Brene Brown Quotations | Page 3

I don't just want someone who says they love me; I want someone who practices that love for me every day.

The one thing that keeps us out of connection is our fear that we're not worthy of connection.

The only unique contribution that we will ever make in this world will be born of our creativity.

Caring about the welfare of children and shaming parents are mutually exclusive endeavors.

There is nothing more vulnerable than creativity. . . It's not about winning, it's not about losing, it's about showing up and being seen.

One of the things I talk a lot about in my work that I try to practice - which is really hard - is in those moments where we're being asked to do things or asked to take over or asked to take care of something, we have to have the courage to choose discomfort over resentment. And to me, a huge part of my authenticity practice has been choosing discomfort and saying no.

hat whole phrase, "daring greatly," is from the Theodore Roosevelt quote that goes back to your original question of, what about the critics? And when I read his quote it was life-changing. "It's not the critic who counts; it's not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles or where the doer of deeds could have done the better.

When you numb your pain you also numb your joy.

If you put shame in a petri dish, it needs three ingredients to grow exponentially: secrecy, silence, and judgment. If you put the same amount of shame in the petri dish and douse it with empathy, it can't survive.

Wholeheartedness. There are many tenets of Wholeheartedness, but at its very core is vulnerability and worthiness; facing uncertainty, exposure, and emotional risks, and knowing that I am enough.

Shame corrodes the very part of us that believes we are capable of change.

We are the most in-debt, obese, addicted and medicated adult cohort in U.S. history.

The dark does not destroy the light; it defines it. It's our fear of the dark that casts our joy into the shadows.

Perfectionism is self-destructive simply because there is no such thing as perfect. Perfection is an unattainable goal. Additionally, perfectionism is more about perception - we want to be perceived as perfect. Again, this is unattainable - there is no way to control perception, regardless of how much time and energy we spend trying.

You either walk inside your story and own it or you stand outside your story and hustle for your worthiness.

Creativity, which is the expression of our originality, helps us stay mindful that what we bring to the world is completely original and cannot be compared.

Our sense of belonging can never be greater than our level of self acceptance.

Vulnerability pushed, I pushed back. I lost the fight, but probably won my life back.

Do you light up when your kids are coming in the room or do you become the instant critic?

Ads sell a great deal more than products. They sell values, images, and concepts of success and worth.

Feeling vulnerable, imperfect, and afraid is human. It's when we lose our capacity to hold space for these struggles that we become dangerous.

Who we are and how we engage with the world are much stronger predictors of how our children will do than what we know about parenting.

Vulnerability is not knowing victory or defeat, it’s understanding the necessity of both; it’s engaging. It’s being all in.

If we own the story then we can write the ending.

Vulnerability sounds like truth and feels like courage.

Joy, collected over time, fuels resilience - ensuring we'll have reservoirs of emotional strength when hard things do happen.

If we don’t allow ourselves to experience joy and love, we will definitely miss out on filling our reservoir with what we need when. . . . hard things happen.

If you want to make a difference, the next time you see someone being cruel to another human being, take it personally. Take it personally because it is personal!” (p 272)

We're a nation of exhausted and over-stressed adults raising over-scheduled children.

Nothing is as uncomfortable, dangerous and hurtful as believing that I'm standing on the outside of my life looking in and wondering what it would be like if I had the courage to show up and let myself be seen.

Perfectionism is a twenty-ton shield that we lug around thinking it will protect us when, in fact, it's the thing that's really preventing us from taking flight.

Embracing our vulnerabilities is risky but not nearly as dangerous as giving up on love and belonging and joy.

Understanding the difference between healthy striving and perfectionism is critical to laying down the shield and picking up your life. Research shows that perfectionism hampers success. In fact, it's often the path to depression, anxiety, addiction, and life paralysis.

Most people believe vulnerability is weakness. But really vulnerability is Courage. We must ask ourselves...are we willing to show up and be seen.

There is no such thing as creative and non-creative people, only people who use their creativity and people who don't.

Until we can receive with an open heart, we are never really giving with an open heart.

There’s nothing more daring than showing up, putting ourselves out there and letting ourselves be seen.

Authenticity is a collection of choices that we have to make every day. It's about the choice to show up and be real. The choice to be honest. The choice to let our true selves be seen.(page 49)

Hope is not an emotion; it's a way of thinking or a cognitive process.

Believing that you're enough is what gives you the courage to be authentic.

Even to me the issue of "stay small, sweet, quiet, and modest" sounds like an outdated problem, but the truth is that women still run into those demands whenever we find and use our voices.

Worrying about scarcity is our culture's version of post-traumatic stress. It happens when we've been through too much, and rather than coming together to heal (which requires vulnerability) we're angry and scared and at each other's throats.

Courage is telling our story, not being immune to criticism.

Hope is a function of struggle.

It's not about 'what can I accomplish?' but 'what do I want to accomplish?' Paradigm shift.

Raising children who are hopeful and who have the courage to be vulnerable means stepping back and letting them experience disappointment, deal with conflict, learn how to assert themselves, and have the opportunity to fail. If we’re always following our children into the arena, hushing the critics, and assuring their victory, they’ll never learn that they have the ability to dare greatly on their own.

There is no creativity without vulnerability.

I think a lot of us are multiple things that don't always fit together neatly in a bio box.

We have to be women we want our daughters to be.

When perfectionism is driving us, shame is riding shotgun and fear is that annoying backseat driver!

Cruelty is easy, cheap and rampant.

[I] never talk about gratitude and joy separately, for this reason. In 12 years, I've never interviewed a single person who would describe their lives as joyful, who would describe themselves as joyous, who was not actively practicing gratitude.

When we lose our tolerance for vulnerability, joy becomes foreboding.

If you're also in the arena and you're putting your ideas out and you're owning them and you're saying "I disagree with you about this and that, I think you've got this wrong" - then not only do I invite that, I freaking love that. I love that. I'm an academic. I'm hardwired for a good debate.

What we know matters but who we are matters more.

We can’t practice compassion with other people if we can’t treat ourselves kindly.

Loving and accepting ourselves are the ultimate acts of courage.

Because true belonging only happens when we present our authentic, imperfect selves to the world, our sense of belonging can never be greater than our level of self-acceptance.

Vulnerability is our most accurate measurement of courage.

Trust is a product of vulnerability that grows over time and requires work, attention, and full engagement.

If you trade your authenticity for safety, you may experience the following: anxiety, depression, eating disorders, addiction, rage, blame, resentment, and inexplicable grief.

Talk to yourself like you would to someone you love.

The truth is, rarely can a response make something better - what makes something better is connection.

A good life happens when you stop and are grateful for the ordinary moments that so many of us just steamroll over to try to find those extraordinary moments.

The laughter that happens when people are truth-telling and showing up and being real - I call that "knowing laughter." That's what happens between people when we recognize the absurdity of the belief that we're alone in anything.

Yes, I am imperfect and vulnerable and sometimes afraid, but that doesn't change the truth that I am also brave and worthy of love and belonging.

I define vulnerability as uncertainty, risk and emotional exposure. With that definition in mind, let’s think about love. Waking up every day and loving someone who may or may not love us back, whose safety we can’t ensure, who may stay in our lives or may leave without a moment’s notice, who may be loyal to the day they die or betray us tomorrow—that’s vulnerability.

Vulnerability is not about winning, and it's not about losing. It's about having the courage to show up and be seen.

Here's what is truly at the heart of wholeheartedness: Worthy now, not if, not when, we're worthy of love and belonging now. Right this minute. As is.

Shame derives its power from being unspeakable.

Staying vulnerable is a risk we have to take if we want to experience connection.

I've found what makes children happy doesn't always prepare them to be courageous, engaged adults.

You can choose courage or you can choose comfort, but you can't have both.

Nostalgia is also a dangerous form of comparison. Think about how often we compare our lives to a memory that nostalgia has so completely edited that it never really existed.

Vulnerability is not weakness. And that myth is profoundly dangerous.... Vulnerability is the birthplace of connection and the path to the feeling of worthiness. If it doesn't feel vulnerable, the sharing is probably not constructive.

The only universal language I know of that wraps up joy and gratitude and love is laughter.

Talk about your failures without apologizing.

On the flip side, I've also had to struggle with saying "yes." Before I did this research and before I had my own breakdown and spiritual awakening around this work, my motto was, "Don't do anything that you're already not great at doing." Which I think is the way the majority of adults in our culture live. Authenticity is also about the courage and the vulnerability to say, "Yeah, I'll try it. I feel pretty uncomfortable and I feel a little vulnerable, but I'll try it!"

What separates privilege from entitlement is gratitude.

We're a nation hungry for more joy: Because we're starving from a lack of gratitude.

Empathy fuels connection; sympathy drives disconnection.

Rather than sitting on the sidelines & hurling judgment & advice, we must dare to show up & let ourselves be seen. This is vulnerability. This is daring greatly.

Fear is the opposite of love, in my opinion.

Joy is not a constant. It comes to us in moments - often ordinary moments. Sometimes we miss out on the bursts of joy because we're too busy chasing down the extraordinary moments. Other times we're so afraid of the dark we don't dare let ourselves enjoy the light. A joyful life is not a floodlight of joy. That would eventually become unbearable. I believe a joyful life is made up of joyful moments gracefully strung together by trust, gratitude and inspiration

Laughter, song, and dance create emotional and spiritual connection; they remind us of the one thing that truly matters when we are searching for comfort, celebration, inspiration, or healing: We are not alone.

I think laughter between people is a holy form of connection, of communion. It's the way you and I look at each other and without words, say, I get exactly what you're saying. And so, it's important to me.

Living a connected life ultimately is about setting boundaries, spending less time and energy hustling and winning over people who don't matter, and seeing the value of working on cultivating connection with family and close friends.

Our stories are not meant for everyone. Hearing them is a privilege, and we should always ask ourselves this before we share: "Who has earned the right to hear my story?" If we have one or two people in our lives who can sit with us and hold space for our shame stories, and love us for our strengths and struggles, we are incredibly lucky. If we have a friend, or small group of friends, or family who embraces our imperfections, vulnerabilities, and power, and fills us with a sense of belonging, we are incredibly lucky.

I only share when I have no unmet needs that I'm trying to fill. I firmly believe that being vulnerable with a larger audience is only a good idea if the healing is tied to the sharing, not to the expectations I might have for the response I get.

If there's a feeling you have, other people have it. If there's something weird about your life, other people have lived it. If there's something kooky about your body, other people have that, too. We're not alone. There's some kind of tremendous relief in that and I think it can only be expressed in belly laughter. This tremendous relief that happens the millisecond we realize, it's not just me. That's what good laughter is about. It's about knowing that you're not alone.

If you own this story you get to write the ending.

If we share our shame story with the wrong person, they can easily become one more piece of flying debris in an already dangerous storm.(page 10)

You can't get to courage without walking through vulnerability.

In a highly critical, scarcity-based world, everyone's afraid to fail.

I wasn't really testing it on myself as much as I was learning from other people about what it meant to live and love with your whole heart, and then thinking, oh my god, I'm not doing that.

Wholehearted living is about engaging in our lives from a place of worthiness. 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 also brave and worthy of love and belonging.

The universe is not short on wake-up calls. We’re just quick to hit the snooze button.

Spirituality emerged as a fundamental guidepost in Wholeheartedness. Not religiosity but the deeply held belief that we are inextricably connected to one another by a force greater than ourselves--a force grounded in love and compassion. For some of us that's God, for others it's nature, art, or even human soulfulness. I believe that owning our worthiness is the act of acknowledging that we are sacred. Perhaps embracing vulnerability and overcoming numbing is ultimately about the care and feeding of our spirits.

To become fully human means learning to turn my gratitude for being alive into some concrete common good. It means growing gentler toward human weakness. It means practicing forgiveness of my and everyone else's hourly failures to live up to divine standards. It means learning to forget myself on a regular basis in order to attend to the other selves in my vicinity. It means living so that "I'm only human" does not become an excuse for anything. It means receiving the human condition as blessing and not curse, in all its achingly frail and redemptive reality.

When we fail to set boundaries and hold people accountable, we feel used and mistreated. This is why we sometimes attack who they are, which is far more hurtful than addressing a behavior or a choice.