Category: Quotes and Useful Links

“You get in life what you have the courage to ask for”

Brene Brown’s Ted Talk captures the strength and importance of embracing our vulnerability:

Vulnerability in this sense is uncertainty, risk, and daring to express emotion in the presence of others. Vulnerability is often wrongly perceived as a weakness, but really the embracing of one’s vulnerability is a strength. Many people spend years trying to hide and run from vulnerability by making things certain, fixed and definite, black and white, good and bad. However, as Brene relays, attempts to avoid vulnerability, limit the fullness of some of the most important experiences that are wrought with uncertainty, such as love, trust, belonging and creativity. Learning how to be vulnerable is an incredible challenge, but one that can not only be cathartic, but make life more vibrant and fulfilling.

“Normality is a paved road; it’s comfortable, but no flowers grow on it”

It is easy to remain in familiar and certain ways of being and living as it feels safer, even if it is causing us distress. We need the courage to embrace the unfamiliar, the unknown as while it may feel risky, it may offer new possibilities and choices:

“In the face of death we wish we had been more truthful, more loving, more real and more daring, but most of all, more ourselves and more alive” (Deurzen, 2015)

“Learning to live well is really very much like learning to swim well. It is risky and sooner or later we have to jump in at the deep end and discover that we are buoyant if we don’t thrash about in panic. The more we practice the better we get at it; through a bit of instruction at the right times it can stop us giving up… But we cannot learn to be champion swimmers on dry land. If we never plunge into the water, and remain safely standing by the side with our feet on the ground, wrongly assuming that swimming is too dangerous, we grow still and afraid and daren’t jump in” (Deurzen, 2015)

“Soon we learn that life is an obstacle course for which there are no dry runs, no training, no qualifying tails and not diplomas of competency or expertise…the only way to keep on the right side of life is to remain prepared for new experiences and new learning” (Deurzen, 2015)