Brene Brown Shame Quotes & Sayings

Our stories are not meant for everyone. Hearing them is a privilege, and we should always ask ourselves this before we share: "Who has earned the right to hear my story?" If we have one or two people in our lives who can sit with us and hold space for our shame stories, and love us for our strengths and struggles, we are incredibly lucky. If we have a friend, or small group of friends, or family who embraces our imperfections, vulnerabilities, and power, and fills us with a sense of belonging, we are incredibly lucky. — Brene Brown

Perfectionism is not about healthy achievement and growth. Perfectionism is the belief that if we live perfect, look perfect, and act perfect, we can minimize or avoid the pain of blame, judgment, and shame. — Brene Brown

First thing we need to understand about shame resilience is that the less we talk about shame, the more we have it. — Brene Brown

We cannot grow when we are in shame, and we can't use shame to change ourselves or others. — Brene Brown

Shame is the most powerful, master emotion. It's the fear that we're not good enough. — Brene Brown

Key Learning: Shame derives its power from being unspeakable. That's why it loves perfectionists - we're so easy to keep quiet. If — Brene Brown

You cannot talk about race without talking about privilege. And when people start talking about privilege, they get paralyzed by shame. — Brene Brown

If we understand how larger systems are contributing to our shame and we choose only to change ourselves, we become as negligent as the person who says, "I'm not changing myself, because the system is bad." Context is not the enemy of personal responsibility. Individualism is the enemy of personal responsibility. — Brene Brown

Shame breeds fear. It crushes our tolerance for vulnerability, thereby killing engagement, innovation, creativity, productivity, and trust. — Brene Brown

Shame is so painful for children because it is inextricably linked to the fear of being unlovable. For young children who are still dependent on their parents for survival - for food, shelter, and safety - feeling unlovable is a threat to survival. It's trauma. I'm convinced that the reason most of us revert back to feeling childlike and small when we're in shame is because our brain stores our early shame experiences as trauma, and when it's triggered we return to that place. We don't have the neurobiological research yet to confirm this, but I've coded hundreds of interviews that follow this same pattern: — Brene Brown

Shame keeps worthiness away by convincing us that owning our stories will lead to people thinking less of us. Shame is all about fear. We're afraid that people won't like us if they know the truth about who we are, where we come from, what we believe, how much we're struggling, or, believe it or not, how wonderful we are when soaring (sometimes it's just as hard to own our strengths as our struggles). — Brene Brown

I hesitate to use a pathologizing label, but underneath the so-called narcissistic personality is definitely shame and the paralyzing fear of being ordinary. — Brene Brown

I think that shame is a universal, paralyzing, painful emotion. — Brene Brown

Shame derives its power from being unspeakable. — Brene Brown

I am enough (worthiness versus shame). I've had enough (boundaries versus one-uping and comparison). Showing up, taking risks, and letting myself be seen is enough (engagement versus disengagement). — Brene Brown

Shame forces us to put so much value on what other people think that we lose ourselves in the process of trying to meet everyone else's expectations. Shame: — Brene Brown

We judge people in areas where we're vulnerable to shame, especially picking folks who are doing worse than we're doing. — Brene Brown

Our culture teaches us about shame - it dictates what is acceptable and what is not. We weren't born craving perfect bodies. We weren't born afraid to tell our stories. We weren't born with a fear of getting too old to feel valuable. We weren't born with a Pottery Barn catalog in one hand and heartbreaking debt in the other. Shame comes from outside of us - from the messages and expectations of our culture. What comes from the inside of us is a very human need to belong, to relate. — Brene Brown

We choose owning our stories of struggle, Over hiding, over hustling, over pretending. When we deny our stories, they define us. When we run from struggle, we are never free. So we turn toward truth and look it in the eye. We will not be characters in our stories. Not villains, not victims, not even heroes. We are the authors of our lives. We write our own daring endings. We craft love from heartbreak, Compassion from shame, Grace from disappointment, Courage from failure. Showing up is our power. Story is our way home. Truth is our song. We are the brave and brokenhearted. — Brene Brown

It thrives on secrecy, silence, and judgment. If we can share our experience of shame with someone who responds with empathy, shame can't survive. We — Brene Brown

For example, when I look at narcissism through the vulnerability lens, I see the shame-based fear of being ordinary. — Brene Brown

Authenticity is the daily practice of letting go of who we think we're supposed to be and embracing who we are. Choosing authenticity means cultivating the courage to be imperfect, to set boundaries, and to allow ourselves to be vulnerable; exercising the compassion that comes from knowing that we are all made of strength and struggle; and nurturing the connection and sense of belonging that can only happen when we believe that we are enough. Authenticity demands Wholehearted living and loving - even when it's hard, even when we're wrestling with the shame and fear of not being good enough, and especially when the joy is so intense that we're afraid to let ourselves feel it. Mindfully practicing authenticity during our most soul-searching struggles is how we invite grace, joy, and gratitude into our lives. — Brene Brown

Shame cannot survive being spoken. It cannot tolerate having words wrapped around it. What it craves is secrecy, silence, and judgment. If you stay quiet, you stay in a lot of self-judgment. — Brene Brown

My husband's a pediatrician, so he and I talk about parenting all the time. You can't raise children who have more shame resilience than you do. — Brene Brown

One of the most powerful ways that our shame triggers get reinforced is when we enter into a social contract based on these gender straitjackets. Our relationships are defined by women and men saying, "I'll play my role, and you play yours." One of the patterns revealed in the research was how all that role playing becomes almost unbearable around midlife. Men feel increasingly disconnected, and the fear of failure becomes paralyzing. Women are exhausted, and for the first time they begin to clearly see that the expectations are impossible. The accomplishments, accolades, and acquisitions that are a seductive part of living by this contract start to feel like a Faustian bargain. — Brene Brown

Shame is real pain. The importance of social acceptance and connection is reinforced by our brain chemistry, and the pain that results from social rejection and disconnection is real pain. — Brene Brown

One woman said, "Shame is hating yourself and understanding why other people hate you too. — Brene Brown

Good made the powerful point that there's a vast difference between how we think about the term failure and how we think about the people and organizations brave enough to share their failures for the purpose of learning and growing. To pretend that we can get to helping, generous, and brave without navigating through tough emotions like desperation, shame, and panic is a profoundly dangerous and misguided assumption. — Brene Brown

Shame is the feeling you get when you believe that you're not worthy of anyone caring about you or loving you. That you're such a bad person that you can't even blame other people for not caring about you. — Brene Brown

But the feeling of scarcity does thrive in shame-prone cultures that are deeply steeped in comparison and fractured by disengagement. — Brene Brown

It is easy to see how quickly expectations become layered, competitive and conflicting. This is how the shame web works. We have very few realistic options that allow us to meet any of these expectations. Most of the options that we do have feel like a "double bind." When Marilyn Frye describes a double bind as "a situation in which options are very limited and all of them expose us to penalty, censure or deprivation. — Brene Brown

What almost no one understands is how every level of severity in this diagnosis is underpinned by shame. Which means we don't "fix it" by cutting people down to size and reminding folks of their inadequacies and smallness. Shame is more likely to be the cause of these behaviors, not the cure. — Brene Brown

Guilt is just as powerful, but its influence is positive, while shame's is destructive. Shame erodes our courage and fuels disengagement. — Brene Brown

Laughter is the evidence that the chokehold of shame has been loosened. Knowing laughter is the moment we feel proof that our shame has been transformed. Like empathy, it strips shame to the bone, robs it of its power and forces it from the closet. — Brene Brown

Perfectionism is a shield that we carry with a thought process that says this, 'If I look perfect, live perfect, work perfect, and do it all perfectly, I can avoid or minimize feeling shame, blame, and judgement. — Brene Brown

There is a quiet transformation happening that is moving us from 'turning on each other' to 'turning toward each other.' Without question, that transformation will require shame resilience. If we're willing to dare greatly and risk vulnerability with each other, worthiness has the power to set us free. — Brene Brown

One of the things I did when I discovered this huge importance of being vulnerable is very happily moved away from the shame research, because that's such a downer, and people hate that topic. It's not that vulnerability is the upside, but it's better than shame, I guess. — Brene Brown

Squandering our gifts brings distress to our lives. As it turns out, it's not merely benign or 'too bad' if we don't use the gifts that we've been given; we pay for it with our emotional and physical well-being. When we don't use our talents to cultivate meaningful work, we struggle. We feel disconnected and weighted down by feelings of emptiness, frustration, resentment, shame, disappointment, fear, and even grief. — Brene Brown

When we choose growth over perfection, we immediately increase our shame resilience. Improvement is a far more realistic goal than perfection. Merely letting go of unattainable goals makes us less susceptible to shame. When we believe "we must be this" we ignore who or what we actually are, our capacity and our limitations. We start from the image of perfection, and of course, from perfection there is nowhere to go but down. — Brene Brown

I've learned a lot since I was a new mother. My approach to struggle and shame now is to talk to yourself like you'd talk to someone you love and reach out to tell your story. — Brene Brown

In fact, all of us are very susceptible to having our humiliating experiences turn to shame, especially when the person who is putting us down is someone with whom we have a valued relationship or someone whom we perceive to have more power than we do... — Brene Brown

Serpentining means trying to control a situation, backing out of it, pretending it's not happening, or maybe even pretending that you don't care. We use it to dodge conflict, discomfort, possible confrontation, the potential for shame or hurt, and/or criticism (self- or other-inflicted). Serpentining can lead to hiding out, pretending, avoidance, procrastination, rationalizing, blaming, and lying.
I have a tendency to want to serpentine when I feel vulnerable. If I have to make a difficult call, I'll try to script both sides of it. I'll convince myself that I should wait, I'll draft an e-mail while telling myself that it's better in writing, and I'll think of a million other things to do. I'll emotionally run back and forth until I'm exhausted. — Brene Brown

Shame loves prerequisites. Our if/when worthiness list easily doubles as the gremlins' to-do list. — Brene Brown

Shame is much more likely to be the cause of destructive behavior than the cure. Guilt and empathy are the emotions that lead us to question how our actions affect other people, and both of these are severely diminished by the presence of shame. — Brene Brown

Shame can only rise so far in any system before people disengage to protect themselves. When we're disengaged, we don't show up, we don't contribute, and we stop caring. — Brene Brown

The way to fight shame and to honor who we are is by sharing our experience with someone who has earned the right to hear it. — Brene Brown

If you want to make a difference, the next time you see someone being cruel to another human being, take it personally. Take it personally because it is personal! — Brene Brown

When perfectionism is driving us, shame is riding shotgun and fear is that annoying backseat driver! — Brene Brown

When we ask for anything, we're almost always asking for help, in some form; help with money, permission, acceptance, advancement, help with our hearts ...
Brene Brown has found through her research that women tend to feel shame around the idea of being 'never enough' ... at home, at work, in bed, never pretty enough, never smart enough, never thin enough, never good enough ...
Men tend to feel shame around the fear of being perceived as weak, or more academically, 'fear of being called a pussy'.
Both sexes get trapped in the same box for different reasons.
If I ask for help ...
I am not enough.
If I ask for help ...
I'm weak.
It's no wonder so many of us don't bother to ask, it's too painful. — Amanda Palmer

Minding the gap is a daring strategy. We have to pay attention to the space between where we're actually standing and where we want to be. More importantly, we have to practice the values that we're holding out as important in our culture. Minding the gap requires both an embrace of our own vulnerability and cultivation of shame resilience - we're going to be called upon to show up as leaders and parents and educators in new and uncomfortable ways. We don't have to be perfect, just engaged and committed to aligning values with action. — Brene Brown

Empathy is the antidote to shame, — Brene Brown

Shame resilience is the ability to recognize shame, to move through it constructively while maintaining worthiness and authenticity, and to ultimately develop more courage, compassion, and connection as a result of our experience. — Brene Brown

I found that men and women with high levels of shame resilience share these four elements: They understand shame and recognize what messages and expectations trigger shame for them. They practice critical awareness by reality-checking the messages and expectations that tell us that being imperfect means being inadequate. They reach out and share their stories with people they trust. They speak shame - they use the word shame, they talk about how they're feeling, and they ask for what they need. — Brene Brown

You share with people who've earned the right to hear your story ... You have to earn the right to hear my story. It's an honor to hold space for me when I'm in shame. — Brene Brown

MANIFESTO OF THE BRAVE AND BROKENHEARTED There is no greater threat to the critics and cynics and fearmongers Than those of us who are willing to fall Because we have learned how to rise With skinned knees and bruised hearts; We choose owning our stories of struggle, Over hiding, over hustling, over pretending. When we deny our stories, they define us. When we run from struggle, we are never free. So we turn toward truth and look it in the eye. We will not be characters in our stories. Not villains, not victims, not even heroes. We are the authors of our lives. We write our own daring endings. We craft love from heartbreak, Compassion from shame, Grace from disappointment, Courage from failure. Showing up is our power. Story is our way home. Truth is our song. We are the brave and brokenhearted. We are rising strong. — Brene Brown

Politics is a great, albeit painful, example of social contract disengagement. Politicians on both sides of the aisle are making laws that they're not required to follow or that don't affect them, they're engaging in behaviors that would result in most of us getting fired, divorced, or arrested. They're espousing values that are rarely displayed in their behavior. And just watching them shame and blame each other is degrading for us. They're not living up to their side of the social contract and voter turnout statistics show that we're disengaging. — Brene Brown

Men walk this tightrope where any sign of weakness illicits shame, and so they're afraid to make themselves vulnerable for fear of looking weak. — Brene Brown

To reignite creativity, innovation, and learning, leaders must rehumanize education and work. This means understanding how scarcity is affecting the way we lead and work, learning how to engage with vulnerability, and recognizing and combating shame. — Brene Brown

When the culture of an organization mandates that it is more important to protect the reputation of a system and those in power than it is to protect the basic human dignity of individuals or communities, you can be certain that shame is systemic, money drives ethics, and accountability is dead. — Brene Brown

If we can find someone who has earned the right to hear our story, we need to tell it. Shame loses power when it is spoken. In this way, we need to cultivate our story to let go of shame, and we need to develop shame resilience in order to cultivate our story. — Brene Brown

The simple and honest process of letting people know that discomfort is normal, it's going to happen, why it happens, and why it's important, reduces anxiety, fear, and shame. Periods — Brene Brown

The greatest gift of having done this work (the research and the personal work) is that I can recognize shame when it's happening. First, I know my physical symptoms of shame - the dry mouth, time slowing down, tunnel vision, hot face, racing heart. I know that playing the painful slow-motion reel over and over in my head is a warning sign. — Brene Brown

Shame is all about fear. We're afraid that people won't like us if they know the truth about who we are, where we come from, what we believe, how much we're struggling, or, believe it or not, how wonderful we are when soaring — Brene Brown

I often refer to shame as the fear of disconnection
the fear of being perceived as flawed and unworthy of acceptance or belonging. — Brene Brown

Well, no. They are both serious epidemics, but shame is a silent epidemic. People understand violence and can talk about it. We're still afraid of shame. Even the word is uncomfortable. — Brene Brown

A sense of worthiness inspires us to be vulnerable, share openly, and persevere. Shame keeps us small, resentful, and afraid. — Brene Brown

Perfectionism is not the same thing has striving to be your best. Perfectionism is the belief that if we live perfect, look perfect, and act perfect, we can minimize or avoid the pain of blame, judgement, and shame. It's a shield. It's a twenty-ton shield that we lug around thinking it will protect us when, in fact, it's the thing that's really preventing us from flight. — Brene Brown

But the real struggle for women - what amplifies shame regardless of the category - is that we're expected (and sometimes desire) to be perfect, yet we're not allowed to look as if we're working for it. We want it to just materialize somehow. Everything should be effortless. The expectation is to be natural beauties, natural mothers, natural leaders, and naturally good parents, and we want to belong to naturally fabulous families. — Brene Brown

What's the difference between shame and guilt? The majority of shame researchers and clinicians agree that the difference between shame and guilt is best understood as the differences between "I am bad" and "I did something bad." Guilt = I did something bad. Shame = I am bad. Shame is about who we are, and guilt is about our behaviors. — Brene Brown

We've all fallen, and we have the skinned knees and bruised hearts to prove it. But scars are easier to talk about than they are to show, with all the remembered feelings laid bare. And rarely do we see wounds that are in the process of healing. I'm not sure if it's because we feel too much shame to let anyone see a process as intimate as overcoming hurt, or if it's because even when we muster the courage to share our still-incomplete healing, people reflexively look away. — Brene Brown

The culture of shame is driven by fear, blame and disconnection, and it is often a powerful incubator for issues like perfectionism, stereotyping, gossiping and addiction. — Brene Brown

Personally, I have learned that when I'm experiencing shame, I often act out in ways that are inconsistent with who I want to be. — Brene Brown

If we share our shame story with the wrong person, they can easily become one more piece of flying debris in an already dangerous storm. — Brene Brown

Self-compassion is key because when we're able to be gentle with ourselves in the midst of shame, we're more likely to reach out, connect, and experience empathy. — Brene Brown

If we want freedom from perfectionism, we have to make the long journey from "What will people think?" to "I am enough." That journey begins with shame resilience, self-compassion, and owning our stories. — Brene Brown

Guilt says: I made a mistake. Shame says: I AM a mistake. — Brene Brown

Shame hates it when we reach out and tell our story. It hates having words wrapped around it- it can't survive being shared. Shame loves secrecy. When we bury our story, the shame metastasizes. — Brene Brown

For me, vulnerability led to anxiety, which led to shame, which led to disconnection, which led to Bud Light. — Brene Brown

At the exact time that our society embraces shaming, blaming, judgment, and rejection, it also holds acceptance and belonging as immensely important. In other words, it's never been more impossible to 'fit in,' yet 'fitting in' has never been more important and valued — Brene Brown

Twelve "shame categories" have emerged from my research: Appearance and body image Money and work Motherhood/fatherhood Family Parenting Mental and physical health Addiction Sex Aging Religion Surviving trauma Being stereotyped or labeled — Brene Brown

I think we can all agree that feeling shame is an incredibly painful experience. What we often don't realize is that perpetrating shame is equally as painful, and no one does that with the precision of a partner or a parent. These are the people who know us the best and who bear witness to our vulnerabilities and fears. Thankfully, we can apologize for shaming someone we love, but the truth is that those shaming comments leave marks. And shaming someone we love around vulnerability is the most serious of all security breaches. Even if we apologize, we've done serious damage because we've demonstrated our willingness to use sacred information as a weapon. — Brene Brown

Shame... cannot survive empathy. — Brene Brown

Shame is the intensely painful feeling or experience of believing we are flawed and therefore unworthy of acceptance and belonging. — Brene Brown

To be honest, I think emotional accessibility is a shame trigger for researchers and academics. Very early in our training, we are taught that a cool distance and inaccessibility contribute to prestige, and that if you're too relatable, your credentials come into question. — Brene Brown

As a shame researcher, I know that the very best thing to do in the midst of a shame attack is totally counterintuitive: Practice courage and reach out! — Brene Brown

Interestingly, in terms of shame triggers for women, motherhood is a close second. And (bonus!) you don't have to be a mother to experience mother shame. Society views womanhood and motherhood as inextricably bound; therefore our value as women is often determined by where we are in relation to our roles as mothers or potential mothers. Women are constantly asked why they haven't married or, if they're married, why they haven't had children. Even women who are married and have one child are often asked why they haven't had a second child. — Brene Brown

One of the reasons we judge each other so harshly in this world of parenting is because ... we perceive anyone else who's doing anything differently than what we're doing as criticizing our choices. — Brene Brown

we are the kind of people who "don't do vulnerability," there's nothing that makes us feel more threatened and more incited to attack and shame people than to see someone daring greatly. — Brene Brown

If you put shame in a petri dish, it needs three ingredients to grow exponentially: secrecy, silence, and judgment. If you put the same amount of shame in the petri dish and douse it with empathy, it can't survive. — Brene Brown

Women most often experience shame as a web of layered, conflicting, and competing social-community expectations. The expectations dictate who we should be, what we should be, how we should be. — Brene Brown

Here's the bottom line: If we want to live and love with our whole hearts, and if we want to engage with the world from a place of worthiness, we have to talk about the things that get in the way - especially shame, fear, and vulnerability. — Brene Brown

One of the outcomes of attempting to ignore emotional pain is chandeliering. We think we've packed the hurt so far down that it can't possibly resurface, yet all of a sudden, a seemingly innocuous comment sends us into a rage or sparks a crying fit. Or maybe a small mistake at work triggers a huge shame attack. Perhaps a colleague's constructive feedback hits that exquisitely tender place and we jump out of our skin. — Brene Brown

We don't have to experience shame to be paralyzed by it - the fear of being perceived as unworthy is enough to force us to silence our stories. — Brene Brown

Shame resilience is the ability to say, This hurts. This is disappointing, maybe even devastating. But success and recognition and approval are not the values that drive me. My value is courage and I was just courageous. You can move on, shame. — Brene Brown

When you tell people their situation is only "perception" and they can change it, you shame them, belittle them and, in the case of domestic violence, you put them in extreme physical danger. Rather than dismissing someone's experience as perception, we might want to ask, "How can I help?" or "Is there some way I can support you? — Brene Brown

Caring about the welfare of children and shaming parents are mutually exclusive endeavors. — Brene Brown

The goal is to learn to recognize when we are experiencing shame quickly enough to prevent ourselves from lashing out at those around us. — Brene Brown

Shame works like the zoom lens on a camera. When we are feeling shame, the camera is zoomed in tight and all we see is our flawed selves, alone and struggling.(page 68) — Brene Brown

Daring greatly is not about winning or losing. It's about courage. In a world where scarcity and shame dominate and feeling afraid has become second nature, vulnerability is subversive. — Brene Brown

Children who use more shame self-talk (I am bad) versus guilt self-talk (I did something bad) struggle mightily with issues of self-worth and self-loathing. Using shame to parent teaches children that they are not inherently worthy of love. — Brene Brown