Rising Strong: How the Ability to Reset Transforms . . .

May you enjoy this book summary of Rising Strong. When shame and vulnerability researcher, Brene’ Brown takes on a subject she delves into the questions, facts, data, and outcomes. She also becomes intimate with it. She takes her own reactions, takes them home, observes herself, dialogues with the locals, and participates in counselling with her esteemed therapist. Brown immerses herself in her research and then shares it with the world. Have I become a fan? You, bet!  Rising Strong: How the Ability to Reset Transforms the Way We Live, Parent, and Lead is written in Brown’s down-home, intelligent, compassionate, and personal writing and is consistent with her previous publications.

Overview

Although Brown still refers to her work as developing wholehearted living, in Rising Strong, she tackles the topic of resilience. She describes the recovery process of rising strong after a fall, disappointment, hurt, or failure. She emphasizes the importance of the stories we tell ourselves. She names the negative, self-put down stories we tell ourselves. She describes the stories we tell ourselves when we are triggered into our wounded selves.

She also focuses on the role of emotions. She helps us discover how we can develop the tolerance to feel them, sit with them, and consciously breathe into them.

Basic concepts of Rising Strong by Brene’ Brown

• We tell ourselves unhelpful, often harmful stories.
• One helpful tool is the sentence beginning, “The story I am telling myself . . .” If we begin our sentences (to ourselves and/or others) with this phrase, it will support the truth of our experience.
• Believing others do their best can help us avoid feeling resentful. That is if we do our part of making our expectations and boundaries clear.
• We need to acknowledge our feelings of discomfort, vulnerability or hurt. Otherwise, we end up expressing them in ways that cause harm to ourselves and/or others. Addictions, anger, arrogance, and perfectionism are acted out.
• There is a difference between guilt and shame. The feeling of guilt tells us that we made a mistake or had a failure. Shame tells us we are a mistake or a failure.
• We will all fall, have problems, disappoint and are disappointed. It is up to us to get up and rebound.

Brene’ Brown quotes from Rising Strong

1. “I believe the most useful knowledge about human behavior is based on people’s lived experiences.”
2. “The truth is that falling hurts. The dare is to keep being brave and feel your way back up.”
3. “Vulnerability is not winning or losing. It’s having the courage to show up and be seen when we have no control over the outcome.”
4. “This journey belongs to no one but you; however, no one successfully goes it alone . . . we must learn to depend for brief moments on fellow travelers for sanctuary, support, and an occasional willingness to walk side by side.”
5. “I was stuck in appearance and body-image fear—the most common shame trigger for women. He was afraid I would think he was weak—the most common shame trigger for men.”
6. Owning our story and loving ourselves through that process is the bravest thing we’ll ever do.
7. “Our job is not to deny the story, but to defy the ending—to rise strong, recognize our story, and rumble with the truth until we get to a place where we think, Yes. This is what happened. This is my truth. And I will choose how this story ends.”
8. “Give yourself permission to feel emotion, get curious about it, pay attention to it, and practice. . . be your most authentic self.”
9. “The most dangerous stories we make up are the narratives that diminish our inherent worthiness. We must reclaim the truth about our lovability, divinity, and creativity.”
10. “The trick to staying out of resentment is maintaining better boundaries—blaming others less and holding myself more accountable for asking for what I need and want.”
11. “Writing down experiences of heartbreak and grief have emerged as the most helpful in making clear to themselves what they were feeling so they could articulate it to others. . . need to write freely.”
12. “We can’t be brave in the world without at least one small safe space to work through our fears and falls.”
13. “When we deny our stories, they define us.
    When we run from struggle, we are never free.
    ….We are the authors of our lives.
    We write our own daring endings.”

If you decide to read Brene´ Brown’s Rising Strong, please share your findings here with us. OK?

Please check these related posts:

• Braving the Wilderness: The Quest for True Belonging and . . .by Brene’ Brown
• The Gifts of Imperfection by Brene’ Brown