Shame is the most powerful, master emotion. It's the fear that we're not good enough.
Brene BrownRead
Waking up every day and loving someone who may or may not love us back, whose safety we can't ensure, who may stay in our lives or may leave without a moment's notice, who may be loyal to the day they die or betray us tomorrow - that's vulnerability.
Interpretation
Vulnerability in relationships involves the risk of loving someone without guarantees of their feelings or loyalty.
This quote by Brene Brown highlights the inherent risks and uncertainties of loving someone deeply. It underscores the idea that to love is to expose ourselves to potential pain, loss, and betrayal, as we cannot control others' feelings or actions. Embracing this vulnerability is a courageous act that speaks to the essence of human connection and the complexities of relationships.
In practice
Using this quote during a discussion about the challenges of love in a relationship seminar.
Shame is the most powerful, master emotion. It's the fear that we're not good enough.
I think our capacity for wholeheartedness can never be greater than our willingness to be broken-hearted. It means engaging with the world from a place of vulnerability and worthiness.
Men walk this tightrope where any sign of weakness illicits shame, and so they're afraid to make themselves vulnerable for fear of looking weak.
I hesitate to use a pathologizing label, but underneath the so-called narcissistic personality is definitely shame and the paralyzing fear of being ordinary.
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.
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.
Never make a companion equal to a brother.
No one's ever dared come out and say it before, but there's not a man among us that doesn't think it, that doesn't feel just as you do about her and the whole business - feel it somewhere down deep in his scared little soul.
Are you upset little friend? Have you been lying awake worrying? Well, don't worry...I'm here. The flood waters will recede, the famine will end, the sun will shine tomorrow, and I will always be here to take care of you.
Not a word passes between us, not because we have nothing to say, but because we don't have to say anything
Their quarrel was no more surprising than are most quarrels — inevitable at the time, incredible afterwards.
Like friendship, hatred needed more than physical intimacy; it wanted creativity and hard work to sustain itself
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