[books] Daring Greatly, Brené Brown
Oct. 11th, 2019 11:44 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
kaberettI first picked up a physical copy of this book from the library, way back in July 2018, but was feeling much too swamped to get to it before it needed to be returned (and I couldn't just renew, because someone else had inconsiderately placed a hold on it). At the time, vass summarised it to me as "annoying and also useful".
At the beginning of August, I read Brené Brown's Daring Greatly, and in the process of so doing took nine pages of dense notes. This was partly a function of having borrowed an ebook from the library, such that I ended up copying out particularly resonant passages longhand to have them to refer back to, rather than simply underlining them (in a physical copy) or highlighting them (in an ebook I myself own), but a lot of it is my active engagement with the text: feelings and reflections and agreement and, of course, argument.
Because, well,vass was Not Wrong.
The irritants are by-and-large things where, mmm, I can see how Brown got there, but that doesn't actually mean I think they should have made it through to publication. My problems range in scale. In chapter 6, Brown says
She's not wrong, either: to my mind the worst patches of the book are, pretty consistently, the passages where she's let self-righteousness take the lead. For example: there's several pages dedicated to the "we should all use our Real Names online" argument. There is the absolute bullshit claim that "If we don't have the energy or time to [look people in the eye when we speak to them] we should stay at home." (There's a similar lack of awareness of disability and impairment and crip culture, I think, when she talks about how "disengagement" - a failure to reach out regularly, in small ways - is a fundamental betrayal of friendship.) And she is breathtakingly condescending about what counts as Real Child Abuse, up to and including blurring the line between "what media do we let the kids consume?" and "do we give them access to adequate medical care?" I'm really very comfortable, for instance, that when I judge parents for refusing to vaccinate their children that's not about my own feelings of "scarcity" and "shame". (I realise as I'm writing this up that Brown might, of course, be using a weird definition of "judge"; I'd like to go back and check that but firstly I suspect it wasn't explicit & secondly I have yet to actually buy myself a physical copy to Refer To.)
The next tier down is stuff where I still think she's wrong, but it feels more like errors of oversight & omission, and rather less like she's mounted a soapbox to proclaim her wrongness unto the heavens. She's very keen on the central metaphor of Velveteen Rabbit, which, well, is also not something I get on with. She's not great at recognising and acknowledging and integrating the effects of systemic oppression and sick systems: she's got lines about "they're unable to escape the feeling that they are victims in situations where they're not" and "we can resist buying into and perpetuating the public stereotyping of professions that by their nature operate in realms of personal stress" that sit uncomfortably together, for me, mired as I currently am intaking the government to courtseeking a tribunal review of my disability benefits award.
And then there's the annoyance arising simply from careless or inconsistent or imprecise writing, things like asserting that shame is both universal and actively taught, in a way that doesn't explore the interaction of those possibilities.
Those criticisms aside (it probably helped that I was taking notes as I went along, so I could write a furious all-caps rant about The Bullshit and then set it down), I very much did find this book useful. Some of that's theoretical framework; some of it's validation of things I'm already doing; some of it's questions to consider further; some of it's things to try. As a pretty direct consequence of reading and engaging with the book, I've managed to bridge some longstanding gaps in my understanding of myself, which definitely makes the exercise worthwhile for me.
The background: Brown researches (human, social) connection, which has led to explorations of shame, and resilience, and scarcity, and worthiness, and vulnerability. She believes vulnerability -- healthy, sustainable vulnerability -- to be key to living what she terms Wholeheartedly; I arrived at this book in the middle of an ongoing struggle with feeling isolated and lonely and unsure of of how to address it, and this framework -- of what vulnerability is, and how it functions, and how it relates to the human condition -- feels like exactly what I need.
The fundamental argument that feeling is vulnerability and connection is predicated on vulnerability resonates with me: with the sense (that I've discussed here occasionally) that while I think I'm interesting, I don't expect others to find me interesting; with the sense that I'm Too Much; with the sense that I have to keep myself monitored, in check, controlled. Constantly working to shield others from myself is a neat inversion of much of the armour she describes, and yet when she lists examples of ways people complete the prompt "Vulnerability is..." I feel them humming through me: standing up for myself, saying no, admitting I'm afraid (where to admit is to let in), hoping the real me isn't too disappointing; to be afraid that I'm not enough. Brown highlights, gently, the ways that not enough -- scarcity -- is a default state for many of us: from a first thought on waking of "not enough sleep" to a default self-description of "not ______ enough", fear and shame and a pervasive sense of inadequacy encourage us to hunch and flinch away from our selves.
The opposite of scarcity, she says, isn't abundance, isn't "more than you could ever imagine": it's enough. Sufficiency. This is leaned on hard: where we feel uncertain or inadequate we (I) often reassure ourselves with contempt & unkindness, with judging others, with deciding that at least we're better than that, and oh but I recognise myself in this, my desperate desire to maybe win a temporary safety by at least not being "the worst". I'm ashamed, but they should be more ashamed, so I can probably keep going for now.
I'm still feeling out how boundaried vulnerability might work for me. I think I used to know how to do this, at least some; I can pinpoint at least some of the forgetting to a combination of some bad break-ups, my housing situation, and the absence of support at work circa 2015-2016.
Here is some of where I'm at, though: I am afraid of vulnerability, but (to be vulnerable is to be capable of being wounded; to be weak is to be unable to withstand attack or injury) fear is the mirror-twin of hope, and hope goes hand-in-hand with at least some forms of resilience and is a cousin to joy.
I'm already, to my surprise, doing okay at some of this. I was a little startled that much of how I (try to) apologise was offered as an example of vulnerability: to say "I see that I hurt you, and I'm sorry, and here's how I'll try to do better" is something I remember, dimly, being terrified of, but now comes as easy to me as breathing (which is to say, with intermittent discomfort and a good deal of thought); it's helpful to have the reminder that these are things I can learn, even the ones that feel daunting or impossible or unimaginable now.
There's plenty I'm thinking about in an ongoing sense (on which more posts to follow as I untangle at least some of it); the one I'm (ruefully) laughing at myself over most is, well,
vass summarised it to me as "annoying and also useful".At the beginning of August, I read Brené Brown's Daring Greatly, and in the process of so doing took nine pages of dense notes. This was partly a function of having borrowed an ebook from the library, such that I ended up copying out particularly resonant passages longhand to have them to refer back to, rather than simply underlining them (in a physical copy) or highlighting them (in an ebook I myself own), but a lot of it is my active engagement with the text: feelings and reflections and agreement and, of course, argument.
Because, well,
vass was Not Wrong.The irritants are by-and-large things where, mmm, I can see how Brown got there, but that doesn't actually mean I think they should have made it through to publication. My problems range in scale. In chapter 6, Brown says
Luckily, this work has taught me that when I feel self-righteous, it means I'm afraid. It's a way to puff up and protect myself when I'm afraid of being wrong, making someone angry, or getting blamed.
She's not wrong, either: to my mind the worst patches of the book are, pretty consistently, the passages where she's let self-righteousness take the lead. For example: there's several pages dedicated to the "we should all use our Real Names online" argument. There is the absolute bullshit claim that "If we don't have the energy or time to [look people in the eye when we speak to them] we should stay at home." (There's a similar lack of awareness of disability and impairment and crip culture, I think, when she talks about how "disengagement" - a failure to reach out regularly, in small ways - is a fundamental betrayal of friendship.) And she is breathtakingly condescending about what counts as Real Child Abuse, up to and including blurring the line between "what media do we let the kids consume?" and "do we give them access to adequate medical care?" I'm really very comfortable, for instance, that when I judge parents for refusing to vaccinate their children that's not about my own feelings of "scarcity" and "shame". (I realise as I'm writing this up that Brown might, of course, be using a weird definition of "judge"; I'd like to go back and check that but firstly I suspect it wasn't explicit & secondly I have yet to actually buy myself a physical copy to Refer To.)
The next tier down is stuff where I still think she's wrong, but it feels more like errors of oversight & omission, and rather less like she's mounted a soapbox to proclaim her wrongness unto the heavens. She's very keen on the central metaphor of Velveteen Rabbit, which, well, is also not something I get on with. She's not great at recognising and acknowledging and integrating the effects of systemic oppression and sick systems: she's got lines about "they're unable to escape the feeling that they are victims in situations where they're not" and "we can resist buying into and perpetuating the public stereotyping of professions that by their nature operate in realms of personal stress" that sit uncomfortably together, for me, mired as I currently am in
And then there's the annoyance arising simply from careless or inconsistent or imprecise writing, things like asserting that shame is both universal and actively taught, in a way that doesn't explore the interaction of those possibilities.
Those criticisms aside (it probably helped that I was taking notes as I went along, so I could write a furious all-caps rant about The Bullshit and then set it down), I very much did find this book useful. Some of that's theoretical framework; some of it's validation of things I'm already doing; some of it's questions to consider further; some of it's things to try. As a pretty direct consequence of reading and engaging with the book, I've managed to bridge some longstanding gaps in my understanding of myself, which definitely makes the exercise worthwhile for me.
Vulnerability is the core of all emotions. To feel is to be vulnerable. To believe vulnerability is weakness is to believe that feeling is weakness.
The background: Brown researches (human, social) connection, which has led to explorations of shame, and resilience, and scarcity, and worthiness, and vulnerability. She believes vulnerability -- healthy, sustainable vulnerability -- to be key to living what she terms Wholeheartedly; I arrived at this book in the middle of an ongoing struggle with feeling isolated and lonely and unsure of of how to address it, and this framework -- of what vulnerability is, and how it functions, and how it relates to the human condition -- feels like exactly what I need.
The fundamental argument that feeling is vulnerability and connection is predicated on vulnerability resonates with me: with the sense (that I've discussed here occasionally) that while I think I'm interesting, I don't expect others to find me interesting; with the sense that I'm Too Much; with the sense that I have to keep myself monitored, in check, controlled. Constantly working to shield others from myself is a neat inversion of much of the armour she describes, and yet when she lists examples of ways people complete the prompt "Vulnerability is..." I feel them humming through me: standing up for myself, saying no, admitting I'm afraid (where to admit is to let in), hoping the real me isn't too disappointing; to be afraid that I'm not enough. Brown highlights, gently, the ways that not enough -- scarcity -- is a default state for many of us: from a first thought on waking of "not enough sleep" to a default self-description of "not ______ enough", fear and shame and a pervasive sense of inadequacy encourage us to hunch and flinch away from our selves.
The opposite of scarcity, she says, isn't abundance, isn't "more than you could ever imagine": it's enough. Sufficiency. This is leaned on hard: where we feel uncertain or inadequate we (I) often reassure ourselves with contempt & unkindness, with judging others, with deciding that at least we're better than that, and oh but I recognise myself in this, my desperate desire to maybe win a temporary safety by at least not being "the worst". I'm ashamed, but they should be more ashamed, so I can probably keep going for now.
I'm still feeling out how boundaried vulnerability might work for me. I think I used to know how to do this, at least some; I can pinpoint at least some of the forgetting to a combination of some bad break-ups, my housing situation, and the absence of support at work circa 2015-2016.
Here is some of where I'm at, though: I am afraid of vulnerability, but (to be vulnerable is to be capable of being wounded; to be weak is to be unable to withstand attack or injury) fear is the mirror-twin of hope, and hope goes hand-in-hand with at least some forms of resilience and is a cousin to joy.
I'm already, to my surprise, doing okay at some of this. I was a little startled that much of how I (try to) apologise was offered as an example of vulnerability: to say "I see that I hurt you, and I'm sorry, and here's how I'll try to do better" is something I remember, dimly, being terrified of, but now comes as easy to me as breathing (which is to say, with intermittent discomfort and a good deal of thought); it's helpful to have the reminder that these are things I can learn, even the ones that feel daunting or impossible or unimaginable now.
There's plenty I'm thinking about in an ongoing sense (on which more posts to follow as I untangle at least some of it); the one I'm (ruefully) laughing at myself over most is, well,
"Maybe I should set aside some time each week to just feel and pay attention to my feelings, I thought. "... maybe that's some of what's GOOD ABOUT THERAPY," I thought.
related: therapy is a space in which I don't worry about having to "earn" the "right" to be vulnerable, because that's what I'm paying for.