I’m going to get vulnerable here… and this is new for me. I feel like I’ve always been concerned with how other people perceived me. I always worried that I was too awkward and too weird. Or maybe too quiet. Or that I never knew what to say. In turn, I never felt “good enough.”
It’s something I’ve been working on for awhile, basically ever since I’ve had kids, because I saw (and see on a daily basis) how unapologetically confident my kids are, and how do I encourage them to keep that confidence when I struggle with it myself? I didn’t want them to worry so much about what other people thought.
Affiliate links included.
A few months ago, I listened to Brené Brown’s TED talks on vulnerability and shame, and my eyes were opened. I’m far from the only person who struggles with these feelings of not being “good enough.” We live in a culture of “never enough.” Brené Brown’s career is built on studying this, along with vulnerability and our shame-prone culture.
I’ve read critiques of Brené Brown’s Daring Greatly book and how it’s not grounded in more “fact.” But feelings, our relationships, and how we interact with others and our communities are measured in stories — and Brené Brown has that, and so much more, in Daring Greatly. I know, for me, that the book changed the way I not only look at others but also how I also look at myself (and how I share, or don’t share, myself with the world).
Daring Greatly: How the Courage to be Vulnerable Transforms the Way We Live, Love, Parent, and Lead by Brené Brown is about learning to go beyond owning our vulnerabilities but to “engage with the world from a place of worthiness.” Brown talks about how we build up armor and shields, but how that can lead to disengagement.
When we knock those shields down (she gives tips on how to) and are willing to show our vulnerability? We’re opening ourselves to more than just “fitting in,” we’re opening ourselves up to true belonging — something that we all crave.
As Brown puts so eloquently, “If we want to reclaim the essential emotional part of our lives and reignite our passion and purpose, we have to learn how to own and engage with our vulnerability and how to feel the emotions that come with it.”
I could go on and on with quotes from the book that spoke to me, but I’ll just say this: if you struggle with not feeling good enough, or being enough, or doing enough. If you want help in connecting to others in an authentic way, read this book. Buy it, underline it, re-read it. I promise you, it’ll help you “show” up in a real, authentic way with a whole lot less fear. As Brown wrote, “The willingness to show up changes us. It makes us a little braver each time.”
Have you read Brene Brown’s Daring Greatly? What was your biggest a-ha moment?
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