What's better? Positive support or Tough love?

I'm going through a kick-myself-in-the-ass realization that I'm lazy. Not as lazy as I could be but lazy enough to slap myself in the face and say you're better than this. I read a few posts and I'm kinda on the fence about this subject. Is it better to be a positive voice for someone recovering from this addiction or is it better to get in their face and say THIS IS THE SHIT YOU NEED TO DO. STOP GIVING YOURSELF EXCUSES AND DO THEM!

This is a sore subject to me because I live in a family that believes in tough love. If you're suffering, you say "what am I doing wrong, and how can I change it?" I hate this because I've recently fell in love with the work of Brene Brown who is a vulnerability researcher and to put it simply, she says, to support someone you need to get in the hole with them instead of standing outside of it yelling down. I love this advice and I wish my family would do it for me. But they won't, so maybe I need to stop crying on the inside and start tough loving myself. Maybe its time for me buckle down and actually grab my balls and do what needs to be done to overcome this shit. I'm really confused and inspired at the same time.

I want to know what you guys think about the difference between tough love and positive emotional support. Is one better than the other? Do we need a mixture of both to really thrive?

 

This makes a lot of sense to me, thank you!

 

What do you mean not full spectrum?

 

It's tough to apply anything in the realm of science to everybody but I think the topic of vulnerability does this pretty well. We're all emotional beings and I think most of use want to live happy lives. Her research says that in order to happy one needs to be more vulnerable and open to everyone, feeling everything instead of repressing. The more closed-off and walled-up we are, the less happy we're likely to be. If you have a differing opinion I would love to hear it, as I'm, for sure, biased about her work.

 

She grew up being someone who was a perfectionist. Her research taught her that perfection is not possible and that being vulnerable to people you trust is the way to be happy because being vulnerable allows you to open up and feel all your feelings including happiness.

She would say go for it. This actually has nothing to do with her research field which is just around vulnerability. Building character and happiness through hardship and discipline is another avenue of becoming happy and I bet she would say that being vulnerable while you're doing that would only add to the process.

She would say it isn't about getting comfortable with physical and emotional discomfort but feeling the discomfort in its entirety and not running away from it. Discomfort is part of life and feeling that discomfort while doing what you need to do is part of vulnerability.

Like I said before, it isn't about how comfortable you are with yourself, but with riding through the discomfort that you feel when you feel it without doing things that distract you from it. That is the crux of this work. Living life to it's fullest demands feeling everything that is happening to you. About negative self-perception-- One thing she said that was brilliant that comes to mind is this: Guilt is saying "I did something wrong," Shame is saying, "I am something wrong".

This stuff is really fragmented because I don't remember things worth crap but I think I got the gist of things. Brene Brown is a vulnerability and shame researcher. She figured out the importance of sharing yourself fully with the world and how to combat the shame that has crept into the very fabric of our [american] culture. I think if you have other questions about what she thinks, than get her books. That'll make things much clearer than I can make them. Either way, I hope I helped.