Quotes from Brene Brown

There is a line. It's etched from dignity. And raging, fearful people from the right and left are crossing it at unprecedented rates every single day. We must never tolerate dehumanization—the primary instrument of violence that has been used in every genocide recorded throughout history.

I believe joy is probably the most vulnerable emotion we experience. We're afraid that if we allow ourselves to feel it, we'll get blindsided by disaster or disappointment. That's why in moments of real joy, many of us dress-rehearse

Rather than risking feeling disappointed, they're choosing to live disappointed.

After fifteen years of this work, I can confidently say that stories of pain and courage almost always include two things: praying and cussing. Sometimes at the exact same time.

Much of the beauty of light owes its existence to the dark.

You don't wander into the wilderness unprepared. Standing alone in a hypercritical environment or standing together in the midst of difference requires one tool above all others: trust. To brave the wilderness and become the wilderness we must learn how to trust ourselves and trust others.

We don't compare our houses to the mansions across town; we compare our yard to the yards on our block. When we compare, we want to be the best or have the best of our group. The comparison mandate becomes this crushing paradox of "fit in and stand out!" It's not cultivate self-acceptance, belonging, and authenticity; it's be just like everyone else, but better.

Who do you become when you're backed into that shame corner? How do you protect yourself? Who do you call to work through the mean-nasties or the cry-n-hides or the people-pleasing? What's the most courageous thing you could do for yourself when you feel small and hurt?

Anguish is an almost unbearable and traumatic swirl of shock, incredulity, grief, and powerlessness. Shock and incredulity can take our breath away, and grief and powerlessness often come for our hearts and our minds. But anguish, the combination of these experiences, not only takes away our ability to breathe, feel, and think—it comes for our bones.

I found this really interesting because I always assumed that my emotions responded to my body freaking out. But really, my emotions are responding to my "thinking" assessment of how well I can handle something.

always knew these moments were important to me. I knew they were connected to my spiritual well-being and allowed me to stay in love with humanity while doing research that can be devastating and hard.

It is easy to see how quickly expectations become layered, competitive and conflicting. This is how the shame web works. We have very few realistic options that allow us to meet any of these expectations. Most of the options that we do have feel like a "double bind." When Marilyn Frye describes a double bind as "a situation in which options are very limited and all of them expose us to penalty, censure or deprivation.

Belonging is a practice that requires us to be vulnerable, get uncomfortable, and learn how to be present with people without sacrificing who we are.

To know you can navigate the wilderness on your own—to know that you can stay true to your beliefs, trust yourself, and survive it—that is true belonging.

definition of vulnerability is uncertainty, risk, and emotional exposure. But vulnerability is not weakness; it's our most accurate measure of courage. When the barrier is our belief about vulnerability, the question becomes: Are we willing to show up and be seen when we can't control the outcome? When the barrier to vulnerability is about safety, the question becomes: Are we willing to create courageous spaces so we can be fully seen?

In fact, all of us are very susceptible to having our humiliating experiences turn to shame, especially when the person who is putting us down is someone with whom we have a valued relationship or someone whom we perceive to have more power than we do...

Shame forces us to put so much value on what other people think that we lose ourselves in the process of trying to meet everyone else's expectations. Shame:

True belonging is not something that you negotiate externally, it's what you carry in your heart.

Perfect and bulletproof are seductive, but they don't exist in the human experience. We must walk into the arena, whatever it may be—

I understood that people would do almost anything to not feel pain, including causing pain and abusing power, and I understood that there were very few people who could handle being held accountable for causing hurt without rationalizing, blaming, or shutting down.

Shame is the intensely powerful feeling or experience of believing we are flawed and therefore unworthy of acceptance or belonging.

If we want to fully experience love and belonging we must believe that we are worthy of love and belonging.

First, one of the most universal numbing strategies is what I call crazy-busy. I often say that when they start having twelve-step meetings for busy-aholics, they'll need to rent out football stadiums. We are a culture of people who've bought into the idea that if we stay busy enough, the truth of our lives won't catch up with us.

Denying emotion is not avoiding the high curbs, it's never taking your car out of the garage. It's safe in there, but you'll never go anywhere.