Reddit reviews The Power of Vulnerability: Teachings of Authenticity, Connection, and Courage

Well-put! I also think we can be more guarded. Brene Brown’s work on vulnerability and whole-heartedness has helped me work on this.

She says trying to conform to what we think other people want (e.g., striving to show how stable you are) leads to shame and unhappiness.

She says wholehearted people aim to share their authentic selves with people who have shown them that they are worthy of this.

She talks about this in her audiobook The Power of Vulnerability: Teachings of Authenticity, Connection, and Courage.

If you think you might be too picky when it comes to guys, check out this vid from Dan Savage on the price of admission and see if it resonates. The basic idea is that it’s good to cut a significant other some slack for small things if things that are of greater significance to you are good. He gives examples.

Edit: typo

It’s okay to feel overwhelmed. It’s perfectly understandable after enduring abuse and neglect.

I’d like to share some information that really helped me, that may give you a fresh perspective. If it doesn’t resonate with you, feel free to disregard it.

Communication is like any other skill. We can improve our skill set through learning and practice. We have the amazing neuroplasticity of our brains on our side here! (neurons that fire together, wire together). When learning any new skill we move through four stages as we build new neural pathways;

1. unconscious incompetence
   (we don’t know what we don’t know)
   
   
2. conscious incompetence
   (we acknowledge that we have a lack of experience, knowledge, and understanding)
   
   
3. conscious competence
   (we have to actively think about and mindfully practice our new skill; over and over again, learning from each experiment and iteration)
   
   
4. unconscious competence
   (we no longer have to think about using our new skill, it becomes effortless to perform)
   
   Like riding a bike, or driving a car. You had to move through all the steps until you get to the level where you don’t have to think about it anymore. You just get in and drive.
   
   You are past step one already! You know what you don’t know. To get to step 3, you’ll need some knowledge and tools. Here are a few that I studied, learned from, and started using in my step 3 practice:
   
   

• The 5 Love/Appreciation Languages and The 5 Apology Languages These tools taught me the ways in which we are different and unique from each other in how we like to be appreciated and communicated with. I will have friends take these quizzes so we can discuss them together and learn how to communicate more effectively with each other. Then we get to practice together.
  
  
• 16 Personalities This is another Quiz I like to do with friends. We share our results with each other and discuss where we feel the results are applicable to ourselves, and how they’re not. We discuss how we are alike and how we are different. I also discovered that I tend to get along very well with other folks that share my intuitive/thinking characteristics from this exercise.
  
  
• Crucial Conversations: Tools for Talking When Stakes are High This is a book I recommend to everyone. It really helped me learn and understand non-abusive communicating skills. Main takeaway: It is critically important to develop and maintain an environment of psychological safety to facilitate healthy communication. Otherwise, things will devolve into silence or violence.
  
  So, that psychologically safety thing, was a huge missing piece of my puzzle. My parents aren’t psychologically safe to be vulnerable around. So now I need to learn how to make it safe. And there are been some amazing tools I’ve consumed along the way.
  
  
• Everything from Brené Brown:
  
• The Anatomy of Trust. The BRAVING acronym is gold for practicing trustworthy and respectful relationships.
  
• Fitting-in, is the Opposite of Belonging
  
• The Power of Vulnerability book
  
• Power of Vulnerability TEDTalk
  
• Listening to Shame TEDTalk
  
• Why Your Critics Aren’t the Ones Who Count
  
• Another video on The Power of Vulnerability
  
• and there’s tons more...
  
  
• Francis Frei’s How to Build and Rebuild Trust Her trust triangle: Authenticity, Empathy, and Logic(what you say and how you say it) is gold.
  
  
• Shawm Achor’s hilarious TEDTalk: Secret to Happiness The tips on practicing gratitude are gold.
  
  
• Susan David’s heartfelt TEDTalk on The Gift and Power of Emotional Courage Her concept of emotional agility is insightful. Her frame that “emotions are data, not directives” and her journaling advice to “Write what you feel, tell the truth, write like no one is reading.” are gold. The “emotions are data, not directives” line helped me identify and manage all my emotional triggers and exiled emotions; bringing them from my unconscious mind into my conscious mind, where I could see them and then meditate on them using internal family systems until they resolved and I reconciled with myself.
  
  Armed with all this knowledge and multiple strategies, it becomes easier and easier to practice step 3 - conscious competence.
  
  Now we’re into the real deal. We have new knowledge and new strategies, time for some new experiences. This is where we have to be brave and learn to embrace what we don’t know and do it afraid, surround ourself with good people, and abandon our expectations and expect the unexpected. We get to play. And when we play, sometimes we make mistakes, accidents happen, and people get hurt. That’s okay. We use our apology skills and work on building trust again. We set, hold, and embrace boundaries to keep it psychologically safe. We practice. And eventually it will seem to come naturally to us. It just takes time, patience, and practice. You got this!

Brene Brown's "power of vulnerability" LITERALLY CHANGED MY LIFE. I know now how to connect & share with out feeling depleted or shutting down. I would also recommend her book Daring Greatly it's at your library. She has a couple TED talks & a netflix special coming out soon.

"The Life-Changing Magic of Not Giving a F*ck" by Sarah Knight is good or "The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck," by Mark Manson

I have listened to Brene Brown's 6 hr workshop, The Power of Vulnerability, a few times this year. It's truly changed my life. You can do a free 30 day trial on Audible, they give you a credit for a free book, so you can get it for free.

The Power of Vulnerability: Teachings of Authenticity, Connection, and Courage https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00D1Z9RFU/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_i_qmSFDbAQZVJQ0

It's not an end-all be-all solution, but mindfulness helps me deal with my anxiety a lot.

At its most basic, you're taking a look at your behavior (anxiety) and forcing yourself to reflect on why you feel this way. Sometimes this part of analyzing yourself will make you realize that what you're thinking isn't rational. But even then, just stopping and acknowledging that it's happening can be a big step.

Going further, once you've identified what's making you anxious, you can possibly ask yourself "is this rational?" A lot of our anxieties are reasonable situations that get blown up by our minds. You can look at a very real problem and work through it.

For example, I spend a lot of time worrying that my boss thinks I'm a bad worker and he's going to fire me and then I'll be broke and become homeless.... and so and so forth. But when I get there, I can sometimes thing "does he though?" And then I remember I received an email from him thanking me for my hard work and it kind of deflates that gremlin.

If books/guides can help you, I recommend The Power of Vulnerability by Brene Brown. She's fantastic and she made me realize a lot of simple things I never paid mind to.