I'm not sure who recommended this book or where I heard about it, but it was well worth my time in reading. I wish I would have read this book decades ago.
Some things that Brene Brown wrote about that resonated with me are below.
- I used whatever (addiction) I could find to not feel vulnerable - drinking, smoking, caretaking, and overeating.
- You bend and stretch and grow, but you commit to not moving from who you are.
- Belonging is the innate human desire to be part of something larger than us. Because this yearning is so primal, we often try to acquire it by fitting in and by seeking approval, which are not only hollow substitutions for belonging, but often barriers to it. 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.
- We must sometimes stand alone in our decisions and beliefs despite our fear of criticism and rejection.
- BRAVING - Boundaries, Reliability, Accountability, Vault (don't share information or experiences that are not yours to share), Integrity, Nonjudgment, Generosity
- Use the words for assessing your level of self- trust:
B - Did I respect my own boundaries? Was I clear about what's okay and what's not okay?
R - Was I reliable? Did I do what I said I was going to do?
A - Did I hold myself accountable?
V - Did I respect the vault and share appropriately?
I - Did I act from my integrity?
N - Didi I ask for what I needed? Was I nonjudgmental about needing help?
G - Was I generous toward myself?
- If you can see your path laid out in front of you step by step, you know it's not your path. Your own path you make with every step you take. That's why it's your path.
- True belonging doesn't require you to change who you are; it requires you to be who you are.
- Loneliness is the absence of meaningful social interaction - an intimate relationship, friendships, family gatherings, or even community or work group connections
- As an introvert, I deeply value alone time, and a I often feel the loneliest when I'm with other people.
- I don't think there's anything lonelier than being with people and feeling alone.
- Denying you feel lonely makes no more sense than denying you feel hunger. We feel shame even when our loneliness is caused by grief, loss, or heartbreak.
- When we feel isolated, disconnected, and lonely, we try to protect ourselves.
- It's not the quantity of friends but the quality of a few relationships that actually matters.
- Living with air pollution increases your odds of dying early by 5%. Living with obesity, 20%. Excessive drinking, 30%. And living with loneliness? It increases our odds of dying early by 45%.
- It's easier to be angry than it is to be hurt or scared.
- Pain is unrelenting. It will get our attention. Despite our attempts to drown it in addiction...pain will find a way to make itself known.
- Our families and culture believed that the vulnerability that it takes to acknowledge pain was weakness, so we were taught anger, rage, and denial instead. But what we know now is that when we deny our emotion, it owns us. When we own our emotion, we can rebuild and find our way through the pain.
- Sometimes anger can make a far more difficult emotion like grief, regret, or shame, and we need to use it to dig into what we're really feeling. Either way, anger is a powerful catalyst but a life-sucking companion.
- Courage is forged in pain, but not in all pain. Pain that is denied or ignored becomes fear or hate. Anger that is never transformed becomes resentment and bitterness.
- For the first three-quarters of my life [I felt] like a square peg in a round hole.
- There's an unspoken message that the only stories worth telling are the stories that end up in history books. This is not true. Every story matters.
- Viola Davis lives by a few simple rules:
1. I'm doing the best I can.
2. I will allow myself to be seen.
3. Got further. Don't be afraid. Put it all out there.
4. I will not be a mystery to my daughter. She will know me and I will share my stories with her - the stories of failure, shame, and accomplishment.
- I felt alone in the wilderness, but it was okay. I may not have been liked, and that didn't feel so great, but I was in my integrity.
- Neglecting to keep in close contact with people who are important to you is at least as dangerous to your health as a pack-a-day cigarette habit, hypertension, or obesity.
- Research shows that playing cards once a week or meeting friends every Wednesday night...adds as many years to our lives as taking beta blockers or quitting a pack-a-day smoking habit.
- In those vulnerable moments of individual or collective joy, we need to practice gratitude.
- Pain is also a vulnerable emotion. It takes real courage to allow ourselves to feel pain. When we're suffering, many of us are better at causing pain than feeling it. We spread hurt rather than let it inside.
- We can spend our entire life betraying ourselves and choosing fitting in over standing alone. But once we've stood up for ourselves and our beliefs, the bar is higher.
- Vulnerability is the birthplace of love, joy, trust, intimacy, courage - everything that brings meaning to our life.
- When we let people take our vulnerability or fill us with their hate, we turn over our entire life to them.
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