Ted Talks Summary No. 6

Brene Brown
          The Power Of Vulnerability


Brene Brown talks about her research and her ongoing goal to understand human emotions

Brene Brown is a research professor at the University of Houston and has spent the last ten years breaking down vulnerability.

In this talk, she talks about how as humans, we seek to find a belonging in our lives, and in doing so need to break down the concept of vulnerability, and courage to accept that "we are enough". The question is, why do we struggle with vulnerability, and how can we overcome it? the answer lies within ourselves if we have the courage to see it, we try to make ourselves noticed, otherwise we feel vulnerable. And then the bad thoughts start pouring in, i'm not good enough, i'm weird etc. But in the process of trying to become visible we instead become who we currently are, and not who we should be, and that sense of vulnerability comes back, but in a different form. So it seems that the way to overcome vulnerability is to be at peace with our emotions, to let our self know, we are enough, and then the vulnerability will start to fade and that sense of belonging will return, but without the self guilt trip to follow.

I went into this ted talk hoping to find something that could help me. I thought I would sound vulnerable to say this, but who really cares, I am who I am. This has always been a touchy subject for me, because not that you care about my personal life, but I struggle, and when I say struggle, I really mean I struggle. With the fact that, i put myself down all the time, and i hate myself for it, so it's just myself and my conscience always in a constant fight. And i hoped I could get out of this; something to help me fight that feeling of "I am not good enough".

And as it turns out it has helped, I think it helped A lot. Although the next day i felt really good about myself, it does take some getting used to, a lot of getting used to. So it will have to become a thing that I need to rehearse more, but I am always open to concepts that aren't total bullshit, that make me a more understood person, to myself, but I got a lot out of this, more than I've got from a talk yet.

My favorite line of this was: when we feel vulnerable, we feel sad, and to cope with sadness we get say, a beer and a banana nut muffin, and try to put all these harsh hate we have for ourselves on ice. but in doing so we numb happiness itself. So when we can no longer feel happy we feel now very sad, so what do we do? we spring for a beer and a banana nut muffin, and its a vicious downward cycle.