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.

One of the most painfully inauthentic ways we show up in our lives sometimes is saying "yes" when we mean "no," and saying "no" when we mean "hell yes." I'm the oldest of four, a people-pleaser - that's the good girl straitjacket that I wear sometimes. I spent a lot of my life saying yes all the time and then being pissed off and resentful.

Vulnerability sounds like truth and feels like courage.

Vulnerability is not weakness. And that myth is profoundly dangerous... I define vulnerability as emotional risk, exposure, uncertainty. It fuels our daily lives.

Joy, collected over time, fuels resilience - ensuring we'll have reservoirs of emotional strength when hard things do happen.

[I] never talk about gratitude and joy separately, for this reason. In 12 years, I've never interviewed a single person who would describe their lives as joyful, who would describe themselves as joyous, who was not actively practicing gratitude.

I am a storyteller and a researcher, and I'm sorry the world has a hard time straddling the tension of those two things, but that's who I am.