Quote of the Day

If you want a happy ending, that depends, of course, on where you stop your story.

-- Orson Welles

Quote of the Day

Every style of emotional blackmail wreaks havoc with our well-being.  It's easiest to pay attention to the punishers, whose tactics seem the most destructive.  But don't for a minute discount the corrosive effects of the quieter types, the ones who are more like termites than tornadoes.  Silent or dramatic, both can bring the house down.

-- Susan Forward with Donna Frazier, Emotional Blackmail, p. 38

Quote of the Day

Concealing who you are warps your sense of self and heightens feelings of hopelessness about ever being able to be your true self.

-- Janet Mock, Redefining Realness, p. 98

Quote of the Day

Shame resilience is a strategy for protecting connection -- our connection with ourselves and our connections with the people we care about.

-- Brene Brown, Daring Greatly, p. 76

Quote of the Day

Calm and compassion are so precious.  Make sure not to lose them through intoxication.

-- Jack Kornfield, Buddha's Little Instruction Book, p. 95

Quote of the Day

You each have an interior life -- doubts, fears, insecurities, issues you're sorting out, wounds that are healing, hopes and dreams you have.  No matter how confident or strong or successful we may be appear, we're all a jumble of vulnerabilities and questions trying to make sense of what it means to be us.

-- Rob and Kristen Bell, The Zimzum of Love, p. 84

Quote of the Day

Present each new idea or improvement to the world.  If multiple people are saying, "Wow!  Yes!  I need this!  I'd be happy to pay you to do this!" then you should probably do it.  But if the response is anything less, don't pursue it.  Don't waste years fighting uphill battles against locked doors.  Improve or invent until you get that huge response.

-- Derek Sivers, Anything You Want, p. 11

Quote of the Day

Above all, recognize that if you have had success, you have also had luck -- and with luck comes obligation.  You owe a debt, and not just to your gods.  You owe a debt to the unlucky.

-- Michael Lewis

Quote of the Day

When you see that other people are trying to get their way regardless of the cost to you, you're looking at the bottom-line behavior of the emotional blackmailer.

-- Susan Forward with Donna Frazier, Emotional Blackmail, p. 14

Quote of the Day

All my life I had been looking for something, and everywhere I turned someone tried to tell me what it was.  I accepted their answers too, though they were often in contradiction and even self-contradictory.  I was naive.  I was looking for myself and asking everyone except myself questions which I, and only I, could answer.  It took me a long time and much painful boomeranging of my expectations to achieve a realization everyone else appears to have been born with: that I am nobody but myself.

-- Ralph Ellison, The Invisible Man

Quote of the Day

If we can share our story with someone who responds with empathy and understanding, shame can't survive.  Self-compassion is also critically important, but because shame is a social concept -- it happens between people -- it also heals best between people.  A social wound needs a social balm, and empathy is that balm.  Self-compassion is key because when we're able to be gentle with ourselves in the midst of shame, we're more likely to reach out, connect, and experience empathy.

-- Brene Brown, Daring Greatly, p. 75

Quote of the Day

Strength and justice are the products of a steady heart.

-- Jack Kornfield, Buddha's Little Instruction Book, p. 94

Quote of the Day

When you get married, you get another set of eyes.  If you aren't careful, this other set of eyes that sees the world differently can become a constant source of tension and conflict -- with each of you endlessly trying to get the other to see everything like you do and win them over to your view.  You can let your different ways of seeing give you a broader, wider, fuller view of the world.  Instead of seeing with two eyes, you're now seeing with four.

-- Rob and Kristen Bell, The Zimzum of Love, p. 65

Quote of the Day

We all have lots of ideas, creations, and projects.  When you present one to the world, and it's not a hit, don't keep pushing it as-is.  Instead, get back to improving and inventing.

-- Derek Sivers, Anything You Want, p. 11

Quote of the Day

We don't make movies to make money, we make money to make more movies.

-- Walt Disney

Quote of the Day

The possibilities for hurt or healing exist in any situation in which we've chosen to maintain a relationship after a serious transgression: a betrayal by a colleague, a damaging rift in a family, a discovery that we've been deceived by a friend.  But if both parties are coming from a position of goodwill and truly want to resolve whatever crisis is impairing the relationship, there is no place for emotional blackmail.

-- Susan Forward with Donna Frazier, Emotional Blackmail, p. 13

Quote of the Day

My femininity was heavily policed because it was seen as inferior to masculinity.  My father, though he didn't have the words, couldn't understand why I would choose to be feminine when masculinity was privileged.  What I had to negotiate at a young age was embracing who I was while rejecting whom others thought I should be ... Like my father, I grew confident in my choice to be true to myself, despite what anyone thought, despite the fear of what was to come.  I knew that if I chose to make myself happy, to live in the pursuit of me and my dreams, that I would be free.

-- Janet Mock, Redefining Realness, p. 73

Quote of the Day

I get it.  Shame is bad.  So what do we do about it?  The answer is shame resilience.  Note that shame resistance is not possible.  As long as we care about connection, the fear of disconnection will always be a powerful force in our lives, and the pain caused by shame will always be real.

-- Brene Brown, Daring Greatly, p. 74

Quote of the Day

 Every life has a measure of sorrow.  Sometimes it is this that awakens us.

-- Jack Kornfield, Buddha's Little Instruction Book, p. 93

Quote of the Day

This is why marriage can be so difficult and so great: the space that multiplies and magnifies any negativity between you also multiplies and magnifies the generous and kind things you do for each other.

-- Rob and Kristen Bell, The Zimzum of Love, p. 27

Quote of the Day

A songwriter can write a hundred songs; then suddenly one of them really resonates with people and becomes a hit.  Who knows why?  It's not that it's necessarily better.  But through some random circumstance or magic combination of ingredients, people love it.  Once you've got a hit, suddenly all the locked doors open wide.  People love the hit so much that it seems to promote itself.  Instead of trying to create demand, you're managing the huge demand.

-- Derek Sivers, Anything You Want, p. 10

Quote of the Day

The trick is not caring what EVERYBODY thinks of you and just caring about what the RIGHT people think of you.

-- Brian Michael Bendis

Quote of the Day

Appropriate limit-setting isn't about coercion, pressure or repeatedly characterizing the other person as flawed.  It's a statement of what kind of behavior we will and won't allow into our lives.

-- Susan Forward with Donna Frazier, Emotional Blackmail, p. 11

Quote of the Day

It's through my personal decision to be visible that I finally see myself.  There's nothing more powerful than truly being and loving yourself.

-- Janet Mock, Redefining Realness, p. xviii

Quote of the Day

We'll go through each of the four elements, but first I want to explain what I mean by shame resilience.  I mean the ability to practice authenticity when we experience shame, to move through the experience without sacrificing our values, and to come out on the other side of the shame experience with more courage, compassion, and connection than we had going into it.  Shame resilience is about moving from shame to empathy -- the real antidote to shame.

-- Brene Brown, Daring Greatly, p. 74

Quote of the Day

Fear is always an anticipation of what has not yet come.

-- Jack Kornfield, Buddha's Little Instruction Book, p. 91

Quote of the Day

Marriage -- gay and straight -- is a gift to the world because the world needs more -- not less -- love, fidelity, commitment, devotion, and sacrifice.

-- Rob and Kristen Bell, The Zimzum of Love, p. 16

Quote of the Day

When you're on to something great, it won't feel like revolution.  It'll feel like uncommon sense.

-- Derek Sivers, Anything You Want, p. 10

Quote of the Day

Protect your vulnerable areas.  If you have work that is too sensitive or too close to you to be exposed to criticism, keep it hidden.  But remember what writer Colin Marshall says: "Compulsive avoidance of embarrassment is a form of suicide."  If you spend your life avoiding vulnerability, you and your work will never truly connect with other people.

-- Austin Kleon, Show Your Work!, p. 152

Quote of the Day

The world of emotional blackmail is confusing.  While some emotional blackmailers are clear in their threats, others may send us mixed signals, acting kindly much of the time and resorting to blackmail only occasionally.  All this makes it difficult to see when a pattern of manipulation is developing in a relationship.

-- Susan Forward with Donna Frazier, Emotional Blackmail, p. 3

Quote of the Day

I believe that telling our stories, first to ourselves and then to one another and the world, is a revolutionary act.  It is an act that can be met with hostility, exclusion, and violence.  It can also lead to love, understanding, transcendence, and community.

-- Janet Mock, Redefining Realness, p. xviii