THE GIFTS OF Imperfection

Wholehearted living is not a onetime choice. It is a process. In fact, I believe it’s the journey of a

lifetime. My goal is to bring awareness and clarity to the constellation of choices that lead to

Wholeheartedness and to share what I’ve learned from many, many people who have dedicated

themselves to living and loving with their whole hearts.

Before embarking on any journey, including this one, it’s important to talk about what we need to

bring along. What does it take to live and love from a place of worthiness? How do we embrace

imperfection? How do we cultivate what we need and let go of the things that are holding us back?

The answers to all of these questions are courage, compassion, and connection—the tools we need to

work our way through our journey.

If you’re thinking, Great. I just need to be a superhero to fight perfectionism, I understand.

Courage, compassion, and connection seem like big, lofty ideals. But in reality, they are daily

practices that, when exercised enough, become these incredible gifts in our lives. And the good news

is that our vulnerabilities are what force us to call upon these amazing tools. Because we’re human

and so beautifully imperfect, we get to practice using our tools on a daily basis. In this way, courage,

compassion, and connection become gifts—the gifts of imperfection.

Here’s what you’ll find in the pages that follow. In the first chapter, I explain what I’ve learned

about courage, compassion, and connection and how they are truly the tools for developing

worthiness.

Once we get some clarity about the tools that we’re going to use on this journey, in the next chapter

we move to the heart of the matter: love, belonging, and worthiness. I answer some of the most

difficult questions of my career: What is love? Can we love someone and betray them? Why does our

constant need to fit in sabotage real belonging? Can we love the people in our lives, like our partners

and children, more than we love ourselves? How do we define worthiness, and why do we so often

end up hustling for it rather than believing in it?

We encounter obstacles on every journey we make; the Wholehearted journey is no exception. In

the next chapter, we’ll explore what I’ve found to be the greatest barriers to living and loving with

our whole hearts and how we can develop effective strategies to move through the barriers and to

cultivate resilience.

From there, we’ll explore the ten guideposts for the Wholehearted journey, daily practices that

provide direction for our journey. There’s one chapter for each guidepost, and each chapter is

illustrated with stories, definitions, quotes, and ideas for making deliberate and inspired choices about

the way we live and love.

Defining Moments

This book is full of big-concept words such as love, belonging, and authenticity. I think it’s critically

important to define the gauzy words that are tossed around every day but rarely explained. And I think

good definitions should be accessible and actionable. I’ve tried to define these words in a way that

will help us unpack the term and explore the pieces. When we dig down past the feel-good words and

excavate the daily activities and experiences that put the heart in Wholehearted living, we can see how

people define the concepts that drive their actions, beliefs, and emotions.

For example, when the research participants talked about a concept such as love, I was careful to

define it as they experienced it. Sometimes that required developing new definitions (like I actually

did with love and many other words). Other times, when I started looking around in the existing

literature, I found definitions that captured the spirit of the participants’ experiences. A good example

of this is play. Play is an essential component to Wholehearted living, and when I researched the

topic, I discovered the amazing work of Dr. Stuart Brown.1 So, rather than creating a new definition, I

reference his work because it accurately reflects what I learned in the research.

I realize that definitions spark controversy and disagreement, but I’m okay with that. I’d rather we

debate the meaning of words that are important to us than not discuss them at all. We need common

language to help us create awareness and understanding, which is essential to Wholehearted living

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