Why: An April Update

I didn't have much to say about my word this month, but I remedied that in an afternoon yesterday. Kat mentioned listening to Brené Brown's The Power of Vulnerability and found it so helpful that she listened to it twice. I'm not much for what I view as self-help books, and I've always discounted Brené Brown. For some reason, I found her irritating and preachy, with simplistic claims that seemed like pop psychology to me. I've only ever listened to five minutes of one of her TED talks, so I had to ask myself why was I so against her?

A good place to start answering my own question was by downloading The Power of Vulnerability from Hoopla and listening to what Dr. Brené Brown had to say. And while I can't say I'm a complete convert, at least I'm no longer judging without any basis. I think that what I objected to most was that although she is a research professor at the University of Houston, her research seems so based on qualitative anecdotes. I think that she may be discounting the social, cultural, and economic factors that are important in so many lives, and offering easy solutions filled with jargon and buzzwords.

But while all that may still be true, I am willing to admit that she may be onto something. I have certainly felt shame and understand the feeling of not being enough. If her teachings give someone some hope, some glimmers of self-awareness, and a new way to look at things, those are not bad things. 

“No one reaches out to you for compassion or empathy so you can teach them how to behave better. They reach out to us because they believe in our capacity to know our darkness well enough to sit in the dark with them.” (We could all practice this!)

I may even listen to more of her books (she does tell good stories and she's relatively easy to listen to) and I might become a convert someday. It might not be soon, but at least I'm no longer guilty of making a snobby judgment of something I know nothing about. Asking why is a good thing and you might even learn a thing or two!