Brené Brown, Quotes

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

You cannot shame or belittle people into changing their behaviors.

When we numb [hard feelings], we numb joy, we numb gratitude, we numb happiness.

Even to me the issue of "stay small, sweet, quiet, and modest" sounds like an outdated problem, but the truth is that women still run into those demands whenever we find and use our voices.

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.

Wholehearted living is not like trying to reach a destination. It's like walking toward a star in the sky. We never really 'arrive,' but we certainly know that we're heading in the right direction.

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

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

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

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

Maybe stories are just data with a soul.

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.

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

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

I'm never more courageous than when I'm embracing imperfection, embracing vulnerabilities, and setting boundaries with the people in my life.

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.

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.

What we know matters but who we are matters more.

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)

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

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.

Talk about your failures without apologizing.

Vulnerability is not weakness. And that myth is profoundly dangerous... I define vulnerability as emotional risk, exposure, uncertainty. It fuels our daily lives.

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

Many people think of perfectionism as striving to be your best, but it is not about self-improvement; it's about earning approval and acceptance.

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

Nothing has transformed my life more than realizing that it's a waste of time to evaluate my worthiness by weighing the reaction of the people in the stands.

Every time we choose courage, we make everyone around us a little better and the world a little braver. And our world could stand to be a little kinder and braver.

If we want greater clarity in our purpose or deeper and more meaningful spiritual lives, vulnerability is the path.

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.

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

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.

Compassion is not a virtue -- it is a commitment. It's not something we have or don't have -- it's something we choose to practice.

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

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

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

Joy comes to us in moments--ordina ry moments. We risk missing out on joy when we get too busy chasing down the extraordinary.

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

Through my research, I found that vulnerability is the glue that holds relationships together. It's the magic sauce.

It’s no longer a question of can I do it. It’s a question of: Do I want to do it?

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

Vulnerability is our most accurate measurement of courage.

Vulnerability is about showing up and being seen. It's tough to do that when we're terrified about what people might see or think.

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

Our capacity for wholeheartednes s can never be greater than our willingness to be broken-hearted.

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

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.

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

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

Hope is a function of struggle.