“Even in our deepest struggles, love, faith and beauty find a way. ⁣”

Love is a powerful form of vulnerability and if you replace the word love with vulnerability in that line, it’s just as true.⁣

The willingness to show up changes us, It makes us a little braver each time.

If we can share our story with someone who responds with empathy and understanding, shame can’t survive.

I now see how owning our story and loving ourselves through that process is the bravest thing that we will ever do.

Until we can receive with an open heart, we are never really giving with an open heart.

We’re a nation hungry for more joy: Because we’re starving from a lack of gratitude.

Talk about your failures without apologizing.

We don’t need to do awkward, brave, and kind alone. We were never meant to.

Shame corrodes the very part of us that believes we are capable of change.

During a time of deep uncertainty and anxiety – when many of us have struggled to be our best selves all of the time – apologizing has never been more important.⁣

When we screw up or fall down, many of us talk to ourselves in ways that we would never talk to someone we love and respect.

What we don’t need in the midst of struggle is shame for being human.

Authenticity is a collection of choices that we have to make every day. It’s about the choice to show up and be real. The choice to be honest. The choice to let our true selves be seen.

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.

Those who have a strong sense of love and belonging have the courage to be imperfect.

What we know matters but who we are matters more.

All the variety, all the charm, all the beauty of life is made up of light and shadow.

Ugliness is better than beauty. It lasts longer and in the end, gravity will get us all.

The beauty of a living thing is not the atoms that go into it, but the way those atoms are put together.

The beauty, the poetry of the fear in their eyes. I didn’t mind going to jail for, what, five, six hours? It was absolutely worth it.

I’ve found that there is always some beauty left – in nature, sunshine, freedom, in yourself; these can all help you.

Adornment, what a science! Beauty, what a weapon! Modesty, what elegance!

Beauty is not a need but an ecstasy. It is not a mouth thirsting nor an empty hand stretched forth, But rather a heart enflamed and a soul enchanted.

At the heart of all beauty lies something inhuman.