Quotes about Vulnerability

Maybe it's true what they say, that as long as you're nursing your own pain, whatever it is, you'll turn your back on others in the same boat. You'll want to believe the fix they're in is their own damn fault.

I hadn't thought before about how self-sufficiency could turn on you in old age or sickness.

The real beginning of influence comes as others sense you are being influenced by them—when they feel understood by you—that you have listened deeply and sincerely, and that you are open. But most people are too vulnerable emotionally to listen deeply—to suspend their agenda long enough to focus on understanding before they communicate their own ideas.

If you don't let a teacher know at what level you are—by asking a question, or revealing your ignorance—you will not learn or grow. You cannot pretend for long, for you will eventually be found out. Admission of ignorance is often the first step in our education. Thoreau taught, "How can we remember our ignorance, which our growth requires, when we are using our knowledge all the time?

When we are dependent on the person with whom we are in conflict, both need and conflict are compounded. Love-hate over-reactions, fight-or-flight tendencies, withdrawal, aggressiveness, bitterness, resentment, and cold competition are some of the usual results. When these occur, we tend to fall even further back on background tendencies and habits in an effort to justify and defend our own behavior and we attack our spouse's. Inevitably, anytime we are too vulnerable we feel the need

Leo Roskin taught, "It is the weak who are cruel. Gentleness can only be expected from the strong.

Powerful people can love without being loved back.

Shame is removed through love.

To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything and your heart will be wrung.

Withholding love is a form of self-sabotage, as what we withhold from others we are withholding from ourselves.

I guess I have always been deeply terrified to really be someone's wife since I know from life one cannot love another, ever, really.

If someone broke your heart it doesn't mean you should build a wall around it and quit loving. Redirect your love.