As stated on the TEDtalk page for this vid, Brene Brown “studies vulnerability, courage, authenticity, and shame” and this talk is a brilliant overview on the connections between all of those factors.
I cannot recommend this vid highly enough. Not only is Dr. Brown witty and entertaining, her professional conclusions combined with her personal observations makes for a compelling story. She lays out a definition of shame (“Shame is the fear of disconnection”, the fear that we are unworthy of love and belonging) that is brilliantly simplistic and useful, then carries it out to a conclusion that is counterintuitive: shame is not overcome by bravery, but through vulnerability.
What made Dr. Brown’s talk hit home for me, though, was the personal story she told about her own research into shame and vulnerability. She brackets her professional observations within her own experience having a psychological breakdown based <I>on her own findings</I>.
This is someone who came up face to face with the core principle of Dangerous Living: she recognized that what she was doing wasn’t working, and took charge of making changes in her life. It was not easy for her (ref. “psychological breakdown”) and it took a few years for her to iron out her life. But in the end, she completely restructured her own POV about life and happiness based on what her researched discovered.
Her point is that healthy connections with other people are the natural antidote to shame, but for those connections to happen and strengthen, we must be willing reveal our true selves to others; we must allow ourselves to be vulnerable. She acknowledges the “vicious cycle” nature of this conundrum, and spends some time exploring our cultural perceptions of “the cost of vulnerability” before blowing everything out of the water.
The key, Dr. Brown asserts, is simply that “people who have a strong sense of love and belonging believe they are worthy of love and belonging.” (emphasis added). They feel worthy. That’s IT. And what do we already know? That we can alter our brain. We can learn new habits and change how we think, which means that if we do not feel worthy of love and belonging now, it is NOT a permanent condition nor a reflection of some terrible reality we are the victims of.
Dr. Brown continues the talk by explaining her research on what wholehearted people who feel worthy have in common: compassion, courage, and a sense of connection. Now look back up to the previous paragraph, where a sense of being worthy of love and belonging comes from having a sense of connection, which in turn is the opposite of shame. This sense of connection is tied to the willingness to be vulnerable, in other words a willingness to not be in control and to allow things to happen organically. All of these aspects are linked, but the core, fundamental key to all of it is what you believe about yourself.
Personally, Dr. Brown’s talk resonated on many levels, particularly in describing her breakdown and her first meeting with her therapist. Yes, I totally brought in a list and told my own therapist that I did not want to navel gaze, I just wanted to find strategies. *face!palm* Also, yes, my therapy was an internal street fight, but it saved my life as well.
I really appreciate, too, her explanation of how trying to numb our vulnerability also numbs us to every emotion on the spectrum, that “…you cannot selectively numb emotion.” Well, okay, I appreciate almost everything about this talk. If you want to learn, really LEARN how to feel worthy in your life, watch this vid.
