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May 22 - May 27, 2024
connection affects who we are, and who we are affects how we connect. When we have felt connected, we’ve grown.
we feel lovable because someone loved us well. We are prickly because someone hasn’t loved us enough.
“Nothing can be changed until it is faced.”
being vulnerable, asking for support, could be a portal to deep intimacy.
“For our life to feel significant, we crave someone to witness it, to verify its importance.
friends help her slow down and be present for life.
friendship is what gives romantic love its strength and endurance,
our disappointments don’t make us unhuman. They make us deeply human.
we don’t heal shame by hiding it.
“a person is a person through other persons.”
“Sustaining relationships with others requires a good relationship to ourselves.
We are hardwired to need people, and when we claim we don’t, something is amiss.
rejecting them made him feel powerful and in control.
“everything that irritates us about others can lead us to an understanding of ourselves,”
We keep others at a distance to protect ourselves, but this also harms us.
At some point, all the self-protection becomes self-harm.
my fears of rejection led me to reject others.
We live in a society in which it is acceptable to cancel plans with friends for work, but never vice versa.
Despite connection being a fundamental value of our species, it is not a fundamental value of Western society.
Our fundamental desire, as human beings, is to be close to others,
having close friends betters our romantic relationships.
people are more resilient to negative events within their romantic relationship when they have friends
maintaining friendships while in a romantic relationship is a part of what healthy romance looks like,
“How bold one gets when one is sure of being loved,”
if you don’t love yourself, you won’t notice when they do.
when we project rejection, it is a self-fulfilling prophecy.
Why admit to her feelings when she could control them?
what feels vulnerable for us reveals something deeper about what we’ve learned to be ashamed of.
“Vulnerability is not winning or losing; it’s having the courage to show up and be seen when we have no control over the outcome.
“Out of your vulnerabilities will come your strengths,”
he was lonely, not from a lack of people in his life, but from a lack of people with whom he could be truly vulnerable.
“We’re human beings. We were put on this earth to be vulnerable.
Deep friendship is impossible without vulnerability.
‘You aren’t a pussy if you cry.
“It’s impossible to love and control someone at the same time.”
my world doesn’t collapse if someone else sees me have an emotion.
“The goal of independence is not to be completely autonomous, but to recognize when you need somebody, and know how to reach out to them to get what you need.”
authenticity is who we are without defense mechanisms.
Don’t apologize for something you’re not sorry for,
anger, like love, isn’t always rational).
“Being treated by family members as irrelevant . . . creates another kind of psychological pattern.
Wounds lead us to believe we can control people, change them, if only we contort ourselves just right—it’s
When we give to earn love, we lack self-love, and so we’ll give until we collapse.
Why can’t we just be selfless, though? Why does there have to be something in it for us?
When we ask for things too, it refuels us and plucks out any weeds of resentment, so we can give more.
Just because I wasn’t selfless didn’t mean I was selfish. It meant I was human.
The more you show affection, the more likely you are to not just make friends, but also deepen the friendships you already have.
safety is cultivated through vulnerability and support,
You as you are is enough.”
Low self-esteem can make another’s love feel threatening.
