Shannon

“Spiritual bypassing—the use of spiritual beliefs to avoid dealing with painful feelings, unresolved wounds, and developmental needs—is so pervasive that it goes largely unnoticed. The spiritual ideals of any tradition, whether Christian commandments or Buddhist precepts, can provide easy justification for practitioners to duck uncomfortable feelings in favor of more seemingly enlightened activity. When split off from fundamental psychological needs, such actions often do much more harm than good. ROBERT AUGUSTUS MASTERS, Spiritual Bypassing: When Spirituality Disconnects Us from What Really Matters”
― Megan Devine, It's OK That You're Not OK: Meeting Grief and Loss in a Culture That Doesn't Understand

“But at the beginning, empty allowed me to take everything in. At the start, empty meant receptivity and only later meant rejection. Empty—for years I still loved it. I found hollowness extremely satisfying. Like a straw, something you could blow through. That was some of the most relief I could get in life, was being empty. That was a way I knew I could be open to sensation, when I was diminished, slim. And when I was: It was a gliding feeling. I could do a bridge; I could do a backbend. I could straddle you. I could leave for the airport and just get on a flight. There was no problem with anything. There was no reason not to get dressed. I recognize that I am still attached to the word; my impulse is to defend it. Emptiness is possibility. Empty is the moment before the future gets filled in. But it’s a state of impoverishment, not sustenance, and my unwillingness to accept this has been my great mistake. Empty amounts to nothing.”
― Susan Burton, Empty

“Each person’s grief is as unique as their fingerprint. But what everyone has in common is that no matter how they grieve, they share a need for their grief to be witnessed. That doesn’t mean needing someone to try to lessen it or reframe it for them. The need is for someone to be fully present to the magnitude of their loss without trying to point out the silver lining.” Professor Neimeyer’s”
― Brené Brown, Atlas of the Heart: Mapping Meaningful Connection and the Language of Human Experience

“The more difficult it is for us to articulate our experiences of loss, longing, and feeling lost to the people around us, the more disconnected and alone we feel.”
― Brené Brown, Atlas of the Heart: Mapping Meaningful Connection and the Language of Human Experience