Quotes About Vulnerability

This letter begins the process of "reparenting" yourself. Reparenting means to dig deep within yourself to find a loving, validating parent for the hurting child you still carry inside. This is the parent who, through this letter, comforts, reassures, and protects that part of you that is still vulnerable and frightened.

the child becomes an emotional dumping ground, allowing the parents to relieve themselves of some of their discomfort without having to face the source of their problems.

When we're very young, our godlike parents are everything to us. Without them, we would be unloved, unprotected, unhoused, and unfed, living in a constant state of terror, knowing we were unable to survive alone.

At the core of every formerly mistreated adult —even high achievers—is a little child who feels powerless and afraid.

he felt about his inability to open up to anyone emotionally, but I urged him to go easy on himself. He hadn't had anyone to teach him those things when he was young, and they're pretty tough to pick up on your own. "It would be like expecting yourself to play a piano concerto when you didn't even know where middle-C was!

Les had neither the time nor the appropriate role model from which to learn about the giving and receiving of love. He grew up without nourishment of his emotional life, so he simply turned off his emotions. Unfortunately, he found that he couldn't turn them back on again, even when he wanted to

The experience generated powerful, lifelong fears of being hurt and betrayed. Two marriages ended in divorce because he couldn't learn to trust.

You and I are very strong, and so is your Poppa, but you're not so strong as a brick. When things happen, you will have to feel them. You can't try to avoid that; if it's your nature, go along with it

The title of Kent Haruf's Our Souls at Night promised just that. I read it in a few hours, tranquilized by its tenderness for two widowed characters who find late-life intimacy in the simplest of ways.

Deep under the earth, inside its cardboard coffin, shrouded in the layers of white paper, the china doll with the jagged open crevasse in its skull was crying.

You try so hard to shield me, and protect me, and really, there is no need, you try so hard to hide what you want, how you feel, and of course you can't.

everything had changed, and she had crumpled in front of me, and become wholly broken and lost...

The ablity to hurt someone is usually in direct proportion to how much that person cares about you.

You look good. You look like shit. That's how I feel. Good. What do you want? He gave her a faint smile. To tell you how much I love you, Izzy. I probably have from the first moment we met.

The worst part is the unknown. The pain of being alone, the loneliness, is familiar. You've dealt with that. You understand it. But loving someone, risking everything, is unknown. There's no way to know how bad it's going to be. You barely survive the pain of being alone, so how can you deal with anything worse? So you don't bother to try.

I'm not sure you need protecting. Everyone needs protecting now and then.

That's what women specialize in-demanding every scrap of humanity we have. Our hearts, our souls and our balls. You can fight it, my friend, but I've learned it's a whole lot smarter to hand it all over quietly. They're going to win in the end and if you resist, you only end up having to beg more.

This can't be legal," she whispered. He raised his head. "Why not?" "It feels too good." He chuckled. She heard the sound, felt the soft exhalation of cool air on her bare, damp breasts, but she couldn't see anything. Not him, not herself. It was strange, but in a good way. The darkness gave her courage. "Take your clothes off," she said, knowing that she would never have managed the words in the light. "Yes, ma'am.

Take your clothes off," she said, knowing that she would never have managed the words in the light. "Yes, ma'am.

Condom," she gasped. A movement stopped. "What?" Phoebe felt the earth open up in preparation of swallowing her. How could she have not mentioned this before? "I'm not on anything right now," she whispered. "Birth control. I'm not on the Pill." She gestured helplessly. "Shit, fuck, damn." Disappointment tied her in knots. "I was really only interested in that middle part," she joked.

Seconds later he was back, naked and clutching a handful of condoms. "Don't ask," he said when she glanced at them and raised her eyebrows.

all the way to her toes...and her soul. Her arms hung at her sides and she curled her fingers into her palms. She wanted to touch him, she wanted to hold him and be held, only it wasn't that simple.

Nothing is free. If you stay safe, the price is never knowing love. Because to receive love, you have to give love. And to give love is to be vulnerable. You can build walls and be lonely or you can tear them down and hand over your heart." "What

Needing something or someone meant being vulnerable. It meant the risk of not getting. The pain of not asking was a lot easier to stand than the pain of being refused or rejected.