The Cure "A Forest" (1992 live)

How Kindness Became Our Forbidden Pleasure

by Maria Popova

“We are never as kind as we want to be, but nothing outrages us more than people being unkind to us.”

“Practice kindness all day to everybody and you will realize you’re already in heaven now,” Jack Kerouac wrote in a beautiful 1957 letter. “Kindness, kindness, kindness,” Susan Sontag resolved in her diary on New Year’s Day in 1972. And yet, although kindness is the foundation of all spiritual traditions and was even a central credo for the father of modern economics, at some point in recent history, kindness became little more than an abstract aspiration, its concrete practical applications a hazardous and vulnerable-making behavior to be avoided — we need only look to the internet’s “outrage culture” for evidence, or to the rise of cynicism as our flawed self-defense mechanism against the perceived perils of kindness. We’ve come to see the emotional porousness that kindness requires as a dangerous crack in the armor of the independent self, an exploitable outward vulnerability — too high a cost to pay for the warm inward balm of the benevolence for which we long in the deepest parts of ourselves.

Kindness has become “our forbidden pleasure.”

So argue psychoanalyst Adam Phillips and historian Barbara Taylor in the plainly titled, tiny, enormously rewarding book On Kindness (public library).

Taylor and Phillips write:

"The kind life — the life lived in instinctive sympathetic identification with the vulnerabilities and attractions of others — is the life we are more inclined to live, and indeed is the one we are often living without letting ourselves know that this is what we are doing. People are leading secretly kind lives all the time but without a language in which to express this, or cultural support for it. Living according to our sympathies, we imagine, will weaken or overwhelm us; kindness is the saboteur of the successful life. We need to know how we have come to believe that the best lives we can lead seem to involve sacrificing the best things about ourselves; and how we have come to believe that there are pleasures greater than kindness ..."

"In one sense kindness is always hazardous because it is based on a susceptibility to others, a capacity to identify with their pleasures and sufferings. Putting oneself in someone else’s shoes, as the saying goes, can be very uncomfortable. But if the pleasures of kindness — like all the greatest human pleasures — are inherently perilous, they are nonetheless some of the most satisfying we possess."

[...]

"In giving up on kindness — and especially our own acts of kindness — we deprive ourselves of a pleasure that is fundamental to our sense of well-being."

The most paradoxical part of the story is that for most of our civilizational history, we’ve seen ourselves as fundamentally kind and held kindness as a high ideal of personhood. Only in recent times — in large part thanks to Emerson — did the ideal of independence and self-reliance become the benchmark of spiritual success. The need for belonging has become an intolerable manifestation of vulnerability — we’ve stopped believing in our own kindness and the merits of mutual belonging, producing what poet and philosopher David Whyte has elegantly termed “our sense of slight woundedness.” On a mission to examine “when and why this confidence evaporated and the consequences of this transformation,” Taylor and Phillips write:

"Kindness’s original meaning of kinship or sameness has stretched over time to encompass sentiments that today go by a wide variety of names — sympathy, generosity, altruism, benevolence, humanity, compassion, pity, empathy… The precise meanings of these words vary, but fundamentally they all denote what the Victorians called “open-heartedness,” the sympathetic expansiveness linking self to other."

Perhaps because open-heartedness is impossible without vulnerability — an open heart is an aperture through which the world can enter us, but also one through which exploitive and cruel forces can penetrate the softest core of who we are without obstruction — the original meaning of and longing for kindness has been calcified by our impulse for armoring and self-protection. Taylor and Phillips write:

"Today it is only between parents and children that kindness is expected, sanctioned, and indeed obligatory… Kindness — that is, the ability to bear the vulnerability of others, and therefore of oneself — has become a sign of weakness (except of course among saintly people, in whom it is a sign of their exceptionality)… All compassion is self-pity, D. H. Lawrence remarked, and this usefully formulates the widespread modern suspicion of kindness: that it is either a higher form of selfishness (the kind that is morally triumphant and secretly exploitative) or the lowest form of weakness (kindness is the way the weak control the strong, the kind are only kind because they haven’t got the guts to be anything else). If we think of humans as essentially competitive, and therefore triumphalist by inclination, as we are encouraged to do, then kindness looks distinctly old-fashioned, indeed nostalgic, a vestige from a time when we could recognize ourselves in each other and feel sympathetic because of our kind-ness… And what, after all, can kindness help us win, except moral approval; or possibly not even that, in a society where “respect” for personal status has become a leading value."

And yet despite our resistance to kindness, some deeper, dormant part of us still registers it, still cringes upon encountering its absence. This paradoxical relationship with kindness, perhaps more so than anything else, explains the “outrage culture” of the internet:

"We usually know what the kind thing to do is — and kindness when it is done to us, and register its absence when it is not… We are never as kind as we want to be, but nothing outrages us more than people being unkind to us. There is nothing we feel more consistently deprived of than kindness; the unkindness of others has become our contemporary complaint. Kindness consistently preoccupies us, and yet most of us are unable to live a life guided by it."

Embedded in our ambivalence about kindness is a special sort of psychological self-sabotage — by denying our own kind impulses, we also deny ourselves the powerful pleasure our acts of kindness produce. Taylor and Phillips consider how, given our natural inclination for kindness, we end up cheating ourselves of this deep spiritual reward:

"The forms kindness can take … are partly learned from the societies in which we grow up, and so can be unlearned or badly taught or resisted… Children begin their lives “naturally” kind, and that something happens to this kindness as they grow up in contemporary society."

Picking up where Rousseau left off a quarter millennium ago, Phillips and Taylor consider what it takes to nourish our natural benevolence, asserting that it must begin with embracing the very vulnerability from which kindness springs:

"Everybody is vulnerable at every stage of their lives; everybody is subject to illness, accident, personal tragedy, political and economic reality. This doesn’t mean that people aren’t also resilient and resourceful. Bearing other people’s vulnerability — which means sharing in it imaginatively and practically without needing to get rid of it, to yank people out of it — entails being able to bear one’s own. Indeed it would be realistic to say that what we have in common is our vulnerability; it is the medium of contact between us, what we most fundamentally recognize in each other."

At some point in our lives, however, vulnerability becomes a threat and a trauma. Phillips and Taylor trace the developmental origin of that shift:

"The child’s first, formative trauma is his growing acknowledgment of his need for others (in actuality the mother is as vulnerable to her need for her baby as the baby is to his need for her; parents need their children not to worry them too much). The needy child experiences a trauma of concern (“How can I take care of my mother to ensure that she takes care of me?”), which calls up his natural kindness; but this concern — and the later forms of kindness that emerge from it — is too easily turned away from. This turning away we call self-sufficiency, and when we want to pathologize it we call it narcissism. The pleasure of kindness is that it connects us with others; but the terror of kindness is that it makes us too immediately aware of our own and other people’s vulnerabilities (vulnerabilities that we are prone to call failings when we are at our most frightened). Vulnerability — particularly the vulnerability we call desire — is our shared biological inheritance. Kindness, in other words, opens us up to the world (and worlds) of other people in ways that we both long for and dread."

In a sentiment that echoes Phillips’s illuminating earlier work on why developing a capacity for risk-tolerance is essential to our self-reliance, Taylor and Phillips elegantly capture the dark counterpoint to our tendency to desire safety at whatever the cost:

"If there is no invulnerability anywhere, suddenly there is too much vulnerability everywhere."

[...]

"It is not that real kindness requires people to be selfless, it is rather that real kindness changes people in the doing of it, often in unpredictable ways. Real kindness is an exchange with essentially unpredictable consequences. It is a risk precisely because it mingles our needs and desires with the needs and desires of others, in a way that so-called self-interest never can… Kindness is a way of knowing people beyond our understanding of them."

But rather than a lament, undergirding these observations is a powerful message of hope: For all of its pervasive undertones of and platforms for outrage, contemporary culture — and the digital universe that is part of it — offers fertile new soil in which to grow the natural inclinations that give rise to the pleasure of communion and kindness. Taylor and Phillips capture this beautifully:

"By involving us with strangers (even with “foreigners” thousands of miles away), as well as with intimates, [kindness] is potentially far more promiscuous than sexuality. But … the child needs the adult — and his wider society — to help him keep faith with his kindness, that is, to help him discover and enjoy the pleasures of caring for others… People have long known this, and long forgotten it. The history of kindness … tells the story of this knowing, and forgetting, and reknowing, as central to Western ideas about the good life."

In the remainder of the altogether wonderful and acutely necessary On Kindness, Phillips and Taylor explore how we can build a society that nurtures rather than corrupting our natural kindness by learning, from childhood on, to feel comfortable with the uncomfortable risks of making ourselves vulnerable enough to be kind.

Someone's sad story on quora.com

Once on a cruise-ship vacation, the staff conducted a little gameshow for the passengers to enjoy. I happened to stop by that floor, and for some reason, I sat and joined the crowd.

The contest was apparently about love, so partners would answer questions about each other, and the team with the highest total accurate guesses would win. The first participants were ushered on stage and put in chairs. This first pair up was a married man and woman who looked to be in their late sixties, or maybe early seventies. They were both just average-looking people, her hair all bushy, a string of pearls around her neck, a loose and flowery shirt. He had short gray hair and was very stout.

The questions alternated. She would answer a question about him on a white board, and he would write the correct answer down on his own. The boards would be checked for a match, and then a question would go to him, and so on. Pretty classic gameshow stuff.

The first question was something like, “What is his favorite musician?”

She wrote her answer without a second thought. Ding ding ding! Correct! She gave a smile that said, Of course I know that. I’ve been married to him for fifty years. I love him.

Next question went to him. “What is her favorite food?” She paused and wrote her truth on her board. He sat there, staring blankly at his, and eventually wrote something like “quiche”. They held them up and it didn’t match. She seemed to take it in stride. No biggie. It’s a difficult question.

Next, her turn. “What is his favorite show?” She again wrote her answer quickly. They held up their boards. “And here we have it folks, the news! It’s a match!”

The next question went to him and was, “What’s her favorite hobby?” He took a long time as before, but then scribbled something down, held up his board and read, “Cooking me dinner.” Wrong. Her answer was painting. Fucking painting.

He laughed. “Well, she’s good at it! Cooking.”

I instantly gauged her expression. Sadness. Upturned eyebrows promptly masked by a tight smile. Faint shock, and utter humiliation.

The last question went to her. “Where did you first meet?”

I could have sworn I saw the slightest tremble in her lips and hands when she wrote down the exact location of their first meeting. “X Diner in Tuscaloosa, 1954.”

He simply wrote, “Tuscaloosa, AL.”

The host bellowed, “Aw, we’ll give it to ‘em! Thanks so much guys, very good!”

They rose and stepped down from the stage, and as I focused on her expressions, I saw the unmistakable face of a woman about to cry. He, meanwhile, was laughing and enjoying the attention.

I couldn’t watch anymore and felt the tears well up in my eyes as I left the room. I travelled up to the deck. As I stared at the water I couldn’t help but wonder about this poor lady, surrounded by young, carefree, joyous women with the world at their fingertips. This was supposed to be an enjoyable getaway, but instead became a clear reminder that her marriage was no more than an artifact from a time where one’s sole purpose as a married woman was to cater to her husband. He was the center of her universe, and she was humiliated as just a trivial butt of a joke, a mere portion of his life he was by no means obligated to know intimately as a person.

That may not be the saddest thing I’ve ever seen, but it’s in the top three. I’ll never forget her trembling face with eyes cast downward in shame.

What is the Adult Child Syndrome?

[Answered by Pamela Reed on Quora.com]

Adult child syndrome is the effects an adult has from having lived with a parent that is alcoholic, aggressive, narcissistic, and other similar types.

Here’s a very detailed explanation I found at

Source: Adult Child Syndrome

It should help you understand more clearly.

Adult Child Syndrome

While the concept of the adult child was originally developed to explain the difficulties of men or women who grew up with an alcoholic or addict in the home, it is also valid for the adult children of narcissistic, traumatized, depressed, numbed, workaholic, abusive, 'borderline' or psychotic parents. For such adult children shame is a given. However there is an additional pattern of self-disempowerment that arises from adapting from an early age to a tyrannical, capricious, and invalidating environment.

Far less than half the time, children will adapt to growing up in such a situation by 'identifying with the aggressor,' (For a picture of what that looks like, see 'covert narcissist' at the bottom of my page on narcissism). But that is different from the more common pattern described below.

Those who adapt to rather than identify with the aggressor often develop in personal relationships a codependent role to those who identify with the aggressor (tyrants), but that is a different sphere of functioning. The Adult Child Syndrome speaks to social, professional, academic, and extended family life. Below are listed several traits from that pattern

Adult children are strongly represented in the helping professions, such as education, health care, social services, therapy, etc... and so many of the traits have been incorporated, at least in mild form, in the social norms of those communities.

Core Traits

• Overthinking Things. Adult children start thinking 'too early' because they are not able to proceed in early life by 'going-on-being' Often they are precocious intellectually and this leads to intellectual attainment that is valuable as an adult. However there is a tendency to misuse cognition to try to sort out matters of emotion or preference
• A Constant Search for Certainty and Perfectibility Neither exist in this world, so the search is in vain, but the adult child is vulnerable to seduction by their offer, such as by cults, toxic partners, and high-demand situations.
• Fear of Authority Figures Power and control, masquerading as authority, was harsh, capricious, and unempathetic in the childhood home. Authority figures later may be intellectually understood as legitimate or potentially helpful, but there will at least be an approach/avoidance conflict.
• Judge Selves Harshly The tyrannical voice has been taken inward. But tellingly, the adult child often doesn't judge others nearly so harshly as themselves, this is a reverse double standard
• Emotional Dependence There is a tendency to live as a responsible child rather than as an adult. That is, while straight-forward tasks are performed conscientiously, difficult decisions, assertion of desire, and responsibility for overall conditions are left for others.
• Fear, Guilt, or Unexplainable Hesitancy in Pursuing Own Adult Prerogatives. Adult children are passive about making decisions that benefit them, because in the childhood home, they were often punished for initiative, or high spirits, or pursuing self-interest. Rather, they wait patiently for others to give them good things, because that way they cannot be blamed, but of course 'rewarding good behavior' rarely happens among adults.
• Wants to Be Liked As children, they were disliked (however unjustifiably) by their parents (though of course this was usually denied by the parents), so as adults there is always a tendency to want reassurance that they are likable (but, the reassurance is always doubted, due to their parents duplicity). Instead of a life organized by what they like, they have a life organized by pleasing, or finding 'like-ability.'
• Naivety--Innocence is not recognizing a danger because of lack of experience with it. Naivety is is not recognizing a danger despite experience with it, and it usually develops, when in childhood, dangers have come from caregivers,
• Seeks Approval As children they were controlled by disapproval and of course unloved. They believe that approval is a necessary first step toward love
• Difficulty Saying "No" Tyrants are dangerous to say no to. But the self-definition that starts with "no" (knowing by no-ing) can't complete its development.
• Frightened of Strong Emotions, in Themselves or Others As children, strong emotion (or really emotional dysregulation) were precursors to someone getting hurt.
• External Locus of Control As children, they in fact had no control, but unlike healthy homes, there was no formation process in which they slowly were given more choices and control as they grew. The result is passivity where action is indicated, and manipulation of others who are seen to have control.
• Excessive Conscientiousness Often there is a double standard, in which the adult child will inconvenience him- or herself a great deal to provide a small convenience to someone else, while loath to inconvenience anyone else even slightly when the convenience to them would be great.
• Poor Boundaries This is more than inability to defend boundaries, it is a actual desensitization to intrusion and exploitation
• Low Self Worth Lack of unconditional acceptance in early life is hard to overcome.
• Excuses the Offenses of Others This is a childhood habit because it is impossible to see caretakers or loved ones as villains.
• Excessive Altruism This is often vicarious nurturing. The adult child does for others what he or she down deep wants to receive. It usually leads, however, to self-impoverishment (which puts a de facto ceiling on how much others really could be helped anyway)
• Emotional Numbness or Alexithymia (Inability to Recognize or Name One's Feelings) This is from 'stuffing' feelings until the capacity to feel is either lost or frozen. Adult children often confuse prospects or judgments for emotions.
• Self-Isolated Over time, decisions driven by anxiety to forgo this and skip that lead to an isolated existence with meager enrichment and few reality checks.
• Impressionable Because grounding and self-definition was thwarted, there is a vulnerability to charisma or sensory manipulation, despite strong intellectual abilities. Adult children have trouble listening to their gut.
• Black and White Thinking Something is experienced as either wonderful or terrible, but not in-between. In the natural world, though, almost everything is 'gray' Black and white thinking is an artifact of living with a tyrant where everything either pleased or displeased him or her, but this is not a balanced assessment for most situations in life. Black and white thinking often leads to feeling that one has only two options (and those options are dysfunctional opposite extremes).
• Let Others Define Reality Adult children find themselves adapting to or resisting the dogmatic assertions, demands, and judgments of tyrants in their lives. Even when they are standing up for themselves, they are doing so within a world-view designed by others. An analogy comes to mind from pre-computer animation. Some artists would draw the frames that indicated what was changing in the cartoon, and other artists (called in-betweeners) would fill in all the frames in-between that made the visual flow smooth. Adult children are often like the 'in-betweeners', working very hard to keep someone else's story working.
• Take Everything Personally As children, everything that came at them from the tyrant was in fact targeted--approval and disapproval, reward and punishment. (Some of this may have been intended to disturb them, most of it was displaced rage) From this, adult children often grow up perceiving that every bit of social friction means that the other person is 'messing' with them. There is a great difficulty recognizing that others may only be acting out of self interest or their own issues. Often, it is best to leave the feelings of others to those others and react only with curiosity. But if one take things personally, it is impossible not to take on the feelings of others ('projective identification') Shamed behavior follows.
• Have Trouble Discussing Problems. This is because they feel they are being blamed for any problem that arises. Even if they absolutely aren't being blamed, or couldn't possibly be responsible, they hear the statements of others as blame. This is because the tyrants always blamed them when something went wrong, even if they couldn't possibly be responsible.

A note I wrote and presented, a year ago today

Tuesday March 12, 2019 7:45 a.m.
I would like to be clear about what made last week WORSE.
It was the # of times you excluded me.
By last Wednesday, I was absolutely slayed.
(When your uncle was here, too: you forced me to be okay with his invitation, then you conducted a family reunion in Santa Cruz without inviting Anna.)
[Anna is no one! She must not be included!]
When I cried, you silently walked past me. Each and every time.

Memento, and regarding self love

[Monday March 11, 2019 8:08 a.m.]

[You can still divert the trajectory of dystopian “Back to the Future 2”.]

[The longer you wait, the less recovery (and return to true) are possible.]

[It’s time to make amends.]

How did you learn to love yourself?
[Answered by Carol Reathel on Quora.com.]

There is a wonderful technique called ‘reparenting’ - this is great if you missed out on unconditional love when you were younger, and that part of you never felt secure and safe in life.

We see the part of ourselves that is unloved as the ‘Inner Child’ and we see the conscious part of us, that is who we refer to as ‘I’ as the parent.

Internally, we begin to engage with a loving dialog towards our younger self. You can give her a name. In time, this part of us comes forward and may respond to you, and you can have a 2 way communication. Sometimes that doesn’t happen. Regardless, imagine you a have a little child to look after, and treat her with all the love and care you would a child.

Talk to her, tell her what you are doing, if you do something well, even as little as making a nice coffee, praise yourself for a job well done. In time, you may notice an uplifting feeling when you self praise.

Enjoy foods that are nourishing for your body and begin to really take care of what you take into your body. Make gradual change if you need to. Ensure you are getting the wide range of vitamins you need, either from your food or supplement with a multivitamin if you need to give yourself a boost.

Take time to have fun with your inner child, do things you love to do. When you feel like adult time, metaphorically tuck your child into bed in your mind for a nap and spend some time doing something you enjoy just for yourself. Whether that is a favourite tv show, hobby, craft, or time in your garden. Make sure each part of your day has at least one activity you do for your own enjoyment.

Get into meditation. This is sitting or lying down for 15 minutes in silence and just let thoughts pass through your mind, and do not follow them, just them appear and go. Look for the space between the thoughts, were there is silence. Some people like to focus on a constant background noise, like the hum of an air conditioner to focus their attention on, this helps minimize thoughts.

Meditating 15 minutes daily is beneficial for you in so many may ways. It releases calming and happy hormones into the system, and increases your resilience in order to manage any stressful situations in a calmer way, or move through the stress more quickly.

You need to do the inner journey towards self forgiveness. No matter what you have done that you judge yourself for, you are a human being and all humans make mistakes. Some of us can be very hard on ourselves, and that gets in the way of loving yourself, so forgive yourself for being human. Balance that with a commitment to yourself to learn from future mistakes, so that you grow as a person and take on new spiritual maturity.

Pamper yourself if you can. If you have a bath, buy some lovely scent and candles and luxuriate in the hot water and allow yourself to breathe in the scents and relax deeply. You are worthy of being pampered, and it is a way of telling yourself you have value and are worth pampering.

Self love also involves recognizing your strengths. Write a list of the things you know you are good at, and add qualities that you have as a person. No time fo modesty here, recognize your unique talents and qualities. Allow that list to be available for adding to, as more answers come to you.

Remove toxicity from your life. Whether this comes in the form of people who always make yourself feel small or depleted when you have been around them, or who openly devalue you. These are toxic people and have no place in the world of a person who values their right for a peaceful life filled with loving and supportive people.

In time, as your self love grows, you may find that any addictions you have might begin to fall away. This is because you used the addictions to replace the empty feeling inside, or to avoid feeling the lack of love for yourself, but as your self love grows, there is less need for the addictions. I quit smoking, drinking and green herb when I reached the place of understanding and really getting self love.

There is a moment when, as an allegory, your puzzle of the world breaks apart and it reforms with a new picture of who you are. A better and brighter version of you, With this re-creation comes understanding about the bigger picture, or insights into your life or some deeper understanding of some aspect of yourself. This is when you know you're well on your way to loving yourself.

Keep going, it can take weeks to really develop self love and it becomes a lifestyle. An effortless life style. It takes 30 to 60 days for the brain to re-wire to new patterns of thinking, so the self loving talk to your inner child will be laying new neural networks in your brain, and the old self disliking ones will fizzle away.

Enjoy walks in nature. Stop to admire nature as often as you can, even if it is a flower or a house plant. Nature is such a special system all on its own and the perfection of its shape and form, even colour gives us a new dimension to look into. It brings us fresh new energies that support self love, because nature is about love.

Did I mention: do things you enjoy just for yourself, also take time to hang out with your inner child watching fun movies and fun books or even games you loves to play when you were younger.

The inner child may have some pain that it trapped in the body because it was too young to know what to do with it when or if an event happened in the past, so she may bring up some emotions for releasing, Allow these to be felt and released. This is perfectly natural, you are not going mad.

You can find other ways to love yourself that i haven’t mentioned. Perhaps make a challenge to yourself to find new ways to honour the wonderful person you are.

One day, you will wake up and feel a sense of empowerment, You will love yourself unconditionally, and the inner child can now be integrated back into who you are because she has caught up on the love, you have parented her well. She will always be a part of you and you can remember her and play whenever the urge takes you.

There is a sort of magical realignment inside and you may even discover your life purpose and life mission. I always imagine that reaching self love is light a lovely big crystal with lots of facets. When we release old trapped emotions we allow a little more of our real self to show, and the more we polish ourself with love, the shinier and sparklier we become. One day we are this beautiful shining crystal, complete with flaws, but perfect and wonderful as a whole.

I hope these ideas are helpful. It is what i did to move into self love. I thought I already did love myself, but wow, experiencing the full unconditional self love is way different. It means that we do not ever let people cross our boundaries unless we give them permission, we never compromise our values and standards and we live authentically from the heart. We can be ourselves and not worry how other perceive us, because the only opinion that matters is ourselves.

This small answer is growing into a book that outlines the science of how these processes work and with the human brain working in conjunction we can turn a self loving person into a super ninja. Follow me if you would like to know when the book is available, and I will send a link to a place where we work on getting book see a bit more for what it will offer. This who long process has changed my life for the better, and me and myself have lot of fun doing things that are fun. tricky and grow us a person. Don’t miss out!

False self, from daily mailing

 "The dysfunction is encoded into our souls as the false self."

Many of us couldn't be ourselves as children. In order to survive, we bought our parent's negative messages, and then as adults, we repeated their dishonest justifications for crazy behavior. We remember our destructive false pride that wouldn't allow us to admit mistakes or feel vulnerable. On some level, we always knew what we were doing, but our false self was in charge and we didn't have the words or thought processes to do things differently or to express true feelings.

What hurts the most is that for those of us who have children, we modeled this dishonest behavior for them. As much as we tried to stop ourselves, we just couldn't see our way through to show them a better side.

In recovery, we now see that our wounds were so deep that it's hard to imagine that we had a hole that big in our soul. Today we can see that our lack of honesty for so long is constant proof of the trauma we suffered as children, and the reason we need to break the cycle. This is where we strip away all the layers of shame that created our false self. We now more readily admit our shortcomings because as adults we can handle any fallout. In doing so, we help keep the family craziness from growing.

On this day I release my false self and have the courage to admit when I am wrong. I do this so that the hurts stop piling up, for both myself and others.

Recovery language (from daily mailing)

"We may be speaking program lingo, but we are not talking about what truly bothers us."

In the beginning, many of us found great comfort in the new language of recovery. It shielded us against the old way of thinking. But some of us found that "talking the talk" without "walking the walk" did not change our actual behavior. We damaged ourselves and those around us by treading lightly. As we learned when we were children, we did not make waves, and the consequences still hurt us deeply. What we needed to see was that we were in a fight for our very lives.

As we recognize our complacence, we begin to free ourselves. We embrace our choices as adults with a firm backbone. We grow up. We do for ourselves what no one else can do: we rescue ourselves. We do this by surrendering our controlling grip and letting other people into our lives who can help us ... whomever we need.

We are not looking for perfection, but progress. We put aside our doubts and walk into the light of a new truth. It may feel painful to be honest and try something new, but not as painful as staying where we are.

6 Listening Tips from Erich Fromm

Listening, Fromm argues, is “is an art like the understanding of poetry” and, like any art, has its own rules and norms. Drawing on his half-century practice as a therapist, Fromm offers six such guidelines for mastering the art of unselfish understanding:

1. The basic rule for practicing this art is the complete concentration of the listener.
2. Nothing of importance must be on his mind, he must be optimally free from anxiety as well as from greed.
3. He must possess a freely-working imagination which is sufficiently concrete to be expressed in words.
4. He must be endowed with a capacity for empathy with another person and strong enough to feel the experience of the other as if it were his own.
5. The condition for such empathy is a crucial facet of the capacity for love. To understand another means to love him — not in the erotic sense but in the sense of reaching out to him and of overcoming the fear of losing oneself.
6. Understanding and loving are inseparable. If they are separate, it is a cerebral process and the door to essential understanding remains closed.

In the remainder of the The Art of Listening, Fromm goes on to detail the techniques, dynamics, and mindsets that make for an optimal listening relationship, in therapy and in life.