Daring Greatly: How the Courage to Be Vulnerable Transforms the Way We Live, Love, Parent, and Lead

by Brené Brown

Recognizing Shame and Understanding Its Triggers.

Practicing Critical Awareness. Can you reality-check the messages and expectations that are driving your shame? Are they realistic? Attainable? Are they what you want to be or what you think others need/want from you? Reaching Out. Are you owning and sharing your story? We can’t experience empathy if we’re not connecting. Speaking Shame. Are you talking about how you feel and asking for what you need when you feel shame? Shame resilience is a strategy for protecting connection—our

When shame descends, we almost always are hijacked by the limbic system.

Caroline told me that whenever she felt shame, she’d immediately start repeating the word pain aloud. “Pain, pain, pain, pain, pain, pain.”

It’s a brilliant way to get out of lizard-brain survival mode and pull that prefrontal cortex back online.

Practice courage and reach out!

Talk to myself the way I would talk to someone I really love and whom I’m trying to comfort in the midst of a meltdown:

Own the story! Don’t bury it and let it fester or define me. I often say this aloud: “If you own this story you get to write the ending.

Empathy is connection; it’s a ladder out of the shame hole.

Look perfect. Do perfect. Be perfect. Anything less than that is shaming. Being judged by other mothers. Being exposed—the flawed parts of yourself that you want to hide from everyone are revealed. No matter what I achieve or how far I’ve come, where I come from and what I’ve survived will always keep me from feeling like I’m good enough. Even though everyone knows that there’s no way to do it all, everyone still expects it. Shame is when you can’t pull off looking like it’s under control. Never enough at home. Never enough at work. Never enough in bed. Never enough with my parents. Shame is never enough. No seat at the cool table. The pretty girls are laughing.

But the real struggle for women—what amplifies shame regardless of the category—is that we’re expected (and sometimes desire) to be perfect, yet we’re not allowed to look as if we’re working for it.

Basically, we have to be willing to stay as small, sweet, and quiet as possible, and use our time and talent to look pretty.

daily struggle to push past “the rules” so she can assert herself, advocate for her ideas, and feel comfortable with her power and gifts.

“Shame is being afraid, showing fear, or being vulnerable.”

For a man

What we’re really thinking is ‘Do you love me? Do you care about me? Do you want me? Am I important to you? Am I good enough?’

When I asked men, women, and couples how they practiced Wholeheartedness around these very sensitive and personal issues, one answer came up again and again: honest, loving conversations that require major vulnerability.

We cultivate love when we allow our most vulnerable and powerful selves to be deeply seen and known, and when we honor the spiritual connection that grows from that offering with trust, respect, kindness, and affection.

Love is not something we give or get; it is something that we nurture and grow, a connection that can only be cultivated between two people when it exists within each one of them—we can only love others as much as we love ourselves.

One of the patterns revealed in the research was how all that role playing becomes almost unbearable around midlife. Men feel increasingly disconnected, and the fear of failure becomes paralyzing. Women are exhausted, and for the first time they begin to clearly see that the expectations are impossible.

If we’re going to find our way out of shame and back to each other, vulnerability is the path and courage is the light. To set down those lists of what we’re supposed to be is brave.

But these things don’t matter at all, because once you are Real, you can’t be ugly, except to people who don’t understand.”

Vulnerability is the last thing I want you to see in me, but the first thing I look for in you.

Upper elementary school and middle school was where most of us started to try on new and different forms of protection. At this tender age, the armor is still awkward and ill fitting.

most kids have yet to be convinced that the heaviness of the armor or the suffocating nature of a mask is worth the effort.

Well, it appears that believing that we’re “enough” is the way out of the armor—it gives us permission to take off the mask. With that sense of “enough” comes an embrace of worthiness,

boundaries, and engagement. This lay at the core of every strategy illuminated by the research participants for freeing themselves from their armor: I am enough (worthiness versus shame). I’ve had enough (boundaries versus one-upping and comparison). Showing up, taking risks, and letting myself be seen is enough (engagement versus disengagement).

when we lose the ability or willingness to be vulnerable, joy becomes something we approach with deep foreboding.

In a culture of deep scarcity—of never feeling safe, certain, and sure enough—joy can feel like a setup.

the concept of foreboding joy as a method of minimizing vulnerability is best understood as a continuum that runs from “rehearsing tragedy” to what I call “perpetual disappointment.”

Softening into the joyful moments of our lives requires vulnerability.

When we spend our lives (knowingly or unknowingly) pushing away vulnerability, we can’t hold space open for the uncertainty, risk, and emotional exposure of joy.

For those welcoming the experience, the shudder of vulnerability that accompanies joy is an invitation to practice gratitude, to acknowledge how truly grateful we are for the person, the beauty, the connection, or simply the moment before us.

I was also startled by the fact that research participants consistently described both joyfulness and gratitude as spiritual practices that were bound to a belief in human connectedness and a power greater than

If the opposite of scarcity is enough, then practicing gratitude is how we acknowledge that there’s enough and that we’re enough.

Joy comes to us in moments—ordinary moments. We risk missing out on joy when we get too busy chasing down the extraordinary.

Don’t take what you have for granted—celebrate it. Don’t apologize for what you have. Be grateful for it and share your gratitude with others.

But every time we allow ourselves to lean into joy and give in to those moments, we build resilience and we cultivate hope.

“The most valuable and important things in my life came to me when I cultivated the courage to be vulnerable, imperfect, and self-compassionate.” Perfectionism is not the path that leads us to our gifts and to our sense of purpose; it’s the hazardous detour.

Perfectionism is a defensive move. It’s the belief that if we do things perfectly and look perfect, we can minimize or avoid the pain of blame, judgment, and shame. Perfectionism is a twenty-ton shield that we lug around, thinking it will protect us, when in fact it’s the thing that’s really preventing us from being seen.

Perfectionism is, at its core, about trying to earn approval.

Healthy striving is self- focused: How can I improve? Perfectionism is other-focused: What will they think? Perfectionism is a hustle.

Perfectionism is a form of shame.

Perfectionism is a self-destructive and addictive belief system that fuels this primary thought: If I look perfect and do everything perfectly, I can avoid or minimize the painful feelings of shame, judgment, and blame.

Perfectionism is more about perception than internal motivation, and there is no way to control perception, no matter how much time and energy we spend trying.

Perfectionism is addictive, because when we invariably do experience shame, judgment, and blame, we often believe it’s because we weren’t perfect enough.

if we want freedom from perfectionism, we have to make the long journey from “What will people think?” to “I am enough.” That journey begins with shame resilience, self-compassion, and owning our stories.

Self-kindness: Being warm and understanding toward ourselves when we suffer, fail, or feel inadequate, rather than ignoring our pain or flagellating ourselves with self-criticism. Common humanity: Common humanity recognizes that suffering and feelings of personal inadequacy are part of the shared human experience—something we all go through rather than something that happens to “me” alone. Mindfulness: Taking a balanced approach to negative emotions so that feelings are neither suppressed nor exaggerated. We cannot ignore our pain and feel compassion for it at the same time. Mindfulness requires that we not “overidentify” with thoughts and feelings, so that we are caught up and swept away by negativity.

Quick and dirty wins the race. Perfection is the enemy of done. Good enough is really effin’ good.

one of the most effective ways to start recovering from perfectionism is to start creating.

“There’s a crack in everything. That’s how the light gets in.”