You Can't Eat Beauty

Oscar Winner Lupita Nyong'o's Speech On Beauty That Left An Entire Audience Speechless:

"It was perplexing and I wanted to reject it because I had begun to enjoy the seduction of inadequacy. But a flower couldn’t help but bloom inside of me. When I saw Alek I inadvertently saw a reflection of myself that I could not deny. Now, I had a spring in my step because I felt more seen, more appreciated by the far away gatekeepers of beauty, but around me the preference for light skin prevailed. To the beholders that I thought mattered, I was still unbeautiful. And my mother again would say to me, "You can’t eat beauty. It doesn’t feed you." And these words plagued and bothered me; I didn’t really understand them until finally I realized that beauty was not a thing that I could acquire or consume, it was something that I just had to be.

And what my mother meant when she said you can’t eat beauty was that you can’t rely on how you look to sustain you. What is fundamentally beautiful is compassion for yourself and for those around you. That kind of beauty enflames the heart and enchants the soul."

Brene Brown: Storyteller Researcher

"Connection is why we're here."

I know this is an older TED talk, but I climbed out from under the rock known as being a teacher this weekend, and watched a slew of educational videos. The two from Brene Brown spoke to me on some very personal levels that I have been digging into recently. Thank, universe, for sending a much more articulate and educated voice to clarify yet another concept that has been put in my path. Courage. "Which means to tell the story of who you are with your whole heart."

"Vulnerability is our most accurate measurement of courage."

"Those who have a strong sense of love and belonging have the courage to be imperfect."

"The willingness to do something where there are no guarantees."

I could go on and on about what I think, adding quote after quote. But, honestly, the video will say what I will fumble around about for a few sentences and then probably end up erasing anyway. Both videos are worth more than the measly 40 minutes of your life they will take.

"The Power of Vulnerability"



"That's what life is about. It's about daring greatly. It's about being in the arena."

"Shame is an epidemic in our culture."

"Empathy is the anecdote to shame. If you put shame in a petri dish it needs three things to grow: secrecy, silence, and judgement. If you put the same amount of shame in a petri dish and douse it with empathy it can't survive. The two most powerful words when we are in struggle: me too."

"Listening to Shame"