On Pema Chödrön, The Little Mermaid & The Allure of Mental Traps

Shame and defensiveness can look like opposites, but they often have something important in common: both can take away our voice and sense of agency.

One turns the problem inward: there’s something wrong with me. The other pushes it outward: this is someone else’s fault to fix.

The more interesting space lies between them where we can look at what happened with both honesty and compassion, ask what is genuinely ours to own, and respond without either attacking ourselves or defending ourselves.