Brené Brown <Listening to shame>

*

Vulnerability is not weakness.

I define vulnerability as emotional risk, exposure, uncertainty.

...

vulnerability is our most accurate measurement of courage

to be vulnerable, to let ourselves be seen,

to be honest.

...

Vulnerability is the birthplace of innovation, creativity and change.

To creat is to make something that has never existed before.

There's nothing more vulnerable than that. 

Adaptability to change is all about vulnerability.

 

*

There's a great quote that saved me this past year

by Theodore Roosevelt. A lot of people refer to it

as the "Man in the Arena" quote.

 

"It is not the critic who counts. It is not the man who sits and points out

how the doer of deeds could have done things better

and how he falls and stumbles.

The credit goes to the man in the arena

whose face is marred with dust and blood and sweat.

But when he's in the arena,

at best, he wins,

and at worst, he loses,

but when he fails, when he loses,

he does so daring greatly."

...

Life is about daring greatly, about being in the arena.

When you walk up to that arena

and you put your hand on the door,

and you think, "I'm going in and I'm going to try this,"

shame is the gremlin who says, 

"Uh, uh. You're not good enough.

...

Shame drives two big tapes

"never good enough" and, if you can talk it out of that one,

"who do you think you are?"

...

If we're going to find our way back to each other,

we have to understand and know empathy,

because empathy’s the antidote to shame.

If you put shame in a Petri dish,

it needs three things to grow exponentially:

secrecy, silence and judgment.

if you put the same amount in a Petri dish

and douse it with empathy,

it can't survive.

The two most powerful words when we're in struggle:

me too.

...

If we're going to find our way back to each other,

vulnerability is going to be that path.

And I know it’s seductive to stand outside the arena,

because I think I did it my whole life, 

and think to myself,

I'm going to go in there and kick some ass

when I'm bulletproof and when I'm perfect.

And that is seductive.

 

But the truth is, that never happens.

And even if you got as perfect as you could

and as bulletproof as you could possibily muster

when you got in there,

that's not what we want to see.

we want you to go in.

we want to be with you and across from you.

And we just want, for ourselves and the people we care about

and the people we work with, to dare greatly.

 

 

 

Listening to shame | Brené Brown