I Thought It Was Just Me: Women Reclaiming Power and Courage in a Culture of Shame

by Brené Brown

Practicing Critical Awareness: There are expectations that women can do it all—the superwoman syndrome. Despite my best efforts and the lessons I’ve learned, I sometimes still think I can do it all, and all at the same time. I think the expectation exists as a result of women striving for equality in the workforce, yet not getting the support and help that is necessary for real equality.

The reality is that raising children is more difficult (and rewarding) than any job I’ve ever had. You just don’t get formally evaluated, validated or paid.

It seems that many women struggle to ask for help or support.

it. Then, we get angry or hurt because no one offers. We think, “Doesn’t he see me drowning?” or “Why won’t she do something?” This can quickly escalate into a blame-and-shame situation: We need help, but we don’t ask for it. We get angry because we don’t get it. We feel ashamed for even thinking someone would help us when we knew they wouldn’t. For me, asking for help is a work in progress.

When we choose growth over perfection, we immediately increase our shame resilience. Improvement is a far more realistic goal than perfection.

Merely letting go of unattainable goals makes us less susceptible to shame. When we believe “we must be this” we ignore who or what we actually are, our capacity and our limitations.

When we give ourselves permission to be imperfect, when we find self-worth despite our imperfections,

It’s powerful to observe your parents’ willingness to reexamine their choices; it’s even more powerful when you think about how your children will one day ask the same of you.

When we choose growth over perfection, we choose empathy and connection. I use the term grounding because in order to examine where we are, where we want to go and how we want to get there, we must have a level of self-acceptance about who we are.

The stories that are selected are those that make money. A richness and complexity of real life disappears.”

We seem to measure the value of people’s contributions (and sometimes their entire lives) by their level of public recognition. In other words, worth is measured by fame and fortune.

Young children are overstressed and suffering from high rates of anxiety due to the overscheduling of extracurricular activities and the emphasis on standardized testing scores.

We’ve told them everything; shared our deepest vulnerabilities. The next hour, day or week that feeling of regret comes over us like a warm wave of nausea: “Oh, my God, why did I tell her that? What’s she going to think about my family? Who’s she going to tell?” That’s the vulnerability hangover.

“When it comes to sharing vulnerability, it’s wise to take time to test whether the other person is worthy of hearing our stories and to assess our own level of safety and comfort in sharing sensitive material. We want to trust that the other person isn’t going to deny and minimize our pain, or alternatively, overfocus on our problem in an unhelpful way.

Anger can be motivated by many different experiences and feelings—shame, humiliation, stress, anxiety, fear and grief are several of the most common triggers.

we often experience self-righteous anger. Because anger is an emotion of potency and authority, being angry can help us regain a sense of control. Regaining control is important because shame leaves us feeling worthless, paralyzed and ineffective.

Stereotyping gives us a way to file people into predetermined categories that we understand and that make sense to us. It also gives us permission to blame people

• If she has a father who could do that do her, what does that mean about her? • She’ll never be the same—she’s damaged. • She’ll never be whole after that. • I don’t see how she’ll ever be a good__________(fill in the blank: mother, partner, vice president).

Reflecting is a way to infuse a conversation with a probing question or statement. Redirecting is moving the conversation away from blaming and toward empathy.

Disconnection is both the source and consequence of shame, fear and blame. Insulating, judging others, blaming, raging, stereotyping, labeling—these are all forms of disconnection.

ourselves. We are often so influenced by what other people think and so overwhelmed with trying to be who other people need us to be, that we actually lose touch with our sense of self. We lose our grounding. We lose our authenticity. The reason this is so painful is because our authenticity is the very foundation from which all meaningful change occurs.

shame is a core emotion—it strikes us at our center and radiates through every part of us.

Men are under tremendous pressure to appear tough, strong, stoic, powerful, successful, fearless, in-control and able. These are the social-community expectations that form their valued identities.

Shame starts at home. Fortunately, so does shame resilience. As parents, we have the opportunity to raise children who are courageous, compassionate and connected. We can choose to learn the tools we need to parent without using shame. We can even teach our children empathy skills. But as you might guess, before we can teach or model these skills, we must understand the role shame plays in our own lives and practice resilience in our relationships. Parenting is a shame minefield. Not only do we hang our self-worth on how we are perceived as parents, but we hang a big part of it on how our children are perceived. We have to contend with our list of unwanted identities and an entirely new list for our children. We don’t want to be perceived as bad parents and we don’t want our children to be perceived as bad kids. Developing shame resilience is twice as difficult, but well worth the reward.

It’s important to understand that parents also have the power to teach and model fear, blame and disconnection. Sometimes our children learn fear, blame and disconnection because we use shame to parent them. Rather than focusing on their behaviors, we attack who they are or belittle them. We threaten them with disconnection or ridicule them in front of others.