The Power of Vulnerability
I am also reading one of her books, The Gifts of Imperfection, and just can't get enough! As I've began to grow myself over the past year and invest in getting to know who the real Megan is, I've come to realize that life is not meant to be hidden but shared! Little did I know that our imperfections can be used as gifts to those around us. "Owning our story and loving ourselves through the process is the bravest thing that we will ever do." This is what I have to do everyday. I have to re-own my story, the story God has blessed me with, so that I can use it for His glory and for the power to connect with those around me. Brene Brown writes about the ten guideposts we should work towards in order to live authentically and whole-heartedly (engaging in our lives from a place of worthiness). They are as follows:
Cultivating Authenticity: Letting Go of What People Thing
- "Often people attempt to live their lives backwards: they try to have more things, or more money, in order to do more of what they want so that they will be happier. The way it actually works is the reverse. You must first be who you really are, then do what you really need to do, in order to have what you want." - Margaret Young
- "The thing that is really hard, and really amazing, is giving up on being perfect and beginning the work of becoming yourself." - Anna Quindlen
- "She could never go back and make some of the details pretty. All she could do was move forward and make the whole beautiful." - Terri St. Cloud
- "Joy seems to me a step beyond happiness. Happiness is a sort of atmosphere you can live in sometimes when you're lucky. Joy is a light that fills you with hope and faith and love." - Adela Rogers
- "Intuition is not a single way of knowing - it's our ability to hold space for uncertainty and our willingness to trust the many ways we've developed knowledge and insight, including instinct, experience, faith, and reason."
- "Faith is a place of mystery, where we find the courage to believe in what we cannot see and the strength to let go of our fear of uncertainty.
- "Creativity, which is the expression of our originality, helps us stay mindful that what we bring to the world is completely original and cannot be compared."
- "The only unique contribution that we will ever make in this world will be born of our creativity."
- "As long as we're creating, we're cultivating meaning."
- "If what matters to us is what other people think or say or value, then it's back to exhaustion and producing for self-worth. Today, I choose play and rest."
- "Stillness is not about focusing on nothingness; it's about creating a clearing. It's opening up an emotionally clutter-free space and allowing ourselves to feel and think and dream and question."
- We all have gifts and talents.
- Squandering our gifts brings distress to our lives.
- Sharing our gifts and talents with the world is the most powerful source of connection with God.
- Using our gifts and talents to create meaningful work takes a tremendous amount of commitment.
- Like our gifts and talents, meaning is unique to each one of us.
- "Dance like no one is watching. Sing like no one is listening. Love like you've never been hurt and live like it's heave on Earth." - Mark Twain