TED演讲：脆弱的力量（双语）
Brené Brown：The Power of Vulnerability布琳 布朗致力于研究人与人的关系--我们感同身受的能力、获得归属感的能力、爱的能力。在TEDx休斯敦一次富有感染力的幽默谈话中，她跟我们分享了她的研究发现，一个让她更想深入了解自己以及人类的发现。
Brené Brown studies vulnerability, courage, authenticity, andshame. Brené Brown studies human connection -- our ability toempathize, belong, love. In a poignant, funny talk, she shares a deep insight from her research, one that sent her on a personal quest to know herself as well as to understand humanity. A talk toshare.
Why you should listen to her：
Brené 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. Shespent the first five years of her decade-long study focusing on shame and empathy, and is nowusing that work to explore a concept that she calls Wholeheartedness. She poses the questions:
How do we learn to embrace our vulnerabilities and imperfections so that we can engage in ourlives from a place of authenticity and worthiness? How do we cultivate the courage, compassion, and connection that we need to recognize that we are enough – that we are worthy of love, belonging, and joy?
"http://player.youku.com/player.php/sid/XMjg2ODI4OTU2/v.swf
演讲文本：
So, I'll start with this: a couple years ago, an event planner called me because I was going to do aspeaking event. And she called, and she said, "I'm really struggling with how to write about you onthe little flier." And I thought, "Well, what's the struggle?" And she said, "Well, I saw you speak, andI'm going to call you a researcher, I think, but I'm afraid if I call you a researcher no one will come, because they'll think you're boring and irrelevant." (Laughter) Okay. And she said, "But the thing Iliked about your talk is you're a storyteller. So I think what I'll do is just call you a storyteller." Andof course the academic, insecure part of me was like, "You're going to call me a what?" And shesaid, "I'm going to call you a storyteller." And I was like, "Why not magic pixie?" (Laughter) I waslike, "Let me think about this for a second." I tried to call deep on my courage. And I thought, I ama storyteller. I'm a qualitative researcher. I collect stories; that's what I do. And maybe stories arejust data with a soul. And maybe I'm just a storyteller. And so I said, "You know what? Why don'tyou just say I'm a researcher-storyteller." And she went, "Haha. There's no such thing." (Laughter) So I'm a researcher-storyteller, and I'm going to talk to you today - we're talking aboutexpanding perception - and so I want to talk to you and tell some stories about a piece of myresearch that fundamentally expanded my perception and really actually changed the way that Ilive and love and work and parent.
And this is where my story starts. When I was a young researcher, doctoral student, my first yearI had a research professor who said to us, "Here's the thing, if you cannot measure it, it does notexist." And I thought he was just sweet-talking me. I was like, "Really?" and he was like, "Absolutely." And so you have to understand that I have a bachelor's in social work, a master's insocial work, and I was getting my Ph.D. in social work, so my entire academic career wassurrounded by people who kind of believed in the life's messy, love it. And I'm more of the, life'smessy, clean it up, organize it and put it into a bento box. (Laughter) And so to think that I hadfound my way, to found a career that takes me - really, one of the big sayings in social work is leaninto the discomfort of the work. And I'm like, knock discomfort upside the head and move it overand get all A's. That was my mantra. So I was very excited about this. And so I thought, you knowwhat, this is the career for me, because I am interested in some messy topics. But I want to beable to make them not messy. I want to understand them. I want to hack into these things Iknow are important and lay the code out for everyone to see.
So where I started was with connection. Because, by the time you're a social worker for 10 years, what you realize is that connection is why we're here. It's what gives purpose and meaning to ourlives. This is what it's all about. It doesn't matter whether you talk to people who work in socialjustice and mental health and abuse and neglect, what we know is that connection, the ability tofeel connected, is - neurobiologically that's how we're wired - it's why we're here. So I thought, youknow what, I'm going to start with connection. Well you know that situation where you get anevaluation from your boss, and she tells you 37 things you do really awesome, and one thing - anopportunity for growth? (Laughter) 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 aboutlove, they tell you about heartbreak. When you ask people about belonging, they'll tell you theirmost excruciating experiences of being excluded. And when you ask people about connection, thestories they told me were about disconnection.
So very quickly - really about six weeks into this research - I ran into this unnamed thing thatabsolutely unraveled connection in a way that I didn't understand or had never seen. And so Ipulled back out of the research and thought, I need to figure out what this is. And it turned out tobe shame. And shame is really easily understood as the fear of disconnection. Is there somethingabout me that, if other people know it or see it, that I won't be worthy of connection. The things Ican tell you about it: it's universal; we all have it. The only people who don't experience shamehave no capacity for human empathy or connection. No one wants to talk about it, and the lessyou talk about it the more you have it. What underpinned this shame, this "I'm not goodenough," - which we all know that feeling: "I'm not blank enough. I'm not thin enough, richenough, beautiful enough, smart enough, promoted enough." The thing that underpinned thiswas excruciating vulnerability, this idea of, in order for connection to happen, we have to allowourselves to be seen, really seen.
And you know how I feel about vulnerability. I hatevulnerability. And so I thought, this is my chance to beat it backwith my measuring stick. I'm going in, I'm going to figure thisstuff out, I'm going to spend a year; I'm going to totallydeconstruct shame, I'm going to understand how vulnerabilityworks, and I'm going to outsmart it. So I was ready, and I wasreally excited. As you know, it's not going to turn out well. (Laughter) You know this. So I could tell you a lot about shame, but I'd have to borrow everyone else's time. But here's what I can tell you that it boils down to - and this may be one of the most important things that I've ever learned in the decade of doingthis research. My one year 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 got a handle on it.
I kind of understood, this is what shame is, this is how it works. I wrote a book, I published atheory, but something was not okay - and what it was is that, if I roughly took the people Iinterviewed and divided them into people who really have a sense of worthiness - that's what thiscomes down to, a sense of worthiness - they have a strong sense of love and belonging - and folkswho struggle for it, and folks who are always wondering if their good enough. There was only onevariable that separated the people who have a strong sense of love and belonging and the peoplewho really struggle for it. And that was, the people who have a strong sense of love and belongingbelieve they're worthy of love and belonging. That's it. 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 ofconnection, was something that, personally and professionally, I felt like I needed to understandbetter. So what I did is I took all of the interviews where I saw worthiness, where I saw people livingthat way, and just looked at those.
What do these people have in common? I have a slight office supply addiction, but that's anothertalk. So I had a manila folder, and I had a Sharpie, and I was like, what am I going to call thisresearch? And the first words that came to my mind were whole-hearted. These are whole-heartedpeople, living from this deep sense of worthiness. So I wrote at the top of the manila folder, and Istarted looking at the data. In fact, I did it first in a four-day very intensive data analysis, where Iwent back, pulled these interviews, pulled the stories, pulled the incidents. What's the theme? What's the pattern? My husband left town with the kids because I always go into this JacksonPollock crazy thing, where I'm just like writing and in my researcher mode. And so here's what Ifound. What they had in common was a sense of courage. And I want to separate courage andbravery for you for a minute. Courage, the original definition of courage when it first came into theEnglish language - it's from the Latin word cor, meaning heart - and the original definition was to tellthe story of who you are with your whole heart. And so these folks had, very simply, the courageto be imperfect. They had the compassion to be kind to themselves first and then to others, because, as it turns out, we can't practice compassion with other people if we can't treat ourselveskindly. And the last was they had connection, and - this was the hard part - as a result ofauthenticity, they were willing to let go of who they thought they should be in order to be whothey were, which you have to absolutely do that for connection.
The other thing that they had in common was this. They fully embraced vulnerability. Theybelieved that what made them vulnerable made them beautiful. They didn't talk about vulnerabilitybeing comfortable, nor did they talk about it being excruciating - as I had heard it earlier in theshame interviewing. They just talked about it being necessary. They talked about the willingness tosay "I love you" first, the willingness to do something where there are no guarantees, thewillingness to breathe through waiting for the doctor to call after your mammogram. They're willingto invest in a relationship that may or may not work out. They thought this was fundamental.
I personally thought it was betrayal. I could not believe I had pledged allegiance to research - thedefinition of research is to control and predict, to study phenomena, for the explicit reason tocontrol and predict. And now my mission to control and predict had turned up the answer that theway to live is with vulnerability and to stop controlling and predicting. This led to a little breakdown - (Laughter) - which actually looked more like this. (Laughter) And it did. I called it a breakdown, my therapist calls it a spiritual awakening. A spiritual awakening sounds better than breakdown, butI assure you it was a breakdown. And I had to put my data away and go find a therapist. Let metell you something: you know who you are when you call your friends and say, "I think I need tosee somebody. Do you have any recommendations?" Because about five of my friends were like, "Wooo. I wouldn't want to be your therapist." (Laughter) I was like, "What does that mean?" Andthey're like, "I'm just saying, you know. Don't bring your measuring stick." I was like,
"Okay."
So I found a therapist. My first meeting with her, Diana - I brought in my list of the way the whole-hearted live, and I sat down. And she said, "How are you?" And I said, "I'm great. I'm okay." Shesaid, "What's going on?" And this is a therapist who sees therapists, because we have to go tothose, because their B.S. meters are good. (Laughter) And so I said, "Here's the thing, I'mstruggling." And she said, "What's the struggle?" And I said, "Well,
I have a vulnerability issue. And I know that vulnerability is the core of shame and fear and ourstruggle 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 need some help." And I said, "But here's the thing, nofamily stuff, no childhood shit." (Laughter) "I just need some strategies." (Laughter) (Applause) Thank you. So she goes like this. (Laughter) And then I said, "It's bad, right?" And she said, "It'sneither good, nor bad." (Laughter) "It just is what it is." And I said, "Oh my God, this is going tosuck." (Laughter)
And it did, and it didn't. And it took about a year. And you knowhow there are people that, when they realize that vulnerabilityand tenderness are important, that they surrender and walk intoit. A: that's not me, and B: I don't even hang out with peoplelike that. (Laughter) For me, it was a yearlong street fight. Itwas a slugfest. Vulnerability pushed, I pushed back. I lost thefight, but probably won my life back.
And so then I went back into the research and spent the nextcouple of years really trying to understand what they, the whole-hearted, what choices they weremaking, and what are we doing with vulnerability. Why do we struggle with it so much? Am I alonein struggling with vulnerability? No. So this is what I learned. We numb vulnerability - when we'rewaiting for the call. It was funny, I sent something out on Twitter and on Facebook that says, "How would you define vulnerability? What makes you feel vulnerable?" And within an hour and ahalf, I had a 150 responses. Because I wanted to know what's out there. Having to ask myhusband 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 callback; 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 - and it's not the only reason this evidence exists, but I think it's ahuge cause - we are the most in-debt, obese, addicted and medicated adult cohort in U.S. history. The problem is - and I learned this from the research - that you cannot selectively numb emotion. You can't say, here's the bad stuff. Here's vulnerability, here's grief, here's shame, here's fear, here's disappointment, I don't want to feel these. I'm going to have a couple of beers and abanana nut muffin. (Laughter) I don't want to feel these. And I know that's knowing laughter. Ihack into your lives for a living. God. (Laughter) You can't numb those hard feelings withoutnumbing the affects, our emotions. You cannot selectively numb. So when we numb those, wenumb joy, we numb gratitude, we numb happiness. And then we are miserable, and we are lookingfor purpose and meaning, and then we feel vulnerable, so then we have a couple of beers and abanana nut muffin. And it becomes this dangerous cycle.
One of the things that I think we need to think about is why and how we numb. And it doesn't justhave to be addiction. The other thing we do is we make everything that's uncertain certain. Religion has gone from a belief in faith and mystery to certainty. I'm right, you're wrong. Shut up. That's it. Just certain. The more afraid we are, the more vulnerable 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 how blame is described in the research? Away to discharge pain and discomfort.
We perfect. If there's anyone who wants their life to look like this it would be me, but it doesn'twork. Because what we do is we take fat from our butts and put it in our cheeks. (Laughter) Which just, I hope in a hundred years, people will look back and go, "Wow." (Laughter)
And we perfect, most dangerously, our children. Let me tell you what we think about children. They're hardwired for struggle when they get here. And when you hold those perfect little babies inyour hand, our job is not so say, "Look at her, she's perfect. My job is just to keep her perfect - make sure she makes the tennis team by fifth grade and Yale by seventh grade." That's not ourjob. Our job is to look and say, "You know what? You're imperfect, and you're wired for struggle, but you are worthy of love and belonging." That's our job. Show me a generation of kids raisedlike that, and we'll end the problems I think that we see today. We pretend that what we dodoesn't have an effect on people. We do that in our personal lives. We do that corporate - whether it's a bailout, an oil spill, a recall - we pretend like what we're doing doesn't have a hugeimpact on other people. I would say to companies, this is not our first rodeo people. We just needyou to be authentic and real and say, "We're sorry. We'll fix it."
But there's another way, and I leave you with this. This is what I have found: to let ourselves beseen, deeply seen, vulnerably seen; to love with our whole hearts, even though there's noguarantee - and that's really hard, and I can tell you as a parent, that's excruciatingly difficult - topractice gratitude and joy in those moments of terror, when we're wondering, "Can I love you thismuch? Can I believe in this this passionately? Can I be this fierce about this?" just to be able tostop and, instead of catastrophizing what might happen, to say, "I'm just so grateful, because tofeel this vulnerable means I'm alive." And the last, which I think is probably the most important, isto believe that we're enough. Because when we work from a place I believe that says, "I'menough," then we stop screaming and start listening, we're kinder and gentler to the peoplearound us, and we're kinder and gentler to ourselves.
That's all I have. Thank you. (Applause)
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