Quotes About Acceptance

Owning our stories means reckoning with our feelings and rumbling with our dark emotions—our fear, anger, aggression, shame, and blame. This isn't easy, but the alternative—denying our stories and disengaging from emotion—means choosing to live our entire lives in the dark. When we decide to own our stories and live our truth, we bring our light to the darkness.

First, shame is the fear of disconnection.

Shame unravels our connection to others. In fact, I often refer to shame as the fear of disconnection - the fear of being perceived as flawed and unworthy of acceptance or belonging. Shame keeps us from telling our own stories and prevents us from listening to others tell their stories. We silence our voices and keep our secrets out fo the fear of disconnection.

we stop respecting and evaluating people based on what we think they should accomplish, and start respecting them for who they are and holding them accountable for what they're actually doing.

I felt totally exposed and completely loved and accepted at the same time (which is the definition of compassion for me).

Laura Williams always says, "Comparison is the thief of happiness.

For children, it's easy for everything to become a source of shame when nothing is normalized. You assume that if no one is talking about it, it must be just you.

I don't know. I really don't. All I know is that my life is better when I assume that people are doing their best. It keeps me out of judgment and lets me focus on what is, and not what should or could be." His answer felt like truth to me. Not an easy truth, but truth.

In order to feel a true sense of belonging, I need to bring the real me to the table and I can only do that if I'm practicing self-love.

A jornada da vulnerabilidade não foi feita para se percorrer sozinho. Nós precisamos de apoio. Precisamos de pessoas que nos ajudem na tentativa de trilhar novas maneiras de ser e não nos julguem. Precisamos de uma mão para nos levantar quando cairmos (e se você se entregar a uma vida corajosa, levará alguns tombos).

Perfectionism is, at its core, about trying to earn approval and acceptance.

Self-kindness: Being warm and understanding toward ourselves when we suffer, fail, or feel inadequate, rather than ignoring our pain or flagellating ourselves with self-criticism.

Common humanity recognizes that suffering and feelings of personal inadequacy are part of the shared human experience

Feeling shamed, judged, and blamed (and the fear of these feelings) are realities of the human experience. Perfectionism actually increases the odds that we'll experience these painful emotions and often leads to self-blame: It's my fault.

To be on my list, you have to be what I call a "stretch-mark friend"—our connection has been stretched and pulled so much that it's become part of who we are, a second skin, and there are a few scars to prove it. We're totally uncool with each other.

We need support. We need folks who will let us try on new ways of being without judging us. We need a hand to pull us up off the ground when we get kicked down in the arena. And if we live a courageous life, that will happen.

But these things don't matter at all, because once you are Real, you can't be ugly, except to people who don't understand.

But no matter what we use, we can't selectively numb emotions- when we numb the dark, we also numb the light.

Shame needs three things to grow out of control in our lives: secrecy, silence, and judgment.

Shame is about the fear of disconnection. When we are experiencing shame, we are steeped in the fear of being ridiculed, diminished or seen as flawed. We are afraid that we've exposed or revealed a part of us that jeopardizes our connection and our worthiness of acceptance.

Like all of the experiences in this book, both our anxiety and our fear need to be understood and respected, perhaps even befriended. We need to pull up a chair and sit with them, understand why they're showing up, and ask ourselves what there is to learn. Dismissing fear and anxiety as not useful to our quest for connection is as dangerous as choosing to live in constant fear and anxiety.

Where perfectionism exists, shame is always lurking. In fact, shame is the birthplace of perfectionism.

Our job is to look and say, 'You know what? You're imperfect, and you're wired for struggle, but you are worthy of love and belonging.' That's our job.

Because loving them and accepting their imperfections is much easier than turning that light of loving-kindness on myself.