Vulnerability gets a bad rap in our culture; in my experience, it seems to be despised. In our culture, we seem to love the tough, hard, mean, sneering attitude. Vulnerability is perceived as weakness. The cultural message is clear: Be STRONG. Vulnerability is for losers. You can’t hurt ME! Why is this? How did this …
I was brought up in a way that ensured that I hated myself and had no idea who I really was. To survive in my childhood family, I had to be what my parents needed me to be. My father especially needed me to be a carbon copy of him. Expressing a different opinion from …
My experience with people in recovery via the Twelve Steps is that they can sometimes have a distorted understanding of the concept of “self.” And I believe that that misunderstanding is rooted, in large part, in the general poverty of the English language when it comes to issues of spirituality and spiritual growth. Here’s a …
There’s an old joke about a little boy digging his way through a railroad car full of horse manure. Somebody asks him why he’s doing it, and the little boy answers excitedly: “There’s gotta be a pony in here somewhere!” This well-worn joke contains a message for many of us who are called to a …
