The Dance of Fear: Rising Above Anxiety, Fear, and Shame to Be Your Best and Bravest Self
Harriet Lerner
Top 10 Best Quotes
“If you pay attention, you may find that it is not fear that stops you from doing the brave and true thing in your daily life. Rather, the problem is avoidance. You want to feel comfortable, so you avoid doing the thing that will evoke fear and other disquieting emotions. Avoidance will make you feel less vulnerable in the short run, but it will never make you less afraid.”
“The right to be different, whether by choice or necessity, is our greatest right as human beings. And dealing with differences is the greatest of all human challenges. People react anxiously and fearfully to differences. We learn to hate, glorify, deny, exaggerate, or eradicate a difference.”
“One might debate whether it is preferable to be a cat or a person, but why get into it? If you are reading this now, you are not a cat and never will be. So along with the good days, you’re going to experience the entire range of painful emotions that make us human.”
“Whatever brings you joy and zest will enhance your ability to act bravely.”
“what fuels human unhappiness in both the personal and political realm can be boiled down to these three key emotions—anxiety, fear, and shame.”
“We may believe that anxiety and fear don't concern us because we avoid experiencing them. We may keep the scope of our lives narrow and familiar, opting for sameness and safety. We may not even know that we are scared of success, failure, rejection, criticism, conflict, competition, intimacy, or adventure, because we rarely test the limits of our competence and creativity. We avoid anxiety by avoiding risk and change. Our challenge: To be willing to become more anxious, via embracing new situations and stepping more fully into our lives.”
“The right to be different, whether by choice or necessity, is our greatest right as human beings. And dealing with differences is the greatest of all human challenges. People react anxiously and fearfully to differences. We learn to hate, glorify, deny, exaggerate, or eradicate a difference. Or we try to get comfortable by shaming the different person or group.”
“Our society doesn’t promote self-acceptance and it never will. First of all, self-acceptance doesn’t sell products. Capitalism would fall if we liked ourselves the way we are now.”
“Nothing is more fragile than a single snowflake,” it said. “But look what they can do when they stick together.”
“Control is an illusion—a fact you will learn very fast if you become ill, or have things fall apart in some other way. When we understand vulnerability and suffering as an essential part of being human, our individual fate can be easier to manage.”
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Book Keywords:
joy, brave, sinergi, self-acceptance-quotes, avoidance, being-different, bravery, guilt, shame, psychology, vulnerability, fighting-shame, fear, control, self-improvement, differences, self-acceptance, courage, anxiety
