TOGETHER WE RISE ABOVE

“We feel shame in isolation. It can only be healed in a community and in connection with others.”
- Desmond Tutu and Mpho Tutu
“What shames us, what we most fear to tell, does not set us apart from others;
it binds us together if only we take the risk to speak it.” - Starhawk
“The two most powerful words when we’re in struggle? ‘Me too.’” - Brené Brown
“When we deny the story, it defines us. When we own the story, we can write a brave new ending.”
- Brené Brown
“To be seen, you must first be willing to give up the places where you hide.” - Sue Krebs
“Owning our story can be hard but not nearly as difficult as spending our lives running from it.
Embracing our vulnerabilities is risky but not nearly as dangerous as giving up on love and belonging
and joy — the experiences that make us the most vulnerable. Only when we are brave enough to
explore the darkness will we discover the infinite power of our light.” - Brené Brown
“Friendship is born at that moment when one person says to another:
What! You too? I thought I was the only one.” - C.S. Lewis
“Healing is impossible in loneliness; it is the opposite of loneliness.” - Wendell Berry
“Toxic shame drives us out of connection and community and makes us believe we do not belong.”
- Desmond Tutu and Mpho Tutu
“When her pain is fresh and new, let her have it. Don’t try to take it away. Forgive yourself for not
having that power. Grief and pain are like joy and peace -- they are not things we should try and snatch
from each other. They’re sacred. They are part of each person’s journey. They are part of each person’s
journey. All we can do is offer relief from this fear: I am all alone. That’s the one fear you can alleviate.”
- Glennon Doyle Melton
“The healing of our present woundedness may lie in recognizing and reclaiming the capacity we have
to heal each other, the enormous power in the simplest of human relationships: the strength of a touch,
the blessing of forgiveness, the grace of someone else taking you just as you are and finding in you an
unsuspected goodness. Everyone alive has suffered. It is the wisdom gained from our wounds and
from our own experiences of suffering that makes us able to heal. Becoming expert has turned out
to be less important than remembering and trusting the wholeness in myself and everyone else.
Expertise cures, but wounded people can best be healed by other wounded people. Only other wounded
people can understand what is needed, for the healing of suffering is compassion, not expertise.”
- Rachel Naomi Remen, MD