Brene Brown Quotes & Sayings

Stay in your own lane. Comparison kills creativity and joy. — Brene Brown

A lifetime of unexplored disappointments can make us bitter, and stored-up resentment is toxic. — Brene Brown

In his book The Body Keeps the Score, Bessel van der Kolk, a professor of psychiatry at Boston University, explores how trauma literally reshapes the brain and the body, and how interventions that enable adults to reclaim their lives must address the relationship between our emotional well-being and our bodies. — Brene Brown

Trust is a product of vulnerability that grows over time and requires work, attention, and full engagement. — Brene Brown

Rising strong after a fall is how we cultivate wholeheartedness in our lives; it's the process that teaches us the most about who we are. — Brene Brown

Perfectionism is not about healthy achievement and growth. Perfectionism is the belief that if we live perfect, look perfect, and act perfect, we can minimize or avoid the pain of blame, judgment, and shame. — Brene Brown

Then I tell my own story. The two things that people really need to transform is language to understand their experience and to know they're not alone. It's the combination of the researcher-storyteller part. — Brene Brown

When we apologize for something we've done, make amends, or change a behavior that doesn't align with our values, guilt - not shame - is most often the driving force. We feel guilty when we hold up something we've done or failed to do against our values and find they don't match up. It's an uncomfortable feeling, but one that's helpful. The psychological discomfort, something similar to cognitive dissonance, is what motivates meaningful change. Guilt is just as powerful as shame, but its influence is positive, while shame's is destructive. In fact, in my research I found that shame corrodes the very part of us that believes we can change and do better. — Brene Brown

Shame is the most powerful, master emotion. It's the fear that we're not good enough. — Brene Brown

Requiring accountability while also extending your compassion is not the easiest course of action, but it is the most humane, and, ultimately, the safest for the community. — Brene Brown

Wholehearted living is about engaging in our lives from a place of worthiness. — Brene Brown

There is no intimacy without vulnerability. Yet another powerful example of vulnerability as courage. — Brene Brown

You cannot talk about race without talking about privilege. And when people start talking about privilege, they get paralyzed by shame. — Brene Brown

Shame is so painful for children because it is inextricably linked to the fear of being unlovable. For young children who are still dependent on their parents for survival - for food, shelter, and safety - feeling unlovable is a threat to survival. It's trauma. I'm convinced that the reason most of us revert back to feeling childlike and small when we're in shame is because our brain stores our early shame experiences as trauma, and when it's triggered we return to that place. We don't have the neurobiological research yet to confirm this, but I've coded hundreds of interviews that follow this same pattern: — Brene Brown

Shame keeps worthiness away by convincing us that owning our stories will lead to people thinking less of us. Shame is all about fear. We're afraid that people won't like us if they know the truth about who we are, where we come from, what we believe, how much we're struggling, or, believe it or not, how wonderful we are when soaring (sometimes it's just as hard to own our strengths as our struggles). — Brene Brown

I've come to believe that creativity is the mechanism that allows learning to seep into our being and become practice. — Brene Brown

I think that shame is a universal, paralyzing, painful emotion. — Brene Brown

Worthiness doesn't have prerequisites. — Brene Brown

We choose owning our stories of struggle, Over hiding, over hustling, over pretending. When we deny our stories, they define us. When we run from struggle, we are never free. So we turn toward truth and look it in the eye. We will not be characters in our stories. Not villains, not victims, not even heroes. We are the authors of our lives. We write our own daring endings. We craft love from heartbreak, Compassion from shame, Grace from disappointment, Courage from failure. Showing up is our power. Story is our way home. Truth is our song. We are the brave and brokenhearted. — Brene Brown

Breath for a count of four - one, two, three, four. The breathing method many therapists and mindfulness practitioners — Brene Brown

Our capacity for wholeheartednes s can never be greater than our willingness to be broken-hearted. — Brene Brown

A study published in the October 22, 2014, issue of the journal Neuron suggests that the brain's chemistry changes when we become curious, helping us better learn and retain information. But curiosity is uncomfortable because it involves uncertainty and vulnerability. — Brene Brown

A man in his early sixties told me, I used to think the best way to go through life was to expect the worst. That way, if it happened, you were prepared, and if it didn't happen, you were pleasantly surprised. Then I was in a car accident and my wife was killed. Needless to say, expecting the worst didn't prepare me at all. And worse, I still grieve for all of those wonderful moments we shared and that I didn't fully enjoy. My commitment to her is to fully enjoy every moment now. I just wish she was here, now that I know how to do that. — Brene Brown

My husband's a pediatrician, so he and I talk about parenting all the time. You can't raise children who have more shame resilience than you do. — Brene Brown

What separates privilege from entitlement is gratitude. — Brene Brown

Imperfections are not inadequacies; they are reminders that we're all in this together. — Brene Brown

One woman said, "Shame is hating yourself and understanding why other people hate you too. — Brene Brown

We seem to measure the value of people's contributions (and sometimes their entire lives) by their level of public recognition. In other words, worth is measured by fame and fortune. Our culture is quick to dismiss quiet, ordinary, hardworking men and women. In many instances, we equate ordinary with boring or, even more dangerous, ordinary has become synonymous with meaningless. — Brene Brown

If we choose not to get involved or pretend it's not happening, we're going against the very sense of connection that makes us human. — Brene Brown

As a vulnerability researcher, the greatest barrier I see is our low tolerance for vulnerability. We're almost afraid to be happy. We feel like it's inviting disaster. — Brene Brown

I was also startled by the fact that research participants consistently described both joyfulness and gratitude as spiritual practices that were bound to a belief in human connectedness and a power greater than us. — Brene Brown

I now see how gifts like courage, compassion, and connection only work when they are exercised. Every day. — Brene Brown

Let go of who you think you should be in order to be who you are. Be imperfect and have compassion for yourself. Connection is the result of authenticity. — Brene Brown

When perfectionism is driving us, shame is riding shotgun and fear is that annoying backseat driver! — Brene Brown

I define vulnerability as uncertainty, risk and emotional exposure. With that definition in mind, let's think about love. Waking up every day and loving someone who may or may not love us back, whose safety we can't ensure, who may stay in our lives or may leave without a moment's notice, who may be loyal to the day they die or betray us tomorrow - that's vulnerability. — Brene Brown

We don't talk about what keeps us eating until we're sick, busy beyond human scale, desperate to numb and take the edge off, and full of so much anxiety and self-doubt that we can't act on what we know is best for us. We don't talk about the hustle for worthiness that's become such a part of our lives that we don't even realize that we're dancing. — Brene Brown

Shame resilience is the ability to recognize shame, to move through it constructively while maintaining worthiness and authenticity, and to ultimately develop more courage, compassion, and connection as a result of our experience. — Brene Brown

The counterapproach to living in scarcity is not about abundance. In fact, I think abundance and scarcity are two sides of the same coin. The opposite of "never enough" isn't abundance or "more than you could ever imagine." The opposite of scarcity is enough, or what I call Wholeheartedness. — Brene Brown

Setting boundaries and holding people accountable is a lot more work than shaming and blaming. — Brene Brown

You can choose courage or you can choose comfort, but you can't have both. — Brene Brown

When I let go of trying to be everything to everyone, I had much more time, attention, love, and connection for the important people in my life. — Brene Brown

I believe that vulnerability - the willingness to show up and be seen with no guarantee of outcome - is the only path to more love, belonging, and joy. — Brene Brown

The only unique contribution that we will ever make in this world will be born of our creativity. — Brene Brown

No matter what gets done and how much is left undone, I am enough. — Brene Brown

Another great example of the power of vulnerability
this time in a corporation
is the leadership approach taken by Lululemon's CEO, Christine Day. In a video interview with CNN Money, Day explained that she was once a very bright, smart executive who "majored in being right." Her transformation came when she realized that getting people to engage and take ownership wasn't about "the teling" but about letting them come into the idea in a purpose-led way, and that her job was creating the space for others to perform. She chracterized this change as the shift from "having the best idea or problem solving" to "being the best leader of people. — Brene Brown

Women can be the most fearful about letting men off the white horse and the most likely to be critical of their vulnerability. — Brene Brown

Interview - two years of practicing being brave and putting myself out there - and vulnerability is still uncomfortable and falling still hurts. It always will. But I'm learning that the process of struggling and navigating hurt has as much to offer us as the process of being brave and showing up. — Brene Brown

They practice critical awareness by reality-checking the messages and expectations that tell us that being imperfect means being inadequate. — Brene Brown

Realized that only one thing separated the men and women who felt a deep sense of love and belonging from the people who seem to be struggling for it. That one thing is the belief in their worthiness. — Brene Brown

Belonging starts with self-acceptance. Your level of belonging, in fact, can never be greater than your level of self-acceptance, because believing that you're enough is what gives you the courage to be authentic, vulnerable and imperfect. When we don't have that, we shape-shift and turn into chameleons; we hustle for the worthiness we already possess. — Brene Brown

Squandering our gifts brings distress to our lives. As it turns out, it's not merely benign or 'too bad' if we don't use the gifts that we've been given; we pay for it with our emotional and physical well-being. When we don't use our talents to cultivate meaningful work, we struggle. We feel disconnected and weighted down by feelings of emptiness, frustration, resentment, shame, disappointment, fear, and even grief. — Brene Brown

We do that by numbing the pain with whatever provides the quickest relief. We can take the edge off emotional pain with a whole bunch of stuff, including alcohol, drugs, food, sex, relationships, money, work, caretaking, gambling, affairs, religion, chaos, shopping, planning, perfectionism, constant change, and the Internet. And just so we don't miss it in this long list of all the ways we can numb ourselves, there's always staying busy: living so hard and fast that the truths of our lives can't catch up with us. We fill every ounce of white space with something so there's no room or time for emotion to make itself known. — Brene Brown

We need to change what we say and what we allow to be said in front of us. — Brene Brown

It's always helpful to remember that when perfectionism is driving, shame is riding shotgun. — Brene Brown

Revolution might sound a little dramatic, but in this world, choosing authenticity and worthiness is an absolute act of resistance. Choosing to live and love with our whole hearts is an act of defiance. You're going to confuse, piss off, and terrify lots of people - including yourself. One — Brene Brown

Shaming and blaming without accountability is toxic to couples, families, organizations, and communities. — Brene Brown

Guilt and shame are both emotions of self-evaluation; however, that is where the similarities end. The majority of shame researchers agree that the difference between shame and guilt is best understood as the differences between "I am bad" (shame) and "I did something bad" (guilt). Shame is about who we are and guilt is about our behaviors. If I feel guilty for cheating on a test, my self-talk might sound something like "I should not have done that. That was really stupid. Cheating is not something I believe in or want to do." If I feel shame about cheating on a test, my self-talk is more likely to sound like "I'm a liar and a cheat. I'm so stupid. I'm a bad person. — Brene Brown

The best marriages are the ones where we can go out in the world and really put ourselves out there. A lot of times we'll fail, and sometimes we'll pull it off. But good marriages are when you can go home and know that your vulnerability will be honored as courage, and that you'll find support. — Brene Brown

Empathy is not finite, and compassion is not a pizza with eight slices. When you practice empathy and compassion with someone, there is not less of these qualities to go around. There's more. Love is the last thing we need to ration in this world. The refugee in Syria doesn't benefit more if you conserve your kindness only for her and withhold it from your neighbor who's going through a divorce. Yes, perspective is critical. But I'm a firm believer that complaining is okay as long as we piss and moan with a little perspective. Hurt is hurt, and every time we honor our own struggle and the struggles of others by responding with empathy and compassion, the healing that results affects all of us. 8. — Brene Brown

I learned how to worry more about how I felt and less about "what people might think." I was setting new boundaries and began to let go of my need to please, perform, and perfect. I started saying no rather than sure (and being resentful and pissed off later). I began to say "Oh, hell yes!" rather than "Sounds fun, but I have lots of work to do" or "I'll do that when I'm _ (thinner, less busy, better prepared). — Brene Brown

Talk about your failures without apologizing. — Brene Brown

I often refer to shame as the fear of disconnection
the fear of being perceived as flawed and unworthy of acceptance or belonging. — Brene Brown

By definition, entrepreneurship is vulnerable. It's all about the ability to handle and manage uncertainty. People are constantly changing, budgets change, boards change, and competition means you have to stay nimble and innovative. You have to create a vision and live up to that vision. There is no vision without vulnerability. — Brene Brown

I believe in the healing power of laughter. I believe laughter forces us to breathe. — Brene Brown

And, if that's not news enough, here's something else: Hope is learned! Snyder suggests that we learn hopeful, goal-directed thinking in the context of other people. Children most often learn hope from their parents. Snyder says that to learn hopefulness, children need relationships that are characterized by boundaries, consistency, and support. I think it's so empowering to know that I have the ability to teach my children how to hope. It's not a crapshoot. It's a conscious choice. — Brene Brown

I want our home to be a place where we can be our bravest selves and our most fearful selves. Where we practice difficult conversations and share our shaming moments from school and work. I want to look at Steve and my kids and say, "I'm with you. In the arena. And when we fail, we'll fail together, while daring greatly." We simply can't learn to be more vulnerable and courageous on our own. Sometimes our first and greatest dare is asking for support. — Brene Brown

Men and women who live Wholeheartedly do indeed DIG Deep. They just do it in a different way. When they're exhausted and overwhelmed, they get Deliberate in their thoughts and behaviors through prayer, meditation, or simply setting their intentions; Inspired to make new and different choices; Going. They take action. Since I made that discovery, I've been DIGging Deep the new way, and it's been pretty amazing. — Brene Brown

It's a practice for me every day, sometimes every hour of every day. It is an absolute practice. When I went into the research, I really thought that there are authentic people and inauthentic people, period. What I found is, there people who practice authenticity and people who don't. The people who practice authenticity work their ass off at it. — Brene Brown

To feel is to be vulnerable. To believe vulnerability is weakness is to believe that feeling is weakness. — Brene Brown

Pay attention to the space between where we're standing and where we want to go. — Brene Brown

Joy is as thorny and sharp as any of the dark emotions. To love someone fiercely, to believe in something with your whole heart, to celebrate a fleeting moment in time, to fully engage in a life that doesn't come with guarantees - these are risks that involve vulnerability and often pain. When we lose our tolerance for discomfort, we lose joy. — Brene Brown

Choosing courage does not mean that we're unafraid, it means that we are brave enough to love despite the fear and uncertainty. — Brene Brown

In its original Latin form, sacrifice means to make sacred or to make holy. I wholeheartedly believe that when we are fully engaged in parenting, regardless of how imperfect, vulnerable, and messy it is, we are creating something sacred. — Brene Brown

Vulnerability is about showing up and being seen. It's tough to do that when we're terrified about what people might see or think. — Brene Brown

That's really part of being a grounded theory researcher - putting names to concepts and experiences that people have. — Brene Brown

A leader is anyone who holds her- or himself accountable for finding potential in people and processes. — Brene Brown

Technology, for instance, has become a kind of imposter for connection, making us believe we're connected when we're really not - at least not in the ways we need to be. — Brene Brown

I was healthier, more joyful, and more grateful than I had ever felt. I felt calmer and grounded, and significantly less anxious. I had rekindled my creative life, reconnected with my family and friends in a new way, and most important, felt truly comfortable in my own skin for the first time in my life. — Brene Brown

Our silence about grief serves no one. We can't heal if we can't grieve; we can't forgive if we can't grieve. We run from grief because loss scares us, yet our hearts reach toward grief because the broken parts want to mend. — Brene Brown

I carry a small sheet of paper in my wallet that has written on it the names of people whose opinions of me matter. To be on that list, you have to love me for my strengths and struggles. — Brene Brown

There really is "no effort without error and shortcoming" and there really is no triumph without vulnerability. — Brene Brown

The truth is: Belonging starts with self-acceptance. Your level of belonging, in fact, can never be greater than your level of self-acceptance, because believing that you're enough is what gives you the courage to be authentic, vulnerable and imperfect. — Brene Brown

The uncertainty of parenting can bring up feelings in us that range from frustration to terror. — Brene Brown

Lean into the discomfort of the work. — Brene Brown

Shame is the intensely painful feeling or experience of believing we are flawed and therefore unworthy of acceptance and belonging. — Brene Brown

Joy is not a constant. It comes to us in moments - often ordinary moments. Sometimes we miss out on the bursts of joy because we're too busy chasing down the extraordinary moments. Other times we're so afraid of the dark we don't dare let ourselves enjoy the light. A joyful life is not a floodlight of joy. That would eventually become unbearable. I believe a joyful life is made up of joyful moments gracefully strung together by trust, gratitude and inspiration — Brene Brown

The problem is, when we stop caring what people think and stop feeling hurt by cruelty, we lose our ability to connect. But when we're defined by what people think, we lose the courage to be vulnerable. — Brene Brown

The credit belongs to those of us who are actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood. We strive valiantly and sometimes there's the triumph of achievement but at the worst, we fail, but at least we fail while daring greatly. That has really changed my life. Profoundly changed my life. — Brene Brown

One of the outcomes of attempting to ignore emotional pain is chandeliering. We think we've packed the hurt so far down that it can't possibly resurface, yet all of a sudden, a seemingly innocuous comment sends us into a rage or sparks a crying fit. Or maybe a small mistake at work triggers a huge shame attack. Perhaps a colleague's constructive feedback hits that exquisitely tender place and we jump out of our skin. — Brene Brown

true. I define vulnerability as uncertainty, risk, and emotional exposure. With that definition in mind, let's think about love. Waking up every day and loving someone who may or may not love us back, whose safety we can't ensure, who may stay in our lives or may leave without a moment's notice, who may be loyal to the day they die or betray us tomorrow - that's vulnerability. Love is uncertain. It's incredibly risky. And loving someone leaves us emotionally exposed. Yes, it's scary and yes, we're open to being hurt, but can you imagine your life without loving or being loved? — Brene Brown

Compassion is not a virtue
it is a commitment. It's not something we have or don't have
it's something we choose to practice. — Brene Brown

As unique as we all are, an awful lot of us want the same things. We want to shake up our current less-than-fulfilling lives. We want to be happier, more loving, forgiving and connected with the people around us. — Brene Brown

Think we're supposed to be and embracing who we are. Choosing authenticity means cultivating the courage to be imperfect, to set boundaries, and to allow ourselves to be vulnerable; exercising the compassion that comes from knowing that we are all made of strength and struggle; and nurturing the connection and sense of belonging that can only happen when we believe that we are enough. — Brene Brown

I was raised in a family where vulnerability was barely tolerated: no training wheels on our bicycles, no goggles in the pool, just get it done. And so I grew up not only with discomfort about my own vulnerability, I didn't care for it in other people either. — Brene Brown

As we strive to understand issues in their social, political and economic contexts, we are better able to move away from individualizing problems and making them about someone's character flaw. We also become less likely to pathologize women and more likely to understand how and why things work. — Brene Brown

Faith minus vulnerability and mystery equals extremism. If you've got all the answers, then don't call what you do 'faith.' — Brene Brown

You may not have signed up for a hero's journey, but the second you fell down, got your butt kicked, suffered a disappointment, screwed up, or felt your heart break, it started. It doesn't matter whether we are ready for an emotional adventure - hurt happens. And it happens to every single one of us. Without exception. The only decision we get to make is what role we'll play in our own lives: Do we want to write the story or do we want to hand that power over to someone else? Choosing to write our own story means getting uncomfortable; it's choosing courage over comfort. — Brene Brown

Owning our story can be hard but not nearly as difficult as spending our lives running from it. Embracing our vulnerabilities is risky but not nearly as dangerous as giving up on love and belonging and joy - the experiences that make us the most vulnerable. Only when we are brave enough to explore the darkness will we discover the infinite power of our light. — Brene Brown

The goal is to learn to recognize when we are experiencing shame quickly enough to prevent ourselves from lashing out at those around us. — Brene Brown

We've all fallen, and we have the skinned knees and bruised hearts to prove it. But scars are easier to talk about than they are to show, with all the remembered feelings laid bare. And rarely do we see wounds that are in the process of healing. I'm not sure if it's because we feel too much shame to let anyone see a process as intimate as overcoming hurt, or if it's because even when we muster the courage to share our still-incomplete healing, people reflexively look away. — Brene Brown