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Quotes by Researcher
"The intention and outcome of vulnerability is trust, intimacy and connection. The outcome of oversharing is distrust, disconnection - and usually a little judgment."
175
"Shame is the most powerful, master emotion. It's the fear that we're not good enough."
97
"Perfectionism is not the same thing as striving to be our best. Perfectionism is not about healthy achievement and growth it's a shield."
96
"Live-tweeting your bikini wax is not vulnerability. Nor is posting a blow-by-blow of your divorce . That's an attempt to hot-wire connection. But you can't cheat real connection. It's built up slowly. It's about trust and time."
64
"Ironically, parenting is a shame and judgment minefield precisely because most of us are wading through uncertainty and self-doubt when it comes to raising our children."
62
"There is no innovation and creativity without failure. Period."
58
"I'm not a parenting expert. In fact, I'm not sure that I even believe in the idea of 'parenting experts.' I'm an engaged, imperfect parent and a passionate researcher. I'm an experienced mapmaker and a stumbling traveler. Like many of you, parenting is by far my boldest and most daring adventure."
53
"As a shame researcher, I know that the very best thing to do in the midst of a shame attack is totally counterintuitive: Practice courage and reach out!"
53
"You're imperfect, and you're wired for struggle, but you are worthy of love and belonging."
53
"Courage, the original definition of courage, when it first came into the English language - it's from the Latin word cor, meaning heart - and the original definition was to tell the story of who you are with your whole heart."
51
"Rather than risking feeling disappointed, they're choosing to live disappointed."
50
"I spent a lot of years trying to outrun or outsmart vulnerability by making things certain and definite, black and white, good and bad. My inability to lean into the discomfort of vulnerability limited the fullness of those important experiences that are wrought with uncertainty: Love, belonging, trust, joy, and creativity to name a few."
48
"Faith minus vulnerability and mystery equals extremism. If you've got all the answers, then don't call what you do 'faith'."
47
"In many ways, September feels like the busiest time of the year: The kids go back to school, work piles up after the summer's dog days, and Thanksgiving is suddenly upon us."
46
"Social media has given us this idea that we should all have a posse of friends when in reality, if we have one or two really good friends, we are lucky."
45
"The willingness to show up changes us, It makes us a little braver each time."
45
"First and foremost, we need to be the adults we want our children to be. We should watch our own gossiping and anger. We should model the kindness we want to see."
45
"I've learned that men and women who are living wholehearted lives really allow themselves to soften into joy and happiness. They allow themselves to experience it."
44
"A deep sense of love and belonging is an irreducible need of all people. We are biologically, cognitively, physically, and spiritually wired to love, to be loved, and to belong. When those needs are not met, we don't function as we were meant to. We break. We fall apart. We numb. We ache. We hurt others. We get sick."
44
"The difficult thing is that vulnerability is the first thing I look for in you and the last thing I'm willing to show you. In you, it's courage and daring. In me, it's weakness."
43
"I can encourage my daughter to love her body, but what really matters are the observations she makes about my relationship with my own body."
43
"Until we can receive with an open heart, we're never really giving with an open heart. When we attach judgment to receiving help, we knowingly or unknowingly attach judgment to giving help."
43
"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."
42
"When the people we love stop paying attention, trust begins to slip away and hurt starts seeping in."
42
"One thing that I tell people all the time is, 'I'm not going to answer a call from you after nine o'clock at night or before nine o'clock in the morning unless it's an emergency'."
42
"The opposite of "never enough" isn't abundance or "more than you could ever imagine." The opposite of scarcity is enough..."
42
"We cannot grow when we are in shame, and we can't use shame to change ourselves or others."
42
"Grief seems to create losses within us that reach beyond our awareness--we feel as if we're missing something that was invisible and unknown to us while we had it, but is now painfully gone...Longing is not conscious wanting; it's an involuntary yearning for wholeness, for understanding, for meaning, for the opportunity to regain or even simply touch what we've lost."
41
"If I feel good about my parenting, I have no interest in judging other people's choices. If I feel good about my body, I don't go around making fun of other people's weight or appearance. We're hard on each other because we're using each other as a launching pad out of our own perceived deficiency."
41
"I hesitate to use a pathologizing label, but underneath the so-called narcissistic personality is definitely shame and the paralyzing fear of being ordinary."
40
"Heartbreak is an altogether different thing. Disappointment doesn't grow into heartbreak, nor does failure...It comes form the loss of love or the perceived loss of love...Heartbreak is what happens when love is lost."
40
"Faith is a place of mystery, where we find the courage to believe in what we cannot see and the strength to let go of our fear of uncertainty."
39
"If you're thinking, 'Great! I just need to be a superhero to fight perfectionism,' I understand. Courage, compassion, and connection seem like big, lofty ideals. But in reality, they are daily practices that, when exercised enough, become these incredible gifts in our lives. And the good news is that our vulnerabilities are what force us to call upon these amazing tools. Because we're human and so beautifully imperfect, we get to practice using our tools on a daily basis. In this way, courage, compassion, and connection become gifts - the gifts of imperfection."
38
"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."
38
"The best marriages are the ones where we can go out in the world and really put ourselves out there. A lot of times we'll fail, and sometimes we'll pull it off. But good marriages are when you can go home and know that your vulnerability will be honored as courage, and that you'll find support."
38
"Those who have a strong sense of love and belonging have the courage to be imperfect."
38
"The rising strong reckoning has two deceptively simple parts: (1) engaging with our feelings, and (2) getting curious about the story behind the feelings--what emotions we're experiencing and how they are connected to our thoughts and behaviors."
37
"You can't claim to care about the welfare of children if you're shaming other parents for the choices they're making."
37
"We're wired for story. In a culture of scarcity and perfectionism, there's a surprisingly simple reason we want to own, integrate, and share our stories of struggle. We do this because we feel the most alive when we're connecting with others and being brave with our stories - it's in our biology."
37
"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."
37
"To know shame is to be human. And to have the capacity for empathy is also to be human."
37
"Shame corrodes the very part of us that believes we are capable of change."
37
"Guilt is just as powerful, but its influence is positive, while shame's is destructive. Shame erodes our courage and fuels disengagement."
36
"Daring to set boundaries is about having the courage to love ourselves, even when we risk disappointing others."
36
"We cannot selectively numb emotions, when we numb the painful emotions, we also numb the positive emotions.Vulnerability sounds like truth and feels like courage. Truth and courage aren't always comfortable, but they're never weakness."
36
"Our silence about grief serves no one. We can't heal if we can't grieve; we can't forgive if we can't grieve. We run from grief because loss scares us, yet our hearts reach toward grief because the broken parts want to mend."
36
"You cannot shame or belittle people into changing their behaviors."
36
"Crazy-busy' is a great armor, it's a great way for numbing. What a lot of us do is that we stay so busy, and so out in front of our life, that the truth of how we're feeling and what we really need can't catch up with us."
36
"Talk to ourselves in the same way we'd talk to someone we'd love. Yes, you made a mistake. You're human. You don't have to do it like anyone else does. Fixing it and making amends will help. Self-loathing will not. Reach out to someone we trust--a person who has earned the right to hear our story and who has the capacity to respond with empathy."
36
"I see the cultural messaging everywhere that says an ordinary life is a meaningless life. . . . I know the yearning to believe that what I'm doing matters and how easy it is to confuse that with the drive to be extraordinary. I know how seductive it is to use the celebrity culture yardstick to measure the smallness of our lives. And I also understand how grandiosity, entitlement, and admiration-seeking feel like just the right balm to soothe the ache of being too ordinary and inadequate."
35
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