Speaker 1: Welcome to the Psychology Podcast, where we give you insights
Speaker 1: into the mind, brained behavior and creativity. I'm doctor Scott
Speaker 1: Barry Kaufman, and in each episode I have a conversation
Speaker 1: with a guest who will stimulate your mind and give
Speaker 1: you a greater understanding of yourself, others, and the world
Speaker 1: to live in. Hopefully we'll also provide a glimpse into
Speaker 1: human possibility. Thanks for listening and enjoy the podcast. Just
Speaker 1: a quick note that today's episode is going to be
Speaker 1: a rerun the next season of the Psychology Podcast we'll
Speaker 1: begin later this year. I haven't taken any break in
Speaker 1: five years of doing this podcast, so I thought it
Speaker 1: was about time to take a step back and think
Speaker 1: about how it can make this a better experience for
Speaker 1: you all. Until then, enjoy these episodes from our archives. Today,
Speaker 1: it's my great honor to have Brene Brown on the podcast.
Speaker 1: Brene is a research perfect so at the University of
Speaker 1: Houston Graduate College of Social Work. She has spent the
Speaker 1: past thirteen years studying vulnerability, courage, worthiness, and shame. Brenee
Speaker 1: is the author of three number one York Time bestsellers,
Speaker 1: Rising Strong, Daring Greatly, and the Gifts of imperfection. Thanks
Speaker 1: for talking with me today, Brene. I'm excited. I'm looking
Speaker 1: forward to it. I have a big fan of your work,
Speaker 1: so I'm I'm excited. Then. Wow, that means a lot
Speaker 1: to me that you said that I'm a big fan
Speaker 1: of yours as well, and I'm really looking forward to
Speaker 1: talking today. And I thought we could start with your
Speaker 1: career starting topic, Shane, how did you get interested in
Speaker 1: this topic? You know, I didn't have any I didn't
Speaker 1: really have interested in that topic. I was very interested
Speaker 1: in connection and kind of trying to understand the anatomy
Speaker 1: of connection because I was, you know, I have bachelor's
Speaker 1: in social work, a master's and was working on my
Speaker 1: PhD in social work. And I think I summarized my
Speaker 1: you know, fifteen years of higher ed and my one
Speaker 1: hundred thousand dollars in school owns as we or wired
Speaker 1: to be connected to one to each other. So that
Speaker 1: was the big takeaway. And so I really wanted to
Speaker 1: understand what does it mean, what does connection really mean,
Speaker 1: how do we build it? And what gets in the way.
Speaker 1: And I wasn't really interested in what gets in the way.
Speaker 1: I was just I thought, you know, if I come
Speaker 1: across with that, i'll be interesting well. As it turns out,
Speaker 1: and you know this probably better than most. It's human nature.
Speaker 1: When we don't have vocabulary to describe what is, we
Speaker 1: rely on the easier vocabulary of describing what isn't. So
Speaker 1: when I started asking people about connection what's important to
Speaker 1: them and what's meaningful for them, they immediately told me
Speaker 1: stories about isolation, heartbreak, pain, disconnection, betrayal, and so I involuntarily,
Speaker 1: very quickly became a shame researcher because I think that
Speaker 1: shame is the experience of believing we're not worthy of connection,
Speaker 1: or the fear of believing we're not worthy of connection.
Speaker 1: And that's how people really just described their experiences of
Speaker 1: connection with me, is by describing disconnection. So I became
Speaker 1: literally just, I mean, dogged about it. And you cannot
Speaker 1: believe how many people are like, you can't study that.
Speaker 1: It's a horrible topic. You'll never get published, you know,
Speaker 1: just but I don't know. I think I was really
Speaker 1: attracted to it because for the first time in my life,
Speaker 1: I felt not alone hearing other people struggles with it.
Speaker 1: So first of all, you were brave to still continue
Speaker 1: on that topic. So that was an act of bravery
Speaker 1: right there, and then what it led to you sort
Speaker 1: of had this faith in a way. It seems to
Speaker 1: me that it also would lead into new unexpected directions.
Speaker 1: So I really like this quote of yours. Only when
Speaker 1: we are brave enough to explore the darkness will we
Speaker 1: discover the infinite power of our light. And it seemed
Speaker 1: like you almost had to correct me if I'm wrong, Renee,
Speaker 1: But seems like you almost had to start with this topic.
Speaker 1: It sort of like was a foundation for like everything
Speaker 1: else you study by starting with the dark in a way,
Speaker 1: Does that make sense? Yeah, yeah, completely, And it was. Honestly,
Speaker 1: it was an enormous in the ask. People did not
Speaker 1: want to hear about it. I couldn't even you know,
Speaker 1: I knew I wanted to write very early on. I
Speaker 1: knew I wanted to write, not I wanted to write
Speaker 1: for the public. I didn't want to do that kind
Speaker 1: of thing, you know. I was in a very stressful
Speaker 1: in your draft position. I didn't want to do that
Speaker 1: thing where I was just writing for other academics because
Speaker 1: I had done research before, especially under two of my
Speaker 1: mentors at you of H. But it was the first
Speaker 1: time I'd ever done a study where the research participants
Speaker 1: after the interviews would look at me, I mean tearfully
Speaker 1: look at me and say, do you promise when you
Speaker 1: learn what this means and what this is, that you'll
Speaker 1: share it with us? And I felt really terrible because
Speaker 1: the answer was, you know, I'm actually not. I'm going
Speaker 1: to publish it in a article that like three people read,
Speaker 1: and mostly the people that read it will be checking
Speaker 1: to make sure they've been quoted. It's so true, it's
Speaker 1: so true. I think it was really hard. But I
Speaker 1: do think so much of what's wrong today for me
Speaker 1: about what's out there, you know, the professional literature and
Speaker 1: you know, made available to the public, is people don't
Speaker 1: talk about the stuff that gets in the way. Yeah,
Speaker 1: they almost sort of jump in kind of a masslow
Speaker 1: sort of way. They kind of jump right to the
Speaker 1: self actualization without working on all the steps along the way.
Speaker 1: Is that a fair way of putting it. I think
Speaker 1: it's a really weird way of putting it. And for
Speaker 1: those of us who are imperfect. For myself, I need
Speaker 1: to normalize about how hard it is, how human it is,
Speaker 1: what I'm experiencing, how this is not going to be easy,
Speaker 1: And I need someone to say, you know what, just
Speaker 1: because it doesn't mean putting it into practice makes it.
Speaker 1: You know, it's still hard. And so I think starting
Speaker 1: with shame, while it was really really hard on me
Speaker 1: professionally and personally, I don't think I could have done
Speaker 1: what I've done had I not started there. That makes
Speaker 1: a lot of sense. And also I find it really
Speaker 1: important to hihilate that you do qualitative analysis. Yeah, grounded theory,
Speaker 1: which was pioneered by your mentor, Barney Glazier. And I'd
Speaker 1: love for you to talk a little bit about the differences,
Speaker 1: you know, really quickly. You know, I know we could
Speaker 1: talk all day about this, but why do you prefer personally?
Speaker 1: What kind of data do you think you can get
Speaker 1: out of quality of that you can't get from quantitative
Speaker 1: you know. I think what's interesting about grounded theory is
Speaker 1: I think it's normally associated with qualitative research, but a
Speaker 1: lot of people myself included now, using secondary data can
Speaker 1: use the methodology with qualitative or quantitative data. The thing
Speaker 1: that I love about, you know, and for people listening
Speaker 1: her like what you know you can use yeah, you
Speaker 1: can use this to understand numbers, you know, kind of
Speaker 1: hard data or you can use this approach to find
Speaker 1: the patterns and themes that emerge from stories and interviews.
Speaker 1: And so, for me, what I really love about grounded
Speaker 1: theory is that, unlike a lot of traditional research qualitative
Speaker 1: and quantitative, rather than starting with an existing theory and
Speaker 1: then proving or disproving that theory, it calls into questions
Speaker 1: the validity of existing theories and says, you know what,
Speaker 1: build a theory from the ground up, not based on
Speaker 1: other theorists, but based on people's lived experiences. Then when
Speaker 1: you find the themes and patterns saturating and emerging so
Speaker 1: they're almost predictable, then start developing that theory. Then you
Speaker 1: do the lit review, then you look into it. But
Speaker 1: anything before that will fill your mind with kind of
Speaker 1: preconceived notions, and that is not building a theory on
Speaker 1: what people really live. And so to me, I was
Speaker 1: going in researching a topic that was, you know, no
Speaker 1: one talks about. And if you look at Glazer and
Speaker 1: Strauss who developed it, it was really interesting because a
Speaker 1: lot of times grounded theories are controversial. They really push
Speaker 1: on existing theories because you know from krib Blazer and
Speaker 1: Strauss they wanted to understand dying, and they really wanted
Speaker 1: to understand dying and children, and so they had to
Speaker 1: find a way to talk to children about their experiences
Speaker 1: during a time where doctors, nurses, parents, clergy conspired to
Speaker 1: not tell children that they were actually eternal as they
Speaker 1: were dying. So they had to find a way to
Speaker 1: really be loyal and truthful about these children's experiences and
Speaker 1: not rely on what was already out there. And so
Speaker 1: it is really the other thing I love about it
Speaker 1: that just is like, I know, I'm kind of geeking actors,
Speaker 1: so thanks for putting me by the way. This is
Speaker 1: what our listeners will love to hear, is the geeking
Speaker 1: parts good. What I really love about it is that
Speaker 1: it's not descriptive. It's not like a lot of qualitative
Speaker 1: research is that descript This is conceptualizing from data in
Speaker 1: a very rigorous scientific way. It's kind of a brutal methodology,
Speaker 1: very time consuming, very hands on. You're not allowed to
Speaker 1: use any kind of software to quote to code data.
Speaker 1: It's really about staying in a process and being true
Speaker 1: to a process, and being true to what people are saying,
Speaker 1: not your academic interests or pet peeves. So it's it's challenging,
Speaker 1: but I've become a huge lover of it. And it's
Speaker 1: fun because I get to share a lot of dissertations
Speaker 1: now for people kind of around the world who are
Speaker 1: doing grounded theory research. So it's really fun. And I
Speaker 1: still am in contact with Barney Blazer. Yeah, incredible, you know,
Speaker 1: one of the kind of founding people of Chicago's School
Speaker 1: Qultative Research. So it's really interesting. Yeah. Yeah, And GRADI
Speaker 1: theory is definitely considered one of the most rigorous qualitative
Speaker 1: methods that exist today. And I think it's so interesting,
Speaker 1: like it's both top down and bottom up. It's like
Speaker 1: an iterative process. It is completely Yeah. In fact, Barney
Speaker 1: was on my you know, I'm the methodologists on my dissertation,
Speaker 1: and I gave them a pen for the gifts, like
Speaker 1: a really beautiful pen, and I had it inscribed and
Speaker 1: it said trust an emergence because the whole theory grounded
Speaker 1: theory is trust that what you need will emerge from
Speaker 1: the data if you stay rigorous. Sounds like the nature
Speaker 1: of consciousness. Oh my, you know what. And it's really
Speaker 1: funny too, is I'm not a clinician. I've never been
Speaker 1: a clinician. But it is very similar to the clinical
Speaker 1: process of being with clients and listening to their stories
Speaker 1: and not getting ahead of them or behind them, but
Speaker 1: just staying with them in their process, just being with them. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so interesting. Well thanks for talking about that a little bit, sir.
Speaker 1: So I want to move on now to this major
Speaker 1: point in your life, your two thousand and seven breakdown,
Speaker 1: I mean, spiritual awakening. Yeah, I thought maybe we could
Speaker 1: talk a little bit about that, and you know what
Speaker 1: happened around then that made you shift a little bit
Speaker 1: in your research interests, you know, I think for me,
Speaker 1: you know, I came to the end of this reason
Speaker 1: shame feeling like I had a really good understanding of
Speaker 1: what it is, what it is, how it operates, how
Speaker 1: to distinguish it from other self conscious affect like guilt, humiliation, embarrassment.
Speaker 1: And what I realized is I was sitting on some
Speaker 1: data that could really mine for a different question, a
Speaker 1: question that I was really interested in, which is Okay,
Speaker 1: I understand how shame works, but there are you know,
Speaker 1: there are a lot of men and women who I've
Speaker 1: interviewed who, rather than waking up in the morning and saying,
Speaker 1: you know, I'm not enough, I don't have enough. There's
Speaker 1: never enough, nothing's good enough. These people woke up in
Speaker 1: the morning really and saying, yeah, there's a lot of scarcity,
Speaker 1: there's a lot of perfection. I am enough, And so
Speaker 1: what did they have in common? And so I really
Speaker 1: wanted to look back into the day to ask me
Speaker 1: that question. And so for me, the kind of breakdown
Speaker 1: slash spiritual awakening came when what really emerged from that,
Speaker 1: you know, we call it constant care comparative a method,
Speaker 1: that's the big method we use in grounded theory. What
Speaker 1: really emerged from working with doctoral students and other people
Speaker 1: in the research is what these men and women had
Speaker 1: in common, kind of above all else was the willingness
Speaker 1: and capacity to be vulnerable. And that was devastating for
Speaker 1: me because I became a researcher strictly because I hate vulnerability,
Speaker 1: and so I'm not a fan of vulnerability really at all.
Speaker 1: And I like certainty. I like control. I like prediction
Speaker 1: and control, you know, I like that. That's the bill
Speaker 1: of goods. I got sold on research, but is there's
Speaker 1: also a part of it that's like we I don't
Speaker 1: want to speak for you, but like intellectualization was kind
Speaker 1: of a way for me and my childhood to suppress
Speaker 1: feelings I didn't want to feel at home. Ye ni percent,
Speaker 1: you don't have to feel them, just understand them. And
Speaker 1: as a child, you know, safety is not always in
Speaker 1: feeling what you're feeling, but it's understanding why you're feeling
Speaker 1: it and what you can do to change it. I
Speaker 1: think it was really you know, it's funny because one
Speaker 1: of the quotes that I see all the time that
Speaker 1: people use and like on their blogs or people is
Speaker 1: a quote from mine that I it's like one of
Speaker 1: my least favorite quotes. I'm always surprised when I see it,
Speaker 1: but it's something like I think it's from of the
Speaker 1: gifts of imperfection, that knowing ourselves matters but not as
Speaker 1: much as loving ourselves or something which still pisses me off.
Speaker 1: I wish the love and the magic was in the knowing,
Speaker 1: not the feeling. I still wish that. Sometimes I don't
Speaker 1: believe it anymore, but I still wish it. That's interesting.
Speaker 1: Can you elaborate a little bit on that? So I
Speaker 1: want to make sure I fully understand that point. I
Speaker 1: can have full awareness of how vulnerability works with the
Speaker 1: cond what it is, what the pieces and the elements are.
Speaker 1: But unless I'm really willing to embrace uncertainty, unless I'm
Speaker 1: really willing to be vulnerable, it doesn't matter how well
Speaker 1: I academically understand it. And so while yeah, and so
Speaker 1: that's the part that's still hard for me, because I'm
Speaker 1: much more comfortable in my head than i am in
Speaker 1: my heart. Okay, that makes a lot of sense. You know,
Speaker 1: a lot of people say that, like a lot of
Speaker 1: research is research. Maybe in a way that's a good thing,
Speaker 1: you know, I've never heard that, but that's funny. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it seems like, you know, it's a good like it's
Speaker 1: important to kind of see it from the inside as
Speaker 1: well as the outside. Yeah, I mean, just more basically,
Speaker 1: for me, why would you ever spend your career studying
Speaker 1: something that had no personal value to you? Like for me,
Speaker 1: I'm really passionate about figuring these things out sometimes because
Speaker 1: I think it makes me a better partner and a
Speaker 1: better parent and a better person, a better leader. And
Speaker 1: so I just didn't expect font to find things that
Speaker 1: were going to kick my ass to the level that
Speaker 1: they did. Totally. Yeah, So that's cool. I mean, it's
Speaker 1: like your stories that you collected inspired you to be
Speaker 1: a better person in a way, or to be a
Speaker 1: dip to to prove in certain areas of your life.
Speaker 1: Oh for sure. Yeah, that's cool. I mean, I'm just
Speaker 1: trying to think that's something that I don't I don't
Speaker 1: always get so inspired when I look at my quantitative numbers.
Speaker 1: Your methodology kind of affords that in an additional way.
Speaker 1: So I really like that cool. And I think sometimes
Speaker 1: even like we're doing some quantitative work right now, which
Speaker 1: you know, I enjoy, I don't have the same kind
Speaker 1: of maybe deep passion for quantitative work as I do
Speaker 1: for qualitative work, only because you know, I'm a storyteller
Speaker 1: and a story catcher, and so I love that part.
Speaker 1: But I think the quantitative. You know, it's funny because
Speaker 1: I had the first qualitative dissertation in my college and
Speaker 1: it was a real kind of scandal. I had to
Speaker 1: get all kinds of special dispensation from the provost. It
Speaker 1: was hard, but I was taught by really great people
Speaker 1: who told me, who really taught me, like my mentor
Speaker 1: my academic mentor study femicide the killing of women by
Speaker 1: intimate partners. And she was a domestic violence researcher, and
Speaker 1: she was a mixed methods researcher, and she always used
Speaker 1: to tell me, she said, if I could change the
Speaker 1: face of domestic violence with really powerful stories, I would
Speaker 1: do that. If I could change the face of domestic
Speaker 1: violence with numbers, I would do that. But it takes both.
Speaker 1: To really speak to human behavior and human thinking, you
Speaker 1: have to have the numbers and the stories. And so
Speaker 1: to me, that's kind of how I was academically raised.
Speaker 1: So I don't really see it as an either or,
Speaker 1: but I do think for the things that really shook
Speaker 1: my soul, it was the qualitative stuff. Yeah, that was
Speaker 1: very well put. I like that. So let's talk about
Speaker 1: wholehearted living. There's so much that it encompasses. It's not
Speaker 1: just one thing. How do you define? First of all,
Speaker 1: how do you define wholehearted living? To you know, I
Speaker 1: have a definition in the gifts of imperfection of it.
Speaker 1: And I can again try to quote myself maybe, but
Speaker 1: you know, to me, it's about the willingness to you know,
Speaker 1: it's the courage to be imperfect, to be vulnerable. It's
Speaker 1: about the courage to wake up in the morning and
Speaker 1: really acknowledge that no matter what gets done and what
Speaker 1: doesn't get done, that I'm enough and that I'm worthy
Speaker 1: of love and belonging and joy, those things that we
Speaker 1: just are irreducible needs for humans. And so to me,
Speaker 1: wholeheartedness is really about, I think the opposite of it.
Speaker 1: Here I go, doing exactly what told you my research
Speaker 1: participants did, using the opposite to explain. I think it's
Speaker 1: really about the opposite of it is really scarcity, that
Speaker 1: I'm not enough. What I produce, what I create dictates
Speaker 1: who I am and dictates my worth. And I think
Speaker 1: whole hearted this is different than that. I think it's
Speaker 1: that I am enough. Yeah, I like that, and so
Speaker 1: a lot of these things fall naturally from that bulding
Speaker 1: courage compassion connection. So why is being vulnerable and active courage? Yeah,
Speaker 1: this is the biggest piece. I think. This is the
Speaker 1: research that has been meant the most to me and
Speaker 1: probably I think has changed my career the most. And
Speaker 1: that is this, you know, dispelling the mythology that I
Speaker 1: think vulnerability is important to courage. I think vulnerability is courage.
Speaker 1: And in fact, we were looking at data the other
Speaker 1: day and you know, we have the two hundred thousand
Speaker 1: pieces of data now that I can't find a single
Speaker 1: example or what we would call incident of courage that
Speaker 1: is not completely defined by vulnerability. And it's one of
Speaker 1: the things that I really challenged people to do. I
Speaker 1: do a lot of speaking and like I was just
Speaker 1: recently at Fort Bragg speaking to soldiers in joint special
Speaker 1: operations like special ops. Yeah, but I even challenge them
Speaker 1: because you know, it's a hard it's a hard group
Speaker 1: to talk about vulnerability with because basically, in a combat situation,
Speaker 1: vulnerability equals death and so and their job is really
Speaker 1: to minimize vulnerability. Even that's even language they use. And
Speaker 1: so I ask them to, you know, come up with
Speaker 1: an example a courage that they've ever seen done themselves
Speaker 1: witnessed that wasn't completely defined by a willingness to be vulnerable,
Speaker 1: you know, a willingness to put yourself engage in risk,
Speaker 1: uncertainty and emotional exposure. And no one could come up
Speaker 1: with an example. And so to me, it's not that
Speaker 1: courage requires vulnerability. I think vulnerability is our most accurate
Speaker 1: measure of courage. Tell me how vulnerable someone is willing
Speaker 1: to be, and I'll tell you how brave they'll be.
Speaker 1: That's so interesting. That makes a lot of sense. And
Speaker 1: I kind of like this. You kind of talk about
Speaker 1: the flip side of vulnerabilit in a way of like
Speaker 1: being acting cool. I thought that was so interesting, Like
Speaker 1: you're talking about people who act cool, you know, Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: can you elaborate a little bit on that. Yeah, I mean,
Speaker 1: I think the opposite of la vulnerability. You know, the
Speaker 1: definition I use for vulnerability emerge from the data, and
Speaker 1: it's simply uncertainty, risk and emotional exposure. And so cool
Speaker 1: is the need to be perceived as completely in control,
Speaker 1: completely certain and risking no emotional exposure at all. So
Speaker 1: it's kind of the straight jacket of I'm in control,
Speaker 1: I've got everything managed. It's emotional stoicism, not emotional exposure.
Speaker 1: And so I think cool is just really dangerous. I agree.
Speaker 1: I don't know. There's that great quote from Almost Famous
Speaker 1: the only true currency in this bankrupt world is what
Speaker 1: you say to someone when you're being uncool. I like that.
Speaker 1: I mean that could I wish like my twenty one
Speaker 1: year old self heard in this conversation. You know, I
Speaker 1: feel like I went through my whole twenties trying to
Speaker 1: be so when I wasn't like trying to be like
Speaker 1: by I bought like Abercrombie and Fitch clothes. I mean,
Speaker 1: that is for someone that is who they are, but
Speaker 1: I'm saying for me, it is I spent my twenties
Speaker 1: trying to be cool, and then in my thirties, you know,
Speaker 1: I started giving talks about my experiences as being in
Speaker 1: special ed as a kid and just being really honest
Speaker 1: about that. And I think people think I'm a lot
Speaker 1: cooler when I do that than when I was trying
Speaker 1: to act cool. Yeah, because there's some authentic badassery in
Speaker 1: that piece, right, Yeah, because it's brave, because that's brave,
Speaker 1: because it's vulnerable, and there's really there's nothing really that
Speaker 1: brave about being cool. It cool is by definition self protection,
Speaker 1: you know, And for me, I came from a family
Speaker 1: where cool was really important. And so, you know, I
Speaker 1: do a lot of parenting research right now, I'm doing
Speaker 1: it right now, we're teaching a class, and it's one
Speaker 1: of the things I really talked to parents about that
Speaker 1: if you are consciously or unconsciously positioning cool as a
Speaker 1: family value, you know, you've got to be really clear
Speaker 1: on the implications that we'll have on children, because kids
Speaker 1: will engage in very, very high risk behaviors without thinking much.
Speaker 1: If cool is a value you put forward as a
Speaker 1: big family value, I agree. And something I thought was
Speaker 1: really cool was this craze wholehearted parenting that I saw
Speaker 1: you use in one context and just made me think of, like,
Speaker 1: what would a wholehearted school look like? What would wholehearted
Speaker 1: education look like? You know. It's so it details nicely
Speaker 1: with the work we're doing on positive education and all
Speaker 1: these interventions we're trying to do to look at increases
Speaker 1: in gratitude and mindfulness and a lot of the things
Speaker 1: you talk about, But it really a lot of ways
Speaker 1: that's what it is. It's you know, it's like a
Speaker 1: wholehearted school. Wow. Now is We have a new programmat
Speaker 1: called Daring Schools. We really talk about what does it
Speaker 1: take to create a culture in education where vulnerability is
Speaker 1: a requirement for learning and you can't learn with your
Speaker 1: mouth shutting your head down. So you can't learn in
Speaker 1: classrooms where vulnerability is not you know, promoted, they're not
Speaker 1: a safe space for it. You just can't learn. And
Speaker 1: so that means just by definition that any kind of
Speaker 1: shame based environment, you know, prohibits that really prohibits learning.
Speaker 1: So we're kind of looking at the same things from
Speaker 1: a different perspective that y'all we're looking at. And I
Speaker 1: think there's an incredibly powerful intersection. I think of the
Speaker 1: work that y'all are doing the work we're trying to do,
Speaker 1: because I think it's going to take the combination of
Speaker 1: what we're all looking at to pull together the kind
Speaker 1: of schools that we're going to need to put together
Speaker 1: moving forward. So how was saying no a critical component
Speaker 1: of compassion because they're not often treated in the same sentence, right,
Speaker 1: Like boundaries and compassion are not often treated together. But
Speaker 1: I really like how you put them together. So could
Speaker 1: you aubrate that a bit? Sure? And I think that
Speaker 1: was a real surprise to me. I had this kind
Speaker 1: of stack of data for about six months and I
Speaker 1: laughingly called it the Compassion smack Down stat because I
Speaker 1: was like, this was a stack of people who I
Speaker 1: interviewed who I was just kind of really blown away
Speaker 1: by their level of just human compassion, and I wanted
Speaker 1: to figure out what was it that these people shared
Speaker 1: in common. I was, you know, I made a hundred guesses.
Speaker 1: I was like, you know, Is it kindness? Is it faith?
Speaker 1: Is it spirituality? What do these men and women who
Speaker 1: are so incredibly compassionate toward themselves, toward each other, toward
Speaker 1: just their thoughts about human nature? What do they share
Speaker 1: in common? And it turns out that the only variable
Speaker 1: they shared in common was they were the most boundary
Speaker 1: people I've ever interviewed. And it took me a while
Speaker 1: to put two and two together to understand, like, wow,
Speaker 1: these boundary people happened to also be the compassion people.
Speaker 1: And as I started looking into it and then doing
Speaker 1: kind of what we call selective coding, going back now
Speaker 1: that I haven't understanding of what's emerging, and doing more
Speaker 1: interviewing specifically around those questions, it became really clear to
Speaker 1: me that, you know, when you go, I do like
Speaker 1: ninety percent of my work right now, and you know
Speaker 1: kind of fortune five hundred companies and large organizations, And
Speaker 1: it always strikes me that how many of these organizations
Speaker 1: have assumption of positive intent as a standard value, but
Speaker 1: no one talks about the prerequisite for that, which is
Speaker 1: you cannot be generous and tolerant and accepting of people
Speaker 1: who are not respecting you, not respecting your boundaries and
Speaker 1: so we call it in my research, we call it
Speaker 1: big that it's boundaries, integrity, generosity. In order to really
Speaker 1: approach people's thoughts, behaviors, and actions with a hypothesis of generosity,
Speaker 1: you have to ensure that your boundaries are being respected
Speaker 1: by those people. That makes a lot of sense. And
Speaker 1: bringing in their self compassion seems to be an important
Speaker 1: thing that you talk about as well and acceptance. So
Speaker 1: it seems like you really have to know who you
Speaker 1: are and what you want to set up those boundaries,
Speaker 1: and in order to do that, you have to accept
Speaker 1: who you are and what you want, right, I think
Speaker 1: it does. It's interesting with grounded theory because we don't
Speaker 1: do the lit review until the theory emerges, because you know,
Speaker 1: it gets in the way of us, you know, trying
Speaker 1: to figure out how people are actually living. It's interesting
Speaker 1: because then once you do the lit review after your
Speaker 1: theory has emerged, you're looking for existing literature that supports
Speaker 1: or existing literature that really conflicts with what you found,
Speaker 1: and you know, addressing that and so and sometimes that
Speaker 1: means just saying, you know, this is not what I find.
Speaker 1: I disagree. You know, the times it's digging in further
Speaker 1: and making sure that you didn't miss something. And so
Speaker 1: for me, when I was doing the compassion work and
Speaker 1: after I finished coding that data, I found Kristin Neff
Speaker 1: from the University of Texas at Austin Kristin Nef's work
Speaker 1: on compassion and it was just such a powerful fit
Speaker 1: with what I had seen in the days. So I
Speaker 1: rely on her work a lot. Yeah, she's been on
Speaker 1: this podcast, and I'm gonna, in fact, when I feature
Speaker 1: my podcast on my website, I'm going to put yours
Speaker 1: next to this and NEPs. I decided I like with her. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I just decided that. Yeah, it dovetails so nicely. So
Speaker 1: this is great. You know, when I talk about creativity,
Speaker 1: I bring in stuff like authenticity and meaning, and you know,
Speaker 1: in Wired to Create, I talk about how really creativity
Speaker 1: is not much more than finding your personal meaning in
Speaker 1: a way, and you talk about it in similar terms.
Speaker 1: I'd love to hear your thoughts and let's just have
Speaker 1: a discussion and jam on this topic. Yeah, I love it.
Speaker 1: I love Wired to Create. Oh, I just think it's
Speaker 1: I just I love what you say in it. I
Speaker 1: think it's the title is like, it's just soulful truth telling.
Speaker 1: I love it. Oh that just made my wife right there,
Speaker 1: But thanks I forgot. Yeah, I just do. I think
Speaker 1: everything about everything that you have found, everything that you
Speaker 1: is exactly I think it's exactly right. I just believe
Speaker 1: it heart and soul. So tell me your question again
Speaker 1: because I was fawning. Yeah, I love like these associated
Speaker 1: constructs that we both totally agree are part kind of
Speaker 1: part and parcel of creativity. So meaning having a uniqueness,
Speaker 1: not like comparison, but having your own path that you
Speaker 1: are accept in a way and you and then drives
Speaker 1: you and all these things. And authenticity is another one.
Speaker 1: So there's all these related topics and I just wanted
Speaker 1: to just talk about how they relate to creativity. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I think, I don't know. I think, you know, one
Speaker 1: of the most I don't know if the word controversial,
Speaker 1: but one of the findings from my work that I
Speaker 1: thought about a lot when I read Wired to Create,
Speaker 1: which was met has been still still met, Like I
Speaker 1: just did a talk in Denver on Saturday. It's still
Speaker 1: met with Like people get really fussy but crunchy about it.
Speaker 1: Is my belief that you know, and I think it's
Speaker 1: a shared that we have is that you know, there's
Speaker 1: no such thing as creative or not creative people. There's
Speaker 1: people who use it and people who don't. But I
Speaker 1: do believe, and this is where people get upset that
Speaker 1: unused creativity is not benign. I think ignoring that part
Speaker 1: of our humanity comes at a cost because I do believe,
Speaker 1: as you say in your title, that we are wired
Speaker 1: for creativity. It's part of our DNA. And so I
Speaker 1: think the question for me, and this goes back to
Speaker 1: starting as a shame researcher, and that lends really informing
Speaker 1: my entire career. So my question is like, if we
Speaker 1: are really wired to be created, but yet people are
Speaker 1: not doing it? What gets in the way, And so
Speaker 1: much of what gets in the way is shame? Oh yeah, absolutely,
Speaker 1: and and a lot of these other emotions that kind
Speaker 1: of block us up. So you know what's interesting. I started,
Speaker 1: I'm working on this project about Abraham Maslow, and I've
Speaker 1: ring all those journals, and he believed that self actualization
Speaker 1: is the height of creativity, and that self actualization really
Speaker 1: can only come about when you, peace by piece start
Speaker 1: unblocking yourself. It's sort of like our default state is
Speaker 1: self actualization. And then all these other things in the
Speaker 1: pyramid are things that are kind of clogging it up
Speaker 1: in a way. I think I agree with that. I mean,
Speaker 1: my question would be, does he think that they were
Speaker 1: born with them plogged? Are that? Well, we're born with
Speaker 1: the creative instinct, And I definitely agree with that. There's
Speaker 1: just a sort of you know what, it's no the
Speaker 1: way I like to think about, there's sort of like
Speaker 1: there's an inner freedom that comes with creativity. That all
Speaker 1: these things like shame and fear and what they do
Speaker 1: is they limit our degrees of freedom. But how do
Speaker 1: you think they get there? Wizzy is pointing is something
Speaker 1: she wrote down in her hands. She wrote, arts art
Speaker 1: scars that, Lizzie, that's exactly I'm trying to be quiet.
Speaker 1: That'll never serve you, Lizzie. I just gave give me
Speaker 1: the podcast, so I was, no, it's okay, I'm going
Speaker 1: to keep this in. I'm going to keep this in. Also,
Speaker 1: that's a question I'm asking, like, I believe the reason
Speaker 1: why I'm asking you is because I think that what
Speaker 1: I find in my work is that the stuff that
Speaker 1: Maslow would say clogs freedom or clogs or you know,
Speaker 1: creates inhibition or whatever it is. Inhibition may be the
Speaker 1: wrong word, but I think a lot of that has learned,
Speaker 1: and I think that in many ways, we're born with
Speaker 1: a lot of freedom. And you know, when you have
Speaker 1: as many people that we've interviewed and fifty percent of
Speaker 1: I mean sorry, eighty five percent of them can remember
Speaker 1: something that happened in school that was so shaming it
Speaker 1: changed how they thought of themselves as learners. And of
Speaker 1: that eighty five percent, fifty percent of those scars specifically
Speaker 1: we're around art, writing, drawing, creativity, music, I mean, like
Speaker 1: the stuff that you're doing with schools. Like it's going
Speaker 1: to be so much easier if we don't create the
Speaker 1: wound then try to heal it. And I'm telling you
Speaker 1: that's what happens. Like people want to believe that that's, oh,
Speaker 1: that must be like you know, resource poor public schools
Speaker 1: where that's happening. It's not. It happens in every school,
Speaker 1: not in every classroom, of course, because there are teachers
Speaker 1: that I've met some of the fiercest, non shaming, wholehearted
Speaker 1: people I've ever met our teachers, But you know, it
Speaker 1: happens a lot. And so if we can change the
Speaker 1: environments in which the clogging happens. That's going to be
Speaker 1: so much more effective and efficient than trying to heal it.
Speaker 1: Great and additionally, create a culture that allows people to
Speaker 1: feel comfortable sharing how they feel, you know, their vulnerability
Speaker 1: about you know, maybe they were bullied and saying like,
Speaker 1: you know what, I really am not cool with that.
Speaker 1: You know, this is how I feel about that, you know,
Speaker 1: so just yeah, adding in that vulnerability aspect as well,
Speaker 1: that would have been huge for me as well. But
Speaker 1: we all have that inner freedom. It really is inside us.
Speaker 1: It's just we don't access it. It is, and I
Speaker 1: think it's hard to make the transition from you know,
Speaker 1: I think I always tell people it's one of the
Speaker 1: most important developmental milestones of midlife is you know, midlife
Speaker 1: is when and midlife can be anything from your you know,
Speaker 1: you know, from your mid thirties to you know, who knows,
Speaker 1: the sixties. But it's kind of when the universe grabs
Speaker 1: you by the shoulders and says, you know, I'm not
Speaker 1: screwing around like you're halfway done. And all the armor
Speaker 1: and all the things you put around yourself, the walls,
Speaker 1: the armor, the moats you dug to really protect yourself emotionally,
Speaker 1: maybe even physically. They're keeping you growing into your gifts
Speaker 1: and you're an adult now, but it's you know, so
Speaker 1: it's time to take those off, and it's time to
Speaker 1: be vulnerable and be who you are. But you know,
Speaker 1: when you when you grow up having to put armor
Speaker 1: on to self protect, which we all do to some extent,
Speaker 1: it becomes a great challenge to believing that you're safe
Speaker 1: enough to pull it off. And I think that's you know,
Speaker 1: that's really the part of the work that I try
Speaker 1: to talk to people about is that, you know, how
Speaker 1: do we how do we create environments where kids and cultures,
Speaker 1: family cultures, school cultures where kids don't have to armor
Speaker 1: up so much to begin with, And then once those
Speaker 1: of us who are armored are armored, what do we
Speaker 1: need to start pulling that stuff off? I love that,
Speaker 1: So maybe it would be to end on this note,
Speaker 1: we can like both agree that I think society would
Speaker 1: be benefited if we shifted from this focus on what's
Speaker 1: wrong with people, like you know, your test SAT scores
Speaker 1: are terrible or this and that, and focused more on
Speaker 1: the beauty potential that's inherited in everyone and the creative possibilities.
Speaker 1: Oh my god, sign me up for that awesome. Well,
Speaker 1: thank you so much for chatting today and for the
Speaker 1: really terrific work you do and for inspiring me to
Speaker 1: be more authentic in my own life. Oh my god,
Speaker 1: one hundred percent. And thank you for the work you're doing.
Speaker 1: And it's so fun to find like spirited people on
Speaker 1: the same because it's hard sometimes and you're like, oh,
Speaker 1: and you know, am I chasing windmills? But you know,
Speaker 1: if that's what it is at West, are people like you,
Speaker 1: I can knock them over with So it's gonna be
Speaker 1: Thanks for day. Thanks for listening to the Psychology Podcast.
Speaker 1: I hope you enjoyed this episode. If you'd like to
Speaker 1: react in some way to something you heard, I encourage
Speaker 1: you to join in the discussion at the Psychology podcast
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Speaker 1: Thanks for being such a great supporter of the podcast,
Speaker 1: and tune in next season for more on the mind, brain, behavior,
Speaker 1: and creativity.