Better an authentic frown...

I am always surprised when friends apologize for being in a bad moon, or sharing their life challenegs when I bump into them, as though there is something wrong with sharing our difficulties with each other. This is yet another exmaple of the bullshit positivity world we have created in western life, where we are only acceptable to each other if we share good news. I wonder if we have communicated the message that someone else's bad news is unacceptable because we are trying to bypass our own difficulties. Whatever it is, this has to stop. We aren't going to co-create a genuinely positive world until we can hold the space for each other's shadown. Better an authentic frown than an inauthentic smile any day. A smile that is built on a pretentious foundation isn't a smile at all. - Jeff Brown, Spiritual Graffiti