I kept asking myself: What do these people with strong relationships, parents with deep connections to their children, teachers nurturing creativity and learning, clergy walking with people through fa...
I can confidently say that stories of pain and courage almost always include two things: praying and cussing. Sometimes at the exact same time.
Empathy is a strange and powerful thing. There is no script. There is no right way or wrong way to do it. It’s simply listening, holding space, withholding judgment, emotionally connecting, and commun...
Connection is why we’re here. We are hardwired to connect with others, it’s what gives purpose and meaning to our lives, and without it there is suffering. I wanted to develop research that explained...
And, if that’s not news enough, here’s something else: Hope is learned! Snyder suggests that we learn hopeful, goal-directed thinking in the context of other people. Children most often learn hope fro...
An experience of collective pain does not deliver us from grief or sadness; it is a ministry of presence. These moments remind us that we are not alone in our darkness and that our broken heart is con...
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.
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 limite...
You will always belong anywhere you show up as yourself and talk about yourself and your work in a real way.
You either walk into your story and own your truth, or you live outside of your story, hustling for your worthiness.
When we lose our tolerance for vulnerability, joy becomes foreboding.
When we hear people referred to as animals or aliens, we should immediately wonder, Is this an attempt to reduce someone’s humanity so we can get away with hurting them or denying them basic human rig...
What behaviors are rewarded? Punished? Where and how are people actually spending their resources (time, money, attention)? What rules and expectations are followed, enforced, and ignored? Do people f...
Until we teach our children that they need to be concerned with how they look and with what other people think, they dance.
Theodore Roosevelt’s powerful quote from his 1910 Man in the Arena speech: It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could hav...
Technology, for instance, has become a kind of imposter for connection, making us believe we’re connected when we’re really not—at least not in the ways we need to be.
Shame, blame, disrespect, betrayal, and the withholding of affection damage the roots from which love grows. Love can only survive these injuries if they are acknowledged, healed, and rare.
Perfectionism is not self-improvement. Perfectionism is, at its core, about trying to earn approval and acceptance. Most perfectionists were raised being praised for achievement and performance (grade...
Ordinary courage is about putting our vulnerability on the line. In today’s world, that’s pretty extraordinary.
Never underestimate the power of being seen