Quotes from Brene Brown

is negatively correlated with self-esteem and positively correlated with narcissism and shame-proneness.

Realizing that outside factors play a role in our struggles can give us a different lens on our experience.

When we obsess over our parenting choices to the extent that most of us do, and then see someone else making different choices, we often perceive that difference as direct criticism of how we are parenting.

Luther King Jr. He described power as the ability to effect change. If we question our need for power, think about this: How do you feel when you believe that you are powerless to change something in your life?

From meditation and prayer to regular periods of quiet reflection and alone time, the research participants spoke about the necessity of quieting their bodies and minds as a way to feel less anxious and overwhelmed.

behaviors. I finally realized that trying to outrun and outsmart vulnerability and pain is choosing a life defined by suffering and exhaustion.

Most of us have experienced being on the edge of joy only to be overcome by vulnerability and thrown into fear. Until we can tolerate vulnerability and transform it into gratitude, intense feelings of love will often bring up the fear of loss.

If you choose courage, you will absolutely know failure, disappointment, setback, even heartbreak. That's why we call it courage. That's why it's so rare.

numbing vulnerability is especially debilitating because it doesn't just deaden the pain of our difficult experiences; numbing vulnerability also dulls our experiences of love, joy, belonging, creativity, and empathy. We can't selectively numb emotion. Numb the dark and you numb the light.

I'm not very creative" doesn't work. There's no such thing as creative people and non-creative people. There are only people who use their creativity and people who don't.

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.

Permanence: This one is tough, because thinking that our struggle will never end is built in to the experiences of despair and hopelessness. This is the "Tomorrow will be no different from today" thinking. One way to build resilience is to practice thinking about the temporary nature of most setbacks as a part of how we look at adversity on a daily basis.

as members of a social species, we don't derive strength from our rugged individualism, but rather from our collective ability to plan, communicate, and work together.

When we stop numbing and start feeling and learning again, we have to reevaluate everything, especially how to choose loving ourselves over making other people comfortable.

Harriet Lerner says, "Anxiety is extremely contagious, but so is calm.

We are good stewards of the stories we hear by listening, being curious, affirming, and believing people when they tell us how they experienced something.

One of the most surprising things that unfolded in my research is the pairing of certain terms. I can't separate the concepts of love and belonging because when people spoke of one, they always talked about the other.

Compassion is fueled by understanding and accepting that we're all made of strength and struggle—no one is immune to pain or suffering. Compassion is not a practice of "better than" or "I can fix you"—it's a practice based in the beauty and pain of shared humanity.

choosing authenticity and worthiness is an absolute act of resistance. Choosing to live and love with our whole hearts is an act of defiance.

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

Shame is much more likely to be the cause of destructive behavior than the cure.

our worthiness, that core belief that we are enough, comes only when we live inside our story. We either own our stories (even the messy ones), or we stand outside of them—denying our vulnerabilities and imperfections, orphaning the parts of us that don't fit in with who/what we think we're supposed to be, and hustling for other people's approval of our worthiness. Perfectionism is exhausting because hustling is exhausting. It's a never-ending performance.

as the poet June Jordan wrote, "We are the ones we have been waiting for.

In the past, jobs were about muscles, now they're about brains, but in the future they'll be about the heart. —MINOUCHE SHAFIK, director, London School of Economics