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Shame ~ Part I

Posted by on Jan 3, 2009 in Uncategorized | 0 comments

“A man should never be ashamed to own that he has been in the wrong, which is but saying… that he is wiser today than yesterday.” -Jonathan Swift “Pride attaches undue importance to the superiority of one’s status in the eyes of others; And shame is fear of humiliation at one’s inferior status in the estimation of others.” -Lao Tzu “We but half express ourselves, and are ashamed of that divine idea which each of us represents.“- Ralph Waldo Emerson What is Shame? Shame is the inner voice that condemns ourselves. “Something is wrong with me,” “I am inferior to others,” and “I am...

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Shame ~ Part II

Posted by on Jan 3, 2009 in Uncategorized | 0 comments

Let us not look back in anger, nor forward in fear, but around in awareness. -James Thurber Man can alter his life by altering his thinking. – William James Summary of Shame Part I: In the previous article about shame, I presented the definition of shame, and how it often arises in conjunction with other emotions such as fear or anger. I also described the difference between shame and guilt: shame being the feeling and belief that something is wrong with you, while guilt is the feeling of remorse that arises when you regret a behavior. Shame is about personhood, guilt is about behavior.  If you have not read Part I, and would like to, please visit my articles page...

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Anger and the Three Boundaries

Posted by on Jan 3, 2009 in Uncategorized | 0 comments

I recently got angry.  Really angry!  And I found myself needing to set a physical boundary.  I picked up my chair and left the dinner table,  and in front of my grandparents, aunts, niece, parents, brother and husband declared that, “I need some space!”  We were talking politics, but that’s another article… What is it about anger? We have all gotten all kinds of messages about anger, basically that it is “bad” and that if we were just a little more enlightened, we wouldn’t have to feel this pesky emotion anymore.  There is no doubt that people often do things that they later regret when angry, which seems to be the main cause...

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Awakening Maitri (Loving Kindness) In Ourselves

Posted by on Jan 3, 2009 in Uncategorized | 0 comments

I remember being in Nepal in 2001 on a study abroad program, and waking up in the middle of the night after having a vivid dream that I had been “voted off the program.”  No doubt my sub-conscious was  playing off of the then very popular TV show “Survivor,” where each week a cast member would be voted off the show by the other cast members.  The odd thing was, I’d only seen the show once, yet that was enough for me to fear that I could be the one- the one everybody disliked enough to send packing.  Add being in a completely new culture without the comforts of home, and this dream was really more like a nightmare.  I felt extremely anxious...

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The Power of Gratitude

Posted by on Jan 3, 2009 in Uncategorized | 2 comments

I  was over at a friend’s house recently who has been going through a divorce.  I noticed he had  cut  out a picture from the newspaper of a boy from Iraq laying in the middle of the street, his bicycle warped in an awkward angle next to him, smoke and flames behind him.  His face was full of anguish, and there was no denying the pain he felt.   “Why do you have this picture on your fridge?” I asked him.  He replied, “I look at it when I think I am having a bad day.”  We tend to focus on the negative: Often we dwell on all the things we perceive to be going wrong, worrying and obsessing, and spend little time appreciating the things that...

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