BreneBrown - The power of vulnerability
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yeah
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stir
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so
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I'll start with a couple years ago an event planner called make if I was going
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to your speaking at that and she called she sad
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I'm really struggling with how to write about you on a little flyer
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hi all what's the struggle and she said well I saw you speak and I i
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I I'm gonna call you a researcher I think that I'm afraid if I call your
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researcher no one will come because they'll think you're boring in a row
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that
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an athlete okay and she said so but the thing I liked about your talk is
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you know your story teller so I think what i'll do is just call you a
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storyteller
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and of course the academic in secure part of me was like
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you gonna call me away interest that I'm gonna call you a storyteller and I was
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like
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up why not magic pixie I
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does like I i kno
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I let me think about this for second and sell I tried to call defy my courage
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and I thought you know I am a storyteller
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I'm a qualitative research i click stories that's what i do.
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and maybe stories are just data with us all
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you know and maybe I'm just a storyteller so I said you know what
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why don't you just say I'm a researcher storyteller and Sheila
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I there's no such thing
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climb a researcher storyteller
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I and I'm gonna talk to you today we're talking about expanding
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perception and so i wanna talk to you and tell them stories about
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a piece of my research that fundamentally
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expand my perception I and really actually change the way that I live
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and live and working parent I'm
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and this is where my story starts when I was a young researcher doctor Austin
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my first year I had a research professor who
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that to us here's the thing if you cannot measure it
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it does not exist I thought he was just sweet talking me
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I was like freely he's like absolutely
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see have to understand that I have a bachelors in social work a Masters in
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Social Work asking my PhD in social work
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some and her academic career was surrounded by people
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who kinda believed and the lights massey love it
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you know and I'm or the life massey clean it out
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organize it and put it into a bento box I
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and so to think that I had found my way
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to found a career that takes me in a really one of the big things
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and in social work it lean into the discomfort after work
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and I'm like you know not discomfort upside the head
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and is that over and get all A's that might that was my
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mantra so I was very excited about that
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and so I thought you know what this is the career for me
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because I am interested in from st. topics but I want to be able to make
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them
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not messing I want to understand them I want to hack into these things I know
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are important
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and lay the code out for everyone to see so where I started
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was with connection because by the time your social worker for
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10 years what you realize is that
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connection is why we're here it's what gets purpose and meaning to our lives
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this is this is what it's all about it doesn't matter whether you talk to
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people who work in social justice and mental health
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and abuse and neglect what we know is that connection
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the ability to feel connected is
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nor a biologically that's how we're wired it's why we're here
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so I thought you know what I'm gonna start with connection we know what
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that situation where you can evaluation from your boss
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and she tells you 37 things that you do really awesome and one thing that you
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can't you an opportunity for growth
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I have and all you can think about is that opportunity for growth
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right well apparently this is the way my work went as well
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because when you ask people about love they tell you about heartbreak
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when you ask people about belonging they'll tell you the most excruciating
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experiences
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I've been excluded and when you ask people about connection
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the stories they told me we're about disconnection so very quickly really
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about six weeks into this research
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I ran into this unnamed thing that absolutely
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unraveled connection in a way that I didn't understand or had never seen
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and so I pull back out the research and thought I need to figure out what that
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says
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and it turned out to be shame and shame is really easily understood as the fear
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disconnection
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is there something about me that other people know it or see it
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that I won't be worthy of connection
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the things I can tell you about its universal we all have that the only
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people don't experience shame have no capacity for human
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empathy or connection no one wants to talk about it unless you talk about the
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more you have it
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what
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under penned this shame this I'm not good enough
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which we all know that feeling I'm not like enough
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I'm not been an African Apia for not smart enough promoted in a
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I'm I think under penned this was
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excruciating vulnerability the idea
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I'll in order for connection to happen
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we have to allow ourselves to be seeing releasing
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and you know how I feel about own ability I hate my own ability
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and so I thought this is my chance to be it back
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with my measuring stick I'm going in I'm gonna figure this stuff out
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I'm gonna spend the year I'm anatoly deconstruction
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game I mean understand have on a billy works and I'm gonna outsmarted
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so I was ready and I was really excited
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as you know if I can turn out well
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admin
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you know that so I can tell you a lot about shame
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but have to write every one of the time but here's what I can tell you that it
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boils down to
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and this may be one the most important things I've ever learned
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and the decade during its research my one years turned into
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six years thousands of stories
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hundreds long interviews focus groups
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at one point people were sending the journal pages and sending me their
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stories
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I'm thousands of pieces and data I am
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and six years and I kinda got a handle on it I kinda understood this is what
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shame and this is how it works
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read a book I
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published a theory but something was not okay
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on and what it was is that if I roughly took the people I interviewed
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and divided them into people who
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really have a sense of Worthing that's what this comes down to
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percent supporting us they have a strong sense of love and belonging
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and folks who struggle for it and folks who are always
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wondering if they're good enough there was only one variable that separated the
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people who have a strong sense of love and belonging
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and the people who really struggle for and that was the people who have a
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strong sense of love in the long
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believe there were the 11th along
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that they believe there were they
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and to me the hard part
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a the one thing that keeps us out of connection as our fear that we're not
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worthy a connection
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was something that personally and professionally I felt like I needed to
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understand better
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so what I didn't is
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I took all the interviews where I saw where the gas price of people living
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that way
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and just looked at that s what do these people have in common
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and I have I have a flight office supply addiction but
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with another talk at so how to Manila know but I never manila folder and I
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have a Sharpie
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and I was like what am I gonna call this research in the first word that came to
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my mind where wholehearted
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these are kinda whole-hearted people living from the steep Santa bringing us
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I wrote the top at the mail folder
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and I started looking at the data in fact
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I did it first in this very for in a four-day
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very intense that data analysis by went back pull these interviews pull the
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stories pulled into dense
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what's the with the theme with the pattern my has been left town with the
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kids
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and
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because I was going to the kind of Jackson Pollock crazy tanker I just like
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writing and then going in kind of just in my researcher mad
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and so here's what I found: what they had in common
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was a center courage and i wanna separate courage and bravery for you for
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a minute
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courage the original definition courage when it first came as the English
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language it's from the Latin word
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her beating heart and the original definition was to tell the story
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who you are with your whole heart into these folks had
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very simply the courage to be in perfect they had the compassion
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to be kind to themselves first and then to others
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because as it turns out we can't practice compassion with other people if
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we can't treat ourselves kindly
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and the last was they had connection and this was the hard part
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as a result authenticity they were willing to let go of who they thought
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they should be
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in order to be who they were which is you have to you
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absolutely do that for connection the other thing
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that they had in common was this they fully embraced vulnerability
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they
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believed that what made them vulnerable
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made them beautiful they didn't
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talk about owner Billy being comfortable
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nor did they really talk about it being excruciating as I'd heard
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earlier in the same interviewing they just talked about it being necessary
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they talked about the willingness
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to say I love you first their willingness to
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do something where there are no guarantees
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the willingness to breeze through waiting for the doctor to call after
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your mammogram
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they're willing to invest in a relationship
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that may or may not work out they thought this was fundamental
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I personally thought it was the trail I could not believe I had pledged
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allegiance to research
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where our job here the definition research is to control control and
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predict to study phenomenon for the reason for the experts explicit reason
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to control and protect
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and out my bberry yell
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my mission to control or predict had turned up the answer
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that the way to let us with the ability and does not control in predicting
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this led to you a little break down
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Co
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which actually what we're like this
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I
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ended that led to a I caught a break down my therapist called a spiritual
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lightning
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spirit so I can sound better than breakdown but I assure you it was a
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breakdown
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and I had to put my data way and go find it there but let me tell you something
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you know who you are when you call your friends in fact I think when you see
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somebody
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who do you have any recommendations good about by my friends like move I wouldn't
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want to be here
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past I could I
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hey you know i i am just saying you know like don't bring a measuring stick
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I quite okay
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so I found at their best my first meeting with her
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Diana I brought him I listed the way the whole hearted live
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and i sat down and she said you know
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how are you and I said angry you know I'm he
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I'm okay she said what's going on and i sat and it has a therapist to seize
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their
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us because we have to get it does because
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their BS meters are got abd
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help tho I said here's the thing
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I'm struggling and she said what the struggle and I said well I have a
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vulnerability issue
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and you know and I know that vulnerability is kinda the core
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a shame and fear and our struggle for worthiness
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but it appears that it's also the birthplace at joy
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creativity about wong
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have love and I i think i have a problem
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and I just I need some help
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and I said but here's the thing: no family stuff
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no childhood shit adjust digest
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me them strategy
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in
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thank you I'm so she goes like this:
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Co
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that I said it's bad writing she sad
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it's neither good nor bad could just is what it is
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but I said hotline god this is gonna back
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I and it did and it didn't
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and and it took about a year and
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you know how other people that like when they realize that vulnerability and
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tenderness are important
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that they kind of surrender and walk into it a
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that not me and be I don't even hang out with people like that
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I for me it was a year-long street fight
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there was a slugfest for really pushed I pushed back
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I lost on the fight but
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probably want my life back and so then I went back into the research and spend
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the next couple years
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really trying to understand what they the wholehearted
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I'm what the choices they were making and and what
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what is what what are we doing with the ability why
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do we struggle with it too much am I alone in struggling with on ability
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now so
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this is what I learned we know
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vulnerability when we're waiting for the call
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it's funny I said something out on Twitter and on Facebook that that's how
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would you define portability what makes you feel vulnerable
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and within an hour and a half ahead at 150 response that
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I'm because I want to know you know what what's out there
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having to ask my husband for help because I'm sick and were newly married
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I am initiating sex with my husband
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initiating sex with my wife being turned down
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asking someone out waiting for the doctor to call back
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getting laid off laying off people this is the world we live in
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we live in a vulnerable world on
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and one other ways we deal with it is we now in Boulder bility and I think
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there's evidence
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and it's not the only reason this evidence exists but I think that their
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its a huge cost
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we r the most in debt
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obese addicted
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and medicated adult cohort in US history
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the problem is and I learned this from the research
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that you cannot selectively nom
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a motion you can't say here's the bad stuff
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here's my own ability here's greed fear shame here sphere here's disappointment
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I don't wanna feel the on the have a couple beers and a banana nut muffin
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I don't wanna feel the and I know that I know that knowing laughter I i hack into
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your lives for a living I know that
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I God I you can't know
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those hard feelings without naming the other affects our emotions you cannot
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what's going on
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so when we know I am does we now enjoy
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we know I'm gratitude renown happiness
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and then we
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are miserable and we are looking for purpose and meaning
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and then we feel vulnerable so then we have a couple beers and a banana nut
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muffin
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and it becomes is danger cycle I am
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one other things that I think that we need to think about
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is why and how we know them and it doesn't just have to be addiction
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the other thing we do is we make everything that uncertain certain
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religion has gone from
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a belief and faith and mystery to certainty I'm right you're wrong
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shut up that's it
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just certain them
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more afraid we are the more than we are the more afraid we are
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this is what politics looks like today there's no discourse anymore
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there's no conversation their shift blame
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you up late now blame as described in the research a way to discharge pain and
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discomfort
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we perfect
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if there's anyone who want to live to look like this it would be me
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but it doesn't work because what we do is we take that from our but then put in
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our cheeks
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which test I hope in a hundred years people will look back go
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class and
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weeper fact most dangerously our children let me tell you what we think
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about children
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their hard-wired for struggle when they get here when used holders perfect
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little babies in your hand
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our job is not to say look at her she's perfect
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my job is just to keep ur perfect make sure she make the testing but that great
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in your by 7th grade
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that on our job our job is to look and say you know what
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%um perfect and your wired for struggle that you are worthy and love and
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belonging
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that our job show me generation
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kids raised like that and more in the problems I think the we see today
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we pretend that what we do doesn't have an effect on people
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we do then our personal lives we do that
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corporate weather at the bailout and oil spill a recall
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we pretend like what we're doing to have a huge impact on other people
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I with fayed accompanies this is not our first rodeo people
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we just need you to be authentic and real and say
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Chris Harry except
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but there's another way
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and I'll leave you with that this is what I found to let ourselves be seeing
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deeply thing Boehner policing
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to live with our hearts
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even though there's no guarantee and that's really hard I can tell you as a
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parent that's
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excruciatingly difficult to practice gratitude and joy
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in those moments that kind of terror when we're wondering
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can I love you this much can I believe in this is passionately
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can I be this peers about the earth just to be able to stop and instead of
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catastrophizing what might happen to say I'm just so grateful
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because they feel the bomber bombings I'm alive
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and the last which i think is probably the most important
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is to believe that were enough because when we work from a place
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I believe that's sad I'm enough then
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we stop screaming and start listening were kinder and gentler to the people
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around us and we're kinda into ourselves
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that I have %ah
