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

“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.”

“Sometimes the greatest gift you can give someone who needs comfort is empathy from a heart that understands.”

“Whoever survives a test in life, whatever it may be, must tell their story. That is our duty... to share our struggles and how we overcame them.”

“We are participatory beings who inhabit a participatory reality, seeking relationships that enhance our sense of what it means to be alive. In terms of dharma practice, a true friend is more than just someone with whom we share common values and who accepts us for what we are. Such a friend is someone with whom we share common values and who accepts us for what we are. Such a friend is someone whom we can trust to refine our understanding of what it means to live, who can guide us when we’re lost and help us find the way along a path, who can assuage our anguish through the reassurance of his or her presence.”

“The ability to see our lives as stories and share those stories with others is at the core of what it means to be human. We use stories to order and make sense of our lives, to define who we are, even to construct our realities: this happened, then this happened, then this. I was, I am, I will be. We recount our dreams, narrate our days and organize our memories into stories we tell others and ourselves. As natural-born storytellers, we respond to others’ stories because they are deeply, intimately familiar.”