This is http://www.essayz.com/a9007111.htm         
Previous-Essay      <== This-Essay ==>     Following-Essay
Click HERE on this line to find essays via Your-Key-Words.
{Most frequent wordstarts of each essay will be put here.}
==========================================================
%RESPONSIBLE SHAME GUILT RESPONSIVE HONEST BEHAVIOR 900711

     Truly  responsible  people  are  responsive  to  true
statements about the consequences of their behavior. To be
responsible  is to be truly responsive;  i.e.,  honest  in
responses.

     It is useful to make a distinction between guilt  and
shame.  When we behave in ways which unfairly pain,   hurt
and/or damage others we may properly be regarded as guilty
in some way because of our behavior.  We should accept the
reality  of  such guilt in a responsible way;   in  honest
responses to true statements about the consequences of our
behavior.   Yet  we should not accept  responsibility  for
other people's embarrassment,  if we have spoken the truth
with  charity  and  they refuse to honor the  truth  which
embarrasses them.  Their refusal to honor the truth is not
our responsibility,  and we are not guilty of any fault in
speaking the truth charitably.

     When  people  seek to shame us, they are going beyond
speaking  the truth with clarity about the consequences of
our behavior. When people seek to shame us they are trying
to  get us to accept and affirm false statements about our
worth  as a person.  To try to shame someone is to try  to
get  them to believe that in some fundamental way they are
defective,   and  not worthy of acceptance  into  communal
dialogue   and  the  affirmations  which  such  acceptance
implies. We do not need to accept shame when it is offered
to us. We have no responsibility to accept the shame which
irresponsible people try to dump upon us. People who offer
shame  to us are guilty of disintegrative  behavior,   and
they need to be charitably confronted with the truth about
their disintegrative behavior.

     Trying  to shame people leads to personal pain,  hurt
and  damage,  just as physically abusing people does.  The
verbal abuse of shaming people can be just as debilitating
as  physical abuse.  We have no responsibility  to  accept
such abuse or to respect it. It is irresponsible for us to
accept  such  abuse or to respect it.  In  accepting  such
shameful  abuse we become co-participants with the abusers
in  their games of mutual self deception,  whether they be
recognized addicts, codependents, colluders;  or generally
respected and powerful citizens of leadership positions in
the community.
                                                                                                                               
                         (c) 2005 by Paul A. Smith in      
                    (On Being Yourself, Whole and Healthy)  
                                                                                                                               
==========================================================