As I conducted my interviews, I 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. It’s as simple and complicated as this: If we want to fully experience love and belonging, we must believe that we are worthy of love and belonging.
— Brene Brown, The Gifts of Imperfection, p. 23
Our innate idiosyncracies are actually more endearing to others than our most glorious personal achievements….
History is full of incompetent people who were beloved, blunderers with winsome personality traits, and inept folks who delighted their entourages with their unassuming presences. Their secret? To accept their flaws with the same grace and humility as their best qualities.
— Veronique Vienne, The Art of Imperfection, p. 9
What would it take for us to remember our worth? How good we are, and how complete and loving and lovable. men shouldn’t have to bear the burden of our remembrance. It’s not their function to remind us we are goddesses. It’s our function to remember it and then reveal it to the world. When we remember, they will too. The light will be dazzling.
— Marianne Williamson, A Woman’s Worth, p. 136
No man can convince a woman she’s wonderful, but if she already believes she is, his agreement can resonate and bring her joy.
— Marianne Williamson, A Woman’s Worth, p. 84
Who is to hold the space for a woman’s greatness? In many heterosexual relationships, a man is threatened by a woman’s greatness, finding a variety of ways to make her question her own beauty and strength. A secure man is not threatened by a woman’s intellectual or emotional power but celebrates the opportunity for joyful partnership that it offers him. The conscious question is whether a relationship can handle two stars.
We must relinquish the paradigm of men as power with women as support and instead embrace the image of both men and women as powers, with each supporting the other. Any man who holds a woman back is not a man a woman can afford to be with. A woman has a mighty and sacred task to perform on earth. She will not be able to fulfill her function if she remains with a man who derides her glory.
— Marianne Williamson, A Woman’s Worth, p. 73
Wholehearted living is about engaging in our lives from a place of worthiness. It means cultivating the courage, compassion, and connection to wake up in the morning and think, No matter what gets done and how much is left undone, I am enough. It’s going to bed at night thinking, Yes, I am imperfect and vulnerable and sometimes afraid, but that doesn’t change the truth that I am also brave and worthy of love and belonging.
— Brene Brown, The Gifts of Imperfection
Until a woman has given herself permission to be fabulous, she will not find herself with partners who promote her ability to be so. As long as she tears herself down, she will attract people who tear her down, she will find others who agree that she is undeserving and lacking as long as that is how she thinks of herself.
— Marianne Williamson, A Woman’s Worth, p. 59
You need not apologize for being brilliant, talented, gorgeous, rich, or smart. Your success doesn’t take away from anyone else’s. It actually increases the possibility that others can have it too. Your money increases your capacity to give money to others, your joy increases your capacity to give joy to others, and your love increases your capacity to give love to others. Your playing small serves no one. It is a sick game. It is old thinking, and it is dire for the planet. Stop it immediately. Come home to the castle.
— Marianne Williamson, A Woman’s Worth, p. 54
Joy is what happens when we allow ourselves to recognize how good things are. Joy is not necessarily what happens when things unfold according to our own plans. How often that’s happened — we married the right man, had the children, got the job — and we’ve still known despair. Joy is what happens when we see that God’s plan is perfect and we’re already starring in a perfect show. It demands that we have the audacity to embrace the knowledge of just how beautiful we really are and how infinitely powerful we are right now — without changing a thing — through the grace that’s consistently born and reborn in us.
Such an embrace is not arrogant but humble; it is not crazy but realistic.
— Marianne Williamson, A Woman’s Worth, p. 46-47
Joy is our goal, our destiny. We cannot know who we are except in joy. Not knowing joy, we do not know ourselves. When we are without joy, we grope in the dark. When we are centered in joy, we attain our wisdom. A joyful woman, by merely being, says it all. The world is terrified of joyful women. Make a stand. Be one anyway.
— Marianne Williamson, A Woman’s Worth, p. 46