“When we cannot live with failure, we limit the intimacy in our lives. People do not tell stories of failure to those who have room in their hearts for only perfection. Tell me a story of failure in your life, a time when you made a mistake. Tell it with compassion for the child or man or woman you were. Tell it with ruthless honesty and gentle acceptance. We do not avoid shame by hiding mistakes. The shame just becomes buried within us.
Shame releases its paralyzing grip on us when we take responsibility for our mistakes and the sometimes serious consequences those mistakes can have for ourselves and others. In this way shame can be our ally, pointing to things we have not accepted about ourselves, guiding us to mistakes we have not acknowledged. Accepting our failings means accepting where we have hurt others, or ourselves, and making retribution for these injuries where it is possible.”
Oriah Mountain Dreamer, in “The Invitation”
For more information about this book visit Amazon.
Jeff Maziarek, author of Spirituality Simplified and Codi’s Journey, launched Pondercentral.com in April 2007 as a Web-based forum for “PONDER on THIS,” a series of weekday inspirational email messages he began sending to subscribers in March 1999. A FREE service since its inception, “PONDER on THIS” provides subscribers with meaningful content to assist them on their individual paths of spiritual growth. In addition, it benefits subscribers, authors, and publishers by including links to Amazon.com where subscribers can learn more about the book being quoted, and also purchase it.
