Author and Omega Institute co-founder Elizabeth Lesser’s first book, Broken Open: How Difficult Times Can Help Us Grow, transformed my relationship with life’s challenges. This deeply personal memoir revealed the transformative potential of adversity, teaching me that vulnerability is a strength, not a weakness. By sharing her own process of "breaking open," she showed me how to cultivate deeper connections with both others and myself.

In this Zoom discussion she talks with Brené Brown about her latest book, Cassandra Speaks: When Women Are the Storytellers, the Human Story Changes. Once again, her willingness to be vulnerable helps me recognize my learning edges. I’m especially drawn to her emphasis on the need for new narratives—ones that move beyond blame and instead focus on our collective responsibility to create a better future.


"All my life, I’ve toggled between being an activist, someone interested in healing and changing the world around me, and an innervist. That’s a word I made up to describe the part of me that seeks inner change, inner healing. I’ve never regarded activism and innervism as mutually exclusive, in fact, one keeps the other in check. If we focus only on fighting what we perceive to be wrong out there, we miss out on the very real work waiting to be done within our own hearts and minds and lives.

"When speaking of women and power, we need to talk about both innervism and activism. Innervism, because women hold personal and collective pain in their bodies and souls that needs healing from the inside out. Activism, because there are indeed monsters in the world who need to be confronted now. There is evil; there is cruelty, greed, and injustice. I use the word activism to describe any call you answer to confront those monsters."

Podcast: Brené Brown with Elizabeth Lesser on The Power of Women’s Stories

‍