Vulnerability is the core of shame and fear and our struggle for worthiness, but it appears that it's also the birthplace of joy, of creativity, of belonging, of love.

Vulnerability is not weakness. And that myth is profoundly dangerous.

I can't even think of the right word, but it's not "help." It's more like a prerequisite. I think connection is why we're here, it's what gives purpose and meaning to our lives, and belonging is in our DNA. And so "tribe" and "belonging" are irreducible needs, like love.

To become fully human means learning to turn my gratitude for being alive into some concrete common good. It means growing gentler toward human weakness. It means practicing forgiveness of my and everyone else's hourly failures to live up to divine standards. It means learning to forget myself on a regular basis in order to attend to the other selves in my vicinity. It means living so that "I'm only human" does not become an excuse for anything. It means receiving the human condition as blessing and not curse, in all its achingly frail and redemptive reality.

Authenticity is also about the courage and the vulnerability to say, "Yeah, I'll try it. I feel pretty uncomfortable and I feel a little vulnerable, but I'll try it!"

Perfect and bulletproof are seductive, but they don’t exist in the human experience.

The truth is, I'm a storyteller. And it scares me, because my training as an academic is that the more accessible you are and the more human you are, the less smart you are. It's a shame trigger for me to be honest.