51+ Braving The Wilderness Quotes From Brené Brown's Inspiring Book On Belonging

Joan Agie
Dec 12, 2023 By Joan Agie
Originally Published on Mar 01, 2021
Brene Brown 'Braving the Wilderness' quotes are inspiring.
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Read time: 7.8 Min

Casandra Brené Brown is an American professor, lecturer, author, and podcast host.

Brown, born in San Antonio, has dedicated many years to the study of shame, and empathy, courage and vulnerability. She has written many successful books, including five New York Times bestsellers.

Some of her most famous works are, 'The Gifts of Imperfection', 'Daring Greatly', 'Rising Strong', 'Braving the Wilderness', and 'Dare to Lead'. 'Braving the Wilderness' is a book that helps you understand that you belong to yourself and guides you on how to live bravely in your own wilderness.

So here are some of its best quotes, including Brené Brown 'true belonging' quotes, to make you want to read the whole book.

For more quotes, visit bravery quotes and Mark Manson quotes.

Best Quotes From 'Braving The Wilderness'

These quotes from 'Braving the Wilderness' clearly show the author's inspiring perspective. Explore the true wilderness inside yourself with these quotes.

1. "You're doing important work. Keep doing it. Keep talking about your work. Don't stop and don't let anyone get in your way."

-Brené Brown.

2. "perspective is a function of experience"

-Brené Brown.

3. "When we let people take our vulnerability or fill us with their hate, we turn over our entire life to them."

-Brené Brown.

4. "They may have permission to go to the zoo, but they still need to get on the bus."

-Brené Brown.

5. "Civility is claiming and caring for one’s identity, needs, and beliefs without degrading someone else’s in the process."

-Brené Brown.

6. "How much longer are we willing to keep pulling drowning people out of the river one by one, rather than walking to the headwaters of the river to find the source of the pain?"

-Brené Brown.

7. "Protecting the status quo against our internal convictions is obviously a luxury of the privileged, because the underdogs and outliers and marginalized have no choice but to experience the daily wilderness"

-Brené Brown.

8. "There is no true belonging, only an unspoken treaty to hate the same people. This fuels our spiritual crisis of disconnection."

-Brené Brown.

9. "Not only do moments of collective emotion remind us of what is possible between people, but they also remind us of what is true about the human spirit."

-Brené Brown.

10. "The paradox is that we all love the ready-made filing system, so handy when we want to quickly characterize people, but we resent it when we’re the ones getting filed away."

-Brené Brown.

11. "To brave the wilderness and become the wilderness we must learn how to trust ourselves and trust others."

-Brené Brown.

12. "Human approval is one of our most treasured idols, and the offering we must lay at its hungry feet is keeping others comfortable."

-Brené Brown.

13. "Trusting myself or other people is a vulnerable and courageous process."

-Brené Brown.

14. "Belonging to ourselves means being called to stand alone - to brave the wilderness of uncertainty, vulnerability, and criticism."

-Brené Brown, 'Braving the Wilderness'.

15. "I believe joy is probably the most vulnerable emotion we experience."

-Brené Brown.

16. "The special courage it takes to experience true belonging is not just about braving the wilderness, it’s about becoming the wilderness."

-Brené Brown.

17. "The wilderness is an untamed, unpredictable place of solitude and searching."

-Brené Brown.

Brené Brown True Belonging Quotes

Sometimes you find solutions in the most unexpected places.

Here are quotes from the book 'Braving the Wilderness' by Brené Brown on true belonging and self-worth.

18 ."True belonging doesn’t require you to change who you are; it requires you to be who you are."

-Brené Brown.

19. "True belonging is not something that you negotiate externally, it's what you carry in your heart."

-Brené Brown.

20. "Belonging so fully to yourself that you’re willing to stand alone is a wilderness—an untamed, unpredictable place of solitude and searching."

-Brené Brown.

21. "Being ourselves means sometimes having to find the courage to stand alone, totally alone."

-Brené Brown.

22. "But what we know now is that when we deny our emotion, it owns us. When we own our emotion, we can rebuild and find our way through the pain."

-Brené Brown.

23. "The place of true belonging, it’s the bravest and most sacred place you’ll stand."

-Brené Brown.

24. "Pain is unrelenting. It will get our attention. Despite our attempts to drown it in addiction, to physically beat it out of one another, to suffocate it with success and material trappings, or to strangle it with our hate, pain will find a way to make itself known."

-Brené Brown.

25. "Courage is forged in pain, but not in all pain. Pain that is denied or ignored becomes fear or hate."

-Brené Brown.

26. "Never underestimate the power of being seen - it's exhausting to keep working against yourself when someone truly sees you and loves you."

-Brené Brown.

27. "True belonging is the spiritual practice of believing in and belonging to yourself so deeply that you can share your most authentic self with the world and find sacredness in both being a part of something and standing alone in the wilderness."

-Brené Brown.

28. "Our call to courage is to protect our wild heart against constant evaluation, especially our own. No one belongs here more than you."

-Brené Brown.

29. "The mark of a wild heart is living out the paradox of love in our lives. It's the ability to be tough and tender, excited and scared, brave and afraid -- all in the same moment. It's showing up in our vulnerability and our courage, being both fierce and kind."

-Brené Brown.

30. "Vulnerability is not weakness; it’s our greatest measure of courage."

-Brené Brown.

31. "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."

-Brené Brown.

32. "True belonging is not passive. It's not the belonging that comes with just joining a group.

It's not fitting in or pretending or selling out because it's safer. It's a practice that requires us to be vulnerable, get uncomfortable, and learn how to be present with people without sacrificing who we are. We want true belonging, but it takes tremendous courage to knowingly walk into hard moments."

-Brené Brown.

33. "Strong back, soft front, wild heart."

-Brené Brown.

34. "Do not think you can be brave with your life and your work and never disappoint anyone. It doesn't work that way."

-Brené Brown.

Quotes About Life

Here are meaningful quotes from the book 'Braving the Wilderness' by Brené Brown which will impact the way you live your life.

35. "I can confidently say that stories of pain and courage almost always include two things: praying and cussing. Sometimes at the exact same time."

-Brené Brown.

36. "Art has the power to render sorrow beautiful, make loneliness a shared experience, and transform despair into hope."

-Brené Brown.

37. "True belonging has no bunkers. We have to step out from behind the barricades of self-preservation and brave the wild."

-Brené Brown.

38. "If I get to be me, I belong. If I have to be like you, I fit in."

-Brené Brown.

39. "You will always belong anywhere you show up as yourself and talk about yourself and your work in a real way."

-Brené Brown.

40. "When we are in pain and fear, anger and hate are our go-to emotions."

-Brené Brown.

41. "Research shows that playing cards once a week or meeting friends every Wednesday night at Starbucks adds as many years to our lives as taking beta blockers or quitting a pack-a-day smoking habit."

-Brené Brown.

42. "Not enough of us know how to sit in pain with others. Worse, our discomfort shows up in ways that can hurt people and reinforce their own isolation."

-Brené Brown.

43. "Every story matters…We are all worthy of telling our stories and having them heard."

-Brené Brown.

44. "People are hard to hate close-up. Move in."

-Brené Brown.

45. "We have to listen to understand in the same way we want to be understood."

-Brené Brown.

46. "Social media are great for developing community, but for true belonging, real connection and real empathy require meeting real people in a real space in a real time."

-Brené Brown.

47. " I have started to believe that crying with strangers in person could save the world."

-Brené Brown, Braving the Wilderness.

48. "But what we know now is that when we deny our emotion, it owns us. When we own our emotion, we can rebuild and find our way through the pain."

-Brené Brown.

49. "When you are grateful for what you have, I know you understand the magnitude of what I have lost."

-Brené Brown.

50. "We have to find our way back to one another or fear wins."

-Brené Brown.

51. "We all need to be seen and honored in the same way that we all need to breathe."

-Brené Brown.

52. "A soft and open front is not being weak; it’s being brave, it’s being the wilderness."

-Brené Brown.

Here at Kidadl, we have carefully created lots of interesting family-friendly quotesfor everyone to enjoy! If you liked our suggestions for Braving The Wilderness Quotes then why not take a look at Zig Ziglar motivational quotes, or Bob Proctor quotes.

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Written by Joan Agie

Bachelor of Science specializing in Human Anatomy

Joan Agie picture

Joan AgieBachelor of Science specializing in Human Anatomy

With 3+ years of research and content writing experience across several niches, especially on education, technology, and business topics. Joan holds a Bachelor’s degree in Human Anatomy from the Federal University of Technology, Akure, Nigeria, and has worked as a researcher and writer for organizations across Nigeria, the US, the UK, and Germany. Joan enjoys meditation, watching movies, and learning new languages in her free time.

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