Can vulnerability change your life?

Highlights from Daring Greatly: How the Courage to be Vulnerable Transforms the Way We Live, Love, Parent, and Lead

“It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.”

Theodore Roosevelt

Bestselling author Brené Brown begins Daring Greatly with “what it means to dare greatly,” followed by the Theodore Roosevelt quote above. The book centers around this quote.

She writes, “The first time I read this quote, I thought, This is vulnerability. Everything I’ve learned from over a decade of research on vulnerability has taught me this exact lesion. Vulnerability is not knowing victory or defeat, it’s understanding the necessity of both; it’s engaging. It’s being all in.”

A recovering perfectionist’s read of a book on imperfection

She dedicates the remainder of the book to explaining her years of research on scarcity, vulnerability, and shame. She details how our culture of “never enough” creates a feeling of scarcity and she debunks vulnerability myths. She explains how we can understand and combat shame, how and why we put up walls to fight off vulnerability, and how we can counter disengagement.

I loved this book, so I’d go through every moment of my reading experience with you if I could, but I don’t want to spoil it, so instead, I’ll share some of my personal highlights from the book.

“Debunking the Vulnerability Myths”: What we tell ourselves when we’re afraid of being vulnerable

As a person who prides myself on being described as “tough as nails” by a friend a few months ago, one of my favorite chapters of the book was chapter 2, “Debunking the Vulnerability Myths.” The myths Dr. Brown outlines are:

Myth 1: “Vulnerability is weakness.”

Myth 2: “I don’t do vulnerability.”

Myth 3: “Vulnerability is letting it all hang out.”

Myth 4: “We can go it alone.”

She smashed through these myths with psychology and social psychology research, showing how only by embracing vulnerability and “letting ourselves be seen” are we able to build trust, connection, and a personal sense of freedom.

My favorite quote from one of her research participants when asked what vulnerability feels like is, “the terrifying point on a roller coaster when you’re about to tip over the edge and take the plunge.” I don’t know if you felt that feeling in your gut when you read that, but I sure did.

“The Vulnerability Armory”: The fronts we use to avoid that roller coaster feeling

In chapter 4, “The Vulnerability Armory,” Dr. Brown outlines thoughts, behaviors, and emotions we learned as children to “protect ourselves from vulnerability, from being hurt, diminished, and disappointed.”

 I loved this chapter, but it also hurt—I could see myself in almost all of the “vulnerability shields” she describes. The common shields are:

Foreboding joy

We foreboding joy when we’re feeling joyful and we think to ourselves, “too good to be true. What’s the catch?” We push away the vulnerability that comes with joy. Dr. Brown’s interviewees said they were at their most vulnerable when they were so filled with joy they could hardly bear to lose what was bringing about the joy, whether it be their children, their spouse, or their job.

As a way to “dare greatly” in the face of foreboding joy, Dr. Brown suggests developing a practice of gratitude. She best describes this with a story about her then six-year-old daughter, who while paddle-boating together on a sunny afternoon tilted her head back, eyes closed, and told her mother she was “making a picture memory.” She described a picture memory as “a picture I take in my mind when I’m really, really happy. I close my eyes and take a picture, so when I’m felling sad or scared or lonely, I can look at my picture memories.”

Perfectionism

We all know what perfectionism looks like, and I am definitely guilty of it. Dr. Brown says it’s fueled by the thought, “If I look perfect and do everything perfectly, I can avoid or minimize the painful feels of shame, judgement, and blame.”

She says we can dare greatly when encountering perfectionism by “appreciating the beauty of cracks.” We must make the difficult shift from “what will they think?” to “I am enough.” To punctuate her point, she quotes Leonard Cohen’s song “Anthem:” “There’s a crack in everything. That’s how the light gets in.”

Numbing

Dr. Brown explains that one of the most universal numbing strategies is what she calls “crazy-busy.” She writes, “We are a culture of people who’ve bought into the idea that if we stay busy enough, the truth of our lives won’t catch up to us.”

According to her research, we numb because of anxiety, shame, and disconnection. She shares her story of drinking and smoking because she needed something to do with her hands at the party. To those of us with our smartphones in our hands, sound familiar? I know I’m just as guilty as the next millennial.

She divided her interviewees into two camps: those who handle anxiety by looking for ways to “manage and soothe the anxiety” and those who handle it by “changing the behaviors that led to anxiety.” The first group wanted help “living like this,” while the second wanted to know how to “stop living like this.” As you probably guessed, the first group struggled more with numbing.

To “dare greatly” when it comes to numbing, Dr. Brown suggests setting boundaries to lower your anxiety, like not working after 6pm, spending time to cultivate a true sense of connection and belonging with friends and family, and doing a gut check to ensure your choices are “comforting and nourishing” your spirit, which she described as the difference between indulging in dessert after dinner out and scarfing down an entire carton of ice cream in your dark kitchen at midnight.

My recommendation: Don’t leave Daring Greatly off your reading list

I took a lot away from Daring Greatly and the highlights I’ve outlined above are truly that—just a few highlights from an overwhelmingly educational book. If you saw yourself in any of the vulnerability myths or shields mentioned above, which I know I sure did, I’d highly recommend you check out Daring Greatly: How the Courage to be Vulnerable Transforms the Way We Live, Love, Parent, and Lead to learn from Dr. Brown’s decades of research on how we can embrace vulnerability to live our truest lives.

(Note: The Amazon link in this article is an affiliate link and I’ll receive a small commission if you chose to buy the book. You will not pay more through this link and it does not impact my honest recommendation. If you’d like to explore vulnerability in a free and environmentally friendly way, consider checking Daring Greatly out from your local library, which is how I read the book!)