In June 2010, Brené Brown, a research professor at the University of Houston Graduate College of Social Work, gave a TEDx talk in Houston on “the power of vulnerability,” condensing six years of research on shame resilience into a spare 20 minutes. Disarmingly hesitant at first, she didn’t so much address the audience as she seemed to confide in it, telling two interwoven stories: one about her academic research into shame and vulnerability, the other about the spiritual and psychological crisis the work precipitated in her, leading to a much deeper experience of authenticity and human connection.
The thesis of her talk went something like this: a pervasive sense of shame makes many of us—particularly in America—feel unworthy of human connection. Why the shame? Because in this perfectionistic culture, most of us believe we’re “not good enough . . . not thin enough, rich enough, beautiful enough, smart enough, promoted enough” to be worthy of love. So we can’t afford to let our guard down, become vulnerable, because letting others see us as we really are would mean we’d be rejected out of hand. Better to avoid emotional risk, avoid vulnerability, and numb ourselves to any pain we can’t escape.
The personal and social costs of this strategy, however, are great. “We are the most in-debt, obese, addicted, and medicated adult cohort in US history,” she told audiences, with shopping, food, drugs, and alcohol being well-tested means for numbing out unpleasant emotions. Besides that, the whole shame/vulnerability-avoidance game backfires: by dodging emotional risks, we miss out on the genuine human connection we’re so terrified of losing in the first place.
[For more of this story, written by Mary Sykes Wylie, go to https://www.psychotherapynetwo...s-a-crucial-strength]
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