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

by Brené Brown

In fact, we learned that when faced with either-or dilemmas, the first question we should ask is, Who benefits by forcing people to choose?

I believe our human desire for certainty and our often-desperate need to “be right” have led to this false dichotomy.

I’d be far less enthusiastic and way more pissed off. I’m not great at falling and feeling my way back.”

They recognize the power of emotion and they’re not afraid to lean in to discomfort.

It means cultivating the courage, compassion, and connection to wake up in the morning and think, No matter what gets done and how much is left undone, I am enough.

It’s going to bed at night thinking, Yes, I am imperfect and vulnerable and sometimes afraid, but that doesn’t change the truth that I am brave and worthy of love and belonging.

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.

If we’re going to put ourselves out there and love with our whole hearts, we’re going to experience heartbreak.

If we’re going to try new, innovative things, we’re going to fail.

If we’re going to risk caring and engaging, we’re going to experi...

Leading a team at work is an arena. A tough parenting moment puts us in the arena. Being in love is definitely an arena.

We much prefer stories about falling and rising to be inspirational and sanitized. Our culture is rife with these tales.

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

We can choose courage or we can choose comfort, but we can’t have both. Not at the same time.

During the process of rising, we sometimes find ourselves homesick for a place that no longer exists.

For those of us who prefer to cordon ourselves off from the world and heal alone, the requirement for connection—of asking for and receiving help—becomes the challenge.

The idea of storytelling has become ubiquitous. It’s a platform for everything from creative movements to marketing strategies.

Neuroeconomist Paul Zak has found that hearing a story—a narrative with a beginning, middle, and end—causes our brains to release cortisol and oxytocin. These chemicals trigger the uniquely human abilities to connect, empathize, and make meaning.

Story is literally in...

Antonio Damasio reminds us, humans are not either thinking machines or feeling machines, but rather feeling machines that think.

The opposite of scarcity is not abundance; the opposite of scarcity is simply enough.

Hurt is hurt, and every time we honor our own struggle and the struggles of others by responding with empathy and compassion, the healing that results affects all of us.

Getting back on our feet does not require religion, theology, or doctrine. However, without exception, the concept of spirituality emerged from the data as a critical component of resilience and overcoming struggle.

That’s how I was raised: Hurt them before they hurt you or, at the very least, as soon as they do.

I’d look at him and fire off a sarcastic, “I don’t know, baaabe. Let me ask the breakfast fairy.”

Or, as novelist Paulo Coelho talks about in his book The Alchemist, when you’re on your path, the universe will conspire to help you.

When a group or team first comes together (form), it’s often rocky for a time while members figure out the dynamics (storm). At some point, the group finds its groove (norm) and starts to make headway (perform).

Hanging on the wall of Pixar’s Story Corner display were these three sentences: Story is the big picture. Story is process. Story is research.

He believed that creating was connecting the dots between the experiences we’ve had, to synthesize new things.

Creating is the act of paying attention to our experiences and connecting the dots so we can learn more about ourselves and the world around us.

Do we want to write the story or do we want to hand that power over to someone else? Choosing to write our own story means getting uncomfortable; it’s choosing courage over comfort.

The rising strong reckoning has two deceptively simple parts: (1) engaging with our feelings, and (2) getting curious about the story behind the feelings—what emotions we’re experiencing and how they are connected to our thoughts and behaviors.

Don’t forget that our bodies respond to emotion first, and they often direct us to shut down or disengage.

Greenspan explains why she believes our culture is “emotion phobic” and that we fear and devalue emotion.

Curiosity’s reason for existing is not simply to be a tool used in acquiring knowledge; it reminds us that we’re alive.

curiosity is the feeling of deprivation we experience when we identify and focus on a gap in our knowledge.

we have to have some level of knowledge or awareness before we can get curious. We aren’t curious about something we are unaware of or know nothing about.

If we happened to get so overwhelmed by emotion that tears or a look of fear physically breached our tough veneer, we were promptly and not-too-subtly reminded that emotions don’t fix problems—they make them worse.

It often takes just a single brave person to change the trajectory of a family, or of any system, for that matter.

There is so much wisdom in our bodies. We just need to learn how to listen and trust what we’re hearing.

But denying emotion is not avoiding the high curbs, it’s never taking your car out of the garage. It’s safe in there, but you’ll never go anywhere.

We are wired to be emotional beings. When that part of us is shut down, we’re not whole.

Mindfulness means maintaining a moment-by-moment awareness of our thoughts, feelings, bodily sensations, and surrounding environment.

My mind is normally three miles ahead of my body, worrying about what comes next or jumping a curb three streets behind me, looking for the person who didn’t give me the friendly driver’s wave

mindfulness and flow are never in competition with each other. They aren’t the same thing, but they share the same foundation: making the choice to pay attention.

In the absence of data, we will always make up stories. It’s how we are wired.

In fact, the need to make up a story, especially when we are hurt, is part of our most primitive survival wiring.

Meaning making is in our biology, and our default is often to come up with a story that makes sense, feels familiar, and offers us i...

Burton writes, “Because we are compelled to make stories, we are often compelled to take incomplete stories and run with them.”