Just finished a remarkable book...
Admission: I actually finished it about 2 months ago...and typed up the quotes and started finding pictures of quotes to include...but then got sidetracked and never went back to finish this post. Today's the day! A little light reading for your Monday morning...
So many good quotes....here are some of my favorites (all are from Brene Brown unless otherwise noted):
Preface (you know it's going to be a good book when you underline things in the preface to the introduction....)
- Vulnerability is not knowing victory or defeat, it's understanding the necessity of both; it's engaging. It's being all in.
Introduction
- Vulnerability is...an exquisite emotion
- We are hardwired to connect with others, it's what gives purpose and meaning to our lives, and without it there is suffering.
- Wholehearted living is about engaging in our lives from a place of worthiness.
- No matter what gets done and how much is left undone, I am enough.
- 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.
- ...living a life defined by courage, compassion and connection.
- We are taught that a cool distance and inaccessibility contributes to prestige, and that if you're too relateable, your credentials come into question.
- (in regards to parenting) Are you engaged? Are you paying attention? Imperfect parenting moments turn into gifts as our children watch us try to figure out what went wrong and how we can do better next time.
- Perfection doesn't exist...and what makes children happy doesn't always prepare them to be courageous, engaged adults.
- Being rather than knowing requires showing up and letting ourselves be seen.
Chapter 1 - Scarcity
- It is often helpful to recognize patterns of behaviors and to understand what those patterns may indicate...
- Look at the patterns of behaviors through the lens of vulnerability.
- Sometimes the simple act of humanizing problems sheds important light on them...
- I see the cultural messaging everywhere that says that an ordinary life is a meaningless life.
- What makes this constant assessing and comparing so self-defeating is that we are often comparing our lives, our marriage, our families, our communities to unattainable, media-driven versions of perfection, or we're holding up our reality against our own fictional account of how great someone else has it.
- We're called to "dare greatly" every time we make choices that challenge the social climate of scarcity.
- The opposite of scarcity is enough, or wholeheartedness.
Chapter 2 - Debunking the Vulnerability Myths
- There is no equation where taking risks, braving uncertainty, and opening ourselves up to emotional exposure equals weakness.
- to feel is to be vulnerable.
The willingness to show up changes us. It makes us a little braver each time.
Vulnerability is life's great dare.
Often the result of daring greatly isn't a victory march as much as it is a quiet sense of freedom mixed with a little battle fatique.
We need to feel trust to be vulnerable and we need to be vulnerable in order to trust.
Until we can receive with an open heart, are are never really giving with an open heart.
The people who love me, the people I really depend on, were never the critics who were pointing at me while I stumbled. They weren't in the bleachers at all They were with me in the arena.
It's a waste of time to evaluate my worthiness by weighing the reaction of the people in the stands.
I want our home to be a place where we can be our bravest selves and our most fearful selves.
Chapter 3 - Understanding and Combating Shame
Getting past shame is necessary for getting to vulnerability
A sense of worthiness inspires us to be vulnerable, share openly and persevere.
That deep fear we all have of being wrong, of being belittled and feeling less than is what stops us taking the very risks required to move us forward - Pete Sheahan
What are the gremlins saying? (effective way to ask about the shame tapes)
Shame resilience is the ability to say "this hurts. This is disappointing, maybe even devastating. But success and recognition and approval are not the values that drive me. My value is courage and i was just courageous. You can move on, shame."
The most connected and compassionate people of those I've interviewed set and respect boundaries.
We are hard on others because we're hard on ourselves. That's exactly how judgement works. Finding someone to put down, judge or criticize becomes a way to get out of the web or call attention away from our box.
...move from "turning on each other" to "turning toward each other."
worthiness has the power to set us free.
We have to be able to able to talk about how we feel, what we need and desire, and we have to be able to listen with an open heart and an open mind.
...shame free fighting and blame free living
We have to question the intentions of any group that insists on disdain toward other people as membership requirement. It may be disguised as belonging, but real belonging doesn't necessitate disdain.
To set down those lists of what we are supposed to be is brave.
Once you are Real, you can't be ugly, except to people who don't understand.- Skin Horse
Chapter 4 - The Vulnerability Armory
Vulnerability is the last thing I want you to see in me, but the first thing I look for in you.
Believing that we're "enough" is the way out of the armor
Acknowledge how truly grateful we are for the person, the beauty, the connection or simply the moment before us.
Joy comes to us in moments - ordinary moments. We risk missing out on joy when we get too busy chasing down the extraordinary.
We have to make the long journey from "what will people think?" to "I am enough."
Numb the dark and you numb the light
They explained that reducing anxiety meant paying attention to how much they could do and how much was too much, and learning how to say "enough."
...address anxiety at the root and align their lives with their values and setting boundaries...
If we want to fully experience love and belonging, we must believe that we are worthy of love and belonging.
"It's not what you do; it's why you do it that makes the difference." - Jennifer Louden
"When two people relate to each other authentically and humanly, God is the electricity that surges between them." -Martin Buber
I only share when I have no unmet needs that I'm trying to fill.
Someone else's daring provides an uncomfortable mirror that reflects back our own fears about showing up, creating, and letting ourselves be seen.
Chapter 5 - Mind the Gap
Pay attention to the space between where we're standing and where we want to go.
We don't have to be perfect, just engaged and committed to aligning values with actions.
The gremlins will be out in full force, as they love to sneak up just when we're about to step into the arena, be vulnerable, and take some chances.
Chapter 6 - Disruptive Engagement
A leader is anyone who holds her - or himself - accountable for finding potential in people and processes.
No corporation or school can thrive in the absence of creativity, innovation, and learning, and the greatest threat to all three of these is disengagement.
Shame breeds fear. It crushes our tolerance for vulnerability, therby killing engagement, innovation, creativity, productivity and trust.
Shaming someone who's using shame is not helpful.
If blame is driving, shame is riding shotgun.
In an organizational culture where respect and the dignity of individuals are held as the highest values, shame and blame don't work as management styles.
Talk to the people you're leading about their strengths and their opportunities for growth.
If an organization makes the creation of feedback culture a priority and a practice, rather than an aspirational value, it can happen. People are desperate for feedback - we all want to grow. We just need to learn how to give feedback in a way that inspires growth and engagement.
If you're comfortable, I'm not teaching and you're not learning. It's going to get uncomfortable in here and that's ok. It's normal and it's part of the process.
Cultivate the courage to be uncomfortable and to teach the people around us how to accept discomfort as a part of growth.
Chapter 7 - Wholehearted Parenting
We rarely engage in self-righteous judgement when we feel confident about our decisions.
...terrifying truth that there is no such thing as perfect parenting and there are no guarantees.
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.
What we want for our children is what we want for ourselves - we want to raise children who live and love with their whole hearts.
Wholehearted parenting is not having it all figured out and passing it down - it's learning and exploring together.
Perfectionism is teaching them to value what other people think over what they think or how they feel.
"Let your face speak what's in your heart. When they walk in the room my face says I'm glad to see them. It's just as small as that, you see?" -Toni Morrison
We need to separate our children from their behaviors. There's a significant difference between "you are bad" and "you did something bad." And, no, it's not just semantics.
Shame is so painful for children because it is inextricably linked ot the fear of being unlovable.
We can't shameproof our children. Our task instead is teaching and modeling shame resilience.
When other parents make different choices than we're making, it's not necessarily criticism. Daring greatly means finding our own path and respecting what that search looks like for other folks.
Make sure our children know they belong in our families.
I'm not perfect and I'm not always right, but I'm here, open, paying attention, loving you, and fully engaged.
