterning can lead to a person disconnecting, dissociating and isolating.
Ambivalent patterning occurs in an environment that is characterized by inconsistency – parents who are full-on at times and not available at all other times. It creates a lot of anxiety because there is no predictability. Ambivalent patterning can lead to a person becoming clingy and fearful.
Disorganized patterning occurs when a child feels threatened, when a child feels a lot of fear and/or anger in response to the way a parent treats them. This often occurs when there is addiction, violence and chaos in a family. Disorganized patterning can lead to hyper-vigilance and/or immobilization and isolation.
(For a full description of these disorders, check out Diane Poole Heller’s website or read more about them in this article on Daily Good.)
Our lack of positive social connection can quite often be traced back to one of these patterning disorders. But there is hope. Heller describes models of trauma resolution and integrative healing techniques. She has even developed her own training series on adult attachment that she calls DARe, Dynamic Attachment Re-patterning experience which she describes in her new book called The Power of Attachment: How to Create Deep and Lasting Intimate Relationships.
Heller describes a simple exercise that can help with re-patterning. This practice originated with Patti Elledge’s Beam Gleam, Heller calls it her “Kind Eyes Exercise.”
Imagine that you’re looking out into the world, and there are kind, loving eyes looking back at you. This can be completely imaginary, or maybe you’ve seen a picture of the Dalai Lama looking beautifully compassionate, or even a picture from your history, one of your family members or your dog or a friend or even a stranger, but that has that “beam gleam” in their eyes that says, “I accept you. I care about you.” It’s kind of like in the olden days, when you used to surprise people at their homes, and drop something off, like a… I don’t know… banana nut bread or something. The person would open the door and go, “Oh my gosh! It’s you. Wow, I’m so glad you’re here,” and you just see them light up when they unexpectedly see you at their door. That would be a ‘beam gleam.’ That would be, you’re totally welcome. You feel completely loved by that person. You feel like they’re happy to see you, and that’s what we’re hoping to stimulate, just in eye contact.
That description is an example of a simple exercise to work on excavating old patterning and re-patterning Secure Attachment. Of course re-patterning takes time, commitment, energy, and usually a good therapist. But if this will lead to positive social connections, and if these connections are one of the main keys to well-being and possibly a longer life, isn’t it worth it?
I’ll Close with a wonderful TED Talk entitled the Power and Science of Social Connection. It’s an informative and interesting talk.
I’d love to hear about how you stay connected to others. And as always, thank you for taking the time to visit. I appreciate it.
“Shame is a soul eating emotion.”
― Carl Gustav Jung
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I read the most amazing article/column and I want to share it with you all. It touched me deeply.
No matter how you look at it, shame is absolutely soul destroying!
I feel like a ghost. I’m a 35-year-old woman, and I have nothing to show for it. My 20s and early 30s have been a twisting crisscross of moves all over the West Coast, a couple of brief stints abroad, multiple jobs in a mediocre role with no real upward track. I was also the poster child for serial monogamy. My most hopeful and longest lasting relationship (three and a half years, whoopee) ended two years ago. We moved to a new town (my fourth new city), created a home together, and then nose-dived into a traumatic breakup that launched me to my fifth and current city and who-knows-what-number job.
For all these years of quick changes and rash decisions, which I once rationalized as adventurous, exploratory, and living an “original life,” I have nothing to show for it. I have no wealth, and I’m now saddled with enough debt from all of my moves, poor decisions, and lack of career drive that I may never be able to retire. I have no career milestones and don’t care for my line of work all that much anyway, but now it’s my lifeline, as I only have enough savings to buy a hotel room for two nights. I have no family nearby, no long-term relationship built on years of mutual growth and shared experiences, no children. While I make friends easily, I’ve left most of my friends behind in each city I’ve moved from while they’ve continued to grow deep roots: marriages, homeownership, career growth, community, families, children. I have a few close girlfriends, for which I am grateful, but life keeps getting busier and our conversations are now months apart. Most of my nights are spent alone with my cat (cue the cliché).
I used to consider myself creative — a good writer, poetic, passionate, curious. Now, after many years of demanding yet uninspiring jobs, multiple heartbreaks, move after move, financial woes, I’m quite frankly exhausted. I can barely remember to buy dish soap let alone contemplate humanity or be inspired by Anaïs Nin’s diaries. Honestly, I find artists offensive because I’m jealous and don’t understand how I landed this far away from myself.
Also, within the past year I’ve had a breast-cancer scare and required surgery on my uterus due to a fertility issue. On top of that, I’m 35 and every gyno and women’s-health website this side of the Mississippi is telling me my fertility is dropping faster than a piano falling out of the sky. Now I’m looking into freezing my eggs, adding to my never-ending financial burden, in hopes of possibly making something of this haunted house and having a family someday with a no-named man.
I’m trying, Polly. I am. I’m dating. I’m working out and working hard. Listening to music I enjoy and loving my cat. Calling my mom. Yet I truly feel like a ghost. No one knows who I am or where I’ve been. I haven’t kept a friend, lover, or foe around long enough to give anyone a chance. What’s the point? I don’t care for my job. I’m not building toward anything, and I don’t have the time or money to really invest in what I care about anyway at this point. On top of that, society is telling me my value as a woman is fading fast, my wrinkles require Botox (reference said poor finances), all the while my manager is asking for me to finish “that report by Monday.” Why bother?
My apathy is coming out in weird ways. I’m drinking too much, and when I do see my friends on occasion, I end up getting drunk and angry or sad or both and pushing them away. And with men I date, I feel pressure to make something of the relationship too soon (move in, get married, “I have to have kids in a couple of years”; fun times!). All the while still trying to be the sexpot 25-year-old I thought I was until what seemed like a moment ago.
I used to think I was the one who had it all figured out. Adventurous life in the city! Traveling the world! Making memories! Now I feel incredibly hollow. And foolish. How can I make a future for myself that I can get excited about out of these wasted years? What reserves or identity can I draw from when I feel like I’ve accrued nothing up to this point with my life choices?
Haunted
Dear Haunted,
Art isn’t something you need an outside license or a paycheck to pursue. It’s a way of life. It’s a way of adding up what you feel and where you’ve been and what you fear and what you can imagine. It’s a way of seeing your life through a lens that makes everything — good and bad, confusing and clarifying, uplifting and depressing — valuable.
Shame is the opposite of art. When you live inside of your shame, everything you see is inadequate and embarrassing. A lifetime of traveling and having adventures and not being tethered to long-term commitments looks empty and pathetic and foolish, through the lens of shame. You haven’t found a partner. Your face is aging. Your body will only grow weaker. Your mind is less elastic. Your time is running out. Shame turns every emotion into the manifestation of some personality flaw, every casual choice into a giant mistake, every small blunder into a moral failure. Shame means that you’re damned and you’ve accomplished nothing and it’s all downhill from here.
You need to discard some of this shame you’re carrying around all the time. But even if you can’t cast off your shame that quickly, through the lens of art, shame becomes valuable. When you’re curious about your shame instead of afraid of it, you can see the true texture of the day and the richness of the moment, with all of its flaws. You can run your hands along your own self-defeating edges until you get a splinter, and you can pull the splinter out and stare at it and consider it. When you face your shame with an open heart, you’re on a path to art, on a path to finding joy and misery and fear and hope in the folds of your day. Even as your job is slow and dull and pointless, even as your afternoons alone feel treacherous and daunting, you can train your eyes on the low-hanging clouds until a tiny bit of sunlight filters through. You are alive and you will probably be alive for many decades to come. The numbers on your credit-card statements can feel harrowing, but you can take that feeling and keep it company instead of letting it eat you alive. You can walk to the corner store to buy a newspaper and pull out the weekend calendar section and circle something, and make a commitment to do that one thing. You can build a new kind of existence, one that feels small and flawed and honest, but each day you accumulate a kind of treasure that doesn’t disappear. Because instead of running away from the truth, you welcome it in. You don’t treat what you have as pointless. You work with what you have.
That doesn’t mean it’s easy. It’s not easy for anyone, no matter how many deep roots they might’ve nurtured. I find it very hard, even now, to do the hard things that I need to do in order to feel good. I slip into bad habits easily, without noticing, and my worldview suffers for it. I know exactly which good practices will fuel me and make me wake up to the world around me. I know that, when I’m feeling ashamed and sick inside, I have to stand outside of that feeling and examine it and treat it like a fascinating artifact, something useful, something to build from, something to treasure, even.
Let me be more concrete: Promoting a book — which is what I’ve been doing since my new book came out last month — is fun and exciting. You get to travel and meet new people. But there are aspects of it that feel a little corrosive. Too much focus on the self, on presentation, on sales numbers, on whether or not your work matters. Right now I’m reading the novel Less, by Andrew Sean Greer, and I love the way it captures exactly how insecure writers can be, and how much the world will magically transform around them in order to manifest that insecurity and then torture them with it. But Less is also a story about shame. When you carry around a suspicion that there’s something sort of embarrassing or pathetic about you, you find ways to project that shame onto completely innocuous things. You find ways to tell yourself that everyone is laughing at you behind your back somewhere, possibly at a party where they are serving beautiful tasty drinks but you weren’t invited. You’re too old now. You’re no longer exciting or important. You don’t matter. You never really did.
Shame creates imaginary worlds inside your head. This haunted house you’re creating is forged from your shame. No one else can see it, so you keep trying to describe it to them. You find ways to say, “You don’t want any part of this mess. I’m mediocre, aging rapidly, and poor. Do yourself a favor and leave me behind.” You want to be left behind, though. That way, no one bears witness to what you’ve become.
It’s time to come out of hiding. It’s time to step into the light and be seen, shame and wrinkles and failures and fears and all.
I’ve had to step into the light myself lately. I’ve had to admit that I was building a new haunted house out of my imagination. But my mistakes and experiences and choices brought me to this moment. They might make me sad or embarrassed or regretful, but they’re precious because they give this day its unique mood. When I drag them into the light, I feel better. This is where I can begin. Today, I have countless chances to reinvent and rework and reorder myself and my experience. You do, too. I can figure out some way to make one true connection, to do one hard thing, to savor one moment. So can you.
I know you’re trying. I know you’re working hard, and you’re tired. You don’t like your job, but you don’t feel like you can quit. You wish you hadn’t lived the way you’ve lived. You wish you’d made closer friends and built more lasting relationships and stayed in one place. You feel like you have very little time left. And maybe you don’t even care that much about the time you have left, right now.
But your concept of yourself makes no sense. You got it from a rom-com. Age 35 is not an expiration date on your beauty or your worth. It doesn’t matter if every single human alive believes this. It’s your job to cast this notion out forever. I’m 48 years old and I’m determined not to tell a story about myself that started in some beauty-product boardroom, among unimaginative corporate marketing professionals. I fail at this quest often, but I’m still determined. I’m going to choose to embrace narratives that make me feel more alive and able to contribute whatever twisted crafts I can to this world, while I can.
If you want to build a life with a partner, and have a more satisfying career, and maybe have children, you need to treat yourself like a treasured child starting today. If you had a daughter who was 35 years old and felt like all of her traveling and moving was a giant mistake that embodied everything BAD and shortsighted about her, what would you tell her? You’d tell her she was wrong. You’d say, “Your life is just beginning!”
Learn to treat yourself the way a loving older parent would. Tell yourself: This reckoning serves a purpose. Your traveling served a purpose. Your moving served a purpose. You’re sitting on a pile of gold that you earned through your own hard work, you just can’t see it yet. You can’t see it because you’re blinded by your shame.
It’s okay to be in debt and worried. It’s okay to feel lonely and lost. It’s okay to feel tired of trying. It’s okay to want more and wonder how to get it. You’re just a human, this is how we feel a lot. It’s not irregular or aberrant to feel despair. This is part of survival. Your shame is forming your despair into a merciless story about your worth. Don’t let it do that. Build something else from your shame instead.
What will you build? Only you know that. What is shame worth? You’ll find out once you start digging in.
I’ll start for you. My shame is enormous: I keep seeing that lately. It keeps me online, interacting with ghosts, making meaning out of my pointless little broadcasts and pronouncements. It keeps me scanning the horizons for improvements. My shame keeps me fixated on novelties, on the future, on some exciting version of me that’s only a purchase or a breakthrough away. “You can be better than this,” my shame whispers in my ear. “You need to try harder. You need to hide the scary things you carry around. You need to act like you’ve arrived, even though you’re so inadequate and broken that you never will.”
When I’m hiding from my shame and also viewing my life through the lens of that shame, I get fixated on WHAT NEEDS FIXING. But nothing needs fixing, actually. I need to come back to reality and live there instead. Living in reality means becoming a scientist of shame. It’s an investigation. I can look at my shame, consider it, lament it, celebrate it, treasure it — how it changes the atmospheric pressure, how it makes it possible for me to reach out, to other people, in the hopes of making some connection, how it opens my eyes to the beautiful little awkward minutes of this day. My shame is the fuel that keeps me writing. My shame is the fuel that makes me exercise. My shame gives me a lens for understanding my husband and my kids. My shame makes my work possible. My shame — when I invite it in and forgive it — builds my empathy for others.
Treat yourself well and look closely at your shame. Are you supposed to stay in a job you hate as punishment for your debts? What if you ate baked potatoes and beans and rice for a full year and tried out some new career paths? What if you reached out to other people, and friends, and family, and let your shame into the room with you? What if you simply experimented with being who you are, out in the open, even as that feels difficult and awkward and sad?
What if you just decided that you’re an artist, today, right now? You’re sensitive and erratic, maybe. You’re maudlin and also expansive. What would it look like to own that identity, as a means of making art, sure, but also as a means of owning your FULL SELF? You wouldn’t feel as angry at other artists. You would recognize them as kindred spirits. You might notice how your shame matches theirs, and fuels all of you. You might feel proud of your small creations and you might start to see how every single thing you’ve done, every place you’ve been, every town you’ve lived in and left, every friend you’ve gotten to know and then forgotten, they all add up to a giant pile of treasure.
You are 95 years old, looking back at your 35-year-old self, and this is what you see: a young woman, so young, so disappointed, even though everything is about to get really good. She doesn’t see how much she’s accomplished, how much she’s learned, how many new joys await her. She doesn’t know how strong she is. She is blindfolded, sitting on a mountain of glittering gems. She is beautiful, but she feels ugly. She has a rich imagination and a colorful past, but she feels poor. She thinks she deserves to be berated because she has nothing. She has everything she needs.
Speaking of which, I went to go visit that 93-year-old woman I met on the plane, the one I wrote about a few weeks ago. She had told me her birthday was coming up, so I brought her a birthday card.
But it was difficult. It made me feel dumb to show up at her house with a card. I felt embarrassed for some reason. I even felt a little stupid calling her earlier today, asking if she needed anything. I don’t have a ton of free time. I have a long list of things I should be doing. It feels dopey to call someone new, someone who is much older and probably has other things to do.
But this woman, I like her a lot. She is extremely interesting. She tells long-winded, wild stories. She plays poker and has a lot of friends. She even sang me a song that she wrote in 1968. She grew up during the Prohibition, motherfuckers. She’s had a lot of experiences and she’s made a lot of mistakes, and she doesn’t mind talking about them. She’s a very honest person.
Before I left, she gave me a porcelain cat with a grumpy expression on its face that was sitting outside, covered in dust. She’s getting rid of some of her old things, she said. I’d be doing her a favor by taking it. “I don’t need anything from you, trust me,” I said. “I just like your company.” “Take the cat anyway,” she said.
As I opened the front door, I turned around and told her how nice it was, talking to her. She smiled. “You’re a human being,” she said. “A real human being.”
“I am,” I said. “I wasn’t a few years ago. But I am now.”
All you have to be is a human being, Haunted. That’s success. When you’re a human being, life feels satisfying. Everything adds up. Every little thing matters. Look at what you have. This is where it all begins. All you have to do is open your eyes.
Polly
I’ll close with another wonderful talk by Brené Brown – Listening to Shame
I’d love to hear what you thought about the article.
And as always, thank you for stopping by, I appreciate it.
Pssst – I want to let you in on a secret . . . I’m terrified!
As I was sitting down to write this article, I thought of a few topics: ‘Gratitude for Thanksgiving’ and ‘Joy for Christmas’ and ‘Happiness for the Holidays’ – but what I was honestly thinking is “What the hell do you have to say that is special Patti? It’s all been said before and you are not adding anything special to this world!” I froze after I sat down and decided I’d just look at Facebook on my phone instead of write . . . which of course made me feel worse – because on FB most people look like they have everything is under control . . .
I started wondering where these insecurities came from. My first thought was my mother, a painfully depressed alcoholic. But to be fair, she loved me and encouraged me when I was young. Then I thought about my dad, a ping pong ball of rage and Peter Pan never grow up energy; but actually much of the time, he encouraged me to be audacious and live big.
Yes, both my parents added to this negative messaging that I still carry, but it is absolutely added to and encouraged by our culture. We are so scared of getting cut down if we stand out, or trolled if we are seen saying much of anything online. Perhaps, as Marianne Williamson so eloquently puts it, my deepest fear is my own power.
“Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won’t feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It’s not just in some of us; it’s in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.”
* Please note, that that feels rather cringe-worthy to say that I am afraid of my own power. My head is making serious fun of me at the moment . . . But I persist . . .
I have pursued a career of being vulnerable in front of others. I write blog posts and articles that people can read and comment on; I’ve written a book that is subject to people reviewing and saying mean things about; I put myself out there vulnerably. And it just so happens that a new study suggests that we judge ourselves more harshly than others do when we put ourselves out there, so maybe there is validity in my fear.
Professor and author Brené Brown has studied and written about vulnerability in depth:
“We love seeing raw truth and openness in other people, but we are afraid to let them see it in us,” she writes. “Vulnerability is courage in you and inadequacy in me.”
“Participants in a study imagined either themselves or someone else in different vulnerable situations: confessing romantic feelings for a best friend, admitting a costly mistake at work, asking for help from a former boss, or baring their imperfect bodies at a swimming pool. Then, they rated how vulnerable the situation was, and how they evaluated that vulnerability—as an act of strength or weakness, something desirable or something to be avoided.”
They describe as Vulnerability being a “beautiful mess.” Indeed vulnerability comes with some risks, we may be laughed at, made fun of and trolled; but there are rewards as well: We may inspire someone and touch someone’s heart, and ultimately find a beautiful sense of belonging. The research suggests that we may be overestimating the risks and underestimating the benefits.
“Showing vulnerability might sometimes feel more like weakness from the inside…[but] to others, these acts might look more like courage from the outside,” the researchers write. “It might, indeed, be beneficial to try to overcome one’s fears and to choose to see the beauty in the mess of vulnerable situations.”
One article suggests 7 benefits of vulnerability:
1. You may learn to appreciate the quirks that make you unique. Being vulnerable may help you embrace all of you, all the things that make you special.
2. You may make peace with troubling memories from your past. Being vulnerable may help you get rid of some pent-up baggage that bothers you. While it isn’t easy to deal with painful memories, it is better to confront your past than it is to hide from it.
3. You may attract the right kind of people into your life. Being vulnerable may help you understand what types of people you can most relate to and which ones to avoid.
4. You may find it easier to empathize with the struggles of others. Being vulnerable can help you develop empathy for others.
5. You might earn the trust of people at work. Being vulnerable might help you grow closer to the people in your workplace.
6. You may strengthen your bond with your romantic partner. Being vulnerable will probably help you bond with the person you love most.
7. You will humanize yourself in the eyes of others. Being vulnerable will help you demonstrate that you are an approachable person. While it isn’t easy to find the courage to reveal our true nature, there is no better way be seen as human and open.
So as I sit down to write this article and hope that no one rolls their eyes at me and tells me that the world would be a better place if I would just shut up, I remind myself of Brené Brown’s words:
“Vulnerability is the birthplace of love, belonging, joy, courage, empathy, accountability, and authenticity. If we want greater clarity in our purpose or deeper and more meaningful spiritual lives, vulnerability is the path.”
To close, I want to share a great video of Brené Brown – The Power of Vulnerability. It’s well worth the watch if you haven’t seen it yet. And worth a re-watch if you’ve already seen it.
I’d love to hear about how you embrace vulnerability in your life.
And as always, thank you for stopping by, I appreciate it.
I receive lots of inquiries from people asking how I got my book published. I usually respond glibly, “Tenacity!” And that was certainly one aspect of the process.
But the truth is that I practiced what I preached in my book and focused a lot of energy and belief on the energy of getting my book out there. In my opinion, this is how one sets out to manifest what they are focusing on. I explored this in a recent article on Thrive Global.
I believe, after reading books by Deepak Chopra and a myriad of other authors, that everything is energy. And that belief shapes everything else. Each energy has a specific vibration, as Esther Hicks/Abraham explains. And we must be “on the same frequency,” to use a common metaphor, to be in alignment. Once this alignment is met, things start to happen. If the vibration is high, as in joy and gratitude, you start experiencing more joy and gratitude, and more things that bring you joy and gratitude start to come your way.
The trick is to start feeling that joy and gratitude now. It’s a bit of a conundrum, but honestly it is joy and gratitude that bring more joy and gratitude.
My approach: act as if you already have your dream. Look for the good in things you experience, try to live in joy as much as possible. Start every day with gratitude. Before you even get out of bed, focus on what you are grateful for. Choose three things every morning. Write them down in a journal if you have the time and the space. If that feels too hard, then just say it in your mind: feel the gratitude of having a warm bed, of knowing you can take a hot shower, of having food in your fridge. Focus your gratitude on what you already have in your life; this will impact your entire day.
As you think about that big goal, act as if it is already yours. Be in your life as if that goal is already there. Feel the joy of it.
After all, ultimately aren’t we all searching for more joy?
PS: For those of you who may still be wondering about the perfect gift for Mother’s Day, or for your mother any day … look no further! If your own mother or another mother you love likes Julia Cameron, Brené Brown or Annie Lamott (or all three), then This Way Up is a great gift!
This summit will be live May 21 to May 31. I’m so excited to share this summit with you! The summit is hosted by my friend Naomi Sodomin. Naomi is the international best-selling author of Embrace the Mirror: Vision of Abundance and a Stronger You. And an all around inspirational woman.
If the path you’re on right now doesn’t light you up … if it doesn’t make you love your life, then it’s simple: you have to change it. Why wait to start a new journey, when the opportunity to begin that journey is right here? Join me and 20 other experts for the Reinventing You summit.
This Way Up is being made into an audio book! (I know, I know, I’ve been saying this for months! But we are in the final stages now … so close!) When it is finally ready, it will be available on my Amazon page and I will send a special link for the book in my newsletter. I can’t wait to share this new version of the book with you!
Buy the Book!
“Author Patti Clark is a cross between Elizabeth Gilbert
and Julia Cameron.”
This Way Up is a story of healing for women who yearn to lead a fuller life, accompanied by a workbook to help readers work through personal challenges, discover new inspiration, and harness their creative power. . .
Women spend so much of life nurturing and giving to others that when they find themselves alone—because of an empty nest, the end of a marriage, or the death of a partner—they often struggle with feeling purposeless. This Way Up provides a step-by-step way out of this sense of loss and into a life filled with enthusiasm, creativity, and joy.
“Release any expectations you may have of how you think your dreams will come true but by all means, with every fiber of your being, expect that they will, as you busy yourself enjoying who and where you already are.”
~ Mike Dooley
Thank you for being part of this movement. Watch this space for more in the months ahead.
What makes you happy? Simple question, but one that is worth thinking about. What makes you happy in this moment, for as Omar Khayyam declares, this moment is your life. At the moment I am smiling and feeling happy. The sun is shining, the view from my window where I sit writing is beautiful, and I love to write. So it’s easy to be happy in this moment.
What makes me happy in that larger sense, well that’s pretty easy for me too. My sons. I only have to think of my two sons, and a smile spreads across my face. They are on the other side of the Earth from me at the moment, and that tugs at my heart and tempers my happiness a bit. But nothing can take away the joy that those two amazing young men bring. They make my heart sing . . . in loud operatic ways!
Professionally I have a lot to make me happy. Today I saw people who like books by Julia Cameron, Brené Brown and Anne Lamott also like my book, This Way Up. That makes me really happy. What an affirmation!
This gives me a real feeling of accomplishment and achievement, which is one of the places happiness sits.
“Happiness lies in the joy of achievement and the thrill of creative effort.”
– Franklin D Roosevelt
It was my great pleasure to be interviewed on the topic of happiness recently by Sarah Jordan.
We talked about an array of topics but really focused on happiness..what it is, the benefits, and how we tend to block it.
I’ll close this post with a wonderful Ted Talk that has been around for awhile. Cognitive researcher Nancy Etcoff looks at happiness — the ways we try to achieve and increase it, the way it’s untethered to our real circumstances, and its surprising effect on our bodies. It’s interesting and informative and well worth the watch.
I’d love to hear what makes you happy. What are you happy for in this moment? What brings you happiness in your life?
And as always, thank you for taking the time to visit. I appreciate it.
In the Muppets’ Christmas Carol Movie, Kermit sings: “Tis the season to be jolly and joyous” . . . But what if you’re not feeling overly joyous? As we enter the holiday season this year, many people are feeling less than joyful. The political scene is grim and there is a lot to feel anxious and unhappy about. And for many, the idea of spending more time with family during the holidays does not fill the heart with glee. How you feel is your choice, daily. But if you want to feel more joy, not only this holiday season, but in general, there is an answer.
Science tells us that happiness and joy are things we can cultivate. Thanks to the advent of fMRI machines (functional magnetic resonance imaging), we can now watch our brains in real time and see which areas of the brain light up when we’re angry, frustrated, or joyful, and we can also watch the brain change depending on what we focus on. The idea that our brain architecture can change has been termed “neuroplasticity.”
We can literally rewire the neural pathways that regulate our emotions, thoughts, and reactions. This means we can create new neural pathways that lead us to compassion, gratitude, and joy instead of anxiety, fear, and anger. We can reprogram our brains’ automatic response with a conscious effort to build new pathways.
In a study done by The National Center for Biotechnology Information, Neural Correlates of Gratitude, it was found that gratitude can be a natural antidepressant. When we consciously focus on what we are grateful for, certain neural circuits are activated; when activated, an increase of dopamine and serotonin is produced, which is similar to how many antidepressants work.
Building new neural pathways may not come easily at first. A good analogy is bushwhacking through a jungle. Imagine trying to walk through a jungle in a dense rain forest. It requires a machete every step of the way to clear the path the first time through. After a few more times, you might lay down some stones to keep the path clear and eventually the path becomes a road and soon it becomes easily travelled. As you walk the path more and more, you continue to reinforce it and make it even stronger. Eventually, this new neural pathway becomes a habit.
To add to the strengthening of some pathways, our brain also has a way to ‘prune’ the pathways used less often. Scientists call this “use-dependent cortical reorganization,” meaning that we strengthen whichever neural pathways we use most often, and lose the ones we use the least. Hebb’s Lawstates “neurons that fire together, wire together.”
Neurons that fire together, wire together
So how do we do this? How do we create these new neural pathways and start to rewire our brain towards happiness, compassion, and joy? Many studieshave shown that cultivating gratitude, or practicing Conscious Gratitude, is the most powerful way to start building new pathways.
Seth Godin, best selling author, recently stated in an interview: “I think that gratitude is a profound choice. It is not just something that some people do. There is a way to look at life as either “have to” or a “get to”. There are all these things in life we could do because we have to do them, or there are things in life we do because we get to do them.”
Godin goes on to explain that this has nothing to do with the truth of what is going on in the world around you. It has to do with our narrative about what is going on.
Living life knowing you “get to” do something is better than constantly feeling like you have to. Godin poses the question: “What is the opposite of gratitude?” And he believes the opposite of gratitude is entitlement. “People who believe they are entitled to something, walk around expecting that the world owes them something, whereas the people who are grateful for something are eager to share that gratitude with others, and that lines up exactly with “have to” and “get to.”
So if we agree that being grateful can lead to joy, then how can we start feeling more grateful?
“Look closely and you will find that people are happy because they are grateful. The opposite of gratefulness is just taking everything for granted. ” ― David Steindl-Rast,
David Steindl-Rast, the highly-respected Benedictine monk, author and spiritual leader, explains his methodology for staying in a gratitude mindset in Anatomy of Gratitude:
“There is a very simple kind of methodology to it: stop, look, go. Most of us are caught up in schedules, and deadlines, and rushing around. And so the first thing is that we have to stop, because otherwise we are not really coming into this present moment at all. And we can’t even appreciate the opportunity that is given to us because we rush by. So stopping is the first thing … and finding something in that moment … I don’t speak of this moment as a ‘gift’, because you cannot be grateful for everything. You can’t be grateful for war, violence, domestic violence, or sickness, things like that. There are many things for which you cannot be grateful. But in every moment, you can be grateful. For instance, the opportunity to learn something from a very difficult experience. So opportunity is really the key when people ask, can you be grateful for everything? No, not for everything, but yes you can be grateful in every moment.”
Seth Godin believes that acting “as if” is underrated. “If you start acting as if you are grateful, you start feeling more grateful and you will become more grateful.”
Here are some things you can do right now to start practicing Conscious Gratitude:
1. Choose a time and focus on gratitude
Choose a specific time everyday where you will stop for a moment and focus on what you are grateful for in that particular moment.
I use 11:11. I have an alarm set on my phone to go off every day at 11:11. I stop whatever I’m doing (within reason- if I’m driving on a highway obviously I don’t stop) and I silently focus on what I am grateful for in that moment. Even if I’m stuck in traffic, I can be grateful for my car or a good sound system or enough money for gas to get me where I am going.
2. First thing in the morning, before your feet hit the floor, be grateful
Before you hop out of bed in the morning, take 30 seconds, (it really does not take more than that) to think about 3 things you are grateful for. This can be done silently in your head. Or better yet, if you have a partner that you share your bed with, ask each other to list those 3 things. It can be as simple as gratitude for a comfortable bed, a warm house, and a good nights sleep. It’s been shown that starting your day in gratitude positively impacts you for the rest of the day.
3. Start a Gratitude Journal
Choose a journal that you like the feel and the look of, and make sure that it is used solely for writing about things your are grateful for. How you write this is up to you; it can be as simple as list making. I like using colorful pens playing in my journal, but use what ever works for you. Make it a routine, try to write in it daily, even if it’s just for a few minutes a day.
4. Start new traditions in your family — like gratitude at meals
This may feel uncomfortable at first; but with time, the practice of going around the table and saying one thing you are grateful for that happened that day, can become a cherished family tradition. It’s a great conversation starter and a wonderful way to lift the energy at any meal time. Another tradition can be saying one thing you are grateful for before going off to sleep. If you have children, it is a wonderful way to end the day just before they go to sleep. Another tradition to reinforce gratitude in relationships is texting to a loved one in the middle of the day, one thing you appreciate about them. This works well with teens and couples with busy schedules.
So this holiday season, if you are hoping to embody Kermit’s words . . .
Tis the season to be jolly and joyous
With a burst of pleasure, we feel it arrive
Tis the season when the saints can employ us
To spread the news about peace and to keep love alive
. . . You can start by practicing gratitude consciously today. And if that doesn’t come naturally, start by ‘acting as if’ you are grateful. And pretty soon, what was once an act will become a habit.
I’ll close with a great interview with Brené Brown talking about Active Gratitude.
I’d love to hear how you practice conscious gratitude.
And as always, thank you for taking the time to visit. I appreciate it.
My reaction was similar to many other people I know when I first saw the hash tag ‘MeToo’ on twitter and on Facebook. I thought ‘Oh another hash tag on social media . . . Ho hum.’ But then in less than an hour, my wall was full of #MeToo from female friends on Facebook. Little did I know at that point how much Actress Alyssa Milano’s post would impact me personally. So personally in fact that I decided I had to get public with it on Thrive.
Of course, what we now know is that Tarana Burke, a native of Harlem, New York, was the original creator of the Me Too movement over a decade ago, before hash tags and social media. But it was Milano’s post, on October 16th that impacted me.
When I saw the original post, I felt vaguely uncomfortable, but ignored it. It wasn’t even when I saw my wall flooded with #MeToo that I really understood it’s impact. It was only later, over coffee with a friend, that it hit me, the full magnitude of how this related to me personally.
What #MeToo did, was to open up a huge, previously taboo, conversation with other women. Looking back at myself in my 20s, I was a ‘party girl’ and a bartender. I had a lifestyle that ‘invited’ that kind of behavior. I had convinced myself that I had deserved and been ‘responsible for’ the intimidation and harassment that I experienced.
Early in my own personal recovery process, I took full responsibility for my actions and my past behavior . . . full and total responsibility. And thus the shame lived on. I first read about this topic in John Bradshaw’s ‘Healing the Shame that Binds You.’ Yes I read the book and yes I talked about the concept. But still, said the little voice in my head, if you hadn’t been that drunk, if you hadn’t put yourself in that situation… I still believed that I was responsible for the treatment on some level because of my own behavior.
What I discovered through conversations with other women is that there are a lot of us who still blame ourselves for what happened to us. “If I hadn’t been that drunk” and “If I had been wearing a bra” and “If I hadn’t been so stoned” then that wouldn’t have happened. And most of us have kept that bottled up inside of us, continuing to blame ourselves for our own ‘reprehensible behavior.’
This campaign has opened up the conversation, opened up the willingness to look at the behavior, not with shame, but with a desire to share the story. We are comparing notes and listening, and we are realizing that we are not alone.
There are so many layers to this problem. Looking at the culture of misogyny and who is in the position of power that enables this to happen. I’m aware of this and of course we still have so far to go. But today, I simply want to express gratitude, gratitude that even after so many years of recovery and therapy, these conversations have helped to heal a part of me that remained buried for over thirty years. I am writing now to say thank you for what was not just another ‘social media craze’ but instead was a catalyst to heal. Healing through deep and nourishing conversations with other women, initiated by a simple comment, ‘Me Too.’
I’ll close with a clip from John Bradshaw
I’d love to hear how the #MeToo campaign impacted you, or how shame itself has impacted your life.
And as always, thank you for taking the time to visit. I appreciate it.
In the following TED Talk, Brene Brown beautifully explains that we need to be vulnerable to have true connection. We need to let ourselves be seen as we really are; we need to love with our whole hearts even when it is hard; we need to practice gratitude and joy even when it is not easy; and finally each one of us needs to know, on that deepest level that I AM ENOUGH!
I hope you can take the time to watch Brene Brown in the wonderful video, it is uplifting and enlightening.
Please let me know your thoughts on this TED Talk video, and any stories you have about vulnerability and connection.
And as always thank you for taking the time to visit, I appreciate it.
We can literally rewire the neural pathways that regulate our emotions, thoughts, and reactions. This means we can create new neural pathways that lead us to compassion, gratitude, and joy instead of anxiety, fear, and anger. We can reprogram our brains’ automatic response with a conscious effort to build new pathways.
This Way Up 