Quotes About Vulnerability

She hated feeling helpless. It writhed in her stomach, choking her with thoughts of dancing the rest of her life in the arms of a gentleman who pushed her about and laughed when she stumbled or, worse, didn't even look at her at all. She wondered if she would be able to give the Soul's Curtsy, with all her heart and soul, to anyone, and the thought made her ill.

understanding why we are susceptible to such illusions can provide insight into the risks of hyper-novelty.

Say it, Christa! Dammit, was I imagining things, or did you say that you loved me?" "I—" She paused. "I said it!" she whispered. "And you meant it?" She lowered her gaze and then her head. "I meant it.

Why, Mrs. Michaelson, just what are you afraid of? Me?

Really, Mrs. Michaelson, I have been attacked by swords and cannons and guns, but I am weary still, and haven't the heart to defend myself from a soup ladle!

It takes hard work to say, "This is how I am," in a calm voice, without anxiously addressing how you should be.

I used to admire people who could hang with anything. Now the women I admire the most are women who never pretend to be different than they are. Women like that express their anger. They admit when they're down. They don't beat themselves up over their bad moods. They allow themselves to be grumpy sometimes. They grant themselves the right to be grouchy, or to say nothing, or to decline your offer without a lengthy explanation.

You are weak and raw and broken, and that's okay. That's where real life begins. Throw yourself into that rawness., Dive into a bunch of stories about absorbing and leaning into disappointment and loss and melancholy as a way of moving through it.

Being raw means connecting to other people's trials and noticing how we all have to find our own answers; we all have to learn how to show up and breathe without grasping for something to deliver us from our own pain. When you resist your own rawness and pain, you only create more pain for yourself.

My mother wanted to be needed, but she never wanted to need anyone else. She would be the one baking cherry pies. She would be the one cleaning gutters and painting ceilings and pulling ivy out of the backyard. This is so often the paradox of truly, astoundingly capable people. They're never quite capable of sitting back and allowing the people around them to be the capable ones.

It takes work sometimes, to love the people you trust, and to trust the people you love.

Marriage can't always be about living your best lives in sync. Because some of the peak moments of a marriage are when you share in your insecurities, your anxieties, your fears, and your longing.

When you really love someone, you see all their mess and their brokenness and you love them anyway. In fact, seeing all of that sort of makes you love them more.

My heart was beating so hard that for a second I thought I might pass out. It was like revisiting the hole where you'd once been held in solitary confinement: a force field of muscle-memory-stored pain and toxic energy so palpable I was afraid that if I stayed any longer it might suck me back in.

On the contrary, that someone as weak and

they were taken away before the gold of their innocence had been tarnished by the soil of the world.

A love that lasts is a chivalrous kind, that is the hero through rain or shine and accepts when it has become ill and needs some love back.

From the way that people have always talked about your heart being broken, it sort of seemed to be a one-time thing. Mine seemed to break all the time.

Being a woman was a trap. Something would bring you down before you turned twenty-three. The only time the world shows you any favor, or cuts you any slack, is during that very brief period of courtship where the world is trying to fuck you for the first time.

The stars are always up in the sky...then when it is perfectly black, they feel less vulnerable and out they come.

A young girl's body is the most dangerous place in the world, as it is the spot where violence is most likely to be enacted.

Writing a book is exactly like love. You don't hold back. You give it everything you have. If it doesn't work out, you're heartbroken, but you move forward and start again anyway. You have to. You don't hold some of yourself in reserve. It's all or nothing. There are no guarantees.

I started writing everything down.I wrote for the same reason someone lost sticks a message in a bottle. I'm here. Help. Please find me.

I giggled and he took it very seriously and wrote everything down. I thought it was going too well, I was doing too well, it was going to look like nothing was wrong. I'm not this great! I wanted to say. Really, I'm a wreck, help! But I couldn't speak up. I smiled and tried to look brilliant.