The Shape of Unmet Needs
Sloth – Laziness is really fear. We can’t bear to get down to our work, because if we were to apply ourselves, we risk terrifying humiliation. We might not succeed as well as we’d like, we might find a task too hard, we may realise we’re not yet equipped to undertake it or be mocked by the world. These aren’t failings so much as hugely understandable anxieties. Behind our inaction is anticipated disaster; a catastrophizing mind. We will begin at last when the fear of doing nothing at all trumps the crippling fear of doing something badly.
Greed – The powerful urge to take more than our fair share is really a reaction to a feeling of deprivation; we’ve felt so neglected and vulnerable, we require ever more. Our fear is so entrenched, we’re trying to keep it at bay by grabbing as much as we can, as quickly as possible. To others, we may make look already advantaged and privileged; inside we just feel desperate.
In short, our ‘sins’ are not signs of being bad people. They are the shape our unmet needs take when we haven’t found any better way of addressing them. We don’t have to be berated or threatened with hell. We need an open affection that welcomes us as we are, a forgiveness that doesn’t involve criticism and a tenderness that delicately, without humiliation, locates our true vulnerabilities and encourages our own native appetite for reform…………..
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Enjoy and be well.
