"Shame hates having words wrapped around it. If we speak shame, it begins to wither."
I think this book had a big impact on my life before
"Shame hates having words wrapped around it. If we speak shame, it begins to wither."
I think this book had a big impact on my life before I even read it. My sister read it a while ago and has talked to me a lot about it, and many people I look up to seem to have mindsets based around principles in line with those laid out in this book. For example, the concept of "being vulnerable" and that being a positive thing that stimulates connection and personal growth is one I think is quite widespread, at least with the people I interact with. So my reading experience wasn't quite the series of epiphanies and eye-openers towards a new outlook on life I know many other people had.
In addition, Brown's writing style didn't quite live up to my expectations. It was engaging enough and eloquent enough but it didn't blow me away and have me dying to read more. I appreciated her occasional raw insights into her own experiences of daring greatly (the angry email story was priceless), but I never really felt I got to know her fully. Perhaps the balance between professional scientific study report and memoir/self-development book wasn't defined enough for me. I also found the second half to be not nearly as insightful or substantial as the first. It seems the basic concepts were laid out at the beginning and the second half merely served to apply these to specific areas of our lives (e.g. relationships, the workplace), meaning it felt more like reiterations of the same information than additional points to be made. That being said, I loved the parenting chapter at the end of the book and thought it concisely and validly put forward some basic - but integral - thinking points around that subject. I'm sure different parts of the book will resonate with or interest different people at different times, and overall the structure of the book was perfectly readable and certainly not awful.
The part of this book that had the biggest impact on me was the discussion about men and vulnerability. It actually sent me into a slight existential crisis and I got pretty distressed about, as Brown put it, suddenly feeling like I was the patriarchy. I realised I do treat men differently to women for no other reason than their gender, and in a way that reinforces stereotypes and hinders equality and connection. I realised I'd never really thought about how it feels to be a man (and more specifically a straight white man) and to essentially be blamed for all of society's problems. If nothing else, this book has given me a lot more empathy for everyone's varied experiences of social expectations, rewritten how I relate to the word feminist and motivated me to work hard on shifting from a place of shaming and fear to a place of courage, love and compassion in relation to the men I encounter in my life.
This book wasn't quite the shining beacon of all knowledge I'd heard it was, but it was undoubtedly a worthwhile read which made me think about how I live and interact with the world. There were many small facts and anecdotes which really struck a cord with me, and I'd like to end this review with some of those gems...
"A man in his early sixties told me, 'I used to think the best way to go through life was to expect the worst. That way, if it happened, you were prepared, and if it didn't happen, you were pleasantly surprised. Then I was in a car accident and my wife was killed. Needless to say, expecting the worst didn't prepare me at all. And worse, I still grieve for all of those wonderful moments we shared and that I didn't fully enjoy. My commitment to her is to fully enjoy every moment now. I just wish she was here, now that I know how to do that."
"When we bury the story we forever stay the subject of the story. If we own the story we get to narrate the ending."
"When it comes to parenting, the practise of framing mothers and fathers as good or bad is both rampant and corrosive - it turns parenting into a shame minefield. The real questions for parents should be: 'Are you engaged? Are you paying attention?' If so, plan to make lots of mistakes and bad decisions. Imperfect parenting moments turn into gifts as our children watch us try to figure out what went wrong and how we can do better next time. The mandate is not to be perfect and raise happy children. Perfection doesn't exist, and I've found that what makes children happy doesn't always prepare them to be courageous, engaged adults."
"We live in a world where most people still subscribe to the belief that shame is a good tool for keeping people in line. Not only is this wrong, but it's dangerous. Shame is highly correlated with addiction, violence, aggression, depression, eating disorders and bullying. Researchers don't find shame correlated with positive outcomes at all - there is no data to support that shame is a good compass for good behaviour. In fact, shame is more likely to be the cause of hurtful and destructive behaviours than it is to be the solution."
"[Shame resilience is] the ability to practise authenticity when we experience shame, to move through the experience without sacrificing our values, and to come out on the other side of the shame experience with more courage, compassion and connection than we had going into it. Shame resilience is about moving from shame to empathy - the real antidote to shame."
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