35 Best Brené Brown Quotes On Shame, Courage and Vulnerability

Last Updated on 4 months by Iva Ursano

If you follow me at all you know I’m an inspirational quotes addict and you know it’s a daily practice of mine to share quotes about life, love, hope, and encouragement. Today I am going to share with you 35 Brené Brown quotes on shame, courage, bravery and the power of vulnerability.

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I’ve been following Brené a little more lately as she now has a feature on Netflix. She’s beyond amazing.

If you’ve ever watched any of her reels, Lives, shows or anything at all, you will notice she speaks with her whole heart and is so transparent and vulnerable! You almost feel like you could be good friends with her if you ever met her!

She’s just so down to earth, open, warm and loving. Seriously, go check her out.

I actually just started following her on Instagram. I’ll be honest, I knew who Brené Brown was, came across a few of her inspirational quotes before but never really listened to her until Instagram stories and Facebook videos.

She’s the bomb. For real!

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Before we continue, you may enjoy these other posts that are filled with uplifting and encouraging quotes for women.

15 Strong Women Quotes That Will Boost Your Self Esteem

25 Self Worth Quotes That Will Help You Love Yourself More

10 Jen Sincero Quotes That Will Remind You How Badass You Are

Who is Brené Brown?

I think it’s important to know who she is before we talk about how amazing she is. This will give you a deeper understanding of her quotes and her work.

You can read more about her here on her website.  

If you don’t really feel like doing that, here is her bio in a nutshell:

She is a 6 times New York Times best selling author, she is a research professor in Houston, and she studies courage, shame, empathy, and vulnerability. She’s married, has 2 kids.

I’ve linked a few of her books down below for you to take a peek at and order!

Brené Brown books

So the buzz in the air now is mostly about Brené Brown and her Netflix feature but I did some Googling and found a whole slew of amazing Brené Brown books too! Trust me, I’ll be downloading a few of those onto my Kindle to read for sure!

Here are a few of her books that are definitely worth checking out.

• Dare to Lead: Brave Work. Tough Conversations. Whole Hearts.
• Rising Strong: How the Ability to Reset Transforms the Way We Live, Love, Parent, and Lead
• Braving the Wilderness: The Quest for True Belonging and the Courage to Stand Alone

If you’re needing some inspiration and need some greater clarity in your life, you just might want to check out some of her books.

Also worth mentioning, if you are struggling with sadness, or have been unhappy for a really long time, desperately trying to find self confidence, self worth or even self love, sometimes talking to someone who can relate to you helps a ton. I am now offering one on one coaching! Book a free 30 minute discovery call now to see how I can help you!

Brené Brown TED talks

Did I mention that she’s the bomb? In case you haven’t seen it yet, you might want to check out Brené Brown TED talks. Here’s a video of hers on The Power of Vulnerability. You can see it’s been viewed almost 20 million times.

This Ted talk is beyond brilliant. She talks about:

• how to let go of our fear of uncertainty,
• the discomfort of vulnerability,
• how to deal with inexplicable grief,
• how to find our inner strength
• how we come from a birthplace of love
• why we numb emotions
• how the fear of the dark is part of our vulnerability
• and so much more!

If you do nothing else today, please give this Brené Brown TED talk a watch today. You can thank me later.

35 Favorite Brené Brown Quotes

So let’s get to the good stuff, shall we? I mean this whole post is filled with amazing information on the ever so lovely and captivating Brené Brown but that’s not what you’re here for, amirite?

Let me share with you now 35 of my favorite Brené Brown quotes.

I’ve since updated this post and added 16 more quotes so I’m going to put them in categories for easier reading!

Brené Brown Quotes on Shame

Talk to yourself like you would to someone you love.

“Perfectionism is a self destructive and addictive belief system that fuels this primary thought: If I look perfect, and do everything perfectly, I can avoid or minimize the painful feelings of shame, judgment, and blame.”

“Let go of who you think you’re supposed to be; embrace who you are”

“Shame loves secrecy. The most dangerous thing to do after a shaming experience is hide or bury our story. When we bury our story, the shame metastasizes.”

Shame is the most powerful, master emotion. It’s the fear that we’re not good enough.

“If we share our shame story with the wrong person, they can easily become one more piece of flying debris in an already dangerous storm.”

“Shame is that warm feeling that washes over us, making us feel small, flawed, and never good enough.”

“We desperately don’t want to experience shame, and we’re not willing to talk about it. Yet the only way to resolve shame is to talk about it.”

 “When perfectionism is driving us, shame is riding shotgun and fear is that annoying backseat driver.”

 “Shame corrodes the very part of us that believes we are capable of change.”

Brené Brown Quotes on Courage

“I want to be in the arena. I want to be brave with my life. And when we make the choice to dare greatly, we sign up to get our asses kicked. We can choose courage or we can choose comfort, but we can’t have both. Not at the same time.”

“When I see people stand fully in their truth, or when I see someone fall down, get back up, and say, ‘Damn. That really hurt, but this is important to me and I’m going in again’—my gut reaction is, ‘What a badass.’”

“Courage gives us a voice and compassion gives us an ear. Without both, there is no opportunity for empathy and connection.”

“Until we can receive with an open heart, we’re never really giving with an open heart. When we attach judgment to receiving help, we knowingly or unknowingly attach judgment to giving help.”

“Courage is like—it’s a habitus, a habit, a virtue:  You get it by courageous acts. It’s like you learn to swim by swimming. You learn to courage by couraging.”

You are imperfect, you are wired for struggle. But you are worthy of love and belonging.

“Courage starts with showing up and letting ourselves be seen.”

Brené Brown Quotes on Vulnerability

Vulnerability is the birthplace of innovation, creativity, and change.

Staying vulnerable is a risk we have to take if we want to experience connection.

You can’t get to courage without walking through vulnerability.

If you’re not in the arena also getting your as* kicked I’m not interested in your feedback.

Most people believe vulnerability is a weakness but really vulnerability is courage. We must ask ourselves “are we willing to show up and be seen?”

“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.”

Pretending to be someone else or trying to be someone else to fit into a situation is just bad business. You are trying to fit into a place where you don’t belong. Fitting in doesn’t serve us at all.

“Vulnerability is about showing up and being seen. It’s tough to do that when we’re terrified about what people might see or think.”

“We need to trust to be vulnerable, and we need to be vulnerable in order to build trust.”

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

Brené Brown Quotes on Empathy

Here’s another great video from Brene Brown on empathy but this one is short and sweet and it’s about the difference between empathy and sympathy. I think you might enjoy it!

Empathy drives connection; sympathy drives disconnection.

We can’t practice compassion with other people if we can’t treat ourselves kindly.

Self compassion is key because when we’re able to be gentle with ourselves in the midst of shame, we’re more likely to reach out, connect and experience empathy.

Empathy has no script. There is no right way or wrong way of doing it. It’s simply listening, holding space, withholding judgment, emotionally connecting and communicating that incredibly healing message of “You’re not alone”.

“Because true belonging only happens when we present our authentic, imperfect selves to the world, our sense of belonging can never be greater than our level of self-acceptance.”

If we can share our story with someone who responds with empathy and understanding, shame can’t survive.

Empathy doesn’t require that we have the exact same experiences as the person sharing their story with us…Empathy is connecting with the emotion that someone is experiencing, not the event or the circumstance.

Daring Greatly: How the Courage to Be Vulnerable Transforms the Way We Live, Love, Parent, and Lead

• Daring Greatly: How the Courage to Be Vulnerable Transforms the Way We Live, Love, Parent, and Lead

In Brené’s bestselling book Daring Greatly, she talks about how important it is to be vulnerable in every aspect of our life. Too often, we protect our hearts and self confidence from others in fear of them being hurt and squashed by others but that won’t serve you well at all.

Vulnerability is a scary thing for many of us to show. We feel weak and overexposed but the fact of the matter is, you’re not. It’s all about stepping into your greatness with bravery and courage and showing people who you really are, not who you think they want to see.

What We Can Take From Brené Brown’s Teachings

She’s such a powerful and magnetic teacher. If you open your mind and heart, you can learn an awful lot from her and take her teachings with you everywhere you go!

The bravest thing we can do is drop our guards, love our own imperfect selves, and embrace the infinite power of our light! We are beautiful, loving amazing beings.

Brené Brown reminds us:

• the power of vulnerability
• to learn to just open up to be ourselves,
• live meaningful spiritual lives,
• learn to be more compassionate people
• hold space for our authentic self

When we have painful emotions, how on earth are we supposed to turn them into positive emotions? Brené is truly a source of hope here.

I feel our greatest barriers to creating a better future for ourselves is our minds and the fear to act or change. So many of us are holding on to shame-based fear that it cripples us and without a helping hand or some guidance, we won’t act.

Sometimes reading inspirational quotes remind us of some things we already know: be yourself, be true to you, don’t pretend to be someone you’re not and all those other good quotes.

In my opinion Brené Brown quotes are truly profound and totally make you stop and think about life and the way you are showing up in your life.

Don’t forget to share!

If you liked these awesome quotes please don’t forget to hit that share button and send them to your friends and family!! Sharing is caring.

Check out the links I added, to the books and to the other quotes blogs and get a good fix of empowering quotes to help motivate you to change your life, step into your power and be happier!

Peace and Love

xo iva xo