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Kindle Notes & Highlights
by
Brené Brown
Read between
February 13 - April 18, 2024
With shame, we believe that we deserve our sense of unworthiness. With humiliation, we don’t feel we deserve it.
Shame is the fear of disconnection—it’s the fear that something we’ve done or failed to do, an ideal that we’ve not lived up to, or a goal that we’ve not accomplished makes us unworthy of connection. I’m unlovable. I don’t belong. Here’s the definition of shame that emerged from my research: Shame is the intensely painful feeling or experience of believing that we are flawed and therefore unworthy of love, belonging, and connection.
The antidote to shame is empathy.
Shame needs you to believe that you’re alone. Empathy is a hostile environment for shame. Self-compassion also helps us move through shame, but we need empathy as well for an important reason: Shame is a social emotion. Shame happens between people and it heals between people. Even if I feel it alone, shame is the way I see myself through someone else’s eyes. Self-compassion is often the first step to healing shame—we need to be kind to ourselves before we can share our stories with someone else.
to Neff, self-compassion has three elements: self-kindness, common humanity, and mindfulness.
We cannot ignore our pain and feel compassion for it at the same time. At the same time, mindfulness requires that we not be ‘over-identified’ with thoughts and feelings, so that we are caught up and swept away by negative reactivity.”
Self-kindness is both more difficult and more revolutionary than we think.
Recognizing shame and understanding its triggers.
Practicing critical awareness.
Reaching out.
Speaking shame.
Shame isn’t the cure, it’s the cause.10 Don’t let what looks like a bloated ego and narcissism fool you into thinking there’s a lack of shame. Shame and fear are almost always driving that unethical behavior. We’re now seeing that shame often fuels narcissistic behavior. In fact, I define narcissism as the shame-based fear of being ordinary.
Because where shame exists, empathy is almost always absent. That’s what makes shame dangerous. The opposite of experiencing shame is experiencing empathy. The behavior that many of us find so egregious today is more about people being empathyless, not shameless.
Empathy is an other-focused emotion. It draws our attention outward, toward the other person’s experience. When we are truly practicing empathy, our attention is fully focused on the other person and trying to understand their experience. We only have thoughts of self in order to draw on how our experience can help us understand what the other person is going through. Shame is an egocentric, self-involved emotion. It draws our focus inward. Our only concern with others when we are feeling shame is to wonder how others are judging us. Shame and empathy are incompatible. When feeling shame, our
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Healthy striving is internally driven. Perfectionism is externally driven by a simple but potentially all-consuming question: What will people think?
Perfectionism kills curiosity by telling us that we have to know everything or we risk looking “less than.” Perfectionism tells us that our mistakes and failures are personal defects, so we either avoid trying new things or we barely recover every time we inevitably fall short.
a recovering perfectionist and an aspiring “good-enoughist.”
perfectionism is a self-destructive and addictive belief system that fuels this primary thought: If I look perfect, live perfectly, work perfectly, and do everything perfectly, I can avoid or minimize the painful feelings of shame, judgment, and blame.12
Research shows that perfectionism hampers success. In fact, it often sets you on the path to depression, anxiety, addiction, and life paralysis.
It’s terrifying to risk when you’re a perfectionist; your self-worth is on the line.
humiliation arises because someone else pointed out our flaws, and we don’t feel we deserved it. The entire key to understanding humiliation is that when it happens to us, it feels unjust.
Across my research, I define connection as the energy that exists between people when they feel seen, heard, and valued; when they can give and receive without judgment; and when they derive sustenance and strength from the relationship.
Disconnection is often equated with social rejection, social exclusion, and/or social isolation, and these feelings of disconnection actually share the same neural pathways with feelings of physical pain.
“To avoid the pain and vulnerability that may result when their efforts to achieve connection are unsuccessful, individuals may enact their own disconnection strategies, such as hiding parts of themselves or discounting their need for others.17 They may learn that it is safer to keep their feelings and thoughts to themselves, rather than sharing them in their relationships.”
Authenticity is a requirement for belonging, and fitting in is a threat. Authenticity is a requirement for connection, and perfectionism (a type of fitting in) is a threat.
I define invisibility as a function of disconnection and dehumanization, where an individual or group’s humanity and relevance are unacknowledged, ignored, and/or diminished in value or importance.
At the heart of loneliness is the absence of meaningful social interaction—an intimate relationship, friendships, family gatherings, or even community or work group connections.
I’ll confess that I don’t think we’ll ever be able to fully unravel the mysteries of love, or, to be honest, many of the other emotions we experience. At least I hope not. I think attempting to better understand ourselves and each other is essential. But so is mystery.
Seven elements of trust emerged from our data, and we use the acronym BRAVING: Boundaries: You respect my boundaries, and when you’re not clear about what’s okay and not okay, you ask. You’re willing to say no. Reliability: You do what you say you’ll do. At work, this means staying aware of your competencies and limitations so you don’t overpromise and are able to deliver on commitments and balance competing priorities. Accountability: You own your mistakes, apologize, and make amends. Vault: You don’t share information or experiences that are not yours to share. I need to know that my
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Self-trust is normally the first casualty of failure or mistakes. We stop trusting ourselves when we hurt others, get hurt, feel shame, or question our worth.
B
I respect my own boundaries? Was I clear about what’s okay and what’s not okay? R—Was I reliable? Did I do what I said I was going to do? A—Did I hold myself accountable? V—Did I respect the vault and share appropriately? I—Did I act from my integrity? N—Did I ask for what I needed? Was I nonjudgmental about needing help? G—Was I generous toward myself?
Betrayal is so painful because, at its core, it is a violation of trust.
Individuals who are hurt experience a combination of sadness at having been emotionally wounded and fear of being vulnerable to harm.25 When people feel hurt, they have appraised something that someone said or did as causing them emotional pain.”
If I’m grieving over the loss of someone close to me, I might tell you, “I’m really hurting,” but I probably wouldn’t say, “Her death hurt my feelings.” It’s a great reminder of the power of language. When we’re expressing emotion, it’s important to differentiate “experiencing hurt” from “having hurt feelings.”
One of the most valuable gifts in my life was from my mom. She taught us to never look away from pain. The lesson was simple and clear: Don’t look away. Don’t look down. Don’t pretend not to see hurt. Look people in the eye. Even when their pain is overwhelming. And when you’re hurting and in pain, find the people who can look you in the eye. We need to know we’re not alone—especially when we’re hurting.
The real gift of learning language, practicing this work, and cultivating meaningful connection is being able to go anywhere without the fear of getting lost. Even when we have no idea where we are or where we’re going, with the right map, we can find our way back to our heart and to our truest self.
