GUILT

Hmm. My lovely Weebly website builder just crashed on me and I lost a whole lovely blog post I was two seconds away from publishing!

Alas, this is no excuse. But it's late so I'll try and scribble down as much as possibly before I fall asleep. 

Today's topic was anger. (We did one on hate right back at the beginning, I think the organisers might be running out of ideas - just three to go!) In true Lila style, I veered right off topic and landed on guilt. Because, you know, guilt makes me angry. Angry at myself. Which sucks, big style. Nothing worse that knowing you f**ked up and it ain't nobodies fault but yours and you only have yourself to blame...etc, etc, etc...

So I wrote a bit of a rant.

However, luckily enough all of these angry, guilty, shameful emotions reminded me of the awesome Brene Brown and her incredibly inspiring work on the destructive nature of Shame and the beautiful power of Vulnerability. 

In a (incredibly paraphrased) nutshell Brene's research goes something like:
Guilt = I did something bad. Shame = I am bad.
Therefore:
Guilt = something we learn and grow from, Shame = something that can destroy us

So how do we overcome shame (and guilt)? 

The first step: vulnerability. Vulnerability is courage by another name. If you did (or think you did) something bad, be vulnerable and go tell somebody - a close family member, a loyal friend. And, here's the key, they won't judge you. They won't berate you. They won't shun you. (If they do any of those things they aren't worthy of your friendship). What they will do is empathise. Empathy will stop shame in its tracks.

But that's enough from me. Brene Brown blew my mind and her world-famous TED talks and books make a lot of sense to my sometimes fevered mind. So, read my play if you'd like, but definitely check out her talks - I've include the Youtube videos below.

Enjoy
L x

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