Instead of being "here's what to do". She says "yes, this sucks".
She likes the "play of the day", but she doesn't often make the okay of the day.
How did you navigate where to draw lines and boundaries when you became a public figure?
She's still working on it
But grateful it didn't happen to her when she was younger.
A working theory from her friend -" anyone that's trying primarily to be famous, doesn't generally have anything interesting to say".
She's too self conscious to be a public person, so she didn't wanna be famous.
She doesn't think it's her work, but it's her as a vessel for her work that resonates with people.
It's her ordinary-Ness that makes her relatable.
Tim:
In displaying of her fully imperfect self is extra ordinary.
Whereas people like LeBron, there's no room for people to aspire to emulate that, cos it's so out of reach.
But when she discusses her struggle, people relate.
She gets to do extraordinary things, but she's ordinary.
Like all of us
This world is tough, because we shame and diminish ordinary.
We chase the extraordinary, instead of being grateful for ordinary moments.
Until hardship strikes.
In the face of hard stuff (illness, death, loss) - we beg for the ordinary moments.
Example of her photoshoot for a magazine.
"I earned every single one of these f-ing wrinkles and stretch marks"
That ordinariness can almost be repulsive to people that haven't learnt to love it in them selves.
These things are normally relegated to our "secret shame lives"
People tend to believe that they need to divorce themselves from these parts of them selves.
Where is the line between embracing ourselves and striving for excellence?
Embracing your imperfections isn't giving up.
Tim:
How can you be self accepting without becoming complacent?
How can you be high achieving without being self abusing?
He had trouble figuring out where the line is
Book - already free
These 2 do not mesh, but you can make room for and use both.
So the question should be "how can I make room for both striving and self acceptance?"
He schedules blocks of time for both and practices for both.
He uses the five minute journal:
3 bullets, what are you grateful for
3 bullets for what made today great.
These are generally small things. Tries to include at least 1 small thing, so that he doesn't become focused on the extaordinary things.
It's about putting things for self acceptance in the calendar to make sure you make time for it.
Brené:
I will determine the line, you will not determine it for me.
If I'm not eating, working out and sleeping in a way that makes sense for me, I'm not satisfied.
It doesn't matter what you think/say
Western psychotherapy - the developmental view
Look back at the outdated strategies that are patterns in your life that are no longer applicable/being overused.
Take steps to improve or change your behaviors.
On the Buddhist/awareness side - fruitional view
Effectively becoming and cultivating the ability to become OK with whatever is.
There are different types of self acceptance.
Tim spent most of his life hating himself - so there was a lot do self loathing driving performance.
He viewed self acceptance as complacency.
He's realized there is complacent self acceptance
Everything I'm doing is just fine, but I don't need to change anything.
Self acceptance could be used to excuse complacency.
There is a self acceptance that says "I'm anxious and afraid and angry etc. Because some things are happening in his life" and he can
accept all those as true,
For some of them could resolve to take steps to improve on them
There's a self acceptance that is:
Macro - I don't need to change anything
And a self acceptance that is:
Just truthfully accepting what your experiencing at the moment.
You can be forgiving of whatever you're experiencing, while putting in place steps to improve whatever you're trying to improve.
It's possible to do both
You can't truly change for the better in a lasting, meaningful way, unless it's driven by self acceptance.
If your divorcing/hate parts of yourself, then you're gonna carry that unproductive and self defeating tension within you, even if someone is incentivizing you to change your external behavior.
What you resist, persists.
If you carry self loathing (even partially) with you, it's a loss.
Brené has never come across a complacent person that is driven by self acceptance.
Self accepted complacency doesn't exist to her.
Naricissm:
They don't love themselves.
It's the most shame-based of all personality disorders.
It's about grandiosity driven by high performance and self hatred.
The shame based fear of being ordinary.
Nothing to do with self love.
What differentiates us as a social scepies is:
The need to be seen, known and loved
And the need to see, know and love others.
Book - Tera Brock
A great sage once said there's only one real question that matters and it's what are you unwilling to feel.
What do you say to people that have put on armor and convinced themselves that there are certain emotions that are unsafe to feel.
Pandoras box is closed right now, but are you under the impression you're living outside the box or inside?
It's strange that you're inside the box and you brought me here like you want me to open it.
We're not gonna do this without walking through deep and swift water.
If it's super deep and swift, you need to work with a therapist.
We all grew up and experienced varying degrees of trauma, disappointment etc. And we armored up.
But at some point, that armor no longer serves us.
Now the weight of the armor is too heavy and it's keeping us from being seen and known by others.
This is the developmental milestone of mid life.
It's not a crisis, it's a slow brutal unraveling.
We realize that everything we thought protected us, keeps us from being the people that we want to be.
There's 2 responses to this
People decide they're not going to go through this process
They are ones that cause a lot of pain
It's much easier to offload pain than to feel pain.
Those that do?
Replace the armor with curiosity
Become curious about yourself, about the world.
Curiosity is the super power for the second half of our lives.
There's trauma for all of us, just different levels.
The trauma message is "if you take this armor off, we die"
A lot of work to undo this is with a therapist.
Book - the body keeps the score
Tim's example of his friend who had a lot of issues and wasn't sure if he was ready to deal with it.
What occurred to him was he was dealing with it
The question was:
Do you want to deal with it head on?
Or do you want to have it come oozing out of the corners, where you can't contend with it in a direct or systematic way?
"keep your shadows in front of you, they can only take you down from behind".
You either develop self awareness or these things will control you.
The process of becoming curious about your sub conscious programming can feel messy and terrifying.
But not all change needs to take 20/30 years.
With the right tools, prompts, accountability partners etc.
Tim's girlfriend helps him.
They schedule time to:
Tell the other person what they're doing well
What they think they themselves are doing well
And then ask for what they'd like more of.
You can start to spot patterns.
Then you begin to experiment with working on alternatives.
There are resources that can be helpful - it's not like running a marathon blindfolded.
It's gonna hurt - to be curious about this stuff - but the fear leading up to it is so much greater.
Hacks that have saved Brenés marriage
80/20 rule:
I'm terms of energy, patience etc.
Saying marriages should be 50/50 is bull shit. It's never that.
If one person is at 20, the other person should cover the 80.
Anytime they have less than a 100 combined, they sit down at the table and figure out a plan of kindness towards each other.
You just have a plan where you don't hurt each other.
E.g.: order out, get the housekeeper an extra day, cancel meetings with people you don't like.
There's kid focused families, parent focused families and family focused families
Brenés is a family focused family.
The family agrees what will keep the family healthy. What works for them.
The family is the system they serve
Does everyone have equal vote for decisions?
Nope.
But they talk to their kids about everything - are very open.
Parents have veto power - but they don't over use it.
Theory on parenting - the best you can do is
A loving course from compliance to commitment.
Kids need to do what you're asking out of compliance (don't run into the street, don't watch that kind of TV).
If all you teach is compliance, without explaining the no's, they'll just go do it at someone else's house.
But if you say yes every time you can and explain the no's, the kids will develop a commitment to the family values.
She told her daughter - I'm not paying for your college, if you already know what you wanna be
You need to explore - take whatever class that's interesting to you.
Learn who you are.
Cos she's seen so many smart people that got on the engineer, lawyer, doctor path and were depressed.
Is knowing what you don't wanna do more important than knowing what you do wanna do?
Yes!
You'll save the years of hating your job.
Everyone that's done at least 1 service job is a better human being.
5 things Brené has changed her mind about on the last few years:
Further faster was her motto
How do you get further faster
She self funded learning platforms and ways to scale the business, as she didn't wanna do what investors wanted.
She's realized she's a slower closer type of person.
Sobriety is a superpower
She's only missed drinking a few times in the 23 years she's been sober.
Only when she's been super anxious
She's an abstainer , not a moderator.
Big book - alcoholics anonymous book
One of the promises of sobriety is, if you stay in for spiritual condition and do your work, the gift of netruality.
You're no longer running toward or away from the booze
She would attribute the success of her marriage, raising her family etc. To her sobriety.
When shit gets hard, she stays in it.
Don't try to dull or numb yourself.
She changed her mind about getting bangs in her hair.
She used to have a mantra of If you can't do it a 100%,dont bother
Even if you can't do it perfectly, do it
Perfectionism is the biggest procrastination tool.
Changed her mind about sleep - super important.
Changed her mind on functional medicine.
5 absurd, stupid things she's into
She's got some unprocessed problem with the British.
She only watches movie trailers on movie night.
Whole emotional rush and narrative without the commitment.
Super competitive and bad trash talker.
Obsessed with Rick beyoto videos on YouTube.
Watched a lot of British crime procedurals
Gogglebox - watch people watch TV.
TikTok
2 big things she's excited about for 2020
Taking a visiting professorship at Uni Texas.
Bringing "dare to lead" to them.
Podcast is starting - called "unlocking us"
Excited about less travelling cos of this.
Cos travel will eat you up.
Tim likes the energetic conservation of having a nice routine
"Routine will set you free"
Excited about new work thing
30% is leading team
70% is creative time
She'll use it to work on new research.
Hard research on human experience.
Working on a new book, writing more, podcast prep time