Although I’m pretty late to the game when it comes to reading Brené’s books, I’m so glad I finally got around to it. Daring Greatly was empowering, insightful, and incredibly difficult to put down. It was all about figuring out our values and developing the courage to do things that scare us. As someone who regularly struggles with vulnerability, anxiety, and not feeling worthy enough, this book (+ all of Brené’s TED talks!) has helped push me to embrace my imperfections, be more comfortable taking off my armour, and be less afraid of engaging wholeheartedly with other people and situations.
Brené is a research professor who has spent the past two decades studying vulnerability, courage, worthiness, and shame. Her work is thoughtful and inspiring. Throughout the book, she goes into detail about the results from her qualitative research, including stories from participants, combined with her own personal anecdotes. She examines each topic with such a fine lens, digging deep into how shame and vulnerability each shape our thoughts, values, and actions. She brings to light patterns in human behaviour that are rarely ever talked about, along with suggestions for how to change the way we think about ourselves, others, and our internal narrative. While it was overall a great read, I would’ve appreciated a bit more focus on the suggestions section – some practical tools for how to actually become more vulnerable would’ve brought this up to a 5-star.
“Vulnerability is not weakness, and the uncertainty, risk, and emotional exposure we face every day are not optional. Our only choice is a question of engagement. Our willingness to own and engage with our vulnerability determines the depth of our courage and the clarity of our purpose; the level to which we protect ourselves from being vulnerable is a measure of our fear and disconnection.”
– Brené Brown
KEY TAKEAWAYS:
- The culture of “never enough”. Most of us constantly live in a scarcity mindset – we are never successful enough, good enough, we don’t have enough time, don’t get enough sleep… etc. There always seems to be something missing as we never seem to meet our expectations nor the expectations others have of us. This type of mindset is ultimately what leads to jealousies, greed, and many other issues in life. Brené tells us that there are 3 distinct components of scarcity: shame, comparison, and disengagement. In order to combat these, we need to change our mindset so that we feel we’re good enough regardless of what we do (or don’t do). In doing so, we will develop the courage to engage despite uncertainty and emotional risks. Brené refers to this as wholeheartedness: “Engaging in our lives from a place of worthiness. It means cultivating the courage, compassion, and connection to wake up in the morning and think, No matter what gets done and how much is left undone, I am enough.“
- Gender differences in shame. If you know me in real life, you would know that I have an unexplainable love for unmasking gender differences in everything that I research. I’m so glad Brené had an entire section on this in the book; it was definitely one of my favourite parts. Brené points out that while shame affects both genders equally, social/cultural norms create different triggers and responses to shame for women vs men. For example women expect themselves look beautiful, slim, and be effortlessly good at everything they do. When shamed, women naturally respond by criticizing or putting others down. On the other hand, men expect themselves to take charge, succeed, and never be weak. When shamed, men intuitively respond by getting angry or shutting down. These gender differences can also lead to tearing relationships apart. For example, women who feel invalidated start criticizing, which triggers men’s feeling of inadequacy. The men get angry or shut down, causing women to provoke them even more (“why won’t you talk to me!”).
- The disengagement divide. Brené refers to this divide as the space between our practiced values (what we actually do) versus our aspirational values (what we want to do). When our values don’t align with our actions, we become unhappy with ourselves. This applies not just with ourselves, but also within a family, organization, religion, or even politics. We disengage as a way of protecting ourselves, especially when we feel that the people who are leading us aren’t living up to their end of the social contract. “If our practiced values are in constant conflict with the expectation we set for our culture, disengagement is inevitable” We need to mind this gap so that we can live our values and give attention to the space between where we’re standing and where we want to go. Who we are matters immeasurably more than what we know or who we want to be.
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