Rising Strong

"How the Ability to Reset Transforms the Way We Live, Love, Parent, and Lead" by Brene Brown, 2015. Vermillion.

Compassion (a spiritual practice) vs. Empathy (the main tool of compassion)

Empathy is a tool made up of:

  1. Staying out of judgment

  2. Perspective taking

  3. Identifying emotion in others

  4. Articulating identified emotions

Compassionate people are aware of their darkness and their light, they’re like a candy cane, with a swirl of dark and light stripes

Both rely on emotional literacy

Three stories that are the most dangerous that we make up:

  1. Question our lovability

  • “Just because someone did not have the ability, the capacity, or the willingness to love us, does not have to do with our lovability. Zero.”

  1. Question our creativity

  • Shame based stories around creative art and/or writing. “Because someone did not put value on our work does not change the worthiness of value of our work or us.”

  1. Question our divinity

  • “There is no person, church, religion, dogma, or document that has the right to question our divinity. Because who we are, who we love, how we show up, that is not between us and mortal people, that is between us and what we believe.”

  • “We are inherently lovable, we are inherently holy, and we are inherently creative and people can’t take that away from us, it’s who we are.”