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Kindle Notes & Highlights
by
Brené Brown
sexual assault survivors suffer from numerous losses, many of which are invisible to others. Some of these losses include loss of one’s prior worldview, loss of trust, loss of self-identity and self-esteem, loss of freedom and independence, loss of a sense of safety and security, and loss of sexual interest.
question: What’s the most effective way to be in connection with and in service to someone who is struggling, without taking on their issues as our own?
compassion includes action. It’s not just feeling, it’s doing.
Empathy, the most powerful tool of compassion, is an emotional skill set that allows us to understand what someone is experiencing and to reflect back that understanding.
Sympathy is removed: When someone says “I feel sorry for you” or “That must be terrible,” they are standing at a safe distance.
Rather than walking in your shoes, I need to learn how to listen to the story you tell about what it’s like in your shoes and believe you even when it doesn’t match my experiences.
Empathy is not relating to an experience, it’s connecting to what someone is feeling about an experience.
You need to connect to your own experiences in a “thinking” way that creates emotional resonance: Oh, yeah. I know that feeling. I’m not going to fall into it right now, but I know it and I can communicate with you in a way that makes you know you’re not alone.
Boundaries are a prerequisite for compassion and empathy. We can’t connect with someone unless we’re clear about where we end and they begin.
Clear is kind. Unclear is unkind.
“Science is not the truth. Science is finding the truth. When science changes its opinion, it didn’t lie to you. It learned more.”
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.
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.
Can you physically recognize when you’re in the grip of shame, name it, feel your way through it, and figure out what messages and expectations triggered it?
Silence, secrecy, and judgment fuel shame.
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.
achieving mastery requires curiosity and viewing mistakes and failures as opportunities for learning.
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.
I am what I accomplish and how well I accomplish it. Please. Perform. Perfect. Healthy striving is self-focused—How can I improve? Perfectionism is other-focused—What will they think?
Additionally, perfectionism is more about perception—we want to be perceived as perfect. Again, this is unattainable—there is no way to control perception, regardless of how much time and energy we spend trying.
“Never allow anyone to be humiliated in your presence.”
We have to belong to ourselves as much as we need to belong to others. Any belonging that asks us to betray ourselves is not true belonging.
our sense of belonging can never be greater than our level of self-acceptance.
Belonging is a practice that requires us to be vulnerable, get uncomfortable, and learn how to be present with people without sacrificing who we are. When we sacrifice who we are, we not only feel separate from others, but we even feel disconnected from ourselves.
disconnection from another person can create disconnection within ourselves.
rather than making a bid for connection and having the bid ignored or rejected, we hide out or pretend we don’t need anyone.
self-security is positively correlated with self-compassion and negatively correlated with shame-proneness, neuroticism, fear of negative evaluation, self-aggrandizement, and relationship conflict. They also found that people who are more secure are more willing to be vulnerable with others. Their findings suggest that if we are comfortable with our own weaknesses (in other words, if we are self-secure), we are more successful at being emotionally close to others and more likely to have healthy relationships.
Invisibility may manifest as being passed over for promotions and recognition; not being seen as a viable friend, romantic partner, or teammate; or being passively excluded from social situations.”
loneliness and being alone are very different things.
as members of a social species, we don’t derive strength from our rugged individualism, but rather from our collective ability to plan, communicate, and work together.
“Denying you feel lonely makes no more sense than denying you feel hungry.”
When we feel isolated, disconnected, and lonely, we try to protect ourselves. In that mode, we want to connect, but our brain is attempting to override connection with self-protection. That means less empathy, more defensiveness, more numbing, and less sleeping. Unchecked loneliness fuels continued loneliness by keeping us afraid to reach out.
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.
They describe relief as “feelings of tension leaving the body and being able to breathe more easily, thoughts of the worst being over and being safe for the moment, resting, and wanting to get on to something else.”
