Rising Strong: The Reckoning. The Rumble. The Revolution.

by Brené Brown

vulnerability—the willingness to show up and be seen with no guarantee of outcome—is the only path to more love, belonging, and joy.

There are too many people today who instead of feeling hurt are acting out their hurt; instead of acknowledging pain, they’re inflicting pain on others.

The irony is that at the exact same time that we are creating distance between ourselves and the people around us by off-loading onto others, we are craving deeper emotional connection and richer emotional lives.

when we numb the dark, we also numb the light.

Ain't that the truth.

Pretending not to be hurt is choosing to become imprisoned by the dark emotion we have experienced—recognizing and feeling our way through the emotion is choosing freedom.

Being all light is as dangerous as being all dark, simply because denial of emotion is what feeds the dark.

My ideas and inspirations weren’t something external that I tricked into following me home from the walk: They were a part of me. I was present to them and they, in turn, stayed present to me.

Yes, maybe we lost our job or screwed up a project, but what makes that story so painful is what we tell ourselves about our own self-worth and value.