The Gifts of Imperfection: Let Go of Who You Think You're Supposed to Be and Embrace Who You Are

“Mean and nasty is my default setting. It doesn’t take courage for me to be shaming back. I can use my shame superpowers for evil in a split second. Letting myself feel hurt—that’s a totally different story. I think your default is my courage.”

lives inside of our story.

three criteria for meaningful work—complexity, autonomy, and a relationship between effort and reward—

My anxiety detox included more calm and more stillness, but it also included more exercise and less caffeine.

addiction research shows us that an intensely positive experience is as likely to cause relapse as an intensely painful experience.

fitting in gets in the way of belonging.

Shame is the intensely painful feeling or experience of believing that we are flawed and therefore unworthy of love and belonging.

www.self-compassion.org.

when and how we shut down: “In cultivating compassion we draw from the wholeness of our experience—our suffering, our empathy, as well as our cruelty and terror. It has to be this way. Compassion is not a relationship between the healer and the wounded. It’s a relationship between equals. Only when we know our own darkness well can we be present wi