Friday, June 15, 2012

Book Review - Healthy Shame: How To Spank Your Inner Monkey! by Joseph W. Dopp



I've learned that Shame is a fundamental cause of addiction.  Shame as opposed to guilt.  The definition I accept is:  Guilt - I did wrong.  Shame - I am wrong.  Clearly shame is damaging as is presupposes that I am fundamentally flawed rather than being a person of divine potential who has made mistakes.  Even terrible mistakes.  So this title held a bit of intrigue for me and I decided to give it a try.  I didn't get very far.  While Dopp is witty, I didn't find him to be all that funny, which he was clearly shooting for.  Instead I found him irreverent and crass.  Even that I endured until he explained that a fundamental principle of his method decried what he called the prideful notion that we might ever become like God.

I believe God is my own Father and that His greatest desire is for His offspring, me and you, to grow to become like Him.  Dopp says we are clay in God's jar.  I declare that we are not clay in Gods jar, nor are we pawns on His chess board, nor sheep in His pasture nor art in His Gallery.  We are not rats in His laboratory we are His own sons and daughters, endowed with divine potentiality.  Dopp sees my position as blasphemous.  He can think as he wishes.  I however, couldn't find enough common ground in our philosophical approaches to change to warrant finishing the book.  Our views are built on entirely different foundations.

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