First and foremost, girls are survivors. We are trained to expect the world to be toxic to us and make the best of a bad situation by developing the skills to survive it. No one ever says the skills won’t be toxic. No one ever mentions how we are cruel sometimes and we don’t choose it.

Girls like her were born in a storm. They have lightning in their souls. Thunder in their hearts. And chaos in their bones.

It is in our vulnerability that we find our true strength.

is a strength in this vulnerability that cannot be described, only experienced.

Every seat at the table you get, you must remind people that the strength of Black women sometimes comes from trauma. Sometimes comes from ancestral, spiritual trauma that we don't even know about, or it comes from fear, or it comes from anxiety, it comes from society throwing this film over us that we did not ask for and that we have to deal with in our everyday encounters.

Sometimes, the greatest strength lies in accepting the vulnerability of love.

Vulnerability has a strength of its own.

Of all the things trauma takes away from us, the worst is our willingness, or even our ability, to be vulnerable. There's a reclaiming that has to happen.

We often think that vulnerability is a kind of weakness, but there's a kind of vulnerability that is actually strength and presence.

Out of your vulnerabilities will come your strength.

The thing that I have learned is that vulnerability is at the center of fear and shame, but it is also at the center of joy and gratitude and love and belonging...If we continue to wake up every day and put our game faces on and think that invulnerability is the way to be … then we pay the price, because I don't know that we would ever fully experience joy and love and belonging.

Strength comes not from avoiding suffering, but from enduring it with grace and resilience.

The vulnerability of young women is very much tied into gender power differences in society.

Be that strong girl that everyone knew would make it through the worst, be that fearless girl, the one who would dare to do anything, be that independent girl who didn't need a man; be that girl who never backed down.