#8 Place we go when we fall short
My Top 3 Quotes
- The antidote to shame is empathy. If we reach out and share our shame experience with someone who responds with empathy, shame dissipates.
- Self-compassion entails being warm and understanding toward ourselves when we suffer, fail, or feel inadequate, rather than ignoring our pain or flagellating ourselves with self-criticism.
- Like most people, I talk to myself in ways that I would never talk to people I love. I try to remind myself —if I wouldn’t talk that way to Ellen or Charlie when they make a mistake or drop a ball, I shouldn’t talk that way to myself.
- All the cruel and brutal things, even genocide, start with the humiliation of one individual.
Summary&Notes
这章真的太精彩了！作者介绍了Shame, Self-Compassion, Perfectionism, Guilt, Humiliation, Embarrassment等情感，什么是Shame？我们每个人都经历过，但是却很少谈论它，作者的定义是，Shame是一种强烈的的痛苦感受或者经历，它让我们认定自己是有缺陷的，因此不值得爱和归属。Secrecy, Silence, and Judgment会滋长Shame的感受。Empathy则是Shame的解药。除此之外，作者还给出了应对方法：
- Recognizing shame and understanding its triggers
- Practicing critical awareness(Are they realistic? Attainable? Are they what you want to be or what you think others need or want from you?)
- Reaching out, Are you owning and sharing your story? We can’t experience empathy if we’re not connecting.
- Speaking shame. Are you talking about how you feel and asking for what you need when you feel shame? Silence, secrecy, and judgment fuel shame.
Perfectionism 这一小节简直太戳心了，比如：
Perfectionism tells us that our mistakes and failures are personal defects, so we either avoid trying new things or we barely recover every time we inevitably fall short. 完美主义告诉我们，我们的错误和失败是个人的缺陷，所以我们要么避免尝试新事物，要么在每次不可避免的失败时几乎无法恢复。
Healthy striving is self-focused—How can I improve? Perfectionism is other-focused—What will they think? 健康的奋斗是以自我为中心的：我该如何改进? 完美主义则是关注他人：他们会怎么想?
perfectionism is a self-destructive and addictive belief system that we use to try to protect ourselves from feelings of shame, judgment, and blame. It is a twenty-ton shield that we lug around thinking it will protect us when in fact it’s the thing that’s really preventing us from taking flight， 完美主义是一种自我毁灭和上瘾的信念系统，我们用它来保护自己不受羞愧、评判和责备的影响。它就像一个20吨重的盾牌，我们带着它到处走，以为它能保护我们，但实际上它是真正阻止我们前进的东西。
我之前会觉得完美主义者可以让事情变更好，完成得更漂亮。但作者给出了新的思考，完美主义并没有想象中的美好，它会让我们过度的去关心事情『看起来会怎么样？』『别人会怎么想？』，而不是去关心事情本身。一旦不如意，就很容易陷入深深的自责，并很难跳出来。这会给我们造成极大心理负担，也会阻碍我们创新。那要怎么办呢？我个人觉得，把事情做到尽善尽美是我们应该追求的，我身边就有很多这样的朋友，他们往往对产品和项目有着苛刻的要求，通常做出来的东西肯定不会差。所以我们不能一刀切的就去否定完美主义，我们应该把能量放到事情本身，而不是其他一些虚无飘渺的东西。