Top highlights from The Light We Carry
I believe that each of us carries a bit of inner brightness, something entirely unique and individual. A flame that's worth protecting. When we are able to recognize our own light, we become empowered to use it. When we learn to foster what's unique in the people around us, we become better able to build compassionate communities and make meaningful change.
Show this quote
If you choose to try to make a life with another person, you will live by that choice. You'd find yourself having to choose again and again to remain rather than run. It helps if you enter into a committed relationship prepared to work, ready to be humbled and willing to accept and even enjoy living in that in-between space, bouncing between the poles of beautiful and horrible, sometimes in the span of a single conversation, sometimes over the course of years. And inside of that choice and those years you'll almost certainly come to see that there is no such thing as a 50-50 balance, instead it will be like beads on an abacus, sliding back and forth, the maths rarely tidy, the equation never quite solved....
Show this quote
When we allow ourselves to celebrate tiny victories as important and meaningful, we start to understand the incremental nature of changehow one vote can help change our democracy; how raising a child who is whole and loved can help change a nation; how educating one girl can change a whole village for the better.
Show this quote
Our hurts become our fears. Our fears become our limits. For many of us, this can be a heavy inheritance, carried by generations. Its a lot to try to push back against, to try to unlearn.
Show this quote
One light feeds another. One strong family lends strength to more. One engaged community can ignite those around it. This is the power of the light we carry.
Show this quote
Going high is about learning to keep the poison out and the power in.
Show this quote
When someone chooses to lift the curtain on a perceived imperfection in her story, on a circumstance or condition that traditionally might be considered to be a weakness, what shes often actually revealing is the source code for her steadiness and strength.
Show this quote
I've progressed only slowly to where I am today. If you are a young person reading this, please remember to be patient with yourself. You are at the beginning of a long and interesting journey, one that will not always be comfortable. You will spend years gathering data about who you are and how you operate and only slowly will you find your way towards more certainty and a stronger sense of self. Only gradually will you begin to discover and use your light!
Show this quote
Being different conditions you toward cautiousness, even as it demands being bold.
Show this quote
I lean on each individual at different times and in different ways. Which is another thing worth recognizing about friendship. No one person, no one relationship will fulfill your every need. Not every friend can offer you safety or support on every day. Not every one can or will show up precisely when or how you need them to. And this is why it's good to continue always making room at your table, to keep yourself open to gathering more friends. You will never not need them, and you will never stop learning from them.
Show this quote
Real-world connections most often tend to cut against stereotypes. They can be remarkably calming, in facta small but potent way to reset a bad mood or challenge broader feelings of mistrust. The only thing is that in order to get there, you do first need to lay down your shield.
Show this quote
Life has shown me that strong friendships are most often the result of strong intentions. Your table needs to be deliberately built, deliberately populated, and deliberately tended to.
Show this quote
The only love story I know, is the one I happen to live inside everyday. Your path towards certainty, if that's even what you're after, will look different from mine. Just as your conception of home and who belongs there with you, will always be unique to you. Only slowly do most of us figure out what we need in intimate relationships and what we're able to give to them. We practice, we learn, we mess up. We sometimes acquire tools that don't actually serve us. ...we obsess, overthink and misplace our energy...we retreat when hurt, we armor up when scared, we might attack when provoked, or yield when ashamed.
Show this quote
A successful partnership is like a winning basketball team made up of two deaf individuals with fully developed and interchangeable sets of skills. Each player has to know not just how to shoot but also how to dribble, pass and defend. That doesn't mean there aren't weaknesses or differences you will compensate for in each other. It's just that together you'll have to cover the full court keeping yourselves versatile over time. A partnership doesn't actually change who you are even as it challenges you to be accommodating of another person's needs... The change is in what is between us, the million small adjustments, compromises and sacrifices, we've each made in order to accommodate the close presence of the other.
Show this quote
when it does work, it can feel like an actual, honest-to-god miracle, which is what love is, after all. Thats the whole point. Any long-term partnership, really, is an act of stubborn faith.
Show this quote
Our differences are treasures and theyre also tools. They are useful, valid, worthy, and important to share. Recognizing this, not only in ourselves but in the people around us, we begin to rewrite more and more stories of not-mattering. We start to change the paradigms around who belongs, creating more space for more people. Step by step by step, we can lessen the loneliness of not-belonging.
Show this quote
Theres no way to eliminate the ache of being human, but I do think we can diminish it. This starts when we challenge ourselves to become less afraid to share, more ready to listenwhen the wholeness of your story adds to the wholeness of mine. I see a little of you. You see a little of me. We cant know all of it, but were better off as familiars.Any time we grip hands with another soul and recognize some piece of the story theyre trying to tell, we are acknowledging and affirming two truths at once: Were lonely and yet were not alone.
Show this quote
Going high is something you do rather than merely feel. Its not some call to be complacent and wait around for change, or to sit on the sidelines as others struggle. It is not about accepting the conditions of oppression or letting cruelty and power go unchallenged. The notion of going high shouldnt raise any questions about whether we are obligated to fight for more fairness, decency, and justice in this world; rather, its about how we fight, how we go about trying to solve the problems we encounter, and how we sustain ourselves long enough to be effective rather than burn out.
Show this quote
Going high is about learning to keep the poison out and the power in. It means that you have to be judicious with your energy and clear in your convictions. You push ahead in some instances and pull back in others, giving yourself opportunities to rest and restore. It helps to recognize that you are operating on a budget, as all of us are. When it comes to our attention, our time, our credibility, our goodwill toward and from others, we work with a limited but renewable set of resources.
Show this quote
Thats what tools are for. They help keep us upright and balanced, better able to coexist with uncertainty. They help us deal with flux, to manage when life feels out of control. And they help us continue onward, even while in discomfort, even as we live with our strands exposed.
Show this quote
worry and discomfort of taking a risk, youre potentially costing yourself an opportunity. In clinging only to what you know, you are making your world small. You are robbing yourself of chances to grow.
Show this quote
Friends will come and go, taking on more or less importance as you move through different phases of life. You may have a small group of friends, or just a few one-on-one friendships. All of that is okay. What matters most is the quality of your relationships. Its good to be discerning about who you trust, who you bring close. With new relationships, I find myself quietly assessing whether I feel safe and whether, inside the context of a budding friendship, I feel seen and appreciated for who I am. With our friends, we are always looking for very simple reassurances that we matter, that our light is recognized and our voice is heardand we owe our friends the same. I want to say, too, that its okay to step back from or downsize a difficult friendship. Sometimes we have to let certain friends go, or at least diminish our reliance on them.
Show this quote
Our vaults can leave us lonely, isolated from others, exacerbating the pain of invisibility. And thats a tough way to go. The amount we hold there, hidden out of sight and guarded by instinctive feelings of fear or shame, can contribute to a larger sense that we dont belong or dont matterthat our truth will never comfortably fit with the reality of the world were living in. In keeping our vulnerabilities private, we never get the chance to know who else is out there, who else might understand or even be helped by whatever it is were holding back.
Show this quote
For me, going high usually involves taking a pause before I react. It is a form of self-control, a line laid between our best and worst impulses. Going high is about resisting the temptation to participate in shallow fury and corrosive contempt and instead figuring out how to respond with a clear voice to whatever is shallow and corrosive around you. Its what happens when you take a reaction and mature it into a response.Because heres the thing: Emotions are not plans. They dont solve problems or right any wrongs. You can feel themyou will feel them, inevitablybut be careful about letting them guide you. Rage can be a dirty windshield. Hurt is like a broken steering wheel. Disappointment will only ride, sulking and unhelpful, in the back seat. If you dont do something constructive with them, theyll take you straight into a ditch.
Show this quote
Going high is workoften hard, often tedious, often inconvenient, and often bruising. You will need to disregard the haters and the doubters. You will need to build some walls between yourself and those who would prefer to see you fail. And you will need to keep working when others around you may have grown tired or cynical and given up.
Show this quote
we would catch sight of everything we were hoping not to seehis vulnerability, our helplessness, the uncertainty and harder times ahead.
Show this quote
Theres nothing easy about finding your way through a world loaded with obstacles that others cant or dont see. When you are different, you can feel as if youre operating with a different map, a different set of navigational challenges, than those around you. Sometimes, you feel like you have no map at all. Your differentness will often precede you into a room; people see it before they see you. Which leaves you with the task of overcoming
Show this quote
Being different conditions you toward cautiousness, even as it demands that you be bold.
Show this quote
By her own measure, my mom is nothing special. She also likes to say that while she loves us dearly, my brother and I are not special, either. Were just two kids who had enough love and a good amount of luck and happened to do well as a result. She tries to remind people that neighborhoods like the South Side of Chicago are packed full of little Michelles and little Craigs. Theyre in every school, on every block. Its just that too many of them get overlooked and underestimated, so too much of that potential goes unrecognized. This would probably count as the foundational point of my moms larger philosophy: All children are great children.
Show this quote
Whats sturdy and effective for you may not be whats sturdy and effective in the hands of your boss, or your mother, or your life partner. A spatula wont help you change a flat tire; a tire iron wont help you fry an egg. (Though by all means, feel free to prove me wrong.) Tools evolve over time, based on our circumstances and growth. What works in one phase of life may not work in another.
Show this quote
How do we get more comfortable, less paralyzed, inside of uncertainty? What tools do we have to sustain ourselves? Where do we find extra pillars of support? How can we create safety and stability for others? And if we work as one, what might we manage to overcome together?
Show this quote
Theres nothing easy about finding your way through a world loaded with obstacles that others cant or dont see.
Show this quote
Go forth with a spoonful of fear and return with a wagonful of competence.
Show this quote
What does it mean to be comfortably afraid? For me, the idea is simple. Its about learning to deal wisely with fear, finding a way to let your nerves guide you rather than stop you. Its settling yourself in the presence of lifes inevitable zombies and monsters so that you may contend with them more rationally, and trusting your own assessment of whats harmful and whats not. When you live this way, you are neither fully comfortable nor fully afraid. You accept that theres a middle zone and learn to operate inside of it, awake and aware, but not held back.
Show this quote
When you start to rewrite the story of not-mattering, you start to find a new center. You remove yourself from other peoples mirrors and begin speaking more fully from your own experience, your own knowing place. You become better able to attach to your pride and more readily step over all the despites. It doesnt remove the obstacles, but Ive found that it helps to shrink them. It helps you to count your victories, even the small ones, and know that youre doing okay.
Show this quote
No one person, no one relationship, will fulfill your every need. Not every friend can offer you safety or support on every day. Not everyone can, or will, show up precisely when or how you need them to. And this is why its good to always continue making room at your table, to keep yourself open to gathering more friends. You will never not need them, and you will never stop learning from them.
Show this quote
HOW DO ANY of us turn into adults, with real grown-up lives and real grown-up relationships? Mostly through trial and error, it would seem. By just figuring it out. Many of us, I think, puzzle out our identities only over time, figuring out who we are and what we need in order to get by. We approximate our way into maturity, often following some loose idea of what we believe grown-up life is supposed to look like.We practice and learn, learn and practice. We make mistakes and then start over again. For a long time, a lot feels experimental, unsettled. We try on different ways of being. We sample and discard different attitudes, approaches, influences, and tools for living until, piece by piece, we begin to better understand what suits us best, what helps us most.
Show this quote
diffuse and perhaps even more powerful for its ability to agitate our nerves even when theres no immediate threat, when we are only imagining how things might possibly go wrong, afraid of what could be.
Show this quote
He just used solid information as a means of unbundling the threat and giving me tools to stay safe.
Show this quote
He never told me to get over my fear, nor did he dismiss it as irrational or dumb. He just used solid information as a means of unbundling the threat and giving me tools to stay safe.
Show this quote
competence was a form of safety; knowing how to step forward despite our nerves was protection in and of itself.
Show this quote
And for me, there is no quicker or more efficient way to obliterate stress and get focused on the present moment than to throw myself into a hard-core, edge-pushing workout. Or even better, a series of them. I guess you might say that vigor is one of my Love Languages.
Show this quote
around
Show this quote
timen11 to welcome students individually at the door, the level of academic engagement in the classroom goes up by more than 20 percent, while disruptive behavior goes down. Its the simplest concept in the world, really: Gladness is nourishing. It is a gift. When someone is happy to see us, we get a little steadier on our feet. We have an easier time locking into our poise. And we carry that feeling forward.
Show this quote
inside of uncertainty? What tools do we have to sustain ourselves? Where do we find extra pillars of support? How can we create safety and stability for others? And if we work as one, what might we manage to overcome together?
Show this quote
As we saw in the 2016 election, it can be presumptuous to assume everything will work out in your favor, and dangerous to leave your fate entirely in the hands of others when it comes to choosing your leaders. We have to make hopeful choices, to commit and recommit to the work involved.
Show this quote
The Mellon Foundation recently funded a study of monuments around the United States, finding that the vast majority of them honored white men; half were enslavers and 40 percent were born into wealth. Black and Indigenous people made up only about 10 percent of those commemorated; women just 6 percent. Statues of mermaids outnumbered statues of female members of Congress by a ratio of eleven to one.
Show this quote
Aprendes a guardar energas y contar cada paso. Y la esencia de todo esto es una paradoja mareante: ser diferente te condiciona a ser prudente, aun cuando te exige que seas valiente.
Show this quote
For now, though, I want to offer one small reminder, which is that real growth begins with how gladly youre able to see yourself.
Show this quote
put something small alongside it.
Show this quote
Ive come to understand that sometimes the big stuff becomes easier to handle when you deliberately
Show this quote
Its okay to pace yourself, get a little rest, and speak of your struggles out loud. Its okay to prioritize your wellness,
Show this quote
What does it mean to go high when you find yourself in a low place?
Show this quote
Am I good enough?
Show this quote
Not a single one of them, I would say, would call themselves fearless. Instead, what I think they share is an ability to coexist with jeopardy, to stay balanced and
Show this quote
you think about it, fear often arises this way, as an innate response to disorder and differentness, to the intrusion of something new or intimidating into our awareness. It can be fully rational in some instances and totally irrational in others. Which is why how we learn to filter it really does matter.
Show this quote
My hands followed their hands. We knit and purled, purled and knit. And after a time, something interesting started to happen. My focus narrowed; my mind felt a little splash of ease. In all my decades of staying busy, I had always presumed that my head was fully in charge of everything, including telling my hands what to do. It hadnt really ever occurred to me to let things flow the opposite way. But thats what knitting did. It reversed the flow. It buckled my churning brain into the back seat and allowed my hands to drive the car for a while. It detoured me away from my anxiety, just enough to provide some relief. Any time I picked up those needles, Id feel the rearrangement, my fingers doing the work, my mind trailing behind.
Show this quote
Perdnate por resguardarte temporalmente de la tormenta.
Show this quote
Our hurts become our fears. Our fears become our limits.
Show this quote
Las metas pequeas nos ayudan a proteger la felicidad, a evitar que lo grande acabe por devorarla.
Show this quote
