The Beauty of Our Cracks

Acceptance, Core Value, Letting Go 0

Just as our experiences of foreboding joy can be located on a continuum, I found that most of us fall somewhere on a perfectionism continuum. In other words, when it comes to hiding our flaws, managing perception, and wanting to win over folks, we’re all hustling a little. For some folks, perfectionism may only emerge when they’re feeling particularly vulnerable. For others, perfectionism is compulsive, chronic, and debilitating — it looks and feels like addiction.

Regardless of where we are on this continuum, if we want freedom from perfectionism, we have to make the long journey from “What will people think?” to “I am enough.” That journey begins with shame resilience, self-compassion, and owning our stories. To claim the truths about who we are, where we come from, what we believe, and the very imperfect nature of our lives, we have to be willing to give ourselves a break and appreciate the beauty of our cracks or imperfections. To be kinder and gentler with ourselves and each other. To talk to ourselves the same way we’d talk to someone we care about.

— Brené Brown, Daring Greatly, p. 131

Why Are We Here?

Acceptance, Life 0

Each of the givens or conditions of existence evokes a question about our destiny. Are we here to get our way or to dance with the flow of life? Are we here to make sure everything goes according to our plans or to trust the surprises and synchronicities that lead us to new vistas? Are we here to make sure we get a fair deal or are we here to be upright and loving? Are we here to avoid pain or to deal with it, grow from it, and learn to be compassionate through it? Are we here to be loyally loved by everyone or to love with all our might?

— David Richo, The Five Things We Cannot Change . . ., p. xiv

Exposure to Light

Acceptance, Core Value, Growth, Healing 0

Shame derives its power from being unspeakable. That’s why it loves perfectionists — it’s so easy to keep us quiet. If we cultivate enough awareness about shame to name it and speak to it, we’ve basically cut it off at the knees. Shame hates having words wrapped around it. If we speak shame, it begins to wither. Just the way exposure to light was deadly for the gremlins, language and story bring light to shame and destroy it.

— Brene Brown, Daring Greatly, p. 67

Better Bruised Than Ill

Acceptance, Compassion, Growth, Life, Obedience 0

Whenever we Christians are enclosed in our groups, our movements, our parishes, in our little worlds, we remain closed, and the same thing happens to us that happens to anything closed: when a room is closed, it begins to get dank. If a person is closed up in that room, he or she becomes ill! Whenever Christians are enclosed in their groups, parishes, and movements, they take ill. If a Christian goes to the streets, or to the outskirts, he or she may risk the same thing that can happen to anyone out there: an accident. How often have we seen accidents on the road! But I am telling you: I would prefer a thousand times over a bruised Church to an ill Church! A Church, a catechist, with the courage to risk going out, and not a catechist who is studious, who knows everything but is always closed — such a person is not well. And sometimes he or she is not well in the head . . .

But, careful! Jesus does not say, Go off and do things on your own. No! That is not what he is saying. Jesus says, Go, for I am with you! This is what is so beautiful for us; it is what guides us. If we go out to bring his Gospel with love, with a true apostolic spirit, with parrhesia, he walks with us, he goes ahead of us and he gets there first.

— Pope Francis, The Church of Mercy, p. 19

Who Do I Need in My Life?

Acceptance, Relationships 0

How do you know that you don’t need a romantic partner? You don’t have one. How do you know that you need one? Here he is! You don’t call the shots on this. It’s better that you don’t. That way you can give yourself everything. What do you need a partner for? To fill your hunger? Is that true? All your adult life you’ve thought that you needed a partner, and you’re still hungry. So how many partners does it take to fill you? I’m not saying that you don’t need a partner. This is about your own truth. Just go in and experience it. Need yourself, whether or not you find a partner. In the meantime, you are waiting just for you.

— Byron Katie, Question Your Thinking, Change the World, p. 33

Moving With Others

Acceptance, Community, Connection 0

I know who I am. I am a Christian. I love my heritage and thank God for it. But my identity as a Christian can never be a barrier, a wall, a reason for apartheid. Rather, my identity as a follower of Christ requires me first to move toward the other in friendship, and then to move with the other in service to those in need. In so doing, both the other and I are transformed from counterparts to partners. This is good news for both the haves and the have-nots. The haves suffer dehumanization — a loss of human-kindness — when they hold themselves aloof from their fellow humans, just as the have-nots suffer when the haves hoard wealth and opportunity at the have-nots’ expense. The gospel calls both to discover salvation in encounter with the other, in the love of God.

— Brian D. McLaren, Why Did Jesus, Moses, the Buddha, and Mohammed Cross the Road?, p. 249

My Spiritual Identity

Acceptance, Core Value, God, Prayer 0

Prayer, then, is listening to that voice — to the One who calls you the Beloved. It is to constantly go back to the truth of who we are and claim it for ourselves. I’m not what I do. I’m not what people say about me. I’m not what I have. Although there is nothing wrong with success, there is nothing wrong with popularity, there is nothing wrong with being powerful, finally my spiritual identity is not rooted in the world, the things the world gives me. My life is rooted in my spiritual identity. Whatever we do, we have to go back regularly to that place of core identity.

— Henri J. M. Nouwen, The Only Necessary Thing, p. 67

Fear or Love

Acceptance, Letting Go, Love, Relationships 1

We are being motivated by fear or love in every encounter we experience. This may seem like an oversimplification, but I have found that it’s the best way for me to judge my actions or reactions to others on my path. If I am able to observe people living however they choose, without it unduly upsetting me, then I am practicing acceptance, which is an act of love. If I am agitated by their actions, I am experiencing fear, and I want them to change.

— Karen Casey, Let Go Now, p. 227

Witness, Pray, and Hope

Acceptance, Letting Go, Love, Relationships 0

We may find it hard to understand that letting others “sink or swim” as they choose is love. But it is. The difficulty is that sometimes others don’t end up “swimming,” and then we have to remember that everyone has their own journey and their own Higher Power. Our assignment is to witness, to pray, and to hope, but never to do for someone else what he or she needs to do.

— Karen Casey, Let Go Now, p. 205