Clarissa Pinkola Estes Quotes

True strength is the courage to admit our weaknesses.

It takes great courage to be vulnerable. It takes enormous strength to be a real woman.

I'm coming from a place of total strength and humility now.

We need energy, commitment, and courage not to run from our life nor to cover it over with any philosophy—material or spiritual.

I know who I am. And after all these years, there's a victory in that.

...and that visibility which makes us most vulnerable is that which also is the source of our greatest strength.

I am finding that vulnerability gives me great strength, because you're not hiding anymore. It's really about being a pioneer for myself, going into the places where I am not being taught. I have to teach myself.

Sometimes our strengths are also our weaknesses. Sometimes to be strong you have to first be weak. You have to share your burdens; you have to lean on other people while you face your problems and yourself.

It takes strength to show vulnerability.

As a young man, I yearned for the day when, rooted in the experience that comes only with age, I could do my work fearlessly. But today, in my mid-sixties, I realize that I will feel fear from time to time for the rest of my life. I may never get rid of my fear. But . . . I can learn to walk into it and through it whenever it rises up . . . naming the inner force that triggers . . . fear . . . Naming our fears aloud . . . is the first step toward transcending them.

I feel like myself, strong and weak at once - allowed, at least for a little while, to be both.

By the time you're 30, you know who you are inside. You learn to laugh at things you can't change; you learn to be yourself.

Ten years ago, I still feared loss enough to abandon myself in order to keep things stable. I'd smile when I was sad, pretend to like people who appalled me. What I now know is that losses aren't cataclysmic if they teach the heart and soul their natural cycle of breaking and healing.

You are precisely as big as what you love and precisely as small as what you allow to annoy you.

The people who are inspiring and strong for me are the ones who acknowledge vulnerabilities.

Being vulnerable is not a sign of weakness. It's a sign of strength.

In the past, I have assumed the word 'vulnerability' equates with the word 'weakness' and 'This Is Us' shows us that it is in fact the opposite.

I'm still here, living proof that sometimes it's OK to admit to your fallibility.

I'm a very real person that has overcome a lot, so I think I'm relatable.

Once you really know yourself, can't nobody tell you nothing about you.

I don't think I am fearless. I am just me.

Vulnerability is the cornerstone of confidence.

I'm strong on the outside, not all the way through. I've never been perfect, but neither have you.

Know yourself and go in swinging, if it hurts when you hit, it might be real, too.

Your life is a learning process - you can only become wiser from learning. Sometimes you might have to attract making a painful mistake to learn something important, but after the mistake you have far greater wisdom. Wisdom cannot be bought with money - it can only be acquired through living life. With wisdom comes strength, courage, knowing, and an ever-increasing peace.