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Listening to shame | Brené Brown- Kris notes
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=psN1DORYYV0
This is a follow up to her first ted talk about vulnerability in 2010. This was in 2012
She had no idea her talk would reach 35 million views.
Vulnerability is essential to whole hearted living.
VULNERABILITY IS NOT WEAKNESS.- this myth is profoundly dangerous.
We typically think vulnerability is weakness anonymously. However we believe courage is strength, well courage is vulnerability.
Definition of vulnerability- emotional risk, exposure, uncertainty. It fuels our daily lives. Vulnerability is our most accurate measurement of COURAGE.
Vulnerability is the birth place of innovation, creativity, and change.
To create is to make something that has never existed before. There’s nothing more vulnerable than that. Adaptability to change is all about vulnerability.
We have to talk about shame. She spent 6 years researching shame before talking about vulnerability. Shame- the swampland of the soul.
Great quote by Theodore Roosevelt- the man in the arena:
It is not the critic who counts;
not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles,
or where the doer of deeds could have done them better.
The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena,
whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood;
who strives valiantly; who errs,
who comes short again and again,
because there is no effort without error and shortcoming;
but who does actually strive to do the deeds;
who knows great enthusiasms,
the great devotions;
who spends himself in a worthy cause;
who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement,
and who at the worst,
if he fails,
at least fails while daring greatly,
so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.
Someone who is heavily involved in a situation that requires courage, skill, or tenacity (as opposed to someone sitting on the sidelines and watching), is sometimes referred to as “the man in the arena”.
Life is about daring greatly, about being in the arena. SHAME is the gremlin that says NOPE…. You’re not good enough. Shame drives two big tapes: never good enough, and who do you think you are?
Shame is not guilt.
Shame is a focus on self, guilt is a focus on behavior. Shame is I am bad, guilt is I did something bad.
Guilt: I’m sorry I made a mistake.
Shame: I’m sorry I am a mistake.
There’s a huge difference between shame and guilt.
Shame is highly highly correlated with: addiction, depression, violence, aggression, bullying, suicide, eating disorders. Guilt, inversely correlated with those things.
Shame is organized by gender. Shame feels the same for women and men. Everyone knows shame at one point in their lives. Were pretty sure the only ones who don’t are sociopaths. No capacity for connection or empathy. For women shame is do it all, do it perfectly, and never let them see you sweat. Shame for women is this web of unattainable expectations of who you are supposed to be. For men, shame is not competing expectations. Shame for men is, do not be perceived as weak. When men reach out and be vulnerable, we usually get the shit beat out of us. Women are often more harder on men then men are on men.
Shame is an epidemic in our culture, and to get out from underneath it, to find out way back to each other, we have to understand how it affects us.
What women do to conform to female norms: nice, thin, modest, and use all available resources on appearance.
What men do to conform to male norms: always show emotional control, work is first, pursue status, and violence.
If we are going to find our way back to each other, we have to understand empathy, because empathy is the antidote to shame. If you put shame in a dish, it needs 3 things to grow: secrecy, silence and judgment. If you douse shame with empathy it CAN’T survive.
***THE TWO MOST POWERFUL WORDS WHEN WE’RE IN STRUGGLE: ME TOO***
Vulnerability is the path to finding our way back to each other.
