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Ash Salao's avatar

( I responded to the email, but threading this here as well hehe )

You are brilliant ! ! !

Thank you for taking the time to unravel and articulate one of the most densely complex experiences to grapple with in this moment.

As learned from Robin Wall Kimmerer’s Braiding Sweetgrass, your piece got me thinking about how the antidote can often be found growing near the poison.

So, what other faces might shame have? What antidote may I be just missing?

Maybe shame is the space where empathy can’t yet reach — a perspective that leaves room for the desire to shame to be integrated rather than fully abandoned (a state that can exacerbate rather than eliminate).

And if it is, maybe I can act from a place that will inspire another’s empathy, not just their shame. Maybe it’s creating the conditions in which empathy outgrows shame. The tools of accountability and pressure that you mentioned are great examples. We are re-sensitizing together.

Our hearts are big enough, thank you for this reminder and absolutely banger essay 💛

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