A Recovery Blog

This blog is about my continuing recovery from severe mental illness and addiction. I celebrate this recovery by continuing to write, by sharing my music and artwork and by exploring Buddhist and 12 Step ideas and concepts. I claim that the yin/yang symbol is representative of all of us because I have found that even in the midst of acute psychosis there is still sense, method and even a kind of balance. We are more resilient than we think. We can cross beyond the edge of the sane world and return to tell the tale. A deeper kind of balance takes hold when we get honest, when we reach out for help, when we tell our stories.

Monday, January 29, 2018

Guilt And Shame

"Guilt helps us know when we've acted badly; shame tells us we are bad.  Guilt gives us a way back to our selves through making amends; shame leaves us hopeless.  To give in to shame and self-hatred only harms us and intensifies the power of the addiction.  There is a better way, and that's to learn to love ourselves."    
                                                                                       Answers In The Heart, April 24

"Hatred does not cease through hatred at any time.  Hatred ceases through love.  This is an unalterable law."
                                                                                      Buddha, The Dhammapada

 Shame can mark you for life if you let it.  There are two directions - you can move towards self-love or away from self-love.  Self-love means loving yourself.  It is not selfishness to love yourself.  Love is not selfish in its very nature.
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