Hi, everybody!
Two blog posts in less than an hour. I’m on fire, man.
I recently finished up The Gifts of Imperfection by Brené Brown. Amazing author. Amazing female author if you’re looking to diversify your reading.
I sent quite a few quotes from this book to multiple people. Not all the same quotes went to the same people, but I felt like I should share some here. Let’s get into it. I don’t know if I’m going to be anal about the formatting here. Kind of don’t feel like making it perfect. We’ll see.
Brown is an author known for her studies on shame, vulnerability, acceptance, amongst other things. We’ll discuss love and belonging here because I believe she has some really beautiful ways to think of both of these emotions/feelings/whatever.
“If we want to fully experience love and belonging, we must believe that we are worthy of love and belonging.”
She continues, “Worthiness doesn’t have prerequisites.”
Here’s a few I found worth sharing:
- I’ll be worthy when I lose twenty pounds
- I’ll be worthy when I can do it all and look like I’m not even trying
- I’ll be worthy when my parents finally approve
“What is at the heart of Wholeheartedness: Worthy now. Not if. Not when. We are worthy of love and belonging now. Right this minute. As is.”
Brown dives even deeper into belonging, “One of the biggest surprises in my research was learning that fitting in andd belonging are not the same thing. In fact, fitting in gets in the way of belonging. Fitting in is about assessing a situation and becoming who you need to be to be accepted. Belonging, on the other hand, doesn’t require us to change who were are; it requires us to be who we are.“
Brown points out three issues she’s willing to call truths:
- Love and belonging will always be uncertain
- Love belongs with belonging
- A deep sense of love and belonging is an irreducible need of all women, men, and children
And this next part is just too good not to share, “If we want to live and love with our whole hearts, and if we want to engage with the world from a place of worthiness, we have to talk about the things that in the way: Shame, Fear, Vulnerability.”
That’s what I do in this blog. That’s what I do with my support system. That’s what you should do, too. Take a few minutes to think about these words. It’ll do you some good, I promise.
I wish you well. Try not to beat the shit out of yourself.
The Two Sides of Me 