Quotes About Vulnerability

And if we all have shame, the good news is that we're all capable of developing shame resilience. Shame resilience is the ability to recognize shame, to move through it constructively while maintaining worthiness and authenticity, and to ultimately develop more courage, compassion, and connection as a result of our experience.

Courage is contagious. My friend Katherine Center says, "You have to be brave with your life so that others can be brave with theirs.

I believe that what we regret most are our failures of courage, whether it's the courage to be kinder, to show up, to say how we feel, to set boundaries, to be good to ourselves. For that reason, regret can be the birthplace of empathy.

Shame is all about fear. We're afraid that people won't like us if they know the truth about who we are, where we come from, what we believe, how much we're struggling, or, believe it or not, how wonderful we are when soaring

Vulnerability is not weakness; it's our greatest measure of courage.

We have to find our way back to one another or fear wins.

We're sick of being afraid and we're tired of hustling for our self-worth. We want to be brave, and deep inside we know that being brave requires us to be vulnerable.

I'm not perfect and I'm not always right, but I'm here, open, paying attention, loving you, and fully engaged.

It was a long year. I lovingly refer to it on my blog as the 2007 Breakdown Spiritual Awakening. It felt like a textbook breakdown to me, but Diana called it a spiritual awakening. I think we were both right. In fact, I'm starting to question if you can have one without the other.

There is no intimacy without vulnerability.

The irony is that we attempt to disown our difficult stories to appear more whole or more acceptable, but our wholeness—even our wholeheartedness—actually depends on the integration of all of our experiences, including the falls.

Too much twee emotional expression--too many claims like, "Everything is awesome," or "I just never really feel angry or upset," or "If you're just positive, you can turn that frown upside down,"--often masks real pain and hurt. These behaviors are as much red flags as brooding and anger are....Being all light is as dangerous as being all dark, simply because denial of emotion is what feeds the dark.

Shame resilience is about moving from shame to empathy—the real antidote to shame.

We asked a thousand leaders to list marble-earning behaviors—what do your team members do that earns your trust? The most common answer: asking for help. When it comes to people who do not habitually ask for help, the leaders we polled explained that they would not delegate important work to them because the leaders did not trust that they would raise their hands and ask for help. Mind. Blown.

Vulnerability sounds like truth and feels like courage. Truth and courage aren't always comfortable, but they're never weakness.

We love seeing raw truth and openness in other people, but we're afraid to let them see it in us. We're afraid that our truth isn't enough—that what we have to offer isn't enough without the bells and whistles, without editing, and impressing.

When we spend a lifetime trying to distance ourselves from the parts of our lives that don't fit with who we think we're supposed to be, we stand outside of our story and hustle for our worthiness by constantly performing, perfecting, pleasing, and proving.

Of all the things trauma takes away from us, the worst is our willingness, or even our ability, to be vulnerable. There's a reclaiming that has to happen.

If you're comfortable, I'm not teaching and you're not learning.

Courage gives us a voice and compassion gives us an ear. Without both, there is no opportunity for empathy and connection.

I could never step lightly enough or run fast enough to get away from the cracking, so I made everything around me so loud that it drowned out the sound.

Our unexpressed ideas, opinions, and contributions don't just go away. They are likely to fester and eat away at our worthiness. I think we should be born with a warning label similar to the ones that come on cigarette packages: Caution: If you trade in your authenticity for safety, you may experience the following: anxiety, depression, eating disorders, addiction, rage, blame, resentment, and inexplicable grief.

Laughter is the evidence that the chokehold of shame has been loosened. Knowing laughter is the moment we feel proof that our shame has been transformed. Like empathy, it strips shame to the bone, robs it of its power and forces it from the closet.

The truth is that falling hurts. The dare is to keep being brave and feel your way back up.