“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 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 and comes up short again and again, because there is no effort without error or shortcoming, but who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions, who spends himself for 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 he fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who knew neither victory nor defeat.”
-Theodore Roosevelt
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I want to write a recap of the book as a whole rather than the chapter by chapter way I've been doing it in my daily posts.
I think my biggest takeaway from this book is that shame is different than guilt. As I was reading through this book, I realized what was responsible for my depression earlier this year. It was shame. And whether it was misplaced or not (there is a difference between shame and guilt which I'll mention shortly), rather than facing it head-on, I had been trying to use shields to protect myself from it. My biggest, heaviest shield was a method called numbing. I stayed 'crazy busy' in order to not face those thoughts in my head. If I never stopped to breathe, I would never have to face those thoughts. It 'worked' for a bit, but I couldn't keep that pace forever. When I finally did talk about those thoughts, that's when I found out about the difference (and Brené Brown reinforces that difference in this book/lays it out in clear terms). The difference is 'I am bad' (shame), and 'I did something bad' (guilt). Doing something bad doesn't make someone a bad person. But for months I was struggling with that question. Am I a bad person? It's really a catch 22 that shame, the thing no one like to talk about, is most powerful when you don't talk about it. If you can summon the activation energy to talk about it, it loses most of its power right then and there.
Daring Greatly means putting yourself out there - 'Entering the arena' as Brown puts it. To dare greatly, you need to be able to do a number of things.
You need to be able to take off your armor and engage for one. I think of this like the scene in the Dark Knight Rises when Bruce Wayne is trying to jump out of the pit. When he has the safety of the rope in the back of his mind, he cannot make the jump. The rope is the armor he's using to protect himself, and he figuratively weighs too much. When he decides to jump without the rope, taking off the armor, he makes the jump. He is able to dare greatly.
Another thing you need to be able to do is be resilient to shame. Shame is omni-present in our culture and comes from all directions. A few tools for shame resilience are not tying your self-worth to external achievements, telling yourself that you are enough, and learning to love the cracks and imperfections about yourself.
Shame can take many different forms and manifests differently for each gender. The key shame triggers for women are their looks and their motherhood. The key shame triggers for men are being weak and providing for their family if I remember correctly. Being weak is the one that stuck out the most to me.
I am so grateful to my father for the qualities he has instilled in me. He irritates me sometimes with the neverending parenting for sure. But without him, I fear my step-father's influence may have been detrimental, and I would not have been able to avoid the pitfalls of most men in our society. Dad really instilled in Eric and me the fact that we could be vulnerable. That we could be emotional. That there was nothing wrong with 'being weak'. And although my family may argue that I still 'bottle up' my emotions a lot, I believe I am lightyears ahead of most men thanks to this. I have no problem showing weakness to those I trust and am close to.
Whether it be in the workplace, school, friendships, relationships etc. Everyone can relate to the idea of 'protecting themselves' from something negative. I think back to middle school and remember thinking before the roster came out for the 7th grade basketball team, if I don't make it, then the coaches are dumb. I was protecting myself from a potential negative outcome by blaming others. Blaming and criticizing others is a form of armor. Granted I made the team, but had I not, I would have had truly only myself to blame as I was weighing myself down.
I can think of other instances when I tried to protect myself, but I think I have largely done a good job of putting myself out there in my life. Being vulnerable, and experiencing joy, love, and happiness.
BRENE BROWN’S 10 GUIDEPOSTS FOR WHOLEHEARTED LIVING
1. Cultivating Authenticity: Letting Go of What People Think
2. Cultivating Self-Compassion: Letting Go of Perfectionism
3. Cultivating a Resilient Spirit: Letting Go of Numbing and Powerlessness
4. Cultivating Gratitude and Joy: Letting Go of Scarcity and Fear of the Dark
5. Cultivating Intuition and Trusting Faith: Letting Go of the Need for
Certainty
6. Cultivating Creativity: Letting Go of Comparison
7. Cultivating Play and Rest: Letting Go of Exhaustion as a Status Symbol and
Productivity as Self-Worth
8. Cultivating Calm and Stillness: Letting Go of Anxiety as a Lifestyle
9. Cultivating Meaningful Work: Letting Go of Self-Doubt and “Supposed To”
10. Cultivating Laughter, Song, and Dance: Letting Go of Being Cool and “Always in Control”
TLDR - Read this book! It's fantastic!
ARC
