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Kindle Notes & Highlights
by
Brené Brown
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February 27 - July 24, 2016
For most of us, being an “easy mark” has come to mean being a chump or a sucker or a pushover—shaming identities
Fault-finding fools us into believing that someone is always to blame, hence, controlling the outcome is possible. But blame is as corrosive as it is unproductive.
Trust—in ourselves and in others—is often the first casualty in a fall, and stories of shattered trust can render us speechless with hurt or send us into a defensive silence. Maybe someone betrayed us or let us down, or our own judgment led us astray.
Feltman describes trust as “choosing to risk making something you value vulnerable
to another person’s actions,” and he describes distrust as deciding that “what is important to me is not safe with this person in this situation (or any situation).”
acronym—BRAVING—for
Experiencing failure often leads to feeling powerless simply because we didn’t achieve our purpose and/or effect the change we wanted to see.
we are most dangerous to ourselves and to the people around us when we feel powerless. Powerlessness leads to fear and desperation. Look behind an act of violence, from bullying to terrorism, and you will often find a frantic attempt to escape powerlessness.
moving out of powerlessness, and even despair, requires hope.
Hope happens when we can set goals, have the tenacity and perseverance to pursue those goals, and believe in our own abilities to act.
Hope is a function of struggle. If we’re never allowed to fall or face adversity as children, we are denied the opportunity to develop the tenacity and sense of agency we need to be hopeful.
I’ve rumbled with failure and shame enough over the past decade to know this: You can do everything right. You can cheer yourself on, have all the support
But if you can look back during your rumble and see that you didn’t hold back—that you were all in—you will feel very different than someone who didn’t fully show up.
Were we all in and were we true to ourselves?
Regret is one of the most powerful emotional reminders that change and growth are necessary.
To live without regret is to believe you have nothing to learn, no amends to make, and no opportunity to be braver with your life.
I believe that what we regret most are our failures of courage, whether it’s the courage to be kinder, to show up, to say how we feel, to set boundaries, to be good to ourselves.
The delta between I am a screwup and I screwed up may look small, but in fact it’s huge.
Failure can become nourishment if we are willing to get curious, show up vulnerable
When we experience shame, we are hijacked by the limbic part of the brain that limits our options to “flight, fight, or freeze.” Those survival responses rarely leave room for thought, which is why most of us desperately shift around under the rock, looking for reflexive relief by hiding, blaming or lashing out, or by people pleasing.
can’t be brave in the big world without at least one small safe space to work through our fears and falls.
We call shame the master emotion for a reason.
She had a way of helping me believe in normal-crazy. Like, however crazy we may be, we’re all the same, and the only danger of normal-crazy is not knowing what you’re doing and why you’re doing it.
To be honest, choosing curiosity when I’m in shame is something that I’ll need to stay mindful of for the rest of my life.
“How about: ‘When you mess with the bull, the bull is going into time-out for thirty
minutes,’” I said. My dad’s response tells you everything you need to know about us: “Well, Sis, it doesn’t have quite the ring or the gravitas, but if you can wrestle that bull into the barn while you sort out your emotions, you’ll save yourself some serious heartache.”
the complexity of shame resilience.
Men and women with high levels of shame resilience:
In the process of reality-checking the messages that fuel shame, we often have to dig into identity, labels, and stereotypes. We also have to explore whether the expectations are rooted, as they often are, in nostalgia or the perilous practice of comparing a current struggle with an edited version of “the way things used to be.”
To embrace and love who we are, we have to reclaim and reconnect with the parts of ourselves we’ve orphaned over the years. We have to call back home all of those parts of ourselves that we have abandoned. Carl Jung called this individuation.
“Perhaps Jung’s most compelling contribution is the idea of individuation, that is, the lifelong project of becoming more nearly the whole person we were meant to be—what the gods intended, not the parents, or the tribe, or, especially, the easily intimidated or the inflated ego.5 While revering the mystery of others, our individuation summons each of us to stand in the presence of our own mystery, and become more fully responsible for who we are in this journey we call our life.”
Most of us were too young and having too much fun to notice when we crossed the fine line into “behavior not becoming of a lady”—actions that call for a painful penalty. Now, as a woman and a mother of both a daughter and a son, I can tell you exactly when it happens. It happens on the day girls start spitting farther, shooting better, and completing more passes than the boys. When that day comes, we start to get the message—in subtle and not-so-subtle ways—that it’s best that we start focusing on staying thin, minding our manners, and not being so smart or speaking out so much in class that
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attention to our intellect. This is a pivotal day for boys, too. This is the moment when they’re introduced to the white horse. Emotional stoicism and self-control are rewarded, and displays of emotion are punished. Vulnerability is now weakness. Anger becomes an acceptable substitute for fear, which is forbidden.
I don’t think there’s any question that while also serving to keep existing power structures in place, the rules punish both men and women. And it’s not just men who discourage integration and enforce the rules; it’s the women, too. While there are many women fighting for a different way of life, there is still a powerful core group of sisters who have pledged their allegiance to a system where tender and tough are so driven apart from their natural coexistence that each one metastasizes into a...
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Gender itself is a combination of highly choreographed steps and well-rehearsed compromises. No matter who is calling the dance, it takes two to two-step.
Vulnerability Anonymous meeting—a gathering place for people who like to numb the feelings that come with not having control, swimming in uncertainty, or cringing from emotional exposure.
Of all the things trauma takes away from us, the worst is our willingness, or even our ability, to be vulnerable. There’s a reclaiming that has to happen.
We know that genetics loads the gun and environment pulls the trigger.
“There’s nothing wrong with celebrating the good things in our past. But memories, like witnesses, do not always tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.
We need to cross-examine them, recognizing and accepting the inconsistencies and gaps in those that make us proud and happy as well as those that cause us pain.”
“Both as individuals and as a society, we must learn to view the past in three dimensions before we can move into the fourth dimension of the future.”
“What’s wrong with feeling nostalgic? It’s the only distraction left for those who have no faith in the future.”
In the
rising strong process, looking back is done in the service of moving forward with an integrated and whole heart.
When cheap-seat criticism becomes the loudest, most prevalent type of criticism we encounter, it pushes out the idea that thoughtful criticism and feedback can be and often are useful.
When we stop caring what people think, we lose our capacity for connection. But when we are defined by what people think, we lose the courage to be vulnerable.
Toni Morrison wrote, “Definitions belong to the definers, not the defined,” and I learned that I must redefine what I believe is valuable and make sure I’m included within that definition.
Our identities are always changing and growing, they’re not meant to be pinned down. Our histories are never all good or all bad, and running from the past is the surest way to be defined by it. That’s when it owns us. The key is bringing light to the darkness—developing awareness and understanding.
The roles in my life—partner, mother, teacher, researcher, leader, entrepreneur—all require me to bring my whole self to the table. We can’t be “all in” if only parts of us show up. If we’re not living, loving, parenting, or leading with our whole, integrated hearts, we’re doing it halfheartedly.
“Your vision will become clear only when you can look into your own heart.11 Who looks outside, dreams; who looks inside, awakes.”
