Quote of the Day

I am a combative, inquisitive, argumentative person, and I will never allow anyone to change that.  I still have anger, but I'm okay with that because it fuels me to continue to right any wrongs I may see.  And it's because of that and the support of my true friends and family that I was able to fight my way out of Scientology and see the world for the first time.  Without judgement or pressure not to think the way I do or to have a different faith.  Our lives have begun.  Lessons are being learned, and we are healing.  It's never too late to begin again.  Better, stronger, more evolved.

-- Leah Remini with Rebecca Paley, Troublemaker, p. 228

Quote of the Day

Once you are less afraid and feel less manipulated by fear, obligation and guilt, you'll notice how many choices open up to you.  You'll be able to decide who you want to be close to, how much you are responsible for other people, how you really want to use your time and love and energy.

-- Susan Forward with Donna Frazier, Emotional Blackmail, p. 146

Quote of the Day

Jeanne Proust was greatly concerned to live up to the expectations involved in being the wife of a revered physician and professor and to be respected by the members of a social class whose approval was very important to her.  She experienced [her son] Marcel's originality and vitality as a threat, one that she set out to combat with all the means at her disposal.  This did not escape her sensitive, perceptive son.

-- Alice Miller, The Body Never Lies, p. 70

Quote of the Day

Shame breeds fear.  It crushes our tolerance for vulnerability, thereby killing engagement, innovation, creativity, productivity, and trust.

-- Brene Brown, Daring Greatly, p. 188

Quote of the Day

You know, you read a great poem in a magazine somewhere, and you just can't stand the fact that you didn't write it.  What do you do?  Well, you can't get whiteout, and blank out the poet's name and write yours in -- that's not fair.  But you can say, "Okay, I didn't write that poem, let me write a poem like that, that's sort of my version of that."  And that's basically the way you grow...

 -- Billy Collins

Quote of the Day

For most of my childhood and adult life, I thought I had the answers and most of the world was just lost.  As I've grown, I've learned that I know almost nothing.  And so, in that I feel reborn in a sense.  I am reading, I go to therapy, I do things that bring me joy, learning to love the one person I didn't like very much -- myself.

-- Leah Remini with Rebecca Paley, Troublemaker, p. 228

Quote of the Day

We, who are good at so many things in our lives, often resist changing self-defeating behavior patterns with exquisitely wrought reasons why we can't do anything different.  So we wait to learn new behavior until we feel a little less anxious, a bit less afraid or insecure.  And the blackmail gets worse.  The good news is that if you're willing to take action now and let your feelings of confidence and competence catch up with you, you can end emotional blackmail.  The bad news is that you have to begin the change process while you are still afraid.

-- Susan Forward with Donna Frazier, Emotional Blackmail, p. 144

Quote of the Day

True, (Marcel Proust's) magnificent, seven-volume novel enabled him to express himself and to bestow a gift of unusual generosity on his readers.  But for years he suffered physical torment because he could not afford to face up totally and consciously to the suffering inflicted on him by his overpowering, dominant, and demanding mother.

-- Alice Miller, The Body Never Lies, p. 69

Quote of the Day

The problem is that innovative ideas often sound crazy and failure and learning are part of revolution.  Evolution and incremental change is important and we need it, but we're desperate for real revolution and that requires a different type of courage and creativity.

-- Kevin Surace

Quote of the Day

Most people and most organizations can't stand the uncertainty and the risk of real innovation.  Learning and creating are inherently vulnerable.  There's never enough certainty.  People want guarantees.

-- Brene Brown, Daring Greatly, p. 186

Quote of the Day

In the end, change is never easy.  Living with a core set of beliefs that completely unravel is unsettling, to say the least.  We all have to decide, do we want to live in regret, suffer pain, and demonize ourselves for believing in and carrying out the tenets of the church, or do we want to look at what we gained?  The "bad" had to happen.  If it didn't, we would still be walking around with blinders on, not seeing the world at large.  We wouldn't have been given the gift to explore new ideas, new ways of being, thinking, open to the possibilities that there are other beliefs, different paths that can bring us closer to others.  We would not be able to be more solid than ever in our belief that "what is true for you is true because you yourself have observed it to be true."  We all have a newfound strength, in that we will never again "believe" just because.

-- Leah Remini with Rebecca Paley, Troublemaker, p. 227-228

Quote of the Day

Read widely.  Find poets that make you envious.  And then copy them.  Try to get like them.

-- Billy Collins

Quote of the Day

Change requires using information, not just collecting it.

-- Susan Forward with Donna Frazier, Emotional Blackmail, p. 144

Quote of the Day

Human progress is neither automatic nor inevitable... Every step toward the goal of justice requires sacrifice, suffering, and struggle; the tireless exertions and passionate concern of dedicated individuals.

-- Martin Luther King Jr.

Quote of the Day

Many of the Ten Commandments can still claim validity today.  But the Fourth Commandment is diametrically opposed to the laws of psychology.  It is imperative that there be general recognition of the fact that enforced "love" can do a very great deal of harm.  People who were loved in childhood will love their parents in return.  There is no need of a commandment to tell them to do so.  Obeying a commandment can never be the basis for love.

-- Alice Miller, The Body Never Lies, p. 67

Quote of the Day

I identify as queer and I identify as gender queer.  That just means that I don't necessarily identify within a gender binary. I've never in my life really felt like a woman and I've certainly never felt like a man. I look at gender on a spectrum and I feel somewhere on that spectrum that's not landing on either side of that. 

-- Andrea Gibson, "The Pioneering Poet"

Quote of the Day

I've come to believe that a leader is anyone who holds her- or himself accountable for finding potential in people and processes.

-- Brene Brown, Daring Greatly, p. 185

Quote of the Day

Belief and faith are great, but very few people have been led astray by thinking for themselves.

-- Leah Remini with Rebecca Paley, Troublemaker, p. 227

Quote of the Day

Read widely, read all the poetry you can get your hands on.  And in your reading, you're searching for something.  Not so much your voice.  You're searching for poets that make you jealous.  Professors of writing call this "literary influence."  It's jealousy.  And it's with every art, whether you play the saxophone, or do charcoal drawings.  You're looking to get influenced by people who make you furiously jealous. 

-- Billy Collins

Quote of the Day

I certainly don't go along with the idea that every physical ailment is psychosomatic, but there is ample evidence that the mind, emotions and body are intimately connected.  Emotional distress can significantly increase our vulnerability to headaches, muscle spasms, gastrointestinal problems, respiratory disorders and a host of other ailments.  I believe strongly that the stress and tension that accompany emotional blackmail may manifest themselves in physical symptoms when other outlets of expression are blocked or shut down.

-- Susan Forward with Donna Frazier, Emotional Blackmail, p. 135-136

Quote of the Day

It is quite normal for us to owe a debt of gratitude to our parents and grandparents (or the people standing in for them), even if the treatment we experienced at their hands was sheer unadulterated torture.  This is an integral part of morality, as we understand it.  But it is a species of morality that consigns our genuine feelings and our own personal truth to an unmarked grave.  Severe illnesses, early death, and suicide are the logical consequence of subjection to the laws that we call morality, although in fact they suffocate our true lives.  This will continue to be the case, all over the world, as long as we show greater reverence to these laws than to life itself. 

-- Alice Miller, The Body Never Lies, p. 66

Quote of the Day

Make no mistake: honest conversations about vulnerability and shame are disruptive.  The reason that we're not having these conversations in our organizations is that they shine light in dark corners.  Once there is language, awareness, and understanding, turning back is almost impossible and carries with it severe consequences.

-- Brene Brown, Daring Greatly, p. 184

Quote of the Day

I am now comfortable with the idea that even [though] I could find things the church offered me that feel "right," that didn't mean my leaving it was wrong.  And although I thought the problem with the church was David Miscavige and Tom Cruise, now I realize that if both of them left the church tomorrow I wouldn't necessarily feel differently about Scientology.  To me, it's a structural flaw of the faith that its adherents are forbidden from challenging the leader (and its policies) at all costs.  And right behind the current leader is another of the same kind.

-- Leah Remini with Rebecca Paley, Troublemaker, p. 226-227

Quote of the Day

Every time you don't take the class you want to take, every time you stop pursuing an interest or stop seeing people you care about in order to make a blackmailer happy, you are giving up an important part of yourself and diminishing your wholeness.

-- Susan Forward with Donna Frazier, Emotional Blackmail, p. 133

Quote of the Day

(Friedrich von Schiller's) sufferings at the hands of his frightening, power-crazed father drove him to write.  But he could not recognize the motivation behind that urge.  His sole aim was to produce great and lasting literature.  He sought to express the truth he found embodied in historical figures, and he achieved that aim with outstanding success.  But the whole truth about the way he suffered at the hands of his father finds no mention.  This suffering remained a closed book to him, all the way up to his early death.

-- Alice Miller, The Body Never Lies, p. 52

Quote of the Day

To find your voice, you need to read deeply.

 -- Billy Collins

Quote of the Day

When religious leaders leverage our fear and need for more certainty by extracting vulnerability from spirituality and turning faith into "compliance and consequences," rather than teaching and modeling how to wrestle with the unknown and how to embrace mystery, the entire concept of faith is bankrupt on its own terms.  Faith minus vulnerability equals politics, or worse, extremism.  Spiritual connection and engagement is not built on compliance, it's the product of love, belonging, and vulnerability.

-- Brene Brown, Daring Greatly, p. 176-177

Quote of the Day

So while it's been a little more than two years now since I left the organization, for the first time it's like I'm living a real and authentic life -- everything from sitting and enjoying a glass of wine with non-Scientologist girlfriends without secretly judging them as they speak about their lives and thinking Scientology could help them with that, to worrying that I am wasting my time finding enjoyment in my child or family when I should be on course or in session instead.  I put so much time, energy, and resources into the church that it left little room for anything else.

-- Leah Remini with Rebecca Paley, Troublemaker, p. 225

Quote of the Day

Protecting our integrity can be frightening and lonely.  It puts us at risk of incurring the disapproval of people we care about, and it may even jeopardize a relationship.

-- Susan Forward with Donna Frazier, Emotional Blackmail, p. 132

Bookin' It in 2015

I read the following 19 books in 2015. The titles in bold were particularly influential, inspiring or intriguing.

1. Let's Explore Diabetes With Owls by David Sedaris
2. Anything You Want: 40 Lessons for a New Kind of Entrepreneur by Derek Sivers
3. Redefining Realness: My Path to Womanhood, Identity, Love & So Much More by Janet Mock
4. The Zimzum of Love: A New Way of Understanding Marriage by Rob and Kristen Bell
5. A Thousand Lives: The Untold Story of Jonestown by Julia Scheeres
6. The L Word: Welcome to Our Planet by Kera Bolonik
7. Yes Please by Amy Poehler
8. Not My Father's Son by Alan Cumming
9. Butch Geography by Stacey Waite
10. Talking to Girls About Duran Duran: One Young Man's Quest for True Love and a Cooler Haircut by Rob Sheffield
11. Heavier Than Heaven: A Biography of Kurt Cobain by Charles R. Cross
12. In My Skin: My Life On and Off the Basketball Court by Brittney Griner with Sue Hovey 
13. The Out List: Portraits by Timothy Greenfield-Sanders and Interviews by Sam McConnell
14. The Reappearing Act: Coming Out as Gay on a College Basketball Team Led by Born-Again Christians by Kate Fagan
15. Alice + Freda Forever: A Murder in Memphis by Alexis Coe
16. The Body Never Lies: The Lingering Effects of Hurtful Parenting by Alice Miller
17. My Exodus: From Fear to Grace by Alan Chambers with Leslie Chambers
18. Hunger Makes Me a Modern Girl: A Memoir by Carrie Brownstein
19. Troublemaker:Surviving Hollywood and Scientology by Leah Remini

Quote of the Day

When I finally succeeded in giving up the illusions I had entertained about my parents and recognized the effects of their deeds on my life as a whole, this also opened my eyes to facts I had formerly not attributed any importance to.

-- Alice Miller, The Body Never Lies, p. 43

Quote of the Day

Minding the gap is a daring strategy.  We have to pay attention to the space between where we're actually standing and where we want to be.

-- Brene Brown, Daring Greatly, p. 172