Excerpts from Letting Go of Innocence by Prentis Hemphill, July 5, 2019

“…so many of us want innocence separate from accountability. We want an independent party to deem us innocent so we don’t have to look further, feel more, or understand ourselves..we do everything we can to avoid guilt – we stretch truths, obscure intentions, omit information, build alliances to prevent ourselves from being seen as culpable”

“We harm each other for reasons that have nothing at all to do with each other. We destroy parts of each other on a memory we can’t shake, or a feeling we can’t tolerate. That happens every day. And yet, innocence won’t stop it and won’t heal us. Neither will guilt.”

“What if we could see ourselves less as innocent, but as harmed and harming, more or less honest, more or less able to be conscious when triggered, more or less manipulative, more or less willing to take responsibility for our own change, more or less caught in patterns. Would we be better able to create and respect boundaries between each other? Would we be more likely to interrupt our own violence if we didn’t insist on our innocence and the accompanying justifications for our actions?”

“Can we tolerate knowing ourselves?”

Excerpts from Letting Go of Innocence by Prentis Hemphill, July 5, 2019