My workplace recently rolled out a new perk—a premium subscription to Blinkist, a platform offering key insights from nonfiction books in bite-sized formats via 15-minute audio and text.
The first book I explored through Blinkist was “Daring Greatly” by Brené Brown. The main topic of the book is vulnerability—something I’ve been navigating lately. I highlighted several quotes I wanted to preserve:
When we’re resilient to shame, in situations where we’d normally feel shame we can instead feel the empathy of others. Since we feel shame only when we fear others’ opinions of us, we can become resilient to it by reaching out and verbalizing it. In doing so, others can then understand our fears and emotions, leading them to empathize with us, and we can then replace any feelings of shame with those of received empathy.
The following ones are great to return to as a parent:
Firstly, we must consider that children experience shame as trauma. Shameful incidents early on in children’s lives can influence not only childhood, but the rest of their lives too. Just think about times when you felt shame in your own childhood. Are they still vivid to you? On the other hand, if children don’t experience shame, they feel worthy because they are loved unconditionally and sense that they belong.
Put simply, if parents want to teach their children that they’re worthy, they must first accept their own worthiness. No child can inherit a quality from a parent that the parent does not actually possess.
These insights serve as gentle reminders of the transformative power of vulnerability and the importance of fostering an environment of love and acceptance.
How do you view vulnerability in your own life?
Denys' Harbor