Quotes About Vulnerability

In addition to the fear of disappointing people or pushing them away with our stories, we're also afraid that if we tell our stories, the weight of a single experience will collapse upon us. There is a real fear that we can be buried or defined by an experience that, in reality, is only a sliver of who we are.

Because we don't talk about the things that get in the way of doing what we know is best for us, our children, our families, our organizations, and our communities.

Your level of belonging, in fact, can never be greater than your level of self-acceptance.

Wholehearted living is about engaging in our lives from a place of worthiness. It's about cultivating the courage, compassion, and connection to wake up in the morning and think, No matter what gets done and how much is left undone, I am enough. It's going to bed at night thinking, Yes, I am imperfect and vulnerable and sometimes afraid, but that doesn't change the truth that I am also brave and worthy of love and belonging.

Disengagement triggers shame and our greatest fears—the fears of being abandoned, unworthy, and unlovable.

vulnerability and love are the truest marks of courage.

Again, it's counterintuitive, but acknowledging uncertainty is a function of grounded confidence, and it feels like humility to me.

You want to feel comfortable, so you avoid doing or saying the thing that will evoke fear and other difficult emotions. Avoidance will make you feel less vulnerable in the short run, but it will never make you less afraid.

Owning our story can be difficult but not nearly as difficult as spending our lives running from it.

Yes, shame is tough to talk about. But the conversation isn't nearly as dangerous as what we're creating with our silence! We all experience shame. We're all afraid to talk about it. And, the less we talk about it, the more we have it.

If we cultivate enough awareness about shame to name it and speak to it, we've basically cut it off at the knees. Just the way exposure to light was deadly for the Gremlins, language and story bring light to shame and destroy it.

Those who feel lovable, who love, and who experience belonging, simply believe they are worthy of love and belonging.

When we are looking for compassion, we need someone who is deeply rooted, is able to bend and, most of all, embraces us for our strengths and struggles. We need to honor our struggle by sharing it with someone who has earned the right to hear it. When we're looking for compassion, it's about connecting with the right person at the right time about the right issue.

In fact, in my research I found that shame corrodes the very part of us that believes we can change and do better.

When we come together to share authentic joy, hope, and pain, we melt the pervasive cynicism that often cloaks our better human nature. When we come together under the false flag of common enemy intimacy, we amplify cynicism and diminish our collective worth.

As children we found ways to protect ourselves from vulnerability, from being hurt, diminished, and disappointed. We put on armor; we used our thoughts, emotions, and behaviors as weapons; and we learned how to make ourselves scarce, even to disappear. Now as adults we realize that to live with courage, purpose, and connection—to be the person whom we long to be—we must again be vulnerable. We must take off the armor, put down the weapons, show up, and let ourselves be seen.

I was terrified by the idea that if education is going to be transformative, it's going to be uncomfortable and unpredictable.

the willingness to show up and be seen with no guarantee of outcome—is the only path to more love, belonging, and joy. He

We asked a thousand leaders to list marble-earning behaviors—what do your team members do that earns your trust? The most common answer: asking for help. When it comes to people who do not habitually ask for help, the leaders we polled explained that they would not delegate important work to them because the leaders did not trust that they would raise their hands and ask for help.

When we consistently betray ourselves, we can expect to do the same to the people we love. When we don't give ourselves permission to be free, we rarely tolerate that freedom in others.

others. Compassion becomes real when we recognize

Unchecked loneliness fuels continued loneliness by keeping us afraid to reach out.

Leonard Cohen's song "Anthem" comes from how much comfort and hope they give me as I put "enough" into practice: "There's a crack in everything. That's how the light gets in.

To brave the wilderness and become the wilderness we must learn how to trust ourselves and trust others.