Quotes About Vulnerability

The thing I am most afraid of is love. When you say you love someone you are giving them license to hurt you.

I never trusted any man not to find someone else; to stay with me if he had another option. to not find something in me that would have him heading for the hills. that was the other reason for not thinking long-term- when someone walked out, as they invairiably did, it wasn't too big a shock. a disappointment but nothing, I hadn't been expecting.

He just hijacks me. I love him. And I won't be able to give anyone a real chance until that's over.

When a depressed person shrinks away from your touch it does not mean he is rejecting you. Rather he is protecting you from the foul, destructive evil which he believes is the essence of his being and which he believes can injure you.

If we could be seen thinking, we would show blown bright one moment, dark the next, like embers; subject to every passing word and thought of our own or other people's, mostly other people's.

In the bosom of a family, nothing can be hidden. One might wish, when things are bad, to suffer unobserved, but in a family there is no chance of that.

Introducing your lovers helps prevent one of the scariest aspects of jealousy, which is the part where you imagine that your lover's other lover is taller, thinner, smarter, sexier, and in all ways preferable to funky old you. When you meet that other person or when your lovers meet each other, they meet real people, warts and all, and so often wind up feeling safer. Introducing

Only when we're all willing to own our emotions, and let our lovers and friends own theirs, does anyone have the power to change and grow.

When we blame, we fail to shoulder our part of the burden; we project the responsibility for whatever is wrong onto another, usually to protect ourselves from feeling terribly guilty or anxious. When we blame, we also disempower ourselves – if it's all your fault, then I must be impotent.

We bottom in order to go to places within ourselves and with our partners that we cannot get to without a top. To explore these spaces, we need someone to push us over the edge in the right ways, and to keep us safe while we're out there flying.

We believe that friendship is an excellent reason to have sex, and that sex is an excellent way to maintain a friendship

Con la práctica, podemos desarrollar una intimidad basada en la cordialidad y respeto mutuo mucho más libre que la desesperación, necesidad o la locura ciega de enamorarse

Let's remember to honor the courage it takes to ask for support, to share vulnerable feelings.

The real test of love is when someone sees our weaknesses, our stupidities, and our smallnesses, and still loves us.

There is no reason why any relationship in our lives can't be blessed with intimacy.

Most of us have been struck dumb by the scariest communication task of all—asking for what we want.

Be good to yourself and remember that the most important part of love is not loving someone's beauty and strength and virtue. The real test of love is when someone sees our weaknesses, our stupidities, and our smallnesses, and still loves us. This unconditional love is what we want from our lovers, and we should expect no less from ourselves

We think that this thought does a nice job of expressing the tension that often happens in good S/M – the "oh-my-god-this-is-terrible-please-don't-stop" energy that we all know and love.

We have all been afraid to ask, we have all failed to ask, we have all been irked with our lovers when they didn't read our minds and offer us the reassurance we crave, and we have all thought, "I shouldn't have to ask." Let's remember to honor the courage it takes to ask for support, to share vulnerable feelings. Let's pat ourselves on the back when we do the things that scare us, and then let's do them some more.

After duly binding, stripping, beating, torturing and fucking Dossie, Janet held her and brought her nicely back down to earth. Then we went upstairs for something to eat.

A large part of our difficulties with jealousy comes from our attempts to avoid feeling a scary or painful emotion.

We can't ask our lovers to hold still while we sling accusations at them, using them as a target for our frustrations; that would be asking them to consent to being abused, and they would be right to resist. But we can ask them to listen to how we feel, because putting aside their own agendas for a few minutes and listening to our feelings is a doable task.

The real test of love is when a person—including you—can know your weaknesses, your stupidities and your smallnesses, and still love you.

Fighting is the ultimate act of intimacy. (...) Intimacy is based on shared vulnerability.