When the culture of any organization mandates that it is more important to protect the reputation of a system and those in power than it is to protect the basic human dignity of the individuals who se...
When I see people stand fully in their truth, or when I see someone fall down, get back up, and say, Damn. That really hurt, but this is important to me and I’m going in again—my gut reaction is, What...
We run from grief because loss scares us, yet our hearts reach toward grief because the broken parts want to mend. C. S. Lewis wrote, No one ever told me that grief felt so like fear. We can’t rise st...
We move what we’re learning from our heads to our hearts through our hands.
We like recovery stories to move quickly through the dark so we can get to the sweeping redemptive ending. I worry that this lack of honest accounts of overcoming adversity has created a Gilded Age of...
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...
Vulnerability is the last thing I want you to see in me, but the first thing I look for in you.
Vulnerability is not weakness; it’s our greatest measure of courage.
Vulnerability is not weakness, and the uncertainty, risk, and emotional exposure we face every day are not optional. Our only choice is a question of engagement. Our willingness to own and engage with...
To practice courage, compassion, and connection is to look at life and the people around us, and say, I’m all in.
The opposite of recognizing that we’re feeling something is denying our emotions. The opposite of being curious is disengaging. When we deny our stories and disengage from tough emotions, they don’t g...
The imperfect book that gets published is better than the perfect book that never leaves my computer.
TEN GUIDEPOSTS FOR WHOLEHEARTED LIVING 1. Cultivating authenticity: letting go of what people think 2. Cultivating self-compassion: letting go of perfectionism 3. Cultivating a resilient spirit: letti...
Steve said, I don’t know. I really don’t. All I know is that my life is better when I assume that people are doing their best. It keeps me out of judgment and lets me focus on what is, and not what sh...
Self-Compassion: Stop Beating Yourself Up and Leave Insecurity Behind, she defines each of these elements: Self-kindness: Being warm and understanding toward ourselves when we suffer, fail, or feel in...
Owning our story and loving ourselves through that process is the bravest thing we’ll ever do.
Only when we’re brave enough to explore the darkness will we discover the infinite power of our light.
One of the most profound changes in my life happened when I got my head around the relationship between gratitude and joy. I always thought that joyful people were grateful people. I mean, why wouldn’...
Of this, I am actually certain. After collecting thousands of stories, I’m willing to call this a fact: A deep sense of love and belonging is an irreducible need of all women, men, and children. We ar...
Love is not something we give or get; it is something that we nurture and grow,