Research professor, Brene Brown, tells us to embrace vulnerability or in other words, dare greatly. Our imperfections and vulnerability go hand in hand, but in a positive way. Brene Brown discusses how every day we go through emotional exposure and risk of failure but in a favorable manner. If we decide to not accept these daily challenges we will not grow into who we are meant to be. Brown also touches on the subject of wholeheartedness and its five ideals. Wholeheartedness is accepting yourself as worthy even with the flaws that we all possess. The five ideals summed up are each and every one of us desire belonging and the feeling of being loved. One who achieves these objectives also achieves worthiness and acceptance of vulnerability …show more content…
She states that the individuals who accept this are indeed the most strong because it takes a great deal of strength for anyone to be perceived as weak for their vulnerability. The author also discusses how only negative feelings come from comparing yourself to others who have more than you, emotionally or materialistically. This brings us back to the subject of wholeheartedness and how wholeheartedness is the acceptance that you are worthy and that everyone is good enough no matter what you may have. Brown also exposes what she believes is the myths of vulnerability. The myths, like I have previously stated, are that vulnerability is negative, people can somehow become immune to vulnerability, ‘oversharing’ can eliminate being vulnerable, overcoming vulnerability can be done alone and it can be avoided by not sharing your feelings/ emotions with anyone. She then proceeds to express that all of these myths can be overcome and bring to light only positive things. Part 4 of Brown’s book discusses shame resistance and how it is required for each person to face shame without losing their values and flipping shame into giving them more courage and self-identity. Once they face their …show more content…
When I was a freshman in high school I found my first love. My first love and I were in an off- again/on-again relationship for nearly four years. I was so overwhelmed with the attention and so-called love that I did not understand that my honesty and vulnerability was going to be taken advantage of significantly. He would be extremely loving one day and then the next he would be condescending and negative. When I would open up and tell him how I was feeling or why I was upset he would dismiss my feelings or make me feel insecure for even speaking my mind. It took me nearly four years to realize that I should not be defined as someone who should not express what I was feeling just because of an unhealthy relationship. My vulnerability took a tremendous blow and was almost non-existent by the time I was going into my senior year because I was filled with so much shame and hurt. My friendships and perspective relationships began to disintegrate because I fell into the myth of believing that vulnerability could be overcome alone. Over the span of a few months I began to open up again and I ended up finding my second love. We had the most perfect relationship at the very beginning so I began exposing my vulnerability, later I found that this was one of the biggest mistakes I had ever made. Similar to my ex, he began taking advantage of my vulnerability and used it against me to belittle
At some point in life most people have allowed at least one challenge to defeat them, if not more. Then there are those people who view these challenges as simply that, a challenge. This was the theme throughout Kyle Maynard’s novel, No Excuses, I learned that it is how we go about conquering these challenges that defines us as people. Throughout his novel he notes things will not always come easily; therefore, it is up to us to dig deep and conquer our goals. By finding alternate routes and adjusting your mindset, we are able to achieve any goal we set our minds to. Because it is not the obstacle that holds us back but it is ourselves that keeps us from fulfilling our greatest
A human being is a complicated entity of a contradictory nature where creative and destructive, virtuous and vicious are interwoven. Each of us has gone through various kinds of struggle at least once in a lifetime ranging from everyday discrepancies to worldwide catastrophes. There are always different causes and reasons that trigger these struggles, however, there is common ground for them as well: people are different, even though it is a truism no one seems to able to realize this statement from beyond the bounds of one’s self and reach out to approach the Other.
Adversities are often given a negative connotation and view, as most consider them to be hurdles which impede progress. Nevertheless when taken in and accepted under a positive light, adversities can serve as stepping stones through which an individual can better their character. In the face of looming obstacles individuals who persevere come out of the situation as stronger, determined, and more hopeful for the future.
It is a multidimensional human condition and constant human experience with the reduced ability to protect oneself (Cousley, Martin, & Hoy, 2014). Bailey (2010) describes vulnerability as an internal conflict which brings feelings of hopelessness, helplessness and lack of control. Vulnerability as defined by Scanlon & Lee (2006) can be broken into three dimensions, physical, social, and psychological aspects. Physical vulnerability can be identified by the potential risk of harm in the environment. Social vulnerability include age, sex, and ethnicity. Psychological vulnerability refers to the feelings associated with the loss of control and can be manifested by stress and anxiety. Vulnerability can be measured by the potential harm and the capacity to overcome it, as stated by Spiers (2000). Only the person experiencing vulnerability can truly understand its implications as it is a unique and individualized experience. (Thorup, Rundqvist, Roberts & Delmar, 2012). Vulnerability can be better understood by examining the external and internal risk factors that increase an individual’s
In chapter 8 we discussed self-esteem, and how it contributed to our perception of our self-worth, how we empower ourselves and the ones around us, which in all actuality this goes back to our mental health. Being mentally stable plays a part in how we respond to different situations, and who we decide to have around us in order to help us. Being in a positive mindset influences our outlook on life, and how we handle different
Brown believes that if a person does not open up himself, then he will not connect with other people on level passed the surface. As I have learned through my Ethnographic Research course, vulnerability has the power to transform an embodied text and to knock at people’s perception of themselves. I have continued to notice when an ethnographer is distant from their text and hesitant to connect on a deeper level. As a result, the ethnographic text lacks the ability to evoke response or limits the influence of the journey on the audience. While there a lot of risk and even pain with exposing one’s emotions through vulnerability, there is even more rewards. Brene Brown is inspiring as a speaker because in addition to developing a strong argument on the power of vulnerability; she has the unique quality of perfectly models her message. Brown expressed in her Ted Talk that she spent a whole year struggling with vulnerability. Speaking about her journey Brown openly admitted, “vulnerability pushed, I pushed back. I lost the fight but probably won my life back… What are we doing with vulnerability?” If she was talking about vulnerability, but was unable to show something of herself, her message would have fallen short. However, Brene Brown not only shows us with her words and her research how influential authenticity is, but she demonstrates it to us on a human level. While I was already aware that vulnerability is an important characteristic to tap into, Brene Brown is an inspiration for how anyone can challenge himself or herself to become even more
“You can choose courage or you can choose comfort but you cannot have both” brene brown
In the depths of an individual’s being, lies his or her self-worth. Self-worth molds individuals into who they are, what they want to become. Self-worth lies at the heart of self-esteem. Self-esteem is, Palladino (1994) a blend of “self-confidence, self-worth, and self-respect. It involves respecting others, [along with] feeling a sense of harmony and peace within yourself” (sec.1p.1). The secret to higher self-esteem is the incentive to take accountability for one’s viewpoints, such as his or her aspirations, ethics, capabilities, and curiosities and to understand that these things combined is what makes them who they are (Palladino, 1994). However, the quest of higher self-esteem at times will cause sacrifices to be made by the individual to education, relationships, self-regulation, mental and physical health, as well as other concerns (Crocker & Knight, 2005).
In Jasmine Syedullah “The Abolition of Whiteness”, she confesses to her readers that “one of the things that had drown me into buddhism was the notion of no self. I was fascinated by the prospect of being Jasmine and not being Jasmine.” (16) Most of the times we suffer so much with trying to find ourselves that we become something else. We lost the feeling of wholeness, the feeling of belonging to our own bodies, and the feeling of happiness. Self compassion can often be misunderstood as not being aware of anything else rather than our own dignities. But the importance of self-compassion is treating ourselves gently instead of being harsh and self-critical to please others expectations for them. It’s common to beat ourselves up for faults big and small. But being kind to yourself is not only providing comfort in the moment, it is also committing, whenever possible, to acknowledging that some things are past our control, we become better at coping with failure and whatever consequences our actions may have caused because we learn to have compassion towards ourselves no matter the
Shame is like a dark shadow that follows us around, making us second guess what we are about to do, and always something we refuse to talk about. As Brown puts it, shame “derives its power from being unspeakable.” If we recognize our shame and speak about it, it’s like shining a flashlight on it; it dies. This is why vulnerability and shame go hand in hand. We must embrace our vulnerability in order to talk about shame, and once we talk about shame and release ourselves from its bonds, we can fully feel vulnerable and use that vulnerability to find courage and dare greatly. In order to reach this level of wholeheartedness, we must “mind the gap,” as Brown says, between where we are and where we want to end up. We must be conscious of our practiced values and the space between those and our aspirational values, what Brown calls the “disengagement divide.” We have to keep our aspirations achievable, or disengagement is inevitable. Minding this gap is quite a daring strategy, and one that requires us to embrace our own vulnerability as well as cultivate shame resilience. Accomplishing our goals is not impossible if we simply cultivate the courage to dare to take action. We can’t let this culture of “never enough” get in our way, and we have to use our vulnerability and shame resilience to take that step over the
In her book “Daring Greatly”, Brene Brown discusses aspects of our cultures, religions, families, and other important areas that affect our everyday functioning and ability to connect in most nourishing way possible with one another. She calls us to be vulnerable and open ourselves up to others when we are hurting, struggling, confused, and whenever we feel like the only method to cope with our failures is to hide. By learning how to feel and understand our feelings we become
The fact is, it is good to be vulnerable. Good to feel pain, hurt, and suffering. However, vulnerability does not always lead to pain and hurt. Instead it can lead to joy and happiness. Many people think vulnerability is an emotion, the emotion of hurt. Those people are wrong because vulnerability is nearly just an action that can lead to hurt, but can also lead to happiness. Brown says in her Ted talk, “What makes you vulnerable makes you beautiful”. She is speaking to anyone with shame and fear. This really moved me because the thought that the pain that causes one to be vulnerable, also makes them beautiful. Brown also says “We numb vulnerability”, this is true with many people. Instead of facing their feelings head on, many people fear them. They want to stop feeling hurt and pain, so to get rid of the hurt they substitute it. When one feels hurt they will drink alcohol, or take drugs prescribed and illegal. But most commonly, they will eat. This is why so many people are addicted, medicated, and obese. Lives have been destroyed, relationships ruined, and careers lost. All due to the fear of vulnerability and because people want to numb it instead of facing it. After having visited the Brene Brown website there was a quote that really caught my eye. She says, “Vulnerability sounds like truth and feels like courage. Truth and courage aren’t always comfortable, but they’re never weakness”. This is important for everyone to know, because without vulnerability one can never be truly
While as, for me risks of being vulnerable are social isolation, extreme mental, physical and psychosocial stressful condition, losing hope of a win, sometimes feels the end of whole life within a fraction of seconds. On the other hand benefits of being vulnerable are extraordinarily increase the self-confidence, raise faith in the supreme power, learn how to handle challenging task of life and decrease the fear of sensitive situation for future. I would like to mention one saying which is popular in India that is “Elders are wiser because they have seen more Christmas Eve than us.” It means elder people are having more wisdom than we do because they experienced more shadow and light of the
I had two boyfriends in high-school, and I was sort of pushed into both relationships by my friends. Even though I liked both individuals, I had highly considering dating neither. In the first instance, I liked a guy and my friends told us we should date because I had never had a boyfriend. I agreed because I realized it might seem weird that I was 15 and had never had a boyfriend before. He was very kind and smart, but very “two faced”, and ended up cheating on me and being pretty emotionally abusive. The second guy was very intelligent and had an interesting sense of humor, but also ended up being incredibly emotionally abusive. Both were poor ideas on my part and very psychologically scaring, especially considering in both relationships I was struggling with my eating disorder, depression, and anxiety. When I came to college I met Sam, my current boyfriend, and we intend to get married when we graduate. Sam has had to help me deal with a lot of harmful thought processes that developed from those relationships, even though I had worked through many of them before coming to
People don't truly accept life for what it is until they've actually tasted adversity and went through those misfortunes and suffering. We are put through many hardships in life, and we learn to understand and deal with those issues along the way. We find that life isn't just about finding one's self, but about creating and learning from our experiences and background. Adversity shapes what we are and who we become as individuals. Yann Martel's Life of Pi shows us that adverse situations help shape a person's identity and play a significant role in one's lief by determining one's capabilities and potential, shaping one's beliefs and values, and defining the importance and meaning of one's self.