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.
The heart surrenders everything to the moment. The mind judges and holds back. _x000D_ _x000D_ In most of our human relationships, we spend much of our time reassuring one another that our costumes of identity are on straight. _x000D_ _x000D_ When we see the Beloved in each person, it's like walking through a garden, watching flowers bloom all around us.
What air is to the body, to feel understood is to the heart.
I have lived and slept in the same bed with English countesses and Prussian farm women... no woman has excited passions among women more than I have.
Why has marriage failed? In the first place, we raised it to unnatural standards. We tried to make it something permanent, something sacred, without knowing even the abc of sacredness, without knowing anything about the eternal. Our intentions were good but our understanding was very small, almost negligible. So instead of marriage becoming something of a heaven, it has become a hell. Instead of becoming sacred, it has fallen even below profanity.
He tried to give his wife pleasure in little ways, because he had come to realize, after nearly two decades together, how often he disappointed her in the big things. It was never intentional. They simply had very different notions of what ought to take up most space in life.
Forgiving and being forgiven are two names for the same thing. The important thing is that a discord has been resolved.
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