My son John was just under a year old when I collapsed with a life-threatening kidney disease. The shame and guilt resulting from my unplanned pregnancy had continued to fester to the point that my toxic feelings literally poisoned my body.
Every woman while she would be ready to die of shame if surprised in the act of generation, nonetheless carries her pregnancy without a trace of shame and indeed with a kind of pride. The reason is that pregnancy is in a certain sense a cancellation of the guilt incurred by coitus; thus coitus bears all the shame and disgrace of the affair, while pregnancy, which is so intimately associated with it, stays pure and innocent and is indeed to some extent sacred.
Monsters, among other brutes, are the ones without guilt feelings. Perhaps Hitler did not have any, or Himmler, or Stalin. Maybe Mafia bosses do not have any guilt feelings either, or maybe their remains are just well hidden in the cellar. Even aborted guilt feelings...All men need guilt feelings.
A woman experiencing an unplanned pregnancy also deserves to experience unplanned joy.
Twenty million more have Chronic Kidney Disease, where patients experience a gradual deterioration of kidney function, the end result of which is kidney failure.
Kidney disease is a low-profile, unglamorous problem, a disease that disproportionately strikes minorities and the poor. Its celebrity spokesman is blue-collar comedian George Lopez, who received a kidney from his wife.
If a child had another disease, we'd be open about what we were going through, but addiction is stigmatised and comes with shame and guilt.
Like it or not, in the end, it's one's body. It's literally what carries you through life. There's a reason for the saying, 'If you have your health, you have everything,' and it's true. Old age, disease - these are the great equalizers.
I'll say - I have four kids! I married a woman when I was 24 years old. She was 13 years my senior. She had been married twice before. I adopted them. I was 24 and had a 17-year-old son instantly, an 11-year-old daughter, a 5-year-old, and a child on the way. So I had to learn how to become a parent very quickly.
When my son got sick and he was in the hospital, and they took out his kidney when he was less than a year old, I definitely learned that each moment is really precious and I don't want to take anything for granted.
An older child, one who possesses a conscience, will be troubled with self-reproaches and feelings of shame for his naughtiness, even if he is not discovered. But our two-year-olds and our three-year- olds experience guilt feelings only when they feel or anticipate disapproval from the outside. In doing this, they have taken the first steps toward the goal of conscience, but there is a long way ahead before the policeman outside becomes the policeman inside.
I used to travel 200 days of the year. I had to calm it down because I have a 17-year-old daughter going on 30, and a 23-year-old son. I want to be around for them.
According to the Western model, pregnancy is a disease, menopause is a disease, and even getting pregnant is a disease. Dangerous drugs and devices are given to women, but not to men- just for birth control. I've reached the conclusion that to many doctors BEING A WOMAN IS A DISEASE
Many physical illnesses are associated with depression and anxiety, including heart disease, high blood pressure, diabetes, Parkinson's disease, stroke, kidney disease, lung disease, dementia and cancer.
I was a very, very old child. Sometimes you meet a child who seems more like an adult. I think I was that type of child because I had a nearly fatal kidney disease when I was 9 years old.
The Buddha taught that all life is suffering. We might also say that life, being both attractive and constantly dangerous, is intoxicating and ultimately toxic. 'Toxic' comes from toxicon, Pendell tells us, with a root meaning of 'a poisoned arrow.' All organic life is struck by the arrows of real and psychic poisons. This is understood by any true, that is to say, not self-deluding, spiritual path.
Shame usually follows a pattern—a cycle of self-recrimination and lies that claims life after life. First, we experience an intensely painful event. Second, we believe the lie that our pain and failure is who we are—not just something we’ve done, or had done to us—and we experience shame. And finally, our feelings of shame trap us into thinking that we can never recover—that, in fact, we don’t even deserve to.