Brené Brown's Blog, page 33
January 19, 2012
connections certification program
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We're so excited to announce our new Connections Certification Program!
This new program offers helping professionals the opportunity to gain highly specialized training, support, and certification to facilitate the Connections Curriculum with their clients.
Shame underlies the vast majority of presenting issues that helping professionals address, yet it's extremely difficult to address. The certification process gives facilitators the skills, knowledge, and awareness to understand shame, identify how and where it's showing up in our work and in the lives of our clients, and how to work with clients to cultivate shame resilience so they can begin to explore the power of love, belonging, and being enough.
Connections Certification is open to all professionals licensed in their field of study. This currently includes social workers, psychologists, nurses, counselors, marriage and family therapists, psychiatrists, addiction professionals, criminal justice professionals, clergy, pastoral counselors, and professional coaches.
For more information, including registration for Connections Intensive Retreats and National Trainings, please visit our new website!
January 16, 2012
martin luther king, jr.
This is the perfect day to share one of my favorite quotes about light! Here's to light and love!
And a special thanks to Elan of Ninjamatics who designed the graphics!
January 9, 2012
one little word for 2012
My good friend Ali Edwards has me hooked on the power of One Little Word. I started thinking about my word a couple of weeks ago and I had a great word in mind but it just wasn't sticking.
I didn't want light to be my word, but it turns out that I didn't really have a choice. Light has been finding its way into my life everyday since the new year. Last week I looked up at the inspiration board above my desk and light was in every quote pinned to my board.
"There's a crack in everything. That's how the light gets in." -- Leonard Cohen
This year my word picked me. I'm not messing with that! Let it shine!
What's your word this year?
December 24, 2011
finding magic in the mess
The holidays are a perfectionism minefield. My expectations always need radical reality-checking this time of year and that normally comes in the form of a total meltdown. The good news is that I often have a lot more fun on the backside of my breakdown when I start letting go and leaning into the crazy.
As I think about my own life and reflect upon what many of the people around me are going through this Christmas, it's clear that struggle doesn't take off for the holidays. The gremlins don't go on vacation. Checks bounce, chemotherapy appointments are scheduled, relationships keep unravelling, being alone feels even lonelier, and the "never enoughs" are in full swing.
As I prepare to spend the next week with my big, wonderful, crazy family, I've decided to find my holiday magic in the mess; to practice love and gratitude with the special group of folks who keep showing up and loving me, not despite my vulnerabilities, but because of them.
Wishing you a blessed mess and a Wholehearted 2012!
December 19, 2011
thank you for walking the talk with me
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The Huffington Post and TED are counting down "18 of 2011's most impactful talks" and combining them with new blog posts written by the people who delivered them. I was so honored and overwhelmed when I found out that my TEDxHouston talk was chosen for the countdown.
In my essay I describe 2010 as the year of the talk and 2011 as the year of "walking the talk." Having a video on vulnerability go viral made this year the most vulnerable year of my life. Ironic, I know.
From the essay:
"This past year has been an experience that I can only describe as equal parts terrifying and exciting. There's been unbelievable support, long overdue debate and discourse about these silenced topics, and -- the thing that makes me the most excited -- the development of new communities committed to cultivating more conversations about the emotional landscape of our lives. For better and for worse, there have also been some tough lessons on finding balance, asking for help, and seeking out constructive, respectful debate and feedback without letting in too much of the downright mean-spiritedness that's rampant in our culture."
I want all of you to know that our community has been a constant source of support for me. I'm so grateful for what we've created.
Thank you for the respectful debate and discussion.
Thank you for sharing your stories.
Thank you for helping me learn.
I'm truly grateful.
December 15, 2011
to be alive
"When we were children, we used to think that when we were grown-up we would no longer be vulnerable. But to grow up is to accept vulnerability. To be alive is to be vulnerable." Madeleine L'Engle
December 7, 2011
a conversation about awesome with dallas clayton
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I absolutely love Dallas Clayton's books An Awesome Book and An Awesome Book of Thanks. My kids and I like to sing his books rather than read them. The words and images are beautiful.
Creativity, innovation, and truth-telling can be very vulnerable in our culture which is why we often feel deeply inspired when we see it. I asked Dallas a few questions about how he finds the courage to share his authentic self and his work with the world. His definition of vulnerability took my breath away.
1. How do you define vulnerability? Vulnerability is one of the last things we share with people, yet one of the first things they try to recognize.
2. What role does vulnerability play in your work? I try to make things for people who are vulnerable in the most basic sense in that they are young, and therefore unaware of how vulnerable they are. This makes them at once vulnerable and without artifice. What a rad group to make things for.
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3. What does authenticity mean to you and how do you practice it in your work? Do what makes you happy. Use that to make other people happy. That's pretty much where I'm coming from.
4. Is perfectionism an issue for you? If so, what's one of your strategies for managing it? I can't even draw a straight line.
5. What inspires you? People who play unpopular sports. People who play instruments nobody cares about in genres of music that no one listens to. Anyone and everyone who wakes up every day and does something amazing just for the sake of doing something amazing.
6. What's something that gets in the way of your creativity and how do you move through it? I don't have enough hours in the day. Need more arms. Developing robotic arms to help combat issue.
7. Describe a snapshot of a joyful moment in your life. 3am with your friends all on the floor, laughing so hard that you can't breathe and your stomach hurts and the thing you are laughing about doesn't even make sense.
8. Do you have a mantra or manifesto for living and loving with your whole heart? We're all going to die.
To celebrate the holidays, Dallas, and these wonderful books, we're giving away three copies of An Awesome Book of Thanks! To enter, leave your name in the comments section and tell us one thing that you're thankful for today! I'll draw the winners on Monday.
I encourage you to check out these books! They're great gifts for kids and adults and the perfect book to donate to a classroom. We could all use a little more awesome in our lives!
December 5, 2011
gifting the gifts + i thought it was just me!
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To thank you for your amazing support this year, I'm offering the signed Wholehearted book plates again!
If you'd like a book plate for your book or if you're giving someone a copy of The Gifts of Imperfection or I Thought It Was Just Me, just fill out the form and I'll personalize and sign a book plate for you. All you have to do is peel off the back of the sticker and put it in the front of the book. Here's what they look like:
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We'll also include a bookmark and a gift tags!
The offer is good for the first 500 folks who sign up so don't wait!
December 1, 2011
Connections Curriculum Webinar
[image error]Join us on Tuesday, December 6th, at 3pm EST, for a free Webinar on Connections: Helping Clients Explore the Power of Love, Belonging, and Being Enough.
We'll discuss how and why I developed the 12-session psycho-educational program, and why it's important for both professionals and clients to recognize and understand shame as a universal experience. Our primary focus will be the relationships between worthiness, courage and shame resilience. There will be a Q&A session at the end of the webinar.
Therapists and lead Connections facilitators, Robert Hillliker and Eric Williams, will join us to share examples from their extensive work with the curriculum.
AND . . . we're excited to announce that we are launcing a Connections Certification program in 2012! We'll discuss the details and requirements of certification during the call, as well as dates for the first two Certification Intensives.
You can learn more about the curriculum here.
You can learn more about the webinar here.
November 23, 2011
what I've learned about gratitude and fear
We can spend our entire lives in scarcity . . . just waiting for for the other shoe to drop and wondering when it will all fall apart. Or, we can lean into the uncertainty and be thankful for what we have in that precious moment. When I'm standing at the crossroads of fear and gratitude, I've learned that I must choose vulnerability and practice gratitude if want to know joy. I'm not sure that it will ever be easy for me, but I have learned to trust this practice. For that, I give thanks!
Happy Thanksgiving!
