I Thought It Was Just Me (But It Isn’t)
“Shame corrodes the very part of us that believes we are capable of change.”
Brene Brown tells us what we already know… the quest for perfection is exhausting and unrelenting. We spend too much precious time and energy managing perception and crating carefully edited versions ourselves to show to the world. There is a constant stream of social expectations that teach us that being imperfect is the same as being inadequate.
Everywhere we turn, there are messages that tell us who, what and how we’re supported to be. So we learn to hide our struggles and protect ourselves from shame, judgement, criticism, and blame by seeking safety in pretending and perfection.
My struggles with perfection came early on… messages like “your value comes from what you do”… not who you are. This leads to a terribly damaging cycle of trying to “prove your worth” to everyone around you.
Brené explains it like this…“shame is the voice of perfectionism. Whether we’re talking about appearance, work, motherhood, health or family, it’s not the quest for perfection that is so painful; it’s failing to meet the unattainable expectations that lead to the painful wash of shame.”
This book looks at the topic of shame through the lens of real people. Brené tells us that “Shame is the intensely painful feeling or experience of believing we are flawed and therefore unworthy of acceptance and belonging.” It differentiates shame from other “unpleasant” emotions like guilt, humiliation and embarrassment and then explores the basics of resilience- empathy, courage, compassion and connection.
It also looks at ways to practice “shame resilience” and what that can look like practically for ourselves, our families, our professional lives as well as our spiritual lives. But be warned… this is not a “3 easy steps” to overcoming shame or developing shame resilience. Complex issues like this take time and underestimating the required work only leads to more shame because we just couldn’t “get It”.
This was the first book that I read by Brené Brown and it has drastically changed the trajectory of my life. I know that I am not the same person I was when I first picked it up. My wish is that everyone of us could learn that our value comes from who we are and not what we do and shake off the chains of shame and perfectionism.
Hopefully you enjoy I Thought It Was Just Me (but it isn’t) and are able to make the journey from “what will people think” to “I am enough”.
~A
“Sometimes, you read a book and it fills you with this weird evangelical zeal, and you become convinced that the shattered world will never be put back together unless and until all living humans read the book.” ~John Green