Worrying and anxiety go together, but worry is not an emotion; it’s the thinking part of anxiety. — Brené Brown

When we’re faced with information that challenges what we believe, our first instinct is to make the discomfort, irritation, and vulnerability go away by resolving the dissonance. We might do this by rejecting the new information, decreasing its importance, or avoiding it altogether. “The greater the magnitude of the dissonance, the greater is the pressure to reduce dissonance.” In these challenging moments of dissonance, we need to stay curious and resist choosing comfort over courage. It’s brave to invite new information to the table, to sit with it and hear it out.

We have to belong to ourselves as much as we need to belong to others. Any belonging that asks us to betray ourselves is not true belonging.

Just as healing physical pain requires describing it, talking about it, and sometimes getting professional help, we need to do the same thing with emotional pain.