Saying the Right Thing

So there is the experience of telling someone one of your deepest darkest secrets and having them say “Oh! It’s not just me?” Not once, but twice this has happened to me this week, and it shouldn’t have surprised me. But I am beginning to think that every thinking person I know walks around at least some of the time thinking that there is something secretly deep down unfixably wrong with them. And all the recollection of suffering I can summon and stay sane seems to have this kernel of “something is unfixably wrong with me” and that all of the desolation and ache is an inevitable result of that wrongness. There have been several moments this week when I have had to summon all of the listening and compassion skills I have to...

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