Quotes About Vulnerability

With the illusion that we have dominion over the earth we conclude we have nothing to fear.

Psychologists have observed that one of the most basic human needs, beginning at birth, is to be gazed upon by another. Mothers throughout the world have been observed spending long periods staring into the eyes of their babies with a characteristic tilt of the head. To be seen is to be real, and without another to gaze upon us, we are nothing. Part of the terror of being lost stems from the idea of never being seen again.)

Regardless of age, Connection types, at some level, often feel like frightened children in an adult world. Because of their inadequate sense of self, they often try to anchor themselves in their roles as scientist, judge, doctor, father, mother, etc.

Adaptive Survival Style Shame-Based Identification Connection Feel shame at existing, feeling, and connecting Attunement Feel shame when experiencing and communicating their needs Trust Feel shame when feeling dependent, vulnerable, or weak Autonomy Feel shame at their impulses toward self-determination, autonomy, and independence Love/Sexuality Feel shame about sharing their heart and relational intimacy

This survival style's deepest longing for connection is also its deepest fear.

We can't be happy all the time. If we were we wouldn't be people, we would be game show hosts.

Mes compagnes, mes "accompagnatrices", ne sont jamais restées longtemps: très vite elles s'en allaient, dès qu'elles comprenaient que ce qu'elles avaient d'abord pris chez moi pour du détachement était du vide; or les femmes savent que le vide engendre le vide, alors elles me quittaient, avec douceur, sans oser me dire quoi que ce soit: car que peut-on dire à un naufragé?

I wake up in the morning and I feel like I'm missing something. I know that there's something not right, and it takes me a while to remember what it is . . . then I remember. My best friend is gone. My only friend. It was silly of me to rely so much on one person.

Sometimes my feelings get so big that I just want to swim out into the darkness. Just jump off the end of the world. Sometimes I want to dig, right down to the bones of everything. Sometimes when you dig, you dig up stuff you might not want to find. But that's where the good stuff lies.

Laugh—be jolly. There are those who think it lordly to be cold as a stone, but feelings are like wolves. When caged they become more ferocious, and at the end, they always escape.

I usually wouldn't be this close to you without a tetnus shot.

Alguien que duerme está al mismo tiempo cerca y lejos, de ti y de sí mismo, impotente y, sin embargo, poderoso precisamente por su ausencia.

It was I who was conquered. In just seven nights, that fledgling goddess not only discovered that I had a heart, but she stole it forever, then cradled it in the palm of her hand.

You did not seduce me. I came to you. If you cannot accept my strengths as well as my weaknesses, if you cannot take from me as well as give to me, you cannot love me.

In the dark they are careful of each other, as if they know they are fragile, as if they know they can break.

Before that she hadn't realized how fragile happiness was, how if you were careless, you could know it over and shatter it.

All her life, she had learned that passion, like fire, was a dangerous thing. It so easily went out of control. It scaled walls and jumped over trenches. Sparks leapt like fleas and spread as rapidly; a breeze could carry embers for miles.

There was an ease between them that, Moody was sure, could only come from being intimately comfortable with another person's body.

But she herself had never felt that way about anyone, not as a teenager, not in art school, not since. It occurred to her that except for her brother, when they were children, she'd never seen a man naked. More than that: she'd never touched anyone and felt that warmth, that electric tension at the nearness of someone else. The only thing that had given her that feeling had been art—and then, of course, Pearl.

She replaces the phone number on the board, her damp fingers smudging the ink so that the digits blur as if in a strong wind, or underwater.

the right side of her heart had swollen, as if it had had too much to hold.

How porous the boundary was between him and the world, as if everything flowed through him like water through a net. She'd worried about him, moving through a rough world as a tender bare heart, beating out in the open where anything could cause a bruise.

Já não se lembrava de como era abraçar uma criança - abraçar fosse quem fosse - desta forma. Como o peso da outra pessoa se afunda em nós, como se agarram instintivamente. Como confiam em nós. Passa muito tempo até se sentir preparado para a largar.

Of course Mirabelle would have a good life with Mark and Linda. There was no question about that. But would there be something—something—missing from her life if she were to grow up with them? Mr. Richardson was suddenly keenly conscious of Mirabelle, of the immense weight of the complicated world on this one tiny, vulnerable person.