Vulnerability is the birthplace of innovation, creativity and change.
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.
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.
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.
Sufficiency isn’t two steps up from poverty or one step short of abundance. It isn’t a measure of barely enough or more than enough. Sufficiency isn’t an amount at all. It is an experience, a context we generate, a declaration, a knowing that there is enough, and that we are enough.
When we stop caring about what people think, we lose our capacity for connection. When we become defined by what people think, we lose our willingness to be vulnerable.
Don’t try to win over the haters; you are not a jackass whisperer.
Shame is the most powerful, master emotion. It’s the fear that we’re not good enough.
Authenticity is the daily practice of letting go of who we think we’re supposed to be and embracing who we are.
Daring greatly means the courage to be vulnerable. It means to show up and be seen. To ask for what you need. To talk about how you’re feeling. To have the hard conversations.
I define connection as the energy that exists between people when they feel seen, heard, and valued; when they can give and receive without judgment; and when they derive sustenance and strength from the relationship.
Courage is a value. My faith is the organizing principle in my life and what underpins my faith is courage and love, and so I have to be in the arena if I’m going to live in alignment with my values.
I now see how owning our story and loving ourselves through that process is the bravest thing that we will ever do.
We can’t practice compassion with other people if we can’t treat ourselves kindly.
Shame derives its power from being unspeakable.
Owning our story can be hard but not nearly as difficult as spending our lives running from it.
Only when we are brave enough to explore the darkness will we discover the infinite power of our light.