Casagrande’s statement has a lot to teach us about disarming the power of shame: We should face it. The experience of shame is the biggest predator in our lives, and attempting to outmaneuver our “great white” memories comes naturally to most of us. We swim away from shame each time we downplay the significance of pain, embrace theologies that make amnesia or easy forgiveness of past harm virtuous, and pursue addictive behavior in which we punish our bodies a thousand times over for the cruelty originally committed against us.[3] Herein lies the problem: Shame’s power is so often derived from
...more
