My take on the book – Daring Greatly by Brené Brown

The name Brené Brown was introduced in my life by my therapist and I am eternally grateful to her, for a lot of other things as well but the fact that she shared that reading Daring Greatly changed her life and her approach towards her clients as a therapist. She is 27!

I had never heard about this book before either but I trust my therapist’s words (what other option do I have? ).
I was recommended a documentary on Netflix named Brené Brown a few days later ( thank you Social dilemma ) and I started watching that 1-hour 30-minute masterpiece and ended up making notes when I was done wiping off my tears and yelling ‘YES! That sounds like me ‘ to almost everything Brené shared.

I immediately watched almost all of her videos on YouTube (rewatched some with Oprah multiple times) and ordered myself this book from Amazon. I procrastinated reading it because even though I could relate to the vulnerability TEDx talks that Brené does,I was scared. I was afraid to read the book and get the answers to my question. I was afraid because vulnerability is hard to even admit to, imagine what it would be like to read about it in detail by a shameful researcher.

I am glad that I got the courage (my therapist helped) and started reading the book. I have never used so many stick-on notes in a book before this. Everything Brené talks about feels like a note to yourself that you want to remember for a lifetime. The book is titled Daring Greatly: How courage to be vulnerable transforms the way we live, love, Parent, and Lead. The title is inspired by Theodore Roosevelt’s speech that changed Brown’s life and there could not be a better title than this and it does full justice to the contents of the book. Her take on building connections, how Connections are why we are here and that is what gives purpose and meaning to our lives brought a visceral reaction in me and some tears as well .

The book speaks about connections, scarcity, shame, worthiness, guilt, love, loss, grief, joy, failure, and everything that one might feel Vulnerable about. Being a shame researcher herself, she talks about the things that make her feel all of these emotions and how perfectionism is not attainable even after years of working in her field, only making her more human and hence relatable. She shares her research in the book that made me raise my eyebrows a couple of times because I couldn’t believe that the one thing I have always thought to be uncool, lame, weird even was the birthplace of joy, connections, and love that is – vulnerability, and shame resilience is the key to embrace vulnerability.
If you are wondering whether the book gives you bullet points to live wholeheartedly, then NO! It does not! But, it does give you a map. The sense of worthiness comes from within and the people who live wholeheartedly believe that they are worthy of love and connection. That’s it. That is the map. The book shows us the mirror we want to see but are too afraid to acknowledge. The parts where she talks about shame being different with men and women while sharing some of her experiences with men and vulnerability touched me deeply. This book brings out empathy in you and that makes you let go of judgment and grudges.

The part where Brown talks about parenting and sharing her own anecdotes brought a smile to my face and I went back to my own school going days and how it was hard and how much of that has stayed with me till today. She says ‘ Childhood experiences of shame change who we are, how we think about ourselves and our self-worth. Most of us remember shaming events from childhood that felt defining. But more than likely we remember them because we did not process those experiences with parents who were open to talking about shame and committed to helping us cultivate shame resilience.’ So Yes, we are not defined by the experiences we have, it’s how we process those emotions that make us who we want to be. There are brilliant insights about every relationship in the book and most importantly the one we have is our own self- our self-worth.

This book has definitely changed me on a deeper level, it has changed what kind of a friend I will be, how I will love, parent, lead, teach, serve, talk to myself and I shall do it all Daring Greatly. One must remember as she says “ Courage starts with showing up and letting ourselves be seen”.

It is one of the books I might re-read every other month to feel the raw emotions it awakened.
Get your hands on this book NOW! And if you are a bit skeptical, go watch her TEDx talk and I am sure Brené Brown will make you feel at home.

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