1. A Student Created Guide
Community Book Read
Buffalo, MN
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2. “Let go of Who You Think You’re Supposed to Be and Embrace Who You Are”

3. Cultivating Authenticity: Letting Go of What People Think
Guidepost #1:
Cultivating Authenticity:
Letting Go of What People Think

4. What I noticed....
Authenticity is the daily practice of letting go of who we think we’re supposed to be and embracing who we are.
“Authenticity is a collection of choices that we have to make everyday. It's about the choice to show up and be real. The choice to be honest. The choice to let our true selves be seen.” Pg.49
“Authenticity isn’t always the safe option. Sometimes choosing to be real over being liked is all about playing it unsafe. It means stepping out of our comfort zone.” Pg 52
“Mindfully practicing authenticity during our most soul-searching struggles is how we invite grace, joy, and gratitude into our lives.”Pg 50

5. My Connections
I feel like I have to put on a mask everywhere I go. I’m not able to be my true self until I get home and everything falls off.
I wear a mask once I leave my house because I’m afraid of what people might think of the real, genuine me. Being authentic is hard to do when you think you’re supposed to be some certain way.
I’m scared to show my real self because I’m worried people will run away from my true self.

6. My Connections
I wear a mask when I'm around others I don’t know, and I'm scared of being judged. I wear a mask on social media because I don’t want others to know what's really happening in my life.
I wear a mask when around family because I feel I have to be the “perfect” daughter, cousin, granddaughter, and niece.
I can take off my mask in school because I trust and know everyone there, and know they won’t judge me.
I can take off my mask during deep conversations with my loved ones because I know they won’t criticize me.

7. My Questions
Authenticity is the daily practice of letting go of who we think we’re supposed to be and embracing who we are.
What do I need to do (practice) to be my most authentic self?
What do I need to have (environment) to be my most authentic self?
What is the difference between belonging and fitting in?
What does my most authentic self look like, sound like, feel like?

8. What boundaries do I need to be my most authentic self?
Who will most fear me if I’m my most authentic self?

9. Who in my life expects me to be something I’m not?
What am I afraid people will say about me if I’m my most authentic self?

10. Cultivating Authenticity: Letting Go of What People Think

11. Cultivating Self Compassion: Letting go of Perfectionism
Guidepost #2:
Cultivating Self Compassion:
Letting go of Perfectionism

12. What I noticed....
What are Perfectionism and Self Compassion? Pgs
Perfectionism: Controlling the outcome in order to receive love and acceptance. (Closely related to shame: I am not worthy if I’m imperfect.)
“I hurt you, I'm a terrible person.”
“I eat too much, I'm ugly and never going to achieve my goal.”
Journey is a straight line.
Focus on the destination.
Self Compassion: Healthy striving and being kind to yourself, being mindful, and talking to yourself like you do to others. You're not alone. (Closely related to guilt: I am imperfect but deserving of forgiveness.)
“I hurt you and I'm sorry.”
“I eat to much, I accept that until I'm ready to do something about it.”
Journey as an irregular spiral.
Focus on the journey and the destination.

13. My Connections
I personally, more lean on the perfectionism side of things. I put myself down over the little things that may have not turned out right or the way I thought things should be. I don’t want people to see me make mistakes.
For me I’m not really involved in this “perfectionism” thing. I’m way too lazy and tell everyone that I don’t care about how things look or if I didn’t get the exact grade I wanted.

14. My Questions How is self-compassion beneficial?
What tools can be used to promote self- compassion?
How is shame linked with perfectionism?

15. “There’s a crack in everything. That’s how the light gets in.”
Leonard Cohen’s “Anthem”
Remember the beauty of the cracks. Our imperfections are reminders that we’re all in this together.

16. Have you taken Dr. Neff’s Self-Compassion Scale
Have you taken Dr. Neff’s Self-Compassion Scale? It’s a short test on self-kindness, common humanity, and mindfulness.

17. Cultivating Self-Compassion: Letting Go of Perfectionism

18. Guidepost #3 Cultivating a Resilient Spirit:
Letting Go of Numbing and Powerlessness

19. What I noticed.... What is Resilience? Pg. 63-65
Ability to overcome adversity & bounce back
Common factors of resilient people: resourceful, good problem solving skills, likely to seek help, has hope & belief in self, have social support, connected with people
Core component of wholeheartedness
Requires spirituality--a belief and connection, power greater than self and interconnections grounded in love and compassion
Essential for resilience: Cultivating hope, practicing critical awareness, letting go of numbing and taking the edge off vulnerability, discomfort, and pain

20. What I noticed....
What is the difference between Hope and Powerlessness? Pg
Hope
Powerlessness
Have the ability to set and achieve realistic goals
Believe in ourselves
Learned (relationships with boundaries, consistency and support)
A way of thinking: cognitive process
Perseverance
Dangerous
Entitlement (I deserve this just because I want it), Fear of disappointment, performance pressure
Self doubt
How do Hope and Powerlessness link to Resiliency?

21. My Connections
Sometimes when I feel down and fear disappointing others, I realize that I need to have hope and not let powerlessness get to me.
I’m not always willing to be flexible and practice perseverance, and those are key to cultivating hopefulness. Instead, I often get stuck in powerlessness.

22. What I noticed.... How do I practice critical awareness? Pg. 67-69
Reality check the messages and expectations that drive the “never good enough” gremlins. Pg 67
“If we want to cultivate a resilient spirit and stop falling prey to comparing our ordinary lives with manufactured images, we need to know to how to reality check what we see.” pg 68
Is what I’m seeing real? Do these images convey real life or fantasy?
Do these images reflect healthy, wholehearted living, or do they turn my life, my body, my family, and my relationships into objects and commodities?
Who benefits by me seeing images and feeling bad about myself?

23. My Connections
I connect to this because I face those “never good enough gremlins” everyday.
But now, I’ve started to realize I am who I’m supposed to be, and the negative words I believe from others or say to myself don’t hurt anyone else but me.
Actually, it does hurt the people I love when I let the gremlins get to me.
I guess I just need to believe I am enough.

24. What I noticed.... What are Numbing and Taking the Edge Off? Pg. 69-72
Most of us engage in behaviors that help us numb and take the edge off vulnerability, pain and discomfort
Addiction can be described as chronically an compulsively numbing and taking the edge off feelings
We cannot selectively numb emotions.
No one is immune to numbing or taking the edge off, but living a wholehearted life means being mindful of their danger and develop the ability to lean into the discomfort of hard emotions. The most powerful emotions that we experience have very sharp points like the tip of a thorn.

25. My Connections
Numbing for me is my phone, video games, smoking, eating, binge watching Netflix, and everything I know is bad for me but do it anyway. I can’t help myself even when I don’t want to do things that I know hurt myself or my parents, but sometimes I just don’t care because it’s too hard to face it all. Maybe I do it because I’m depressed or anxious, or maybe I do it cause I don’t want to deal with feeling depressed and anxious. Then, I just hate myself more.

26. What I noticed.... When we numb the dark, we numb the light. Pg. 72-74
There is no such thing as selective emotional numbing.
Numbing and taking the edge off uncomfortable emotions also unintentionally dulls feelings of joy or love.
“I numb so I don’t experience joy.” pg. 73
Spirituality is necessary for resilience.
“Without purpose, meaning, and perspective, it is easy to lose hope, numb our emotions, or become overwhelmed by our circumstances.” pg. 74

27. My Connections
I usually numb to get away from my family or avoid the things that will eventually make my life better. I just don’t want to face them and isolate myself, hide from it all and hope no one is going to know what I’m hiding.
We talk about ACEs at school (adverse childhood experiences), and so many of us need to be resilient because of our ACEs. I know the best way to get better is by talking about our ACEs and ask for help or use resources to become more resilient, not just numb or blame because life hasn’t always been good.

28. My Questions
What causes you to believe you are powerless to change something in your life?
What messages or expectations drive the “never good enough” gremlins in your life? What do you most need to reality check? How do you become more critically aware?
How do you become mindful of numbing’s danger? How can you tell the difference between numbing and healthy self-soothing?
What is spirituality and how does it link to resiliency?

29. I love the idea of being “lit from within.”

30. A: Have I been Abstinent today?
E: Have I Exercised today?
I: What have I done for myself today?
O: What have I done for Others today?
U: Am I holding on to Unexpressed emotions today?
Y: Yeah! What is good today?

31. Cultivating a Resilient Spirit: Letting Go of Numbing and Powerlessness

32. Guidepost #4 Cultivating Gratitude and Joy:
Letting Go of Scarcity and Fear of The Dark

33. What I noticed... What are gratitude and Joy?
“When it comes to gratitude, the word that jumped out at me throughout this research process is practice.” An ‘attitude of gratitude’ is a way of thinking and doesn’t always translate to a behavior--doing gratitude. Pg 78-79
“Joy seems to me a step beyond happiness. Happiness is a sort of atmosphere you can live in sometimes when you’re lucky. Joy is a light that fills you with hope and faith and love.” -Adela Rogers St. Johns. Pg 79.
“Happiness is tied to circumstance and joyfulness is tied to spirit and gratitude.” pg. 79

34. What I noticed... What are Scarcity and Fear of the Dark?
“Joy and gratitude can be very vulnerable and intense experiences. We are an anxious people and many of us have very little tolerance for vulnerability. Our anxiety and fear can manifest as scarcity.” Pg. 81
“Until we can tolerate vulnerability and transform it into gratitude, intense feelings of love will bring up the fear of loss.” Pg. 82
Scarcity--the feeling of “not enough.” These are anxious and fearful times, which breed scarcity. “We’re afraid to lose what we love the most, and hate that there are no guarantees. We think not being grateful and not feeling joy will make it hurt less.” We’re wrong. Pg. 82

35. My Connections
I personally have never known gratitude to be considered practice. But after reading about it, it really does make sense. I like what she says about gratitude and joy being intense experiences because they really are. Having gratitude and joy are hard, and not everyone believes they can do it.
It is hard to feel joy and gratitude, especially in hard times. Sometimes I fake it because people expect me to, but I don’t practice it for myself.
When I’m most afraid everything is bad or feel like I’m not enough, I try write down or tell someone something good that is in my life or happened to me.

36. My Questions What’s the difference between happiness and joy?
How can you practice (do) gratitude?
When have you experienced worry and anxiety about something that could otherwise be an experience of gratitude and joy?
The dark does not destroy the light; it defines it. It’s our fear of the dark that casts our joy into the shadows. Pg 82. What does this quote mean to you?
“Joy is what happens to us when we allow ourselves to recognize how good things really are.” How do you need to fill in the blank,
“I’m enough,” so you can experience joy in your life?

38. Joy is a step beyond happiness
Joy is a step beyond happiness. Gratitude increases our capacity for joy.

39. Acknowledge the fear, then transforming it into gratitude
Acknowledge the fear, then transforming it into gratitude. “I’m feeling vulnerable. That’s OK. I’m so grateful for .”

40. Cultivating Gratitude and Joy:
Letting Go of Scarcity and Fear of the Dark

41. Guidepost #5
Cultivating Intuition and Trusting Faith: Letting go of the Need for Certainty

42. What I noticed....
“I found that what silences our intuitive voice is our need for certainty.” Rather than respecting a strong internal instinct, we become fearful and look for assurances from others. “We want assurances and folks with whom we can share the blame if things don’t pan out.” Pg. 88
Our need for certainty sabotages our intuition when we ignore our gut’s warning to slow down, gather more information, or reality-check our expectations. Pg. 89
Fact finding might lead us away from what we think we want. It’s a good idea to ask ourselves whether we simply can’t stand the vulnerability of being still long enough to think it through and make a mindful decision.
Intuition is assessing the answers from within and knowing when we don’t know enough to make a decision.

43. My Connections
I want things to be all planned out so I don’t have to use my intuition, make a mistake or have to depend on others who I don’t trust. I guess I don’t want to be vulnerable if I’m going to fail in front of others. I want to be certain it will all turn out like it’s supposed to. I try to think about what might happen and plan for it so I don’t have think fast and make a bad decision.
When I’m afraid, don’t trust myself, or don’t feel safe around the people I’m with, so I start saying or doing things that are not at all me. I blurt stuff without thinking, give the wrong answers, and everyone sees me looking stupid. Then I become stupid and make everything a mess.

44. My Questions
Faith is a place of mystery, where we find the courage to believe in what we cannot see and the strength to let go of our fear of uncertainty. Pg. 90
How do you handle uncertainty?
What circumstances, environments, or situations when you trust your intuition? And, when do you become fearful and look for assurances from others?
How do you know that you need more information and need to take time making a decision? Or, do you feel uncomfortable with uncertainty and rush into decisions?
How do you use faith to let go of your fear of uncertainty?

45. When do we need to listen to ourselves?
When do we need to know that we don’t know enough to listen to ourselves and need to slow down and get more information?

46. Growing up can be our greatest uncertainty
Growing up can be our greatest uncertainty...how do we embrace it, even when the change is full of the unknown, mistakes, and uncertainty.

47. Cultivating Intuition and Trusting Faith:
Letting Go of the Need for Certainty

48. Cultivating Creativity: Letting go of Comparison
Guidepost #6
Cultivating Creativity:
Letting go of Comparison

49. What I noticed....
Comparison is all about conformity and competition. When we compare, we want to see who or what is best out of a specific collection of “alike things.” When we compare, we want to be the best or have the best of our group. Pg. 94
Comparison is not self-acceptance, belonging and authenticity: it’s be just like everyone else, but better. Pg. 95
It’s easy to see how difficult it is to make time for the important things such as creativity, gratitude, joy, and authenticity when we’re spending enormous amounts of energy conforming and competing.
Letting go of comparison is not a to-do list item. For most of us, it’s something that requires constant awareness. Pg. 97
Creativity, which is expression of our originality, helps us stay mindful that what we bring to the world is completely original and cannot be compared. Pg. 97

50. My Connections
I have anxiety and depression, so I take a lot of the things I can’t say out in art form. I often don’t feel like I belong or fit in with others, but my art lets me show my true self.
I was also diagnosed with ADHD, I coped by doing art. I couldn’t sit in class and pay attention like all the other students. I was the strange one drawing all the time. Art lets me be proud of myself even though compared to other students, I’m stupid, crazy or slow.
I’m not a good students and teachers want me to do my work like everyone else. I just want to be creative and do my own thing. I want feel like I good enough even though I’m not like everyone else.

51. My Questions “As long as we are creating, we’re making meaning.”
Pg. 96
How much of your life is focused on comparison concepts like ahead or behind or best or worst?
How do you use creativity to be “OK” with being original instead of worrying about being like everyone else?
How would creating something unique to you help you?
What happens when you try to create something just like someone else’s
What makes you creative?
What keeps you from being creative?

52. Creativity, which is the expression of our originality, helps us stay mindful that what we bring to the world is completely original and cannot be compared. Pg. 97

53. As long as we’re creating, we’re cultivating meaning. Pg. 96
Risk feeling vulnerable and new and imperfect. Create something.

54. Cultivating Creativity: Letting Go of Comparison

55. Guidepost #7 Cultivating Play and Rest:
Letting go of Exhaustion as a Status Symbol
& Productivity as Self-Worth

56. What I noticed....
A critical component of Wholehearted living is play! Pg. 99
We convince ourselves that playing is a waste of precious time. We even convince ourselves that sleep is a terrible use of time. Pg. 100
“The opposite of play is not work--the opposite of play is depression.” Pg. 101
Living with our whole hearts requires us to respect our bodies’ need for renewal--play, rest, and sleep. Pg. 101
We are a nation of exhausted and overstressed adults raising overscheduled children. Pg. 101

57. My Connections
I go to school, Extended Day, and then work until 11:00. I’m supposed to do homework, pay attention and do stuff in class and help out at home. I’m tired all the time and nothing makes me happy. I hate school. Nothing I do is fun.
Sometimes we get to do yoga or meditate at the end of the day. If I could sleep every day at school, I’d be happier. At least we don’t have to be to school until almost 9.
We need to laugh more at school. Teachers can be serious because they don’t agree with our sense of humor. And, their idea of fun is not the same as ours. There’s so many things we need to do to graduate and then be ready for life after graduation. I don’t do enough, but whatever.

58. My Questions
Does anyone ever made you feel bad about yourself because instead of doing your work, you took a nap or did something fun?
What is it about our society that makes rest and play impossible?
Why do we have so many stressed adults and children in our society?
What is on your “Joy and Meaning” list?
Do you ever fear “play and rest” will keep you from opportunities and experiences that will lead to the “good life”?

59. What are you goals?
Imperfect variety? Or
Flawless focus?

60. What’s the power of play? How do you add play into your day?

61. Cultivating Rest & Play:
Letting Go of Exhaustion as a Status Symbol and Productivity as Self-Worth

62. Cultivating Calm and Stillness: Letting go of Anxiety as a Lifestyle
Guidepost #8
Cultivating Calm and Stillness:
Letting go of Anxiety as a Lifestyle

63. What I noticed.... What is Calmness? Pgs. 106-107
Calmness: creating perspective and mindfulness while managing emotional reactivity. (Feel feelings without reacting to heightened emotions.)
Calmness takes practice Pg. 106
Bring perspective and quiet to difficult situations. Pg. 106
Try to be slow to respond and quick to think
Be mindful about the effect that calm has on an anxious person or situation. Pg. 106
Do we want to affect people with more anxiety or heal ourselves and the people around us with calm? Pg. 107
Unless we had calm modeled by our parents and grew up practicing it, it’s unlikely that it will be our default response to anxious or emotionally volatile situations. Pg. 107

64. What I noticed.... What is Stillness? Pgs. 107-109
Stillness: Stillness is not about focusing on nothingness: it’s about creating a clearing. It’s opening up an emotionally clutter-free space and allowing ourselves to feel and think and dream and question.
If we stop long enough to create a quiet emotional clearing, the truth of our lives will invariably catch up with us. Pg. 108
Parents and teachers scream, “Calm down!” and “Sit still!” rather than actually modeling the behaviors they want to see. So, Stillness makes us feel jumpy. Pg. 109

65. My Connections
Living life with anxiety drains out all my energy, so cultivating with calm is very helpful. The problem is, I don’t know how to be calm. Nothing around me is calm.
Everything in life is full of anxiety. A lot of people I know take medications for anxiety and everything about life make us more anxious. I hate being around other people because it just makes me anxious. And when people tell me to be calm or be quiet, I just get worse.
I’m trying to learn strategies to be more calm and still, like meditation or mindfulness. We learned to do body scans and just lay still and feel what we are feeling. It’s hard to be quiet because we are always doing things.

66. My Questions How is anxiety a lifestyle for you or others around you?
How do we infect people with more anxiety by the way we live?
How do we heal ourselves and the people around us with calm?
What makes calm and still so difficult?
What makes calm and still possible to do in our busy world?

67. Some of us respond to anxiety by overfunctioning and others by underfunctioning. Which do you do? Pg. 109

68. Experiment with different forms of still and quiet.

69. Cultivating Calm and Stillness: Letting Go of Anxiety as a Lifestyle

70. Guidepost #9 Cultivating Meaningful Work:
Letting go of Self-Doubt and “Supposed To”

71. What I noticed....
What are Meaningful Work and Self-Doubt? Pg
Accomplishment and purpose: Meaningful Work
Sharing our gifts and talents with the world gives our lives meaning
Squandering our gifts brings us distress--emptiness, frustration, shame…
Sharing our gifts and talents leads to spiritual connections
Using our gifts and talents to create meaningful work take a tremendous amount of commitment
Like our gifts and talents, meaning is unique to each of us.
Self-doubt makes us question our worthiness/value in relation to our gifts and talents
Self-doubt leads to “supposed to” thinking--the battle cry of fitting in, perfectionism, people-pleasing, and proving ourselves.

72. What I noticed.... How do we overcome Self-Doubt and find meaning?Pg
Know what’s on our “supposed to” list and why.
Ignoring self-doubt makes it louder. Acknowledging the self-doubt messages gives us power to make change.
One thing that gets in the way of finding what’s meaningful to us is the struggle to answer the question, “What do you do?”
Overcoming self-doubt is all about believing we’re enough and letting go of what the world says we’re supposed to be and supposed to call ourselves. Pg. 115

73. My Connections
I don’t know if there is anything that I’m very motivated to do that would make my work meaningful. I’m not passionate about anything. Maybe I don’t know what my talents are. Maybe I don’t have any talents because I always doubt myself and don’t try to be good at anything.
I can’t wait to spend my days doing what I actually love, not what I have to do because it’s required.
When I’m doing what I love or I’m making a difference for others, I feel good about myself. When what I’m doing has no value, I don’t care about it.

74. My Questions
What are your gifts and talents? How do you want to contribute to the world?
What gets in the way of you using your gifts and talents to experience meaning in your life?
What’s on your “supposed to” list? How did it get there? Who tells you what you’re “supposed to” do or be?
How do you answer the question, “What do you do,” or, “What do you want to do/be in your future?”

75. What are you “supposed to do?” What are your gifts and talents?

76. What is your most recent success?
How can you honor yourself when you answer the question:
“What do you do?” or
“What do you want to do?”

77. Cultivating Meaningful Work:
Letting Go of Self-Doubt and “Supposed To”

78. Guidepost #10 Cultivating Laughter, Song, and Dance:
Letting go of being cool and “always in control”

79. What I noticed....
How do we let go of being cool or in control so we can make connections with other people?
Laughter, song, and dance create emotional and spiritual connection; they remind us of the one thing that truly matters when we are searching for comfort, celebration, inspiration, or healing: We are not alone. Pg. 118
A good belly laugh, singing at the top of your lungs, and dancing like no one is looking are unquestionably good for the soul. They are also exercises in vulnerability. They are also shame triggers. Pg. 120
Wanting to be “cool” or “in control” is about minimizing vulnerability and reduce “risk” of being “not enough…” p. 121

80. My Connections
There’s no way I’m going to get on stage or in front of people and sound or look stupid, so I play “cool” and act like it’s all too “whatever” to get involved. I would rather make fun of other people than be the one being made fun of.
When we have to participate in things like this in school, I just say, “You can’t make me.” I guess that I need to be be in control because I’m not going to do something that is stupid.
If nobody can see us and I’m with the girls I trust, we will dance, sing and laugh. It feels good.

81. My Questions Why are laughter, song, and dance so important to us?
How can dancing help us let go?
Why are we “too cool” to let go and have fun?
When do we try to “control” everything instead of just have fun?
What is the risk or danger of not being “cool” or “in control”?
What is the risk of danger of not being vulnerable--laughing, singing, and dancing?

82. “We’ve relied on laughter, song, and dance to express ourselves, to communicate our stories and emotions, to celebrate and mourn, and to nurture community.” pg 117

83. When do you let go of “cool” or “being in control”?
Get inspired to act goofy and let people see the real you.
Who sees the real you?

84. Cultivating Meaningful Work:
Letting Go of Self-Doubt and “Supposed To”

85. Let’s review some concepts
Wholehearted Living
Engaging in life, believing we are worthy
Develop courage, compassion and connection to believe:
I am enough
I am imperfect, but I am also brave and worthy of love and belonging.
The Journey
Wholehearted living is not a one-time choice.
It is a process.
Must take courage, compassion, and connection on the journey.
The Gifts of Imperfection
We are imperfect, and if we allow ourselves to be vulnerable...we can practice...courage, compassion, and connection...the gifts of imperfection that allow us to feel love, belonging and worthiness so we can lead wholehearted lives.

86. Shame Tapes and Gremlins
POWERFUL FORCES
Keep us feeling afraid and small
Make us afraid to let our true selves be seen
Keep us from standing up for ourselves
Allow us to believe that we are not good enough
Allow others to question, “Who do you think you are?”
Make it almost impossible to recall anything good about myself.
Encourage us into bad self-talk, “I’m such an idiot. Why did I do that?”
What to do with Shame
Reach Out!
Hard to do
Find someone to share our story with (someone who will respond with compassion)
Shame hates it when we reach out and tell our story.
Shame hates having words wrapped around it--it can’t survive being shared.
Shame loves secrecy
(Worse thing to do is to hide or bury our story).
Who do we Share our Shame With?
If we share our shame story with the wrong person, they can easily become one more piece of flying debris in an already dangerous storm.
We definitely want to avoid the following: (Pgs )
Horrified friend, now needs your help
Sympathy, feel so sorry for you
Disappointment, let her down
Scolds, or looks for blame
Make it better, “It’s not that bad.”
One up you, “Listen to what happened to me.”

87. Compassion
Derived from the Latin words pati and cum, meaning “to suffer with.”
If compassion means the idea, “to suffer with,” why isn’t compassion our first response to pain (our own pain or someone else’s)? Is our first response to pain, to self- protect? Do we protect ourselves or others with blame? Judgement? Fixing it?
Practicing Compassion:
Practice compassion in daily life
You get compassion by compassionate acts.
It’s like learning to swim by swimming.
You learn to be compassionate by showing compassion.
We invite compassion into our lives when we act compassionately toward ourselves and others.
Say, “I’ve been there.”
Looking for Compassion:
We need someone who embraces our strengths and struggles
We need to honor our struggle by sharing it with someone who has earned the right to hear it
We need to connect with the right person, at the right time, about the right issue
We need to feel totally exposed (vulnerable), engaged and authentic (fully showing up), and completely loved and accepted at the same time...shame can not tolerate that kind of powerful connection between people.
We need to let someone we care about see us as imperfect which strengthens our relationship: requires courage, compassion, and connection
Everytime we choose courage, we make everyone around us a little better and the world a little braver.

88. Courage
Root of the word courage is cor--the Latin word for heart.
Early definitions meant “to speak one’s mind by telling one’s heart.”
Honestly and opening speaking about who we are, what we are feeling, and about our experiences (good and bad) is the original definition of courage.
Ordinary courage is about putting our vulnerability on the line.
Practicing Courage:
Reaching out for help
Raising our hand to show what we know or what we don’t know
Calling a parent when you’re scared
Telling a friend, I’m scared, not ready
Stop pretending that we don’t care about something that actually matters
Allowing others to see us proud or excited (instead of acting cool)
Knowing it’s OK to get excited and later share remorse or disappointment with a someone you trust
Showing empathy for another (“You’re not alone.”), rather than judging (“I’m better than you.”)
Everytime we choose courage, we make everyone around us a little better and the world a little braver.
Connection:
Practice connection in daily life
You get connection through acts of connection.
It’s like learning to swim by swimming.
You learn to be connected by connecting.
We feel connected in our lives when we reach out and connect.
Connections fuel our worthiness.
Everytime we choose courage, we make everyone around us a little better and the world a little braver.

89. Credits
Special thanks to all the students and staff at Phoenix Learning Center in Buffalo, MN. They created this guide to help encourage discussion of Brené Brown’s, Gifts of Imperfection.
We believe this will help connect us all, so we know we are not alone! I AM ENOUGH!!!!