A few months ago I was made aware of the sociologist Brene Brown (thanks again to Tim Ferriss of “The Four-Hour Work Week” fame). Brown’s book “Daring Greatly” and her House TED talk lay out her research on shame and vulnerability. I didn’t really know what to expect from a shame researcher.
Brown’s research on shame lays much of the blame on our society of scarcity. Specifically our “not enough” culture e.g., not pretty enough, not thin enough, not rich enough, not Kardashian enough. We don’t measure up to society’s image of what we should be and we feel bad about ourselves (shamed). Part of getting over these feelings of shame and inadequacy is to realize that we are enough, whatever enough is.
Vulnerability is the other side of this coin. It is just another way of thinking about taking risks; in our relationships, jobs, whatever. Vulnerability is being willing to show others we are comfortable with who we are. Putting yourself out there in situations where the outcome is uncertain is her definition of vulnerability.
Many people try to avoid vulnerability but this is a slippery slope. Brown calls it numbing vulnerability. The problem is you can’t get rid of the bad stuff without losing the good things along with it, the things that make us emotionally whole. Numb to one thing is numb to all things.
According to Brown’s research there are people who willfully embrace vulnerability. They’re not comfortable with it but they view it as a necessary part of their lives. For the rest of us with practice, embracing vulnerability can become a more natural, and rewarding, behavior.
The title of her book comes from this longer quote by Theodore Roosevelt:
“It is not the critic who counts: not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles or where the doer of deeds could have done better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood, who strives valiantly, who errs and comes up short again and again, because there is no effort without error or shortcoming, but who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions, who spends himself for a worthy cause; who, at the best, knows, in the end, the triumph of high achievement, and who, at the worst, if he fails, at least he fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who knew neither victory nor defeat.”
Johann Goethe was thinking along similar lines when he said “Be bold and mighty forces will come to your aid”[1].
Emerson also goes to the heart of vulnerability in his essay “On Self Reliance” when he writes about young men and their careers:
“If our young men miscarry in their first enterprises, they lose all heart. If the young merchant fails, men say he is ruined. If the finest genius studies at one of our colleges, and is not installed in an office within one year afterwards in the cities or suburbs of Boston or New York, it seems to his friends and to himself that he is right in being disheartened, and in complaining the rest of his life. A sturdy lad from New Hampshire or Vermont, who in turn tries all the professions, who teams it, farms it, peddles, keeps a school, preaches, edits a newspaper, goes to Congress, buys a township, and so forth, in successive years, and always, like a cat, falls on his feet, is worth a hundred of these city dolls. He walks abreast with his days, and feels no shame in not ‘studying a profession,’ for he does not postpone his life, but lives already. He has not one chance, but a hundred chances.”
Taking chances is willing to be vulnerable. The irony is that when we are at our most vulnerable is when we are most alive. Brown calls it loving with your whole heart. Leaving nothing behind. Here’s the link to her TED talk. I think you’ll be blown away. Check out the book too. We are enough.
[1] Which I first heard quoted in the movie “Almost Famous” when William’s mother Elaine (played by Frances McDormand) is speaking on the phone with the Stillwater guitarist Russell Hammond (played by Billy Crudup). You needed to know this, right? What’s a post without a footnote?