Monika > Monika's Quotes

“I have a gift for inventing fantasies with extraordinary speed.”
― Paulo Coelho, Adultery

“Vulnerability is not winning or losing; it’s having the courage to show up and be seen when we have no control over the outcome. Vulnerability is not weakness; it’s our greatest measure of courage.”
― Brené Brown, Rising Strong: The Reckoning. The Rumble. The Revolution.

“Just because someone isn’t willing or able to love us, it doesn’t mean that we are unlovable.”
― Brené Brown, Rising Strong: The Reckoning. The Rumble. The Revolution.

“The opposite of recognizing that we’re feeling something is denying our emotions. The opposite of being curious is disengaging. When we deny our stories and disengage from tough emotions, they don’t go away; instead, they own us, they define us. Our job is not to deny the story, but to defy the ending—to rise strong, recognize our story, and rumble with the truth until we get to a place where we think, Yes. This is what happened. This is my truth. And I will choose how this story ends.”
― Brené Brown, Rising Strong: The Reckoning. The Rumble. The Revolution.

“Integrity is choosing courage over comfort; choosing what is right over what is fun, fast, or easy; and choosing to practice our values rather than simply professing them.”
― Brené Brown, Rising Strong: The Reckoning. The Rumble. The Revolution.

“We don't have to do all of it alone. We were never meant to.”
― Brené Brown, Rising Strong: The Reckoning. The Rumble. The Revolution

“People who wade into discomfort and vulnerability and tell the truth about their stories are the real badasses.”
― Brené Brown, Rising Strong: The Reckoning. The Rumble. The Revolution.

“I am responsible for holding you accountable in a respectful and productive way. I’m not responsible for your emotional reaction to that accountability”
― Brené Brown, Atlas of the Heart: Mapping Meaningful Connection and the Language of Human Experience

“Choosing to be curious is choosing to be vulnerable because it requires us to surender to uncertainty. We have to ask questions, admit to not knowing, risk being told that we shouldn't be asking, and, sometimes, make discoveries that lead to discomfort.”
― Brené Brown, Atlas of the Heart: Mapping Meaningful Connection and the Language of Human Experience

“In fact, research shows that the process of labeling emotional experience is related to greater emotion regulation and psychosocial well-being.”
― Brené Brown, Atlas of the Heart: Mapping Meaningful Connection and the Language of Human Experience

“Empathy is not relating to an experience, it’s connecting to what someone is feeling about an experience.”
― Brené Brown, Atlas of the Heart: Mapping Meaningful Connection and the Language of Human Experience

“I could never step lightly enough or run fast enough to get away from the cracking, so I made everything around me so loud that it drowned out the sound.”
― Brené Brown, Atlas of the Heart: Mapping Meaningful Connection and the Language of Human Experience

“when I’m prioritizing being liked over being free, I was much sweeter but less authentic. Now I’m kinder and less judgmental. But also firmer and more solid. Occasionally salty.”
― Brené Brown, Atlas of the Heart: Mapping Meaningful Connection and the Language of Human Experience

“Communicating our expectations is brave and vulnerable. And it builds meaningful connection and often leads to having a partner or friend who we can reality-check with.”
― Brené Brown, Atlas of the Heart: Mapping Meaningful Connection and the Language of Human Experience

“When we are closed to ideas, what we hear is criticism. When we are open to criticism, what we get is advice.”
― Simon Sinek, Together Is Better

“This is one of the hardest lessons to learn when we get promoted to a position of leadership - that we are no longer responsible for doing the job, we are now responsible for the people who do the job. There isn't a CEO on the planet who is responsible for the customer. CEOs are responsible for the people who are responsible for the customer. Get that right and everybody wins - employees and customers.”
― Simon Sinek, Together Is Better

“Love rests on two pillars: surrender and autonomy. Our need for togetherness exists alongside our need for separateness.”
― Esther Perel, Mating in Captivity: Reconciling the Erotic and the Domestic

“The quality of your life ultimately depends on the quality of your relationships . . . which are basically a reflection of your sense of decency, your ability to think of others, your generosity.”
― Esther Perel

“It's hard to experience desire when you're weighted down by concern.”
― Esther Perel, Mating in Captivity: Reconciling the Erotic and the Domestic

“Love is at once an affirmation and a transcendence of who we are.”
― Esther Perel, Mating in Captivity: Reconciling the Erotic and the Domestic

“Proust, “The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes but in having new eyes.”
― Esther Perel, Mating in Captivity: Sex, Lies and Domestic Bliss

“Love is an exercise in selective perception”
― Esther Perel, Mating in Captivity: Reconciling the Erotic and the Domestic

“It takes two people to create a pattern, but only one to change it.”
― Esther Perel, Mating in Captivity: Unlocking Erotic Intelligence

“Monogamy used to mean one person for life. Now monogamy means one person at a time.”
― Esther Perel, The State of Affairs: Rethinking Infidelity

“But when we reduce the conversation to simply passing judgment, we are left with no conversation at all.”
― Esther Perel, The State of Affairs: Rethinking Infidelity

“Sometimes, when we seek the gaze of another, it isn’t our partner we are turning away from, but the person we have become. We are not looking for another lover so much as another version of ourselves.”
― Esther Perel, The State of Affairs: Rethinking Infidelity

“there is more than a hint of arrogance in the assumption that we can make our relationships permanent,”
― Esther Perel, Mating in Captivity: Sex, Lies and Domestic Bliss

“When you pick a partner, you pick a story. So what kind of story are you going to write? You are the editors of your life stories. Write well and edit often. And remember ... a life story is not a love story. You can love a lot more people than you can make a life with.”
― Esther Perel

“The smaller we feel in the world, the more we need to shine in the eyes of our partner.”
― Esther Perel, Mating in Captivity: Reconciling the Erotic and the Domestic

“Once we strayed because marriage was not supposed to deliver love and passion. Today we stray because marriage fails to deliver the love, passion, and undivided attention it promised.”
― Esther Perel, The State of Affairs: Rethinking Infidelity