Tag Archives: Dr. Brene Brown

Doing or Saying One Thing A Day That Scares You

With all the writing in the popular press about the New Year and setting resolutions, intentions, or defining goals  I couldn’t help stopping to reflect on how I treat the start of the new year.  I do use it a time of reflection – to stop and look back over the past year and to launch a few intentions, dreams and desires for 2014.  The reality is I do this type of reflecting regularly.  It’s about living my life on purpose.  I stop and ask myself what it means for me in this moment to be “on purpose”.  The New Year is a spark to step into that reflection.

Because I’m reflecting regularly, the outcome is often to renew or reshape some intention I have expressed before.  For example one intention I keep coming back to is Do One Thing a Day That Scares Me.  Here’s why…

That intention has inspired me to be vulnerable.  To speak my truth.  To express my gifts.  To let people know they matter to me.  In summary – to take risks that come from revealing an inner part of myself.  It has indeed been scary.  And wonderful!

When I set that intention at the beginning of 2011 part of me had ideas like bungee jumping and other physical activities in mind.  I had begun reading the work of Brené Brown on vulnerability and shame and I had been studying Non-Violent Communication for a few years, endeavouring to put it into practice.  I came to realize what I had to say and how I reached out for connection – that I reached out for connection period! – were some of the scariest things I could ever do.  Do one thing a day that scares me and Say one thing a day that scares me became interchangeable.

It meant noticing when I hesitated to make a phone call to a potential client, reminding myself of my intention, and then going for it even though I was scared.  It meant submitting proposals for workshops and risking the rejection.  It meant telling the people I love that I love them.  It meant having conversations with a friend with cancer when I was anxious about saying the “wrong” thing.   In all of these cases it could have been easier, less anxious, indeed less scary to just not do anything.

So why did I do them?  Because I had set an intention?  Is that what motivated me?  I set my intention because I was curious about discovering what holds me back in my life.  As I stepped further into that exploration, I discovered that a rather persistent voice was present.  It was so persistent is was almost like white noise.  I didn’t realize it was always there, the default station playing on my inner radio.  And its public service or should I say dis-service message was “I am not enough.”

It is the voice of shame.  It is the voice that can have me feeling “less than”. It is the voice that believes I won’t find connection, that I won’t be liked, that I won’t belong because of some aspect of self.  Powerfully un-empowering stuff!

And so what did I do with this discovery?  In Catherine world I read books on the subject and I take workshops.  And I talk to my “digestors” – a small group of people with whom I feel a sense of safety and being held.  (More on this group in a future post and why you might want to consider having such a group too.)  My curiosity drives my learning and growth. My digestors give me the space to express what is percolating for me in that learning and growth process.  They listen.  They provide empathy.  And when asked, they offer ideas, possibilities, advice, solutions.   Through all of that I integrate.  I endeavour to be gentle with myself.  I move forward.

I’ve learned a great deal about shame and vulnerability in these last few years.  Whatever I learn about myself becomes part of the work that I offer to the world.  It is why I love being a Life Coach.  I get to keep working on me (which even with its trials and tribulations I have a thirst to do) and then share that learning with my clients.

I hope you are seeing the value in stopping to reflect and launching your intentions, dreams, and desires.  They can be an amazing catalyst for what comes next in your life.  So I invite you to reflect on what it means to be “on purpose” in your own life.  And why not consider doing one thing a day that scares you in the coming months?  Wonder where it might take you…

To facilitate your journey I have a few offerings coming up that might be of interest:

1) Four consecutive Monday evenings – a program on vulnerability and shame for men through Manology beginning on January 13th, 2014.  We look at that voice of “I am not enough” and how to strengthen the voice of “I am enough.”  We’ll walk the bridge of shame resilience.

2) A one day workshop entitled “Life is One Big Improv” on March 8, 2014.  This will be an interactive workshop that will blend theory with practice.  We’ll explore shame and vulnerability concepts and then use a variety activities including improvisational theatre techniques as a way to try that learning on.  An opportunity to discover where you hold yourself back – an opportunity to do one thing (or two) that scares you!  A day to celebrate being enough.

More details can be found on my Schedule page.

Warmly and purposefully,

Catherine

 

 

Shame on ME

I’ve been reading a great deal about shame recently – books by each of Brené Brown and John Bradshaw for example.  I also recently attended a workshop by Sarah Peyton on the purpose of shame and the power of empathy with some Interpersonal Neurobiology  (IPNB) in the mix to bring it all together.  Through this learning and self-reflection I’ve discovered how strong a hold shame has had on me.

My default place to go when something feels amiss is to believe I am somehow at fault, somehow less than, somehow not worthy.  Notice that it is always about me.  Never about the circumstances, or something or someone external to myself.  I make me the problem.  And not even a behaviour, something I’ve done for example, but rather me, the whole me, the essence of me.

The invitation to me now is to speak my shame – to be vulnerable – to seek empathy from others, and to offer it to my Self.  In the words of Bradshaw I am “externalizing” my shame.  Brown would consider me to be building and exercising my shame resilience.  In either instance the goal is not to rid oneself of shame (impossible by the way), rather I like to think of it as loosening the hook shame has into my sense of Self.

Shame unto itself is a very human experience and that’s why on some level it is a good thing that in part serves to keep us safe and humble and why we can’t be rid of it. (Unless you’ve figured out a way to be something other than human!)  Yet when “less than” becomes a defining part of our identity – my identity – then it is time to regroup!  At least that’s where I am at.  I can see now that shame holds me back in my life and I’d like to be able to play bigger.  With awareness comes choice!

Let’s see what choices I can make going forward.  I’ll share my shame and some new choices here in my blog.