The Power of Vulnerability

I was blown away with this video because it is the essence of what we are doing in healthcare.
Bren̩ Brown is a research professor at the University of Houston Graduate College of Social Work. She has spent the past ten years studying vulnerability, courage, authenticity, and shame. She spent the first five years of her decade-long study focusing on shame and empathy, and is now using that work to explore a concept that she calls Wholeheartedness.

She poses the question: How do we learn to embrace our vulnerabilities and imperfections so that we can engage in our lives from a place of authenticity and worthiness?

Wholehearted people exhibit the following:
  • The courage to be imperfect.
  • The compassion to be kind to themselves first and then to others, because as it turns out, we can‰Ûªt practice compassion with other people if we can‰Ûªt treat ourselves kindly.
  • Connection as a result of authenticity. They were willing to let go of who they thought they should be in order to be who they were and you have to absolutely do that for connection.
They fully embraced vulnerability. What made them vulnerable made them beautiful.

Mastering Self. The first step to compassion. And the first step in what we do with organizations.