Golden Nuggets - Food for the Soul

"If you avoid certain situations because you're worried about the outcome, you never get to learn what would have happened if you had faced those situations. You deprive yourself of the chance to see how you would have coped. When you decide to avoid, you experience a temporary state of relief, but you're also left feeling powerless and deflated, as if you can't control your own behavior. Eventually you become discouraged and disheartened as a vague sense of feeling paralyzed sets in. This is how avoidance slowly eats away your self-confidence over time... Push yourself to feel vulnerable - this allows you to learn that you can handle whatever happens, and that even the most difficult of emotions can't destroy you. We're all capable of feeling intense fear so we can escape life-threatening situations... But usually people avoid things that simply make them feel uncomfortable."

- From Women Who Worry Too Much, by Holly Hazlett-Stevens, PhD

"Telling the truth when we feel vulnerable is one of the hardest things to do. We might fear rejection, abandonment, disapproval, disappointment, rage, hurt, or just the raw exposure that's an unavoidable part of the process. Yet almost every time we're willing to tell a hard truth, we grow and deepen in presence, no matter the response. The energy that we previously locked up to maintain a false front is now freed to uplift and enliven us."

- From How Now: 100 Ways to Celebrate the Present Moment, by Raphael Cushnir.