Jennifer Ashton Quotes

The main thing in life is not to be afraid of being human.

The only reason we don't open our hearts and minds to other people is that they trigger confusion in us that we don't feel brave enough or sane enough to deal with. To the degree that we look clearly and compassionately at ourselves, we feel confident and fearless about looking into someone else's eyes.

I've never found therapy to be a sign of weakness; I've found the opposite to be true. The willingness to have a mirror held up to you definitely requires strength.

Sometimes you have to take the focus off of you and put it on someone else and it's funny what you can accomplish and how much strength you really have.

I don't think that bravery is about skin. Bravery is about a willingness to show emotional need.

The thing that inspires me most is empathizing with people's flaws and seeing how they deal with them. That sort of connection you feel with someone when you realize that maybe even the negative things that they've said or done are because of insecurities or injuries they've endured.

In the beginning, people think vulnerability will make you weak, but it does the opposite. It shows you're strong enough to care.

There are always reasons for people's behaviour, and it's easy just to dismiss them and assume that we already know their story, especially if they're no good at showing their emotions. Life gives you all these knocks, it's so easy to form a shell to protect yourself. I've done it myself.

I feel that 'The Great Failure' is really a book written out of great love and a willingness to face all of who a human being is.

It is very east to forgive others their mistakes; it takes more grit and gumption to forgive them for having witnessed your own.

I remember 'vulnerability' being an unattractive word for most of my life, and I resented it as a direction coming from a director just because it implied weakness so I get the job. But it is that humbling place that creates compassion.

Many people look at me and think they know me but they don't at all. This is the real me. I am a humble person, a feeling person. A person who cares about others, who wants to help others.

Whether you think you're jacked up or not, we're all broken people, and until we can admit that, we're not going to progress.

Characters, like people, don't need to be right - only understood and, perhaps, accepted. We are all grey, lighter and darker, depending on our state of security.

The toughest part was doing it in front of the world and recognizing that you had gotten to a point where if you didn't do something you were going to die.

We never know who we are going to be until we are tested, but perhaps we can test ourselves without going to the extremes of war. Perhaps we can be kinder now, live with less now, reach out to others now - and build an inner reserve of a strong identity that will hold us up even when everything else falls away.

I guess you could say that no matter what the characters are enduring, I try to make them retain their humanity. Their self-absorbed, grouchy, selfish, aggravating humanity.

To me, having the courage to tell your own story goes hand in hand with having the curiosity and humility to listen to others' stories.

Once I wrote 'Atmosphere,' I thought, 'This is my story; it's me and my life and what I've gone through to get to where I am.' I'm not the best singer, but still. All of my albums are personal, but putting myself out there and singing is one more thing that makes me vulnerable - one more thing that people can fire shots at.

It is by not always thinking of yourself, if you can manage it, that you might somehow be happy. Until you make room in your life for someone as important to you as yourself, you will always be searching and lost.

There are so many ways to heal. Arrogance may have a place in technology, but not in healing. I need to get out of my own way if I am to heal.

Even the roughest character, underneath all that hurt, is someone who wants to love and be loved.

Have a strong mind and a soft heart.

I think it's very difficult, and it requires a tremendous amount of spiritual integrity and discipline, to not be a narcissist in a culture that encourages it every step of the way.

I think there's an ongoing effort involved in trying to get a bigger perspective, trying to let go of things that limit your capacity to love and be loved or your capacity to hear and to really speak.