Tuesdays With Brene: Why We Need to Talk About the Things That Get in the Way

Here's the bottom line:

In Jungian circles, shame is often referred to as the swampland of the soul. I'm not suggesting that we wade out into the swamp and set up camp. I've done that and I can tell you that the swampland of the soul is an important place to visit, but you would not want to live there.

What I'm proposing is that we learn how to wade through it. We need to see that standing on the shore and catastrophisizing about what could happen if we talked honestly about our fears is actually more painful than grabbing the hand of a trusted companion and crossing the swamp. And, most important, we need to learn why constantly trying to maintain our footing on the shifting shore as we gaze across to the other side of the swamp--where our worthiness waits for us--is much harder than trudging across.

"How to" is a seductive shortcut, and I understand that. Why cross the swamp if you can just bypass it?

But here's the dilemma: Why is "how-to" so alluring when, truthfully, we already know "how to" yet we're still standing in the same place longing for more joy, connection, and meaning?

Most everyone reading this book knows how to eat healthy. I can tell you the Weight Watcher points for every food in the grocery store. I can recite the South Beach Phase I grocery shopping list and the glycemic index like they're the Pledge of Allegiance. We know how to eat healthy. We also know how to make good choices with our money. We know how to take care of our emotional needs. We know all of this, yet . . .

We are the most obese, medicated, addicted, and in-debt Americans EVER.

Why? We have more access to information, more books, and more good science--why are we struggling like never before?

Because we don't talk about the things that get in the way of doing what we know is best for us, our children, our families, our organizations, and our communities.

I can know everything there is to know about eating healthy, but if it's one of those days when Ellen is struggling with a school project and Charlie's home sick from school and I'm trying to make a writing deadline and Homeland Security increased the threat level and our grass is dying and my jeans don't fit and the economy is tanking and the Internet is down and we're out of poop bags for the dog -- forget it! All I want to do is snuff out the sizzling anxiety with a pumpkin muffin, a bag of chips, and chocolate.

We don't talk about what keeps us eating until we're sick, busy beyond human scale, desperate to numb and take the edge off, and full of so much anxiety and self-doubt that we can't act on what we know is best for us. We don't talk about the hustle for worthiness that's become such a part of our lives that we don't even realize we're dancing.

When I'm having one of those days that I just described, some of the anxiety is just a part of living, but there are days when most of my anxiety grows out of the expectations I put on myself. I want Ellen's project to be amazing. I want to take care of Charlie without worrying about my own deadlines. I want to show the world how great I am at balancing my family and career. I want our yard to look beautiful. I want people to see us picking up our dog's poop in biodegradable bags and think, My God! They are such outstanding citizens. There are days when I can fight the urge to be everything to everyone, and there are days when it gets the best of me.

[As we've discussed], when we struggle to believe in our worthiness, we hustle for it. The hustle for worthiness has its own soundtrack and for those of you who are my age and older, it's not the funky "Do the Hustle" from the '70. It's the cacophony of shame tapes and gremlins -- those messages that fuel the "never good enough."

--"What will people think?"

--"You can't REALLY love yourself yet. You're not _________ enough." (pretty, skinny, successful, rich, talented, happy smart, feminine, masculine, productive, nice, strong, tough, caring, popular, creative, well-liked, admired, contributing)

--"No one can find out about _________________"

--"I'm going to pretend that everything is okay."

--"I can change to fit in if I have to!"

--"Who do you think you are to put your thoughts/art/ideas/beliefs/writing out in the world?"

--"Taking care of them is more important than taking care of me."

Shame is that warm feeling that washes over us, making us feel small, flawed, and never good enough. If we want to develop shame resilience -- the ability to recognize shame and move through it while maintaining our worthiness and authenticity -- then we have to talk about why shame happens.

Honest conversations about shame can change the way we live, love, parent, work, and build relationships. I have more than one thousand letters and e-mails from readers of I Thought It Was Just Me my book on shame resilience, and they all say the same thing: "I can't believe how much talking about shame changed my life!" (And I promise, even if you're eating while you're talking about shame, you'll be okay).

Sarah again. Now we're getting into some of the heavy stuff - shame and guilt. And Brene is right! This isn't pleasant stuff, and most of us try not to dwell too much on our shame or where it has its roots. But I just want to add the thousand-and-first recommendation of this work, because talking about shame and confronting it head-on during the past three months has really changed my life, for the better. The shame resilience work that we will get our first taste of next week has been slow and painful, but it has brought me closer to my family, peers, and to God. Without having put in (and continuing to put in) this time, I know that I wouldn't have had the strength to start up this blog. So take a chance with me! Let's take an honest look at the things that really matter most to us. It all starts by having an honest conversation with yourself... so go forth and be bravely, boldly, beautifully human.

Tuesdays With Brene... On Wednesday.

...okay, so I got behind already. But no shame and guilt here! It is what it is.

Here are yesterday's words of wisdom from Brene, on "Love and Belonging" and the difference between belonging and fitting in:

"As much as we need and want love, we don't spend much time talking about what it means. Think about it. You might say "I love you" every day, but when's the last time you had a serious conversation with someone about the meaning of love? In this way, love is the mirror image of shame. We desperately don't want to experience shame, and we're not willing to talk about it. Yet the only way to resolve shame is to talk about it. Maybe we're afraid of topics like love and shame. Most of us like safety, certainty, and clarity. Shame and love are grounded in vulnerability and tenderness.

 

"Belonging is another topic that is essential to the human experience but rarely discussed.

 

"Most of us use the terms fitting in and belonging interchangeably, and like many of you, I'm really good at fitting in. We know exactly how to hustle for approval and acceptance. We know what to wear, what to talk about, how to make people happy, what not to mention -- we know how to chameleon our way through the day.

 

"One of the biggest surprises in this research was learning that fitting in and belonging are not the same thing, and in, in fact, fitting in gets in the way of belonging. Fitting in is about assessing a situation and becoming who you need to be to be accepted. Belonging, on the other hand, doesn't require us to change who we are; it requires us to be who we are.

 

"Before I share my definitions with you, I want to point out three issues that I'm willing to call truths:

 

"Love and belonging will always be uncertain.

Even though connection and relationship are the most critical components of life, we simply cannot accurately measure them. Relational concepts don't translate into bubbled answer sheets. Relationship and connection happen in an indefinable space between people, a space that will never be fully known or understood by us. Everyone who risks explaining love and belonging is hopefully doing the best they can to answer an unanswerable question. Myself included.

 

"Love belongs with belonging.

 One of the most surprising things that unfolded in my research is the pairing of certain terms. I can't separate the concepts of love and belonging because when people spoke of one, they always talked about the other. When emotions or experiences are so tightly woven together in people's stories that they don't speak of one without the other, it's not an accidental entanglement; it's an intentional knot. Love belongs with belonging.

 

"Of this, I am actually certain. After collecting thousands of stories, I'm willing to call this a fact: A deep sense of love and belonging is an irreducible need of all women, men, and children. We are biologically, cognitively, physically, and spiritually wired to love, to be loved, and to belong. When those needs are not met, we don't function as we were meant to. We break. We fall apart. We numb. We ache. We hurt others. We get sick. There are certainly other causes of illness, numbing, and hurt, but the absence of love and belonging will always lead to suffering.

 

"It took me three years to whittle these definitions and concepts from a decade of interviews. Let's take a look.

 

"Love:

We cultivate love when we allow our most vulnerable and powerful selves to be deeply seen and known, and when we honor the spiritual connection that grows from that offering with trust, respect, kindness, and affection.

Love is not something we give or get; it is something that we nurture and grow, a connection that can only be cultivated between two people when it exists within each one of them - we can only love others as much as we love ourselves.

Shame, blame, disrespect, betrayal, and the withholding of affection damage the roots from which love grows. Love can only survive these injuries if they are acknowledged, healed, and rare.

 

"Belonging

Belonging is the innate human desire to be part of something larger than us. Because this yearning is so primal, we often try to acquire it by fitting in and by seeking approval, which are not only hollow substitutes for belonging, but often barriers to it. Because true belonging only happens when we present our authentic, imperfect selves to the world, our sense of belonging can never be greater than our level of self-acceptance.

 

"One reason that it takes me so long to develop these concepts is that I often don't want them to be true. It would be different if I studied the effect of bird poop on potting soil, but this stuff's personal and often painful. Sometimes, as I turned to the data to craft definitions like the ones above, I would cry. I didn't want my level of self-love to limit how much I can love my children or my husband. Why? Because loving them and accepting their imperfections is much easier than turning that light of loving-kindness on myself.

 

"If you look at the definition of love and think about what it means in terms of self-love, it's very specific. Practicing self-love means learning how to trust ourselves, to treat ourselves with respect, and to be kind and affectionate towards ourselves. This is a tall order given how hard most of us are on ourselves. I know I can talk to myself in ways that I would never consider talking to another person. How many of us are quick to think, God, I'm so stupid and Man, I'm such an idiot? Just like calling someone we love stupid or an idiot would be incongruent with practicing love, talking like that to ourselves takes a serious toll on our self-love.

"It's worth noting that I use the words innate and primal in the definition of belonging. I'm convinced that belonging is in our DNA, most likely connected to our most primitive survival instinct. Given how difficult it is to cultivate self-acceptance in our perfectionistic society and how our need for belonging is hardwired, it's no wonder that we spend our lives trying to fit in and gain approval.

"It's so much easier to say, "I'll be whoever or whatever you need me to be, as long as I feel like I'm part of this." From gangs to gossiping, we'll do what it takes to fit in if we believe it will meet our need for belonging. But it doesn't. We can only belong when we offer our most authentic selves and when we're embraced for who we are."

Tuesdays With Brene: Worthy Now

Alright, team. Two nights of posting in a row - woo hoo! This calls for some celebration via a spoonful of Nutella. :)

Now then... I'm sure you've heard of the book Tuesdays with Morrie (but if not it's definitely worth a read!). The book is about the relationship that the author, Mitch Albom, formed with a former college professor as his professor neared death. The book is a tale of the unique relationship and mentorship between the two of them.

I'll confess that the plot of that book has absolutely no relevance whatsoever to my relationship with Brene Brown... but because it's Tuesday, and I needed a Tuesday theme, I figured I would steal the title.

That said, though she has absolutely no idea who I am, Brene has come to mean a lot to me recently. Over the past three months I have been reading Brene's book The Gifts of Imperfection, as well as watching several of her talks on vulnerability and shame resilience as part of my CPE curriculum. I've been deeply moved by her work and have taken it to heart. This book is really what gave me the courage to start up this blog, and as difficult and painful as some of this internal work has been, I have ultimately found it to be cathartic and liberating.

This book has meant so much to me that I've decided to share some of my favorite excerpts of it with all of you! I'll also regularly post links to Brene's TED talks, because that format may work better for many of you.

Here's an excerpt from the section "Exploring the Power of Love, Belonging, and Being Enough":

Love and belonging are essential to the human experience. As I conducted my interviews, I realized that the only one thing separated the men and women who felt a deep sense of love and belonging from the people who seem to be struggling for it. That one thing is the belief in their worthiness. It's as simple and complicated as this: If we want to fully experience love and belonging, we must believe that we are worthy of love and belonging.

When we can let go of what other people think and own our story, we gain access to our worthiness - the feeling that we are enough just as we are and that we are worthy of love and belonging. When we spend a lifetime trying to distance ourselves from the parts of our lives that don't fit with who we think we're supposed to be, we stand outside of our story and hustle for our worthiness by constantly performing, perfecting, pleasing, and proving. Our sense of worthiness -- that critically important piece that gives us access to love and belonging -- lives inside of our story.

The greatest challenge for most of us is believing that we are worthy now, right this minute. Worthiness doesn't have prerequisites. So many of us have knowingly created/unknowingly allowed/been handed down a long list of worthiness prerequisites:

• I'll be worthy when I lost twenty pounds. 
• I'll be worthy when I can get pregnant. 
• I'll be worthy if I get/stay sober. 
• I'll be worthy if everyone thinks I'm a good person. 
• I'll be worthy if I can hold my marriage together. 
• I'll be worthy when I make partner. I
• I'll be worthy when my parents finally approve. 
• I'll be worthy if he calls back and asks me out. 
• I'll be worthy when I can do it all and look like I'm not even trying.

Here's what is truly at the heart of Wholeheartedness: Worthy now. Not if. Not when. We are worthy of love and belonging now. Right this minute. As is.

Goodnight, and may you rest in worthiness and love, friends.