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.

Our capacity for wholeheartednes s can never be greater than our willingness to be broken-hearted.

Owning our story can be hard but not nearly as difficult as spending our lives running from it.

The most powerful teaching moments are the ones where you screw up.

Joy is not a constant. It comes to us in moments - often ordinary moments. Sometimes we miss out on the bursts of joy because we're too busy chasing down the extraordinary moments. Other times we're so afraid of the dark we don't dare let ourselves enjoy the light. A joyful life is not a floodlight of joy. That would eventually become unbearable. I believe a joyful life is made up of joyful moments gracefully strung together by trust, gratitude and inspiration

It's in our biology to trust what we see with our eyes. This makes living in a carefully edited, overproduced and photoshopped world very dangerous.

Compassion is not a virtue -- it is a commitment. It's not something we have or don't have -- it's something we choose to practice.