Quotes About Vulnerability

The courage to teach is the courage to keep one's heart open in those very moments when the heart is asked to hold more than it is able so that teacher and students and subjects can be woven into the community that learning, and living, require.

This was a step into darkness that I had been trying to avoid—the darkness of seeing myself more honestly than I really wanted to.

As a young man, I yearned for the day when, rooted in the experience that comes only with age, I could do my work fearlessly. But today, in my mid-sixties, I realize that I will feel fear from time to time for the rest of my life. I may never get rid of my fear. But . . . I can learn to walk into it and through it whenever it rises up . . . naming the inner force that triggers . . . fear . . . Naming our fears aloud . . . is the first step toward transcending them.

I do interviews because it's a chance to be myself. I sometimes wonder what I could have to say that would be of any interest. I don't have any great wisdom.

Somehow if she'd know the worst parts, she couldn't have gone on being a haven for him...Men said they didn't tell their women about France because they didn't want to worry them. but it was more than that. He needed her ignorance to hide in. Yet, at the same time, he wanted to know and be known as deeply as possible. And the two desires were irreconcilable.

I believe in the power of weakness.

The first person to really speak to me was Andy, which was lucky, since he was the least crazy. He stank, but I suspected I did too. I never took off my clothes, always ready for fight or flight, needing to feel a little armoured. Deodorant was a luxury I couldn't afford, and I wasn't about to attempt a bath in a room that didn't lock, and which was always in high demand. Not to mention that there was no plug for the tub, or hand soap, or towels, or curtain, or mat.

American men are allotted just as many tears as American women. But because we are forbidden to shed them, we die long before women do, with our hearts exploding or our blood pressure rising or our livers eaten away by alcohol because that lake of grief inside us has no outlet. We, men, die because our faces were not watered enough.

If a person does not trust another, they will not be vulnerable and transparent and the possibility of misunderstanding and misinterpretation increases. Low trust situations weaken the connection between what we feel and what we say. Other team members pick up on this lack of trust on their intuitive radar screens, raise their defensive shields, and respond in kind. Trust and communication spiral down together.

Early flowers in tubs shivered in the wind

Both writing and praying are acts of deep vulnerability.

The more we open ourselves to love, the larger our capacity for love becomes.

But if you worry about other people as you write a first draft, you will not be able to free your unconscious mind to give up its treasures. It will be bound by the great dogs of your fear,

American men are allotted just as many tears as American women. But because we are forbidden to shed them, we die long before women do with our hearts exploding or our blood pressure rising or our lives eaten away by alcohol because that lake of grief inside us has no outlet. We, men, die because our faces were not watered enough.8

The issue for me, both as a writer and as a spiritual seeker, is courage—the courage to be there myself, and the courage to allow the reader to be there—to see, to touch, to taste, to smell,

It is what we love the most / can make us most afraid

Humankind is drawn to dogs because they are so like ourselves—bumbling, affectionate, confused, easily disappointed, eager to be amused, grateful for kindness and the least attention.

The devout belief that the world is explainable is both a terrible vulnerability and a stout shield. Evil prefers it when people don't believe.

I like to have a hero a little underpowered. I mean, Spiderman is far cooler than Superman. How do you challenge Superman?

The main thing to remember is that making love is at once the silliest and the most sacred act humans can perform.

Fear makes idiots out of us all, at some time or other.

She crawled," Ben said. There were tears in his voice. That was wrong. Ben barely even tolerated me on the best of days. "She crawled to the bathroom to clean herself again. If it weren't for the two subs in the pack, I'd be on the bottom. And she wouldn't stand up in my presence for guilt.

To make great art, you had to expose your soul, and some things should be left safely in the dark.

Love means leaving yourself vulnerable, knowing that there is someone to catch you when you fall. ~ Mercy