Slowly, with enough practice, you’ll become comfortable with the uncomfortableness of being vulnerable, and though there’ll be times when you’ll want to shamefully escape using the swiftest of exits, you’ll usually possess the strength to stand true, and with a bit of luck, achieve great things. If shame is the excavator of quick, cowardly exits, vulnerability is how you board them up.
Each strategy was built on the same premise: keep everyone at a safe distance and always have an exit strategy.” Brene Brown “All of my stages were different suits of armour that kept me from becoming too engaged and too vulnerable. Brown is wonderfully candid throughout the book, describing her own farcical attempts at self-preservation: Every disparaging look that lighted upon us and every small failure that befell us has helped to assemble an impenetrable suit of shame armour that we wear to protect ourselves. Shame cloaks us in fear, preventing us from being vulnerable. Every compromising gamble could end up in success, or failure, but you’ll never find out which unless you have the guts to throw the dice. It’s a prerequisite for progress-you simply cannot hope to achieve anything unless you’re willing to take risks. Vulnerability isn’t weakness, it’s strength. But there’s no equation where taking risks, braving uncertainty, and opening ourselves up to emotional exposure equals weakness.” Brene Brown And yes, we’re taking huge emotional risk when we allow ourselves to be vulnerable. Yes, we are in the torture chamber that we call uncertainty.
“Yes, we are totally exposed when we are vulnerable. Surely it’s better to protect ourselves? As it turns out, being constantly guarded is tantamount to being invisible – we must risk vulnerability in order to achieve anything worthwhile. To be vulnerable is to be susceptible to damage, and we live in a perilous world with physical and mental danger around every corner. Many of us might think of vulnerability as weakness. In her extraordinary book Daring Greatly, she explores the devastating impact of shame on our lives, and offers a powerful antidote: vulnerability. Experience enough of it over time, and we’ll make ourselves so small that we may as well not exist.īrene Brown is a research professor from Houston who has spent much of her career studying shame. When we’re experiencing shame, we want to withdraw from the world to run away from the thing that’s causing us damage. Shame is a result of undue, unfair, or badly-delivered criticism and judgment, adding to an anesthetized feeling of unworthiness. The merciless critic within us, that character who always makes us feel better about ourselves, lets loose his disapproving expression or wicked tongue, the recipient of which is cast into a filthy pit of shame. Humans, while quite lovely at times, can be a spiteful bunch. That’s how the light gets in” Leonard Cohen
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