The first time I left was to meet a friend for lunch. And when I walked in, she was already at the table. I sat down, and she said, "God, you look like hell." I said, "Thanks. I feel really -- I'm not functioning." And she said, "What's going on?" And I said, "I just told 500 people that I became a researcher to avoid vulnerability. And that when being vulnerable emerged from my data, as absolutely essential to whole-hearted living, I told these 500 people that I had a breakdown. I had a slide that said 'Breakdown.' At what point did I think that was a good idea?"
And I said, "Let me ask you something." And she said, "Yeah." I said, "Do you remember when we were in college, really wild and kind of dumb?" She said, "Yeah." I said, "Remember when we'd leave a really bad message on our ex-boyfriend's answering machine? Then we'd have to break into his dorm room and then erase the tape?"
And my life did end when that happened. And maybe the hardest part about my life ending is that I learned something hard about myself, and that was that, as much as I would be frustrated about not being able to get my work out to the world, there was a part of me that was working very hard to engineer staying small, staying right under the radar. But I want to talk about what I've learned.
There's two things that I've learned in the last year. The first is: vulnerability is not weakness. And that myth is profoundly dangerous. Let me ask you honestly -- and I'll give you this warning, I'm trained as a therapist, so I can out-wait you uncomfortably -- so if you could just raise your hand that would be awesome -- how many of you honestly, when you're thinking about doing or saying something vulnerable think, "God, vulnerability is weakness." How many of you think of vulnerability and weakness synonymously? The majority of people. Now let me ask you this question: This past week at TED, how many of you, when you saw vulnerability up here, thought it was pure courage? Vulnerability is not weakness. I define vulnerability as emotional risk, exposure, uncertainty. It fuels our daily lives. And I've come to the belief -- this is my 12th year doing this research -- that vulnerability is our most accurate measurement of courage -- to be vulnerable, to let ourselves be seen, to be honest.
One of the weird things that's happened is, after the TED explosion, I got a lot of offers to speak all over the country -- everyone from schools and parent meetings to Fortune 500 companies. And so many of the calls went like this, "Dr. Brown, we loved your TED talk. We'd like you to come in and speak. We'd appreciate it if you wouldn't mention vulnerability or shame."
The second thing, in addition to really finally understanding the relationship between vulnerability and courage, the second thing I learned, is this: We have to talk about shame. And I'm going to be really honest with you. When I became a "vulnerability researcher" and that became the focus because of the TED talk -- and I'm not kidding.
So when I became Vulnerability TED, like an action figure -- Like Ninja Barbie, but I'm Vulnerability TED -- I thought, I'm going to leave that shame stuff behind, because I spent six years studying shame before I started writing and talking about vulnerability. And I thought, thank God, because shame is this horrible topic, no one wants to talk about it. It's the best way to shut people down on an airplane. "What do you do?" "I study shame." "Oh."
But in surviving this last year, I was reminded of a cardinal rule -- not a research rule, but a moral imperative from my upbringing -- "you've got to dance with the one who brung ya". And I did not learn about vulnerability and courage and creativity and innovation from studying vulnerability. I learned about these things from studying shame. And so I want to walk you in to shame. Jungian analysts call shame the swampland of the soul. And we're going to walk in. And the purpose is not to walk in and construct a home and live there. It is to put on some galoshes -- and walk through and find our way around. Here's why.
We heard the most compelling call ever to have a conversation in this country, and I think globally, around race, right? Yes? We heard that. Yes? Cannot have that conversation without shame. Because you cannot talk about race without talking about privilege. And when people start talking about privilege, they get paralyzed by shame. We heard a brilliant simple solution to not killing people in surgery, which is, have a checklist. You can't fix that problem without addressing shame, because when they teach those folks how to suture, they also teach them how to stitch their self-worth to being all-powerful. And all-powerful folks don't need checklists.
I saw the TED Fellows my first day here. And he got up and he explained how he was driven to create some technology to help test for anemia, because people were dying unnecessarily. And he said, "I saw this need. So you know what I did? I made it." And everybody just burst into applause, and they were like "Yes!" And he said, "And it didn't work.
There's a great quote that saved me this past year by Theodore Roosevelt. A lot of people refer to it as the "Man in the Arena" quote. And it goes like this: "It is not the critic who counts. It is not the man who sits and points out how the doer of deeds could have done things better and how he falls and stumbles. The credit goes to the man in the arena whose face is marred with dust and blood and sweat. But when he's in the arena, at best, he wins, and at worst, he loses, but when he fails, when he loses, he does so daring greatly."
And that's what this conference, to me, is about. Life is about daring greatly, about being in the arena. When you walk up to that arena and you put your hand on the door, and you think, "I'm going in and I'm going to try this," shame is the gremlin who says, "Uh, uh. You're not good enough. You never finished that MBA. Your wife left you. I know your dad really wasn't in Luxembourg, he was in Sing Sing. I know those things that happened to you growing up. I know you don't think that you're pretty, smart, talented or powerful enough. I know your dad never paid attention, even when you made CFO." Shame is that thing.
And if we can quiet it down and walk in and say, "I'm going to do this," we look up and the critic that we see pointing and laughing, 99 percent of the time is who? Us. Shame drives two big tapes -- "never good enough" -- and, if you can talk it out of that one, "who do you think you are?" The thing to understand about shame is, it's not guilt. Shame is a focus on self, guilt is a focus on behavior. Shame is "I am bad." Guilt is "I did something bad." How many of you, if you did something that was hurtful to me, would be willing to say, "I'm sorry. I made a mistake?" How many of you would be willing to say that? Guilt: I'm sorry. I made a mistake. Shame: I'm sorry. I am a mistake.
There's a huge difference between shame and guilt. And here's what you need to know. Shame is highly, highly correlated with addiction, depression, violence, aggression, bullying, suicide, eating disorders. And here's what you even need to know more. Guilt, inversely correlated with those things. The ability to hold something we've done or failed to do up against who we want to be is incredibly adaptive. It's uncomfortable, but it's adaptive.
The other thing you need to know about shame is it's absolutely organized by gender. If shame washes over me and washes over Chris, it's going to feel the same. Everyone sitting in here knows the warm wash of shame. We're pretty sure that the only people who don't experience shame are people who have no capacity for connection or empathy. Which means, yes, I have a little shame; no, I'm a sociopath. So I would opt for, yes, you have a little shame. Shame feels the same for men and women, but it's organized by gender.
For women, the best example I can give you is Enjoli, the commercial. "I can put the wash on the line, pack the lunches, hand out the kisses and be at work at five to nine. I can bring home the bacon, fry it up in the pan and never let you forget you're a man." For women, shame is, do it all, do it perfectly and never let them see you sweat. I don't know how much perfume that commercial sold, but I guarantee you, it moved a lot of antidepressants and anti-anxiety meds.
For men, shame is not a bunch of competing, conflicting expectations. Shame is one, do not be perceived as what? Weak. I did not interview men for the first four years of my study. It wasn't until a man looked at me after a book signing, and said, "I love what say about shame, I'm curious why you didn't mention men." And I said, "I don't study men." And he said, "That's convenient."
And I said, "Why?" And he said, "Because you say to reach out, tell our story, be vulnerable. But you see those books you just signed for my wife and my three daughters?" I said, "Yeah." "They'd rather me die on top of my white horse than watch me fall down. When we reach out and be vulnerable, we get the shit beat out of us. And don't tell me it's from the guys and the coaches and the dads. Because the women in my life are harder on me than anyone else."
So I started interviewing men and asking questions. And what I learned is this: You show me a woman who can actually sit with a man in real vulnerability and fear, I'll show you a woman who's done incredible work. You show me a man who can sit with a woman who's just had it, she can't do it all anymore, and his first response is not, "I unloaded the dishwasher!"
Shame is an epidemic in our culture. And to get out from underneath it -- to find our way back to each other, we have to understand how it affects us and how it affects the way we're parenting, the way we're working, the way we're looking at each other. Very quickly, some research by Mahalik at Boston College. He asked, what do women need to do to conform to female norms? The top answers in this country: nice, thin, modest and use all available resources for appearance.
If we're going to find our way back to each other, we have to understand and know empathy, because empathy's the antidote to shame. If you put shame in a Petri dish, it needs three things to grow exponentially: secrecy, silence and judgment. If you put the same amount in a Petri dish and douse it with empathy, it can't survive. The two most powerful words when we're in struggle: me too.
And so I'll leave you with this thought. If we're going to find our way back to each other, vulnerability is going to be that path. And I know it's seductive to stand outside the arena, because I think I did it my whole life, and think to myself, I'm going to go in there and kick some ass when I'm bulletproof and when I'm perfect. And that is seductive. But the truth is, that never happens. And even if you got as perfect as you could and as bulletproof as you could possibly muster when you got in there, that's not what we want to see. We want you to go in. We want to be with you and across from you. And we just want, for ourselves and the people we care about and the people we work with, to dare greatly.
第一次出門是去見個(gè)朋友一起吃午飯 當(dāng)我進(jìn)去的時(shí)候，她已經(jīng)在餐桌上了 然后我坐下，然后她說： “天啊，你看起來真頹” 我說：“謝謝啊，我覺得 -- 我都不能正常思考了?！?/a> 然后她說：“什么情況？” 然后我說：“我剛剛告訴了 500個(gè)人， 說我成為了一個(gè) 避免脆弱的研究者。 而當(dāng)我的數(shù)據(jù)表明 保持脆弱 是全心投入生活 所不可或缺的基礎(chǔ)時(shí) 我告訴這500個(gè)人 我崩潰了 我放了張幻燈片寫著崩潰 我是搭了哪根弦會(huì)覺得這是個(gè)好點(diǎn)子呢？” （笑聲）
然后我對(duì)自己說： “布琳，你在干什么？ 你在干嗎呢？ 你怎么會(huì)提這個(gè)？ 你昏了頭了嗎？ 你的姐妹這方面是很完美的?！?/a> 看我回過神來于是她說： “你不會(huì)是真的想撬門進(jìn)去 在他們上傳到Y(jié)ouTube之前 把視頻偷出來吧？” 我說：“我就是想了一小下” （笑聲） 她說：“你就是史上最糟糕的脆弱者的榜樣” （笑聲） 然后我看著她說了一些 當(dāng)時(shí)看有點(diǎn)戲劇性， 現(xiàn)在看更像是預(yù)言的話。 我說： 如果500變成1000 或者2000， 我就死定了 （笑聲） 我壓根就沒想過四百萬點(diǎn)擊率是什么情況
在過去的一年我學(xué)到兩件事， 第一件事， 脆弱不是弱點(diǎn)。 并且這種錯(cuò)誤理解 是非常危險(xiǎn)的。 我想誠懇的請(qǐng)問大家 -- 先給個(gè)提醒， 作為一個(gè)受過專業(yè)訓(xùn)練的治療師， 我知道你們會(huì)感覺不太自在 -- 所以你們只要舉手就很好了 -- 坦誠地講有多少人， 當(dāng)你們想到做一些脆弱的事 或說一些脆弱的話的時(shí)候， 會(huì)覺得：“天啊，脆弱就是軟弱，這就是軟弱” ？ 有多少人認(rèn)為脆弱和軟弱是一回事？ 大部分人 現(xiàn)在我們這樣來問： 在TED剛過去的這周， 有多少人，當(dāng)你們看到（我在這兒講）脆弱的時(shí)候， 認(rèn)為那是純粹的勇氣？ 脆弱不是軟弱。 我把脆弱定義為： 情感的風(fēng)險(xiǎn)、 流露，以及不確定性。 它驅(qū)動(dòng)我們的日常生活。 并且我已經(jīng)達(dá)成了這樣一種信念 -- 我已經(jīng)研究這個(gè)課題12年了 -- 那就是，脆弱 是對(duì)我們的勇氣 最精確的衡量 -- 保留脆弱，開放自我， 保持真誠。
有個(gè)奇怪的事就是 在TED這個(gè)演講轟動(dòng)之后， 我收到全國各地的很多邀請(qǐng) -- 從學(xué)校家長會(huì) 到世界500強(qiáng)的公司。 很多電話都是這樣的： “嗨，布朗博士，我們喜歡您的TED演講。 我們想邀請(qǐng)您來講一講。 但有一件事 希望您不要提到脆弱或者羞恥。“ （笑聲） 那你們想讓我講什么？ 有三個(gè)主要的答案。 這些老實(shí)講，主要是來自商業(yè)領(lǐng)域的 革新，創(chuàng)造 以及改變。 那么就讓我在這里 當(dāng)眾聲明： 脆弱是革新、 創(chuàng)造以及改變的發(fā)源地。 （掌聲） 創(chuàng)造就是要制造出 前所未有的東西。 沒有什么比這個(gè)更脆弱的了。 適應(yīng)改變的能力 全都和脆弱有關(guān)。
我給大家講個(gè)例子。 大概3個(gè)月前，當(dāng)我在一家體育用品店 買泳鏡啊護(hù)腿啊這些 父母買給孩子的東西的時(shí)候， 從大概100英尺遠(yuǎn)，我聽到一個(gè)聲音： “脆弱TED！脆弱TED！” （笑聲） 我是第五代的德州人 我們的家族格言是：“子彈上膛，準(zhǔn)備戰(zhàn)斗” 我不是天生來研究脆弱的 所以我差不多就這樣， 就一直走，她在我6點(diǎn)鐘方向。 （笑聲） 然后我聽到：“脆弱TED！” 我轉(zhuǎn)過身，說：“嗨” 她就在這兒，然后她說： “你就是那個(gè)崩潰了的羞恥的研究員” （笑聲） 這時(shí)侯 父母們都拉緊他們的孩子 “看別處” 這一刻我簡直太無語了， 我看著她脫口而出的是： “我靠，那是一次靈魂的覺醒?！?/a>
我們已經(jīng)聽到最迫切的呼吁 要在這個(gè)國家進(jìn)行一場對(duì)話 而且我想全世界都是這樣， 一場圍繞種族問題的對(duì)話，是吧？ 對(duì)嗎？我們聽到了 對(duì)嗎？ 不談羞恥就不會(huì)有這場對(duì)話 因?yàn)檎劮N族不可能不談到特權(quán) 而當(dāng)人們談到特權(quán)的時(shí)候， 他們就被羞恥感所淹沒了 我們聽說了一個(gè)簡單有效的方法 來降低手術(shù)中病人的死亡率， 就是準(zhǔn)備一個(gè)事項(xiàng)清單。 不解決羞恥感就不會(huì)有這個(gè)方案， 因?yàn)楫?dāng)他們教那些人（醫(yī)生）如何縫合的時(shí)候， 他們也同時(shí)教會(huì)那些人如何編織自己的自尊 直到認(rèn)為自己是全能的。 而全能的人是不需要事項(xiàng)清單的。
而如果我們能平靜下來，走進(jìn)去 對(duì)自己說：”我要做這件事“ 我們抬起頭 看到那些指指點(diǎn)點(diǎn)嘲笑的人， 99%的時(shí)候是誰？ 是我們自己。 羞恥始終播放著這樣兩句話 -- “永遠(yuǎn)不夠好” 然后，如果你能跨過這一層， “你以為你是誰?。俊?/a> 需要理解的是羞恥不是內(nèi)疚。 羞恥專注于自身，內(nèi)疚專注于行為。 羞恥是”我很糟“ 內(nèi)疚是”我做了很糟的事“ 在座的有多少人， 如果你們做了一些傷害我的事， 會(huì)愿意說：“對(duì)不起，我犯了個(gè)錯(cuò)誤”？ 有多少人會(huì)愿意這么說？ 內(nèi)疚：對(duì)不起，我犯了個(gè)錯(cuò)誤。 羞恥：對(duì)不起，我就是個(gè)錯(cuò)誤。
對(duì)于女人， 我能想到的最好的例子就是 恩喬麗 （香水品牌） 那個(gè)廣告 我可以打著電話把衣服洗完， 打包午餐，親吻孩子的臉 工作從5點(diǎn)到9點(diǎn) 我可以帶回家培根，把它放到火上煎 永遠(yuǎn)不讓你忘了做男人的尊嚴(yán)?！?/a> 對(duì)女人，羞恥就是事無巨細(xì)， 盡善盡美 而且從來不讓別人看到你流汗。 我不知道這廣告賣了多少香水， 但我保證， 它省了不少抗抑郁藥和抗焦慮藥。 （笑聲） 羞恥，對(duì)于女人，是一張網(wǎng) 是一張由難以實(shí)現(xiàn)的、沖突的、抵觸的期望所織成的 關(guān)于理想的自己的網(wǎng)。 是一件緊身衣。
對(duì)于男人， 羞恥并不是一系列彼此沖突的期望。 羞恥是一樣?xùn)|西， 不要被認(rèn)為什么？ 弱。 我研究的開始4年中沒采訪過男人 直到有一天在圖書簽售會(huì)后，一個(gè)男人看著我說： ”我欣賞你關(guān)于羞恥感的觀點(diǎn)， 我很好奇為什么你沒提到男人。” 我說：“我不研究男人” 然后他說：“這倒真是省事啊” （笑聲） 我說：“為什么這么說？” 他說：“因?yàn)槟阏f要走出去， 講自己的經(jīng)歷， 不掩飾脆弱。 但是你看到這些你剛剛 給我妻子和三個(gè)孩子簽名的書了嗎？“ 我說：”嗯“ ”她們現(xiàn)在寧愿看著我騎著白馬英勇的死掉 也不愿看到我掉下來。 當(dāng)我們走出去展現(xiàn)脆弱的時(shí)候 我們會(huì)被亂拳打死的。 而且別跟我說 這是教練啊老爹啊這些男人這么做的， 因?yàn)槲疑械呐藗儾攀菍?duì)我最殘忍的?！?/a>
羞恥感是我們文化中的一種流行病， 為了脫離這個(gè)困境， 找到重歸彼此的路， 我們必需要理解它是如何影響我們 以及它如何影響我們教育孩子的方式， 工作的方式，看待彼此的方式。 非?？斓姆窒硪恍﹣碜圆ㄊ款D大學(xué)的馬哈立克的研究成果 他提出了一個(gè)問題：怎樣做才算是個(gè)標(biāo)準(zhǔn)的女人？ 在這個(gè)國家排前幾位的答案是： 善良，苗條，端莊 并且運(yùn)用一些資源來美化外表。 當(dāng)他問男人們， 這個(gè)國家的男人們需要怎么做 才算是個(gè)標(biāo)準(zhǔn)男人， 答案是： 永遠(yuǎn)喜怒不形于色，工作第一， 追求地位以及暴力。
所以我想把這些思考留給大家。 如果我們想找到 重歸彼此的方法。 脆弱將會(huì)是正確的路徑。 我知道站在競技場外面是很誘人的， 因?yàn)槲蚁胛乙惠呑佣荚谶@么做， 并且對(duì)自己說， 我要進(jìn)去踢某人的屁股 只要我已經(jīng)刀槍不入并且完美無瑕。 這就是種誘惑。 不過真相是這永遠(yuǎn)不會(huì)發(fā)生。 而且即使你已經(jīng)盡可能的完美了 并且把自己盡可能的裝備成刀槍不入 當(dāng)你進(jìn)去的時(shí)候， 那并不是我們想看到的。 我們希望你進(jìn)去。 我們想和你在一起和你面對(duì)面。 我們只是想要， 為我們自己和我們?cè)谝獾娜?/a> 以及和我們一起戰(zhàn)斗的人， 無所畏懼的征戰(zhàn)。
聯(lián)系客服
