Grief is a profound iteration of gratitude that entails latent
recognition of unidentified or yet to be realized loss which leads to
mourning within oneself and/or a community.
Guilt can be a kind of grief where the wrongdoing in the absence of action or trespass of one's values entails a profound sense of loss to oneself and those the guilty individual may have (or may not have but perceived to have) harmed. Guilt is a form of grief over an action that the individual or community perceives as "wrong"...
Shame is a kind of guilt that happens as a kind of loss of connection to one's sense of self. It's often characterized by the sense that there's something deeply (harsh personal narratives might even say irreparably) wrong with who the individual is as a person by essence of their existence. Maybe shame is also a sign of blind self-grief. That blindness is what perpetuates a toxic negative feedback loop -- ergo my expression that "shame is the leukemia of mental health." when left in isolation without supportive signals that help ashamed individuals see qualities of their truest selves more completely in healthy light.
Yet what is "wrong" and what would be good in contrast to it?
Adopting a significant part of Aldo Leopold's maxim in his Land Ethic essay, I characterize as follows:
A thing tends to be good when it tends to preserve and advance the beauty and integrity of the biotic and abiotic community.
[biotic = living organisms, abiotic = non-organisms like rivers, mountains, rocks, etc.]
So "wrongs" are only useful insofar as they are used to guide us toward what typically will preserve and advance the beauty and integrity of the communities we live with--and since we are integral to those communities, it means "wrongs" must also preserve and advance our own beauty and integrity with respect to the communities we live with as well.
Beauty was a tricky thing for me to grasp, but thanks to a Kyudo demonstration and talk from two Japanese exchange students studying in Hawaii, they've illustrated a fundamental trio of Eastern concepts used in the martial art and even in my mother's line of family members:
Zen, Bi, Shin
Truth, Virtue, Beauty
In that sequence. Begin with truth. It can be a challenging and messy process, but committing to finding the "correct" or "good" form and developing a consistent relationship with goodness brings us into virtuous practice. Beauty emerges from recognizing the complete relationship between truth and what makes finding truth consistently a process. As a relationship, we then create the possibility for ethical consideration to exist--how we might improve our relationship with a truth using systemic processes for discerning and replicating "goodness" as guidance--in other words, we apply an iteration of science to our existential endeavors.
Recognizing the complete arc of truth, virtue, and beauty is the process for realizing grace. How elegance can manifest from the mundane.
Wisdom comes from our reliable truths. It's an incarnation of beauty that comes from a place of intelligence be it cognitive, kinesthetic, intergenerational, or otherwise.
Gratitude as I practice it comes from choosing to acknowledge something from an experience and/or relationship as an endowment--a gift, considering what that quality says about the situation/individual from a place of appreciation, how it brings out something genuinely worthy of appreciation in me, and expressing it in a way that's meaningful, hopefully relevant and visceral to all parties concerned.
I'll link back to older posts, but I'm glad to know and share that there's an arc toward healing and I've been able to document much of it over the past few years.
If you've the time and interest, go ahead and search this blog for the following keywords:
[good grief]
[shame: the leukemia of mental health]
[an emotional list + etc.]
[coping with tragedy -- gratitude exercise embedded]
[zin bi shin, kyudo]
[grace]
Be well or on the path to better, onward.
Guilt can be a kind of grief where the wrongdoing in the absence of action or trespass of one's values entails a profound sense of loss to oneself and those the guilty individual may have (or may not have but perceived to have) harmed. Guilt is a form of grief over an action that the individual or community perceives as "wrong"...
Shame is a kind of guilt that happens as a kind of loss of connection to one's sense of self. It's often characterized by the sense that there's something deeply (harsh personal narratives might even say irreparably) wrong with who the individual is as a person by essence of their existence. Maybe shame is also a sign of blind self-grief. That blindness is what perpetuates a toxic negative feedback loop -- ergo my expression that "shame is the leukemia of mental health." when left in isolation without supportive signals that help ashamed individuals see qualities of their truest selves more completely in healthy light.
Yet what is "wrong" and what would be good in contrast to it?
Adopting a significant part of Aldo Leopold's maxim in his Land Ethic essay, I characterize as follows:
A thing tends to be good when it tends to preserve and advance the beauty and integrity of the biotic and abiotic community.
[biotic = living organisms, abiotic = non-organisms like rivers, mountains, rocks, etc.]
So "wrongs" are only useful insofar as they are used to guide us toward what typically will preserve and advance the beauty and integrity of the communities we live with--and since we are integral to those communities, it means "wrongs" must also preserve and advance our own beauty and integrity with respect to the communities we live with as well.
Beauty was a tricky thing for me to grasp, but thanks to a Kyudo demonstration and talk from two Japanese exchange students studying in Hawaii, they've illustrated a fundamental trio of Eastern concepts used in the martial art and even in my mother's line of family members:
Zen, Bi, Shin
Truth, Virtue, Beauty
In that sequence. Begin with truth. It can be a challenging and messy process, but committing to finding the "correct" or "good" form and developing a consistent relationship with goodness brings us into virtuous practice. Beauty emerges from recognizing the complete relationship between truth and what makes finding truth consistently a process. As a relationship, we then create the possibility for ethical consideration to exist--how we might improve our relationship with a truth using systemic processes for discerning and replicating "goodness" as guidance--in other words, we apply an iteration of science to our existential endeavors.
Recognizing the complete arc of truth, virtue, and beauty is the process for realizing grace. How elegance can manifest from the mundane.
Wisdom comes from our reliable truths. It's an incarnation of beauty that comes from a place of intelligence be it cognitive, kinesthetic, intergenerational, or otherwise.
Gratitude as I practice it comes from choosing to acknowledge something from an experience and/or relationship as an endowment--a gift, considering what that quality says about the situation/individual from a place of appreciation, how it brings out something genuinely worthy of appreciation in me, and expressing it in a way that's meaningful, hopefully relevant and visceral to all parties concerned.
I'll link back to older posts, but I'm glad to know and share that there's an arc toward healing and I've been able to document much of it over the past few years.
If you've the time and interest, go ahead and search this blog for the following keywords:
[good grief]
[shame: the leukemia of mental health]
[an emotional list + etc.]
[coping with tragedy -- gratitude exercise embedded]
[zin bi shin, kyudo]
[grace]
Be well or on the path to better, onward.
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