The collection / 116 fragments

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Passages, proverbs, and questions carried across the ages.

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01c. 1965 AD

What separates privilege from entitlement is gratitude.

Brené Brown / quote

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02c. 1965 AD

The real questions for parents should be: "Are you engaged? Are you paying attention?" If so, plan to make lots of mistakes and bad decisions. Imperfect parenting moments turn into gifts as our children watch us try to figure out what went wrong and how we can do better next time. The mandate is not to be perfect and raise happy children. Perfection doesn't exist, and I've found what makes children happy doesn't always prepare them to be courageous, engaged adults.

Brené Brown / quote

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03c. 1965 AD

There is no question that engagement requires sacrifice, but that's what we signed up for when we decided to become parents.

Brené Brown / quote

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04c. 1965 AD

Fear of the Dark I’ve always been prone to worry and anxiety, but after I became a mother, negotiating joy, gratitude, and scarcity felt like a full-time job. For years, my fear of something terrible happening to my children actually prevented me from fully embracing joy and gratitude. Every time I came too close to softening into sheer joyfulness about my children and how much I love them, I’d picture something terrible happening; I’d picture losing everything in a flash. At first I thought I was crazy. Was I the only person in the world who did this? As my therapist and I started working on it, I realized that “my too good to be true” was totally related to fear, scarcity, and vulnerability. Knowing that those are pretty universal emotions, I gathered up the courage to talk about my experiences with a group of five hundred parents who had come to one of my parenting lectures. I gave an example of standing over my daughter watching her sleep, feeling totally engulfed in gratitude, then being ripped out of that joy and gratitude by images of something bad happening to her. You could have heard a pin drop. I thought, Oh, God. I’m crazy and now they’re all sitting there like, “She’s a nut. How do we get out of here?” Then all of the sudden I heard the sound of a woman toward the back starting to cry. Not sniffle cry, but sob cry. That sound was followed by someone from the front shouting out, “Oh my God! Why do we do that? What does it mean?” The auditorium erupted in some kind of crazy parent revival. As I had suspected, I was not alone.

Brené Brown / quote

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05c. 1965 AD

Who we are and how we engage with the world are much stronger predictors of how our children will do than what we know about parenting.

Brené Brown / quote

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06c. 1965 AD

One of the reasons we judge each other so harshly in this world of parenting is because... we perceive anyone else who's doing anything differently than what we're doing as criticizing our choices.

Brené Brown / quote

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07c. 1965 AD

[I] never talk about gratitude and joy separately, for this reason. In 12 years, I've never interviewed a single person who would describe their lives as joyful, who would describe themselves as joyous, who was not actively practicing gratitude.

Brené Brown / quote

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08c. 1965 AD

Caring about the welfare of children and shaming parents are mutually exclusive endeavors.

Brené Brown / quote

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09c. 1965 AD

I've found what makes children happy doesn't always prepare them to be courageous, engaged adults.

Brené Brown / quote

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10c. 1965 AD

We cannot selectively numb emotions, when we numb the painful emotions, we also numb the positive emotions.Vulnerability sounds like truth and feels like courage. Truth and courage aren't always comfortable, but they're never weakness.

Brené Brown / quote

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11c. 1965 AD

I don't have to chase extraordinary moments to find happiness - it's right in front of me if I'm paying attention and practicing gratitude.

Brené Brown / quote

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12c. 1965 AD

In the absence of data, we will always make up stories. In fact, the need to make up a story, especially when we are hurt, is part of our most primitive survival wiring. Mean making is in our biology, and our default is often to come up with a story that makes sense, feels familiar, and offers us insight into how best to self-protect.

Brené Brown / quote

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13c. 1965 AD

Courage, the original definition of courage, when it first came into the English language — it’s from the Latin word cor, meaning heart — and the original definition was to tell the story of who you are with your whole heart.

Brené Brown / quote

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14c. 1965 AD

It doesn't matter if the group is a church or a gang or a sewing circle or masculinity itself, asking members to dislike, disown, or distance themselves from another group of people as a condition of 'belonging' is always about control and power. I think we have to question the intentions of any group that insists on disdain toward other people as a membership requirement. It may be disguised as belonging, but real belonging doesn't necessitate disdain.

Brené Brown / quote

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15c. 1965 AD

When you shut down vulnerability, you shut down opportunity

Brené Brown / quote

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16c. 1965 AD

After doing this work or the past twelve years and watching scarcity ride roughshod over our families, organizations, and communities, I'd say the one thing we have in common is that we're sick of feeling afraid. we want to dare greatly. We're tired of the national conversation centering on "What should we fear" and "Who should we blame?" We all want to be brave.

Brené Brown / quote

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17c. 1965 AD

He explained that unlike our other classes in the program, research was all about prediction and control. I was smitten. You mean that rather than leaning and holding, I could spend my career predicting and controlling? I had found my calling.

Brené Brown / quote

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18c. 1965 AD

If we don’t allow ourselves to experience joy and love, we will definitely miss out on filling our reservoir with what we need when. . . . hard things happen.

Brené Brown / quote

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19c. 1965 AD

When I look at narcissism through the vulnerability lens, I see the shame-based fear of being ordinary. I see the fear of never feeling extraordinary enough to be noticed, to be lovable, to belong, or to cultivate a sense of purpose.

Brené Brown / quote

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20c. 1965 AD

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

Brené Brown / quote

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21c. 1965 AD

Until we can receive with an open heart, we're never really giving with an open heart. When we attach judgment to receiving help, we knowingly or unknowingly attach judgment to giving help.

Brené Brown / quote

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22c. 1965 AD

One of the greatest barriers to connection is the cultural importance we place on "going it alone." Somehow we've come to equate success with not needing anyone. Many of us are willing to extend a helping hand, but we're very reluctant to reach out for help when we need it ourselves. It's as if we've divided the world into "those who offer help" and "those who need help." The truth is that we are both.

Brené Brown / quote

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23c. 1965 AD

I only accept and pay attention to feedback from people who are also in the arena. If you're occasionally getting your butt kicked as you respond, and if you're also figuring out how to stay open to feedback without getting pummeled by insults, I'm more likely to pay attention to your thought about my work. If, on the other hand, you're not helping, contributing, or wrestling with your own gremlins, I'm not at all interested in your commentary.

Brené Brown / quote

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24c. 1965 AD

Nostalgia is also a dangerous form of comparison. Think about how often we compare ourselves and our lives to a memory that nostalgia has so completely edited that it never really existed.

Brené Brown / quote

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