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So i'll start with this a couple of years ago
An event planor called me
Because i was going to do a speaking event
And she called
She said i'm really struggling with how to write about you on the little flyer
And i thought well what's the struggle
And she said well i saw you speak
And i'm going to call you a researcher
I think but i'm afraid if i call your researcher
No one will come
Because they'll thank you're boring and irrelevant and so okay
And she said
But the thing i liked about your talk is you know you're storyteller
So i think what i'll is just call you a storyteller
And of course the academic insecure part of me was like you're going to call me a it
And she said i'm going to call you a storyteller
And i was like
Like why not magic taxi um like like i don't know
Let me think about this first second
And so i tried to call deep on my courage
And i thought you know i am a storyteller
I'm a quality of researcher
I collect stories that's what i do
And maybe stories are just data with a soul
You know
And maybe i'm just a storyteller
So i said
You know what why want you
You to say i'm a reararch er styyteller
And she went
And there's no such thing
So i'm a research or a styteteller
Um and i'm going to talk to you
Today we're talking about expanding perception
And so i want to talk to you
And tell some stories about a piece of my research that fundamentexpanded ed my perception um and really actually changed the way that i live in love and work and parent
And this is where my stories starts
When i was a young research or doctoral student
My first year i had a research professor
Who said to us
Here's the thing
If you cannot measure it
It does not exist
And i thought he was just sweet talking me
I was like really
And he's like absolutely
So you have to understand that i have a batchers and social work
A masters and social work
And i was getting my ph d in social work
So my entire academic career was surrounded by people who kind of believed in the life's messy
Love it
You know
And i more the the fefe's messy clean it up
Organize it and put it into a bintobox
And so to think that had found my way to found a career that takes me and a really one of the big scanes and in social work is lean into the discomfort of the work
And i'm like you know not discomfort upside the head and mooove it over
And get all ace
That's my
That was my montrea
So i was very excited about this
And so i thought you know what this is the career for me
Because i am interested in some messy topics
But i want to be able to make them not messy
I want to understand them
I want to hack into these things that i know or important and lay the code out for everyone to see
So where i started was with connection
Because by the time you are social worker for ten years
What you realize is that connection is why we're here
It's what gives purpose and meaning to our lives
This is
This is what it's all about it doesn't matter
Whether you talk to people who work in social justice and midle health and abuse in neglect
What we know is that connection
The ability to feel connected is neurobiologically
That's we're wired
It's why were here
So i thought you know what i'm going to start with connection
Well you know that
That situation
Where you get an evaluation from your boss
And she tells you thirty seven things that you do really awesome in one thing that you can't ue in an opportunity for growth
And all you can think about is that opportunity for growth right well apparently
This is the way my work went as well
Because when you ask people about love
They tell you about heartbreak
When you ask people about belonging
They'll tell you their most excruciating experiences of being excluded
And when you ask people about connection the stories they told me
We're about disconnection so very quickly
Really about six weeks into this research
I ran into this unnamed thing that absolutely unraveled connection in a way that i didn't understand or had never seen
And so i pulled back out of the research and thought i need to figure out what this is
And it turned out to be shame in
Shame is really easily understood as the fear of disconnection is there's something about me
That if other people know it or see it
That i won't be worthy of connection
The things i can tell you about it
It's universal
We all have it
The only people don't experience shame have no capacity for human empathy or connection
No one wants to talk about it
And the less you talk about it more you have it
What underpined this
Shame this i am not good enough
But we all know that feeling
I'm not blank enough
I'm not thin enough for enough
Beautiful enough
Smart enough
Promoted enough
Um the thing that underpend
This was excruruciating vulnerability
This idea of in order for connection to happen
We have to allow ourselves to be seen
Really seen
And you know how i feel about vulnerability
I hate vulnerability
And so i thought this is my chance to beat it back with my measure ing stick
I'm going in
I'm going to figure this stuff out
I'm going to spend a year
I'm in a totally deconstruct shame
I'm going to understand how vulnerability works
And i'm going to out smart it so i was ready
And i was really excited as you know as i can turn out
Well um you know this so i could tell you a lot about shame
But i had to borrow everyone else 's time
But here's what i can tell you that are boils down to
And this may be one of most importortant things that i've ever learned in the decade of doing this research my one years turned into six years thousands of stories
Hundreds of long interviews
Focus groups at one point
People were sending me journal pages and sending me their stories
Thousands of pieces of data in six years
And i kind of a got to handle on it
I kind of understood
This is what shame is this is how it works
I wrote a book
I publish a theory
But something was not okay
And what it was is that if i roughly took the people
I interviewed and divided them into people who really have a sense of worthiness
That's what this comes down to a sense of worthiness
They have a strong sense of love and belonging and folks who struggle for it
And folks who are always wondering
If they are good enough
There was only one variable that separated the people who have a strong sense of love and belonging
And the people who really struggle for it
And that was the people who have a strong sense of love and belonging
Believe they're worwory y of ve and belonging
They believe they're worthy and to me the hard part of the one thing that keeps us out of connection is our fear that we're not worthy of connection
Was something that personally and professionally i felt like i needed to understand better so what i did
Did ii tall all of the interviews
Where i saw worthiness
Where i saw people living that way
And just looked at those what do these people have in common
And i have
I have a slight office supply addiction
But it's another talk
So i had a manno a manoa folder
And i had a sharpiy
And i was like what am i going to call this research in the first words that came to my mind
Where a wholearted these are kind of whole hearted people living from this deep sense of worthiness
I wrote at totop of the middle of folder
And i started looking at the data in fact
I did it first
And this very in a four day very intensive data analysas
Why i ent
Ent pupull these energies
Pull the the storpupull the incidents
What's the
What's the theme
What's the pattern
My husband left town with the kids
Because i always going to this kind of jackson ppolet crazy thing or
Or just
Just writing iting in going in kind of just in my researcher mode
And so here's what i found what they had in common was a sense of courage
And i went to separate courage and bravery for you for a minute courage
The original definition of courage
When it first came into the english language
It's from the latn word curr meaning heart
And the original definition was to tell the story who you are with your whole heart
And so these folks had very simply the courage to be imperfect
They had the compassion to be kind of themselves first and into others
Because as it turns out
We can't practice compassion with other people
If we can't treat ourselves kindly
And the last was they had connection
And this was the hard part as a result of authenticity
They were willing to let go
Who they thouthought they should be in order to be who they were
Which is you have to absolutely do that for connection
The other thing that they had in common was this they fully embraced vulnerability
They believed that what made them vulnerable
Made them beautiful
They didn't talk about vulnerably being comfortable
Nor did they really talk about it being exscruciating as i had heard earlier in the shame interviewing
They just talked about it being necessary
They talked about the willingness to say i love you first
The willingness to do
Do something where there are no guarantees
The willingness to breathrough waiting for the doctor or call after your mammogram
The willing to invest in a relationship
That may or may not work out
They thought this was fundamental
I personally thought it was betrayal hub
I could not believe
I had pledged allegiance to research where our job
You know the definition of research is to control
Control and predict to study phenomenon for the reason
For explicit
Reason to control and predict
And now my very you my mission to control and predict had turned up the answer that the way to live with vulnerability and to stop controlling and predicting this led to a little breakdown
Which actually looked to ar like this
And it did it led to ai call a break down
My therapst calls ls a spspituual akkening spirirual like king sounds better than break down
But i assure you it was a breakdown
And i had to put my data away and go find a therapist and body takes something you know who you are
When you call your friends and say i think i need to see somebody
Who do you have new recommendations
Because about five my friends like woo
I wouldn't want to be your therapioh so know was like what does that mean and know like i am to just say
And you know like don't bring your measuring stiick okay
So i found a therapist
My first meeting with her diana
I brought in my list of the way
The whole heart it live and i sat down
And she said you know how are you
And i said i'm great great know i'm
I'm okay
And she said what's going on
And i said
And this is a therapist
Tuoseas therapist
Because we have to go to those
Because their bs meters are good
And so i said here's the thing
I'm struggling
And shesaid what's the struggand i said
Well i have a vulnerability issue
And you know
And i know that vulnerability is kind of the core of shame and fear
And our struggle for worthiness
But it appears that it's also the birthplace of joy of creativity of belonging of love
And i think i have a problem
And i just i needs some help
And i said
But here's the thing
No family staff
No childhood
Shit
I just
I just need some strategies
Thank you
So she goes like this
And then i said it's bad
Right
She said it's neither good nor bad
It just is what it is
And i said
Oh my god
This is going to suck um
And it did
And it didn't
And it took about a year
And you know how there are people
That like when they realized that vulnerability and tenderness are important
That they kind of surrender and walk into it a that's not me and bi don't even hang out with people like that for me
It was a year long street fight
It was a slug fest phone really pushed i pushed back
I lost um the fight
But probably won my life back
And so then i went back into the research and spent the next couple of years
Really trying to understand what they the whole hearted
What the choices
They were making
And what is what we deing ing with vulnerability
Why do we struggle with it
So much am i alone and struggling with vulnerability
No
So this is what i learned we nuamb vulnerability
When we're waiting for the call
I was spending
I sent something out on twitter and on facebook
That says how would you define vulnerability
What makes you feel vulnerabable and within an hour and a half
I had one hundred and fifty responses
Um
Because i wanted to know you know what
What's out
There having to ask my husband for help
Because i'm sick
And we're newly married initiating sex with my husband
Initiating sex with my wife being turned down
Asking someone out
Waiting for the doctor to call back
Getting laid off
Laying off people
This is the world
We live in
We live in a vulnerable world
And one of the ways we deal with it is we numb vulnerability
And i think there's evidence
It's not the only reason
This evidence exists
But i think that there's
It's a huge
Cause we are the most indebt obese addicted and medicated a ult cohort in us
History
The problem is
And i learned this from the research that you cannot selectively num a motion
You can't say here's the bad stuff
Here's vulnerability
Here's grief
Here's shame
Here's fear
Here's didisappointment
I don't want to feel these
I'm going to have a couple of beers in a banana at muffin
I don't wanna a feel these
And i know that
I know that's knowing laughter
I hack into your lives for a living ii know that's god
You can't numb those hard feelings without nuaming the other affects are emotions
You cannot slutbly numb
So when we numb
Those we numb jowe nunuam gratitude
We numb happiness
And then we are miserable
And we are looking for purpose and meaning
And then we feel vulnerable
So then we have a couple of bears in a bananana at muphton
And it becomes a dangercyycle one of the things
That i think that we need to think about is why and how we now and it doesn't just have to be addiction
The other thing we do is we make everything
That's uncertain
Certain religion has gone from a belief in faith
In mystery to certainty
I'm wrright
You're wrong shut up
That's it just certain
The more afraid we are
The more vulnal we are
The more afraid we are
This is what politics looks like today
There's no discourse anymore
There's no conversation
There's just blame
You know
You know
Blalame is describe in the research a way to discharge pain and discomfort
We perfect
If there's anyone who onants their life to look like this
It would be me
But it doesn't work
Because what we do is we take fat from our buts
And put it in our cheeks
What's just i hope in one hundred years
People will look back and o wow
And we perfect
Most dangerously our children let me tell you what we think about children they're hard wired for struggle
When they get here
When you told those perfect little babies in your hand
Our job is not to say look at her
She's perfect
My job is just to keep her perfect
Makes sure
She makes the teninis team by fifth graand yield by seventh grade
That's on our job
Our job is to look and say
You know what you're imperfect and you're wired for struggle
But you're a worthy of loving belonging
That's our job show me a generation of kids raise like that and well in the problems
I think that we see today
We pretend that what we do
Doesn't have an effect on people we do then our personal wives
We do that corporate
Whether it's a bailout and oil spill a recall
We pretend like what we're doing
Doesn't have a huge impact on other people
I would say to companies
This is not our first rodio people
We just need you to be authenic and real
And say we're sorry
We'll fix it
But there's another way
And i'll leave you with this
This is what i have found to let ourselves be seen
Deeply seeing
Vulnerably seeen to love with our whole hearts
Even though there's no guarantee
And that's really hard
I can tell you as a parenthat's excruciatingly difficult to practice gratitude
Enjoy in those moments of kind of teir
When we're wondering can i love you
This much can i believe in this is passionately can i be this fears about this just to be able to stop and instead of cataririzing what might happen to say i'm just grateful
Because to feel this vulnerable means i'm alive
And the the ask which i think is probably the most important
It's to believe that we're enough
Because when we work from a place
I believe that says i'm enough
Then we stop screaming and start listening
Wekkinder and genter to the people around us
And we're kinder and gently to ourselves
That's all i have
