Brené Brown on Toxic shame and Vulnerability

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The Power of Vulnerability
Brene Brown

I found the video below and couldn’t think of a better place to share it than on an online magazine that talks about divorce and the emotions that one can feel when going through divorce, the divorce process and at time in life after divorce.

“Vulnerability is not weakness.”  Brene Brown

Do you think vulnerability is weakness or do you think it’s pure courage?

After 12 years of doing research in this area, Brene Brown has been working in this field of vulnerability and shame and she has concluded that vulnerability is the most accurate measure of courage.

Vulnerability is the birthplace of innovation, creativity and change. – Brene Brown

When you want to change, when you want to grow and move away or forward to place where you have never been, your creativity kicks in to allow for this change to occur.  You become aware that by doing this, you will be seen. You will become visible and so will your vulnerability.

But what about shame?  Why do we have to talk about shame, an emotion referred to so aptly by Brene Brow as  the “swampland of the soul”?

Can you talk about divorce and not talk about shame or at least feel it?

Going through divorce will more often than not bring on the feelings of shame, whether you’re the leaver of the left.

So many a people have decided to stay in very difficult marriages and relationships for varied reasons.

But for the ones who leave, the ones who need to actually get out before their soul shrivels and dies, the feeling of shame and fear can be enormous.

How does shame affect you?

“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, you never finished that MBA, your wife left you…shame is that thing…Shame is not guilt.  Shame is a focus on self, guilt is a focus on behaviour…Secrecy, silence and judgement – the 3 ingredients to allow shame to grow.  But douse it with empathy and it cannot survive.”

 

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