Brene Brown: Shame and Vulerability

“When you get to a place where you understand that love and belonging, your worthiness, is a birthright and not something you have to earn, anything is possible.

Your raise can be on the table, your promotion can be on the table, your title can be on the table, your grades can be on the table. But keep your worthiness for love and belonging off the table. And then ironically everything else just takes care of itself.”

“Be brave and vulnerable.”

“You can’t raise children who have more shame resilience than you do. Because even if you don’t shame them, and even if you are actively trying to raise them feeling good about who they are, they’re never going to treat themselves better than you treat yourself. If you want to raise a daughter with a really healthy body image, you better love your body as a mother, because that counts way more than looking at your daughter and saying “You’re beautiful and your body is beautiful.” All that matters to her is how she sees you acting with your own body. We can’t give children what we don’t have. We have to be the adults we hope they grow up to be.”

“Connection is why we're here. It's what gives purpose and meaning to our lives.”

“ Vulnerability is the core of shame and fear and our struggle for worthiness, but it is also the birthplace of joy, of creativity, of belonging, and of love.”

“Vulnerability is not weakness.”

“Vulnerability is emotional risk, exposure, uncertainty. It's our most accurate measurement of courage.”

“Vulnerability is the birthplace of innovation, creativity, and change.”

We have to talk about shame.

Shame is an epidemic in our courage.

Quote: Theodore Roosevelt

“It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasm; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly.”
— Theodore Roosevelt

The Psychology of Evil

He speaks really fast, but it's worthwhile to stay with him.

More about the talk by Mr. Zimbardo is at this link.

Quote: Don Miguel Ruiz

“(This) is why humans resist life. To be alive is the biggest fear humans have. Death is not the biggest fear we have; our biggest fear is taking the risk to be alive—the risk to be alive and express what we really are. Just being ourself is the biggest fear of humans. We have learned to live our life trying to satisfy other people's demands. We have learned to live our life trying to satisfy other people's point of view because of the fear of not being accepted and of not being good enough for someone else.”

Don Miguel Ruiz

The Four Agreements

Quote: Marc Chernoff

“Making money is pretty easy.  Attaining true wealth is not.  Most people have jobs and bring in an income.  What’s difficult is to earn it by doing something that makes a positive difference. 

Knowing deep down that you counted; that someone else’s life is not as rich without you in it —that’s priceless.  That’s something worth working for.”

  -  Marc Chernoff

Quote: Richard Branson

This isn't about equal rights on paper.

This isn't just about not getting fired or seeing our partner in the hospital or marriage or adoption.  This is about not getting our head bashed in to the pavement.

A witness at the scene with her two teenaged sisters says the violent actions of the officers involved left her younger siblings seriously traumatised. “They were crying while the police bashed the boy’s head into the cement,” she said. “It was horrible, disgusting behaviour.”

Another witness adds: “They picked him up by the throat and slammed him into the ground with his head hitting the ground that hard it sounded like a bowling ball hitting the ground,” she said. “This was while he was in handcuffs.”  - From the news site Same Same.

This video is quite violent. If you aren't disturbed by it have someone check you for a pulse.

Commit to 3

What happens when a neuroscientist gets to experience a stroke from the inside out.

“We have the power to chose moment by moment who and how we want to be in the world.”  -  Dr. Jill Bolte Taylor

Fixing Our Broken Systems

TED

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"Rules are like a road map that gets you to the right city, but not to the right street."
  -  Barry Schwartz

We depend on rules, guidelines, and laws to provide structure, order, and function, but too often these systems fail us. These TED speakers propose how to fix our broken systems by looking to trust and practical wisdom as ways to mend education, medicine, and the law. Plus, how games might be our best resources to solve real-world problems.

Listen to the full episode.

Note:  The last part on games is especially fun. It may make you think better of folks who spend so much time on online games. They may even have the key to our most challenging problems.

Proof of Heaven: A Neurosurgeon's Journey into the Afterlife by Eben Alexander
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

A well-written, intelligent, detailed account of a neurosurgeon's near death experience. Dr. Alexander goes further into his near death experience than other accounts I've heard and tells his tale in an easy-to-follow compelling way.

Reading this book moved me from "I believe in near death experiences but atheists my be right about the brain having a deep self-preservation response" to "yes, NDEs are absolutely real experiences." If I'm to expect everyone to believe and respect me when I tell them I'm gay; and I'm to believe and honor someone when they tell me they're transgender; then I'm compelled to believe Dr. Alexander when he tells me of his experience. Our experiences are most of who we are. Maya Angelou said, "When someone tells you who they are, believe them."

I believe him.

View all my reviews

Different Perspective

It used to be that when a man got a woman pregnant the honorable thing for him to do was to marry her. But now, according to John McCain and Newt Gingrich, when a man cheats on his wife the honorable thing to do is to marry the mistress.

This American Life

487: Harper High School, Part One FEB 15, 2013 We spent five months at Harper High School in Chicago, where last year alone 29 current and recent students were shot. 29. We went to get a sense of what it means to live in the midst of all this gun violence, how teens and adults navigate a world of funerals and Homecoming dances. We found so many incredible and surprising stories, this show is a two-parter.

Listen to part one here.

487: Harper High School, Part Two FEB 22, 2013 We pick up where we left off last week in our second hour from Harper High School in Chicago. We find out if a shooting in the neighborhood will derail the school's Homecoming game and dance. We hear the origin story of one of Harper's gangs. And we ask a group of teenagers: where do you get your guns.

Listen to part two here.

Thought of the Day:

Self-fulfilling prophecies work both ways. Choose one that's positive.

Quote: Alice Walker

"Hard times require furious dancing. Each of us is proof."

  -  Alice Walker

Mt. Laguna

Friday Teresa and Lee and I piled into Lee's new Fiat 500 and drove east on the 8 to Sunset Highway to Mt. Laguna.  Mt. Laguna isn't one peak but a high ridge reaching up to 6000 feet.  Teresa and I hadn't been there before so Lee gave us a grand tour of the area's camping grounds, cabins, general store, view points, and different trails before parking at the head of the trail he thought we'd enjoy.

We only hiked for about 2 hours but we went through pine forest, a large meadow and pond, a creek, rocky outcrops, and great views across to other mountains.  The only sound was the song of the wind through the trees.  Pine trees in dry areas at high altitudes give off a particular, refreshing scent that brought back memories of visiting the Southwest one summer with my family as a seven or eight year old.



To see the slideshow full screen; click on it, then look for the Full Screen button in the upper left and press Play lower center. Mine say OLMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA. The rest were taken by Lee.

Great hikers Lee and Teresa.

Charlie's Angels

Sabrina, Jill, Kelly, and Charlie came over for a short stay while their house gets fumigated.  Katie quickly greeted her new friends.

Comma Cats

Quote: Ira Glass

Descanso Falls

 Friday at 10:00 Teresa and Lee parked by my house and we piled into my car.  We headed east on the 8 to the 67 to go north just a short way to Descanso.  It’s a small hamlet at 3500 feet at the southern tip of the Cuyamaca Rancho State Park.  The road winds around a couple miles to the trail head. 

There was already a pick-up truck with a horse trailer and a couple getting the horses ready for a ride when we parked in the shade of a large tree.  After taking pictures at the trail head we hiked the main trail for a short way up a steep incline and then took a smaller trail down to the spring fed falls.  

I took my boots and socks off to cool my feet, but the water was freezing.  I could only just dip my toes in for a few seconds.  But the cold water kept all of the rocks around it cool and we had a nice time snacking on munchies and talking until we were ready to head back.

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*Thank you Lee Bowman for sharing your photos.