'Crazy-busy' is a great armor, it's a great way for numbing. What a lot of us do is that we stay so busy, and so out in front of our life, that the truth of how we're feeling and what we really need can't catch up with us.

Our sense of belonging can never be greater than our level of self acceptance.

Then I tell my own story. The two things that people really need to transform is language to understand their experience and to know they're not alone. It's the combination of the researcher-storyteller part.

If there's a feeling you have, other people have it. If there's something weird about your life, other people have lived it. If there's something kooky about your body, other people have that, too. We're not alone. There's some kind of tremendous relief in that and I think it can only be expressed in belly laughter. This tremendous relief that happens the millisecond we realize, it's not just me. That's what good laughter is about. It's about knowing that you're not alone.

I think a lot of us are looking for the same thing. I feel very lucky to have a definitive moment where I know everything shifted in me, and it was the moment I read that quote. Because I thought, A. That's everything I know about vulnerability. It's not winning, it's not losing, it's showing up and being seen. B. That's who I want to be.

When you don't put your initials behind your name, and I've got tons of them, and when you talk about storytelling or love or gratitude, you're diminishing your legitimacy and importance in this world.

When you get to a place where you understand that love and belonging, your worthiness, is a birthright and not something you have to earn, anything is possible.