Safe Haven

There is no discovery without risk and what you risk reveals what you value.

My whole life, I had thought that my story was, again and again: Once upon a time, there was a boy, and he had to risk everything to keep what he loved. But really, the story was: Once upon a time, there was a boy, and his fear ate him alive.

The practice of love offers no place of safety. We risk loss, hurt, pain. We risk being acted upon by forces outside our control.

Burning bridges behind you is understandable. It's the bridges before us that we burn, not realizing we may need to cross, that brings regret.

Vulnerability sounds like truth and feels like courage. Truth and courage aren’t always comfortable, but they’re never weakness.

Better to put your heart on the line, risk everything, and walk away with nothing than play it safe. Love is a lot of things, but “safe” isn’t one of them.

Maybe freedom really is nothing left to lose. You had it once in childhood, when it was okay to climb a tree, to paint a crazy picture and wipe out on your bike, to get hurt. The spirit of risk gradually takes its leave. It follows the wild cries of joy and pain down the wind, through the hedgerow, growing ever fainter. What was that sound? A dog barking far off? That was our life calling to us, the one that was vigorous and undefended and curious.

All choices are fraught with peril, but inaction is the most perilous of all.

Stop walking through the world looking for confirmation that you don’t belong. You will always find it because you’ve made that your mission. Stop scouring people’s faces for evidence that you’re not enough. You will always find it because you’ve made that your goal. True belonging and self-worth are not goods; we don’t negotiate their value with the world. The truth about who we are lives in our hearts. Our call to courage is to protect our wild heart against constant evaluation, especially our own. No one belongs here more than you.

Why do we live so painfully in our fictions? Why do we suffer so, from the things we ourselves have invented?

Vulnerability is not winning or losing; it’s having the courage to show up and be seen when we have no control over the outcome. Vulnerability is not weakness; it’s our greatest measure of courage.