Love Warrior (Oprah's Book Club): A Memoir

scared and sacred are sisters.

“Yes. Like when you dance. Many of the things you see me do each day, I do to be beautiful. It’s why I take time out to spend with good friends. It’s why I read and look at art and always have music I love playing in the house. It’s why I light candles in every room. It’s why I watch you climb our banyan trees in the front yard. It’s why I roll aro

They want us to feel bad, so we’ll buy more. It almost always works. We buy their stuff and wear it and drive it and shake our hips the way they tell us to—but that doesn’t get us love, because none of that is real sexiness.

I tell her that we need a church that will help us practice loving ourselves without shame, loving others without agenda, and loving God without fear.

I wonder if the word sexy is everything that made sex a lie to me.

I open the windows so the birds’ songs can remind me that what is about to happen was made by God and blessed by God and that any shame added to it is a lie.

If we choose to introduce our true selves to anyone, we will get hurt. But we will be hurt either way. There is pain in hiding and pain outside of hiding.

Real sexy is letting your true self come out of hiding and find love in safe places.

Suddenly I find myself wanting more beauty, more love—as if gratitude immediately widened the vessel, creating space for more.