Say your truths and seek them in others
2,172,983 views |
Elizabeth Lesser |
TEDWomen 2016
• October 2016
In a lyrical, unexpectedly funny talk about heavy topics such as frayed relationships and the death of a loved one, Elizabeth Lesser describes the healing process of putting aside pride and defensiveness to make way for soul-baring and truth-telling. "You don't have to wait for a life-or-death situation to clean up the relationships that matter to you," she says. "Be like a new kind of first responder ... the one to take the first courageous step toward the other."
In a lyrical, unexpectedly funny talk about heavy topics such as frayed relationships and the death of a loved one, Elizabeth Lesser describes the healing process of putting aside pride and defensiveness to make way for soul-baring and truth-telling. "You don't have to wait for a life-or-death situation to clean up the relationships that matter to you," she says. "Be like a new kind of first responder ... the one to take the first courageous step toward the other."
This talk was presented at an official TED conference. TED's editors chose to feature it for you.
About the speaker
Elizabeth Lesser helps her readers and students transform their lives after brushes with pain, adversity and life's myriad problems.
Thomas Moore | Harper Perennial, 2016 | Book
Care of the Soul
One of the few books that marry psychology and spirituality without doing harm to either.
Virginia Woolf | Mariner Books, 1989 | Book
A Room of One's Own
Virginia Woolf's landmark inquiry into women's role in society. It’s short, powerful, funny, and it stands the test of time
Chögyam Trungpa | Shambhala, 2007 | Book
Shambhala: The Sacred Path of the Warrior
My favorite spiritual text, this book is much more than a meditation handbook, but if that’s all you read it for, you will benefit. There is a basic human wisdom that can help solve the world’s problems. It doesn’t belong to any one culture or region or religious tradition—though it can be found in many of them throughout history. It’s what the Tibetan Buddhist, Chögyam Trungpa, called the sacred path of the warrior.
Eckhart Tolle | Penguin, 2008 | Book
A New Earth
Tolle describes how transcending our ego-based state of consciousness is not only essential to personal happiness but also the key to ending conflict and suffering throughout the world.
Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie | Anchor, 2015 | Book
We Should All Be Feminists
A personal, eloquently-argued essay, adapted from the TEDx talk of the same name—from Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, award-winning author of Americanah (read that too!) She offers readers a unique definition of feminism for the twenty-first century, one rooted in inclusion and awareness.
Pema Chodron | Shambhala, 2016 | Book
When Things Fall Apart
I cannot imagine anyone who would not benefit from this down to earth, warm-hearted book that applies mindfulness philosophy to everyday difficulties, habitual patterns, and painful emotions.
Carol Gilligan | Harvard University Press, 1982 | Book
In a Different Voice
The definitive work on women’s experience by a Harvard researcher. An empowering read for both women and men, it reshapes our vision of what it means to be human.
Pierre Teilhard de Chardin | Harper Perennial Modern Classics, 2008 | Book
The Phenomenon of Man
In this timeless book, visionary theologian and evolutionary theorist Pierre Teilhard de Chardin argues that just as living organisms sprung from inorganic matter and evolved into ever more complex thinking beings, humans are evolving toward an "omega point"—defined by Teilhard as a convergence with the Divine.
Joseph Campbell with Bill Moyers | Anchor, 1991 | Book
The Power of Myth
The brilliant and highly readable collaborative effort between Moyers and Joseph Campbell, the worlds’ preeminent scholar on world mythology and its relevance to modern life.
Steven Pressfield | Black Irish Entertainment LLC, 2012 | Book
The War of Art
A succinct, engaging, and practical guide for succeeding in any creative sphere, this is the best book I have read on creativity and writing. What keeps so many of us from doing what we long to do? Why is there a naysayer within? Pressfield focuses on combating resistance and getting down to work.
Rachel Carson | Houghton Mifflin Company, 2002 | Book
Silent Spring
The book that launched the environmental movement in the US is still relevant today.
Stephen Mitchell | Harper Perennial, 1993 | Book
The Enlightened Heart
An anthology of wise poetry from across the ages.
Translated by Coleman Barks | HarperOne, 2004 | Book
The Essential Rumi
The best collection of the ecstatic, spiritual poetry of the thirteenth-century Sufi mystic, Rumi.
Mary Oliver | Book
New and Selected Poems
One of the best-selling volumes of poetry in America, this collection is one I turn to whenever I want a quick jolt of beauty, solace, and truth.
Isabel Allende | Harper Perennial, 2013 | Book
Paula: A Memoir
When Allende's daughter, Paula, became gravely ill and fell into a coma, the author began to write the story of her family for her unconscious child. This is one of my favorite books of all time.
Toni Morrison | Vintage, 2004 | Book
Beloved
A haunting journey down the darkest narrative rivers of American slavery. The book got under my skin when I first read it and it has stayed there ever since.
Barbara Kingsolver | Harper Perennial Modern Classics, 2008 | Book
The Poisonwood Bible
A suspenseful epic novel of one family's tragic undoing and remarkable reconstruction over the course of three decades in postcolonial Africa.
Mary Karr | Penguin Books, 2005 | Book
The Liars Club
You want to laugh, cry, and marvel at razor-sharp writing? Read this memoir by one of my favorite authors.
Loung Ung | Harper Perennial, 2006 | Book
First They Killed My Father: A Daughter of Cambodia Remembers
In April 1975, Pol Pot's Khmer Rouge army forced Loung Ung's family to flee and disperse. Loung was trained as a child soldier in a work camp for orphans, her siblings were sent to labor camps, and her parents were killed. Harrowing yet hopeful, Loung's powerful story of courage and love in the face of unspeakable brutality.
Doris Kearns Goodwin | Book
No Ordinary Time
Winner of the Pulitzer Prize for History, this biography of Eleanor and Franklin Roosevelt is a monumental work that reads like a novel. With an extraordinary collection of details, Goodwin weaves together several story lines—Eleanor and Franklin’s marriage and partnership, Eleanor’s life as First Lady, and FDR’s White House and its impact on America as well as a world at war.
Leo Tolstoy | Modern Library, 2000 | Book
Anna Karenina
Considered by some to be the greatest novel ever written, Anna Karenina is Tolstoy's classic tale of love and adultery set against the backdrop of high society in Moscow and Saint Petersburg. I have a love/hate relationship with the book, but I can’t imagine not reading it.
Gabriel Garcia Marquez | Harper Perennial Modern Classics, 2006 | Book
One Hundred Years of Solitude
A rich and brilliant chronicle of life and death, and the tragicomedy of humankind. In the noble, ridiculous, beautiful, and tawdry story of the family, one sees all of humanity, just as in the history, myths, growth, and decay of one town, one sees all of Latin America.
Learn more
This talk was presented at an official TED conference. TED's editors chose to feature it for you.