The Environment Always Proceeds The Participation
How to build safe containers for emotional expression
Remember when the self-help world was full of self-criticism and force?
Thank goodness that’s not a thing anymore.
Now it’s more about compassion and self-acceptance.
It used to be that courses would tell you to push through the pain, ignore any parts of you that can’t cope, push them to the side! Reach for the stars! You’re more than you think so be it now, forget about the rest.
Well, it does actually work for one subset of the human race; people who find it easy to split their psyches and ignore their pain.
Mostly people like that are assholes, intentional or not. Don’t get me wrong, I am that person sometimes, and I’ve certainly been that person way more than not in the past.
That brings me to my point. Building safe containers for emotional expression. Mostly, it’s how much each individual in that space can hold themselves. How deeply they’ve explored their shadows in compassion.
Compassion is important!
It builds equanimity.
If we are to build only awareness in our lives, it can so easily feed into the shadows again. For example, we…