The Dance of Fear: Rising Above Anxiety, Fear, and Shame to Be Your Best and Bravest Self QUOTES

1 " We may believe that anxiety and fear don't concern us because we avoid experiencing them. We may keep the scope of our lives narrow and familiar, opting for sameness and safety. We may not even know that we are scared of success, failure, rejection, criticism, conflict, competition, intimacy, or adventure, because we rarely test the limits of our competence and creativity. We avoid anxiety by avoiding risk and change. Our challenge: To be willing to become more anxious, via embracing new situations and stepping more fully into our lives. "

― Harriet Lerner , The Dance of Fear: Rising Above Anxiety, Fear, and Shame to Be Your Best and Bravest Self

2 " If you pay attention, you may find that it is not fear that stops you from doing the brave and true thing in your daily life. Rather, the problem is avoidance. You want to feel comfortable, so you avoid doing the thing that will evoke fear and other disquieting emotions. Avoidance will make you feel less vulnerable in the short run, but it will never make you less afraid. "

― Harriet Lerner , The Dance of Fear: Rising Above Anxiety, Fear, and Shame to Be Your Best and Bravest Self

3 " Control is an illusion—a fact you will learn very fast if you become ill, or have things fall apart in some other way. When we understand vulnerability and suffering as an essential part of being human, our individual fate can be easier to manage. "

― Harriet Lerner , The Dance of Fear: Rising Above Anxiety, Fear, and Shame to Be Your Best and Bravest Self

4 " It is not fear that stops you from doing the brave and true thing in your daily life. Rather, the problem is avoidance. You want to feel comfortable so you avoid doing or saying the thing that will evoke fear and other difficult emotions. Avoidance will make you feel less vulnerable in the short run but, it will never make you less afraid. "

― Harriet Lerner , The Dance of Fear: Rising Above Anxiety, Fear, and Shame to Be Your Best and Bravest Self

5 " Everyone freaks out. Sometimes the best we can do with fear is befriend it. Expect it and understand that fear will always reappear. Eventually it subsides. It will return. The real culprits are our knee jerk responses to fear and the way we try to avoid feeling fear, anxiety and shame. Don't get me wrong, wanting to feel better fast is a perfectly natural human impulse. It is healthy to seek relief when you feel hopelessly mired in the emotional soup. Calming down is an essential first step to accurately perceiving a problem and deciding what to do about it but the last thing you need to do is shut yourself off from fear and pain - either your own or the worlds. If there is one over riding reason why our world and relationships are in such a mess, is that we try to get rid of our anxiety, fear and shame as fast as possible, regardless of the long term consequences. In doing so, we blame and shame others and in countless ways, we unwittingly act against ourselves. We confuse our fear driven thoughts with what is right, best, necessary or true. "

― Harriet Lerner , The Dance of Fear: Rising Above Anxiety, Fear, and Shame to Be Your Best and Bravest Self

6 " When we think of fear, we think of a 'fear of' something. Far more daunting is the challenge of how to conduct ourselves in the dailiness of love and work when anxiety is high and shame kicks in. This is the human condition. We need not let anxiety and shame silence our authentic voices, close our hearts to the different voices of others or stop us from acting with clarify compassion and courage. In today's world, no challenge is more important than that. "

― Harriet Lerner , The Dance of Fear: Rising Above Anxiety, Fear, and Shame to Be Your Best and Bravest Self

7 " One might debate whether it is preferable to be a cat or a person, but why get into it? If you are reading this now, you are not a cat and never will be. So along with the good days, you’re going to experience the entire range of painful emotions that make us human. "

― Harriet Lerner , The Dance of Fear: Rising Above Anxiety, Fear, and Shame to Be Your Best and Bravest Self

8 " what fuels human unhappiness in both the personal and political realm can be boiled down to these three key emotions—anxiety, fear, and shame. "

― Harriet Lerner , The Dance of Fear: Rising Above Anxiety, Fear, and Shame to Be Your Best and Bravest Self

9 " The right to be different, whether by choice or necessity, is our greatest right as human beings. And dealing with differences is the greatest of all human challenges. People react anxiously and fearfully to differences. We learn to hate, glorify, deny, exaggerate, or eradicate a difference. "

― Harriet Lerner , The Dance of Fear: Rising Above Anxiety, Fear, and Shame to Be Your Best and Bravest Self

10 " The right to be different, whether by choice or necessity, is our greatest right as human beings. And dealing with differences is the greatest of all human challenges. People react anxiously and fearfully to differences. We learn to hate, glorify, deny, exaggerate, or eradicate a difference. Or we try to get comfortable by shaming the different person or group. "

― Harriet Lerner , The Dance of Fear: Rising Above Anxiety, Fear, and Shame to Be Your Best and Bravest Self

11 " There is courage in speaking. We voice our differences, we share real feelings, we address a painful emotional issue, open a family secret, tell the truth. We take a clear position on things that matter to us. We clarify the limits of what we can or can’t do. We speak not with the intention of getting comfortable but with the intention of being our best selves, even though we may be shaking in our boots. "

― Harriet Lerner , The Dance of Fear: Rising Above Anxiety, Fear, and Shame to Be Your Best and Bravest Self

12 " Solid self-esteem in adulthood is hard earned. It comes from tapping into our own creativity and personal pleasures, from developing our competence and our connections, from participating in friendship, intimacy, and community. It develops from living in accord with our deeply held values and priorities, from learning to recognize and share both competence and vulnerability, and from navigating relationships with integrity, balance, and generosity of spirit. Living well is the work of a lifetime that demands our full attention. "

― Harriet Lerner , The Dance of Fear: Rising Above Anxiety, Fear, and Shame to Be Your Best and Bravest Self

13 " Our society doesn’t promote self-acceptance and it never will. First of all, self-acceptance doesn’t sell products. Capitalism would fall if we liked ourselves the way we are now. "

― Harriet Lerner , The Dance of Fear: Rising Above Anxiety, Fear, and Shame to Be Your Best and Bravest Self

14 " Change is an anxiety-arousing business, both for the one doing the changing and for those affected by the change. Often we fear that another person’s move toward new ideas and experiences will create a gulf so wide that we will not be able to reach them. "

― Harriet Lerner , The Dance of Fear: Rising Above Anxiety, Fear, and Shame to Be Your Best and Bravest Self

15 " Finding your voice in an unequal power arrangement—especially when the more powerful person is shaming you—takes a great amount of courage. "

― Harriet Lerner , The Dance of Fear: Rising Above Anxiety, Fear, and Shame to Be Your Best and Bravest Self

16 " people who feel shamed and inadequate themselves tend to pass it on. I’m sure you’ve noticed that many individuals and groups try to enhance their self-esteem by diminishing others. "

― Harriet Lerner , The Dance of Fear: Rising Above Anxiety, Fear, and Shame to Be Your Best and Bravest Self

17 " Shame is paralyzing and debilitating. It invites us not to be heard, at least not in an authentic way. Acting courageously when shame enters the picture requires extraordinary courage because people will do anything to escape from shame or from the possibility that shame will be evoked. It is just too difficult to go there. Even for people who will walk in to the fires of transformation to face fear.

Men and women tend to manage shame differently. Generally, men have less tolerance for shame, perhaps because they are shamed almost from birth for half their humanity. The so called feminine part of themselves including anything vulnerable or seen as weak. Men often sit with shame for only a nanosecond before flipping it into something more masculine or therefore tolerable like anger or rage or a need to dominate devalue or control. "

― Harriet Lerner , The Dance of Fear: Rising Above Anxiety, Fear, and Shame to Be Your Best and Bravest Self

18 " Whatever brings you joy and zest will enhance your ability to act bravely. "

― Harriet Lerner , The Dance of Fear: Rising Above Anxiety, Fear, and Shame to Be Your Best and Bravest Self

19 " Nothing is more fragile than a single snowflake,” it said. “But look what they can do when they stick together. "

― Harriet Lerner , The Dance of Fear: Rising Above Anxiety, Fear, and Shame to Be Your Best and Bravest Self

20 " We can only absorb so much anxiety without becoming sick or symptomatic ourselves. "

― Harriet Lerner , The Dance of Fear: Rising Above Anxiety, Fear, and Shame to Be Your Best and Bravest Self