Brené Brown's book "Rising Strong," and how to short-circuit blame

[Griffen]

I'll thumbnail this as much as I can, but I do encourage you to all get the book and read it, too.

First, the book: When she gave her now-famous TED talk about vulnerability (https://www.ted.com/talks/brene_brown_on_vulnerability/transcript?language=en) she mentioned that she went into therapy after her research showed her that the way she was approaching life was not the way that people who were loving their lives were living it. In the talk, she just says "It took about a year, and it was a street fight. I lost the fight, but I think I won my life back."

But in Rising Strong, she notes that she glossed over what that meant - what that "street fight" really looked like - and that she needed to dig deeper into that.

Chapter Six is about what she calls "sewer rats and scofflaws." She had been guilted into being the (free) guest speaker at a conference, had gone reluctantly, and was told she'd have to have a roommate in her hotel room. The roommate was a smoker, sloppy, and generally off-putting. The roommate (hereinafter referred to as The Icing Wiper) also didn't care about the rules, wiped icing from a cinnamon roll all over the couch in the room ("It's not our couch, so it's not our problem") and generally made Brené upset and angry with her attitude and her behavior.

Brené set an appointment with the therapist she mentions in her talk, Diana, from the plane on her way home.

In that appointment, Brené described The Icing Wiper as a sewer rat (a person who just doesn't care about other people's things) and a scofflaw (a person who breaks the rules and makes fun of them and of people who care about them).

Diana listened, nodded, and then asked her, "Do you think your roommate was doing the best she could that weekend?"

Of course Brené's shocked response was "absolutely not!" and anger, and a rough ending to the session when she found out that Diana truly believed that most of the time, most people are doing the best they can.

But because Brené's a researcher, she then asked about 40 people, including her husband, that same question. And found, to her discomfort, that they fell into two groups: people who did think most people are doing the best they can, and people who absolutely did not think people were ever doing the best they can. And not surprisingly, the first group fell into what she called "wholehearted" in her research - the people who are shame-resilient - and the second group did not.

Brené fell into that second group, right up until she proposed the question to a new friend, who was in the "of course not!" group. The new friend, during her vehement agreement, used a personal example - breastfeeding - to demonstrate how most people were not doing the best they could.

But Brené had not been successful at breastfeeding, for valid reasons, and was caught up short. "This is what I look like to the people I think are sewer rats and scofflaws," she thought. "I don't know their stories. But I judge them."

In essence, she was her new friend's sewer rat.

She had not yet asked her husband the question, but that night she did. Her husband struggled with it and after about ten minutes said, "Well, I think my life is easier when I assume everyone's doing the best they can."

Brené went back to Diana and explained that her mind had changed (and cried through the session because it was so hard to admit she was wrong). And then she developed methods to help people stop judging. It's great work, and very useful.

But for me, more than anything, was what her husband said. That's what got to me.

My life is easier when I assume everyone's doing the best they can.

This is, I think, an almost magical "blame short-circuiter." And I speak as someone who was raised to blame everyone for everything. But if everyone's doing the best they can, then it's easier for me to assume that they are, and respond in that vein. And blame just ceases to matter.

This came up in my head this morning again, because I have a colleague on a teaching group on Facebook saying "I've got a student with the 'grandma died' excuse for not taking an exam; how would you handle it?" And my first thought was, "Assume they're telling you the truth."

Will some people take advantage of that? Yes. Is that a reason to automatically assume everyone is dishonest? No. Why? Because, if nothing else, assuming everyone else is dishonest (or aggressive, or out to get me) makes my life harder.

And I'm tired of making my life harder.

[Jade63]

And I'm tired of making my life harder.

So am I! Thank you for your post. Really. I needed to read this!

~Jade

[Whiteheron]

Very interesting. Thank you!

[all4peace]

Thank you for this beautiful post! I'm going to get the audio version for my DH and I to listen to. It's kind of a neat math/psychology question you pose: Assume the best. What % will you be wrong? What % will you be right? What are the costs for each? What are the benefits of each?

I've also played the blame/shame game.  It's so fascinating to me how you correlate the 2, and I think actually Brene does also in her work on vulnerability. How we treat ourselves is how we treat others. As we learn to heal and accept ourselves, to truly love ourselves, we come to see the humanity in others. So maybe someone who has a lot of shame/blame issues is really someone who has a lot of pain because that's how they also treat themselves.

Thank you for sharing--I look forward to listening to this book and pondering this important concept more in my own life.

[bloomie]

Griffen - thank you for this discussion. This subject hits very close to the bone for me as I have chosen this year to do my very best to become un-offendable and this all ties in with that endeavor and work in my life right now.

This also reminds me of a time I was faced with the decision to believe a young woman I was mentoring was telling me the truth when everything surrounding the situation pointed to her not be honest about something very important. She had made a lot of mistakes and had little credibility to almost everyone and yet stepping back and thinking it through - doing a risk analysis if you will... the risk was far higher to disbelieve her and be wrong than to believe her and be wrong. I could "afford" to absorb the cost of believing her and being wrong whereas she could not afford for me to make a mistake. I chose to believe the best of her and in her word and turns out when all was said and done she was absolutely not lying.

It costs me far more to believe the worst about another and be wrong than to believe the best and be wrong. That is just a part of self acceptance and embracing how I am wired and a pragmatic place I try to hold for my own peace of mind.

Quite honestly it is much safer and easier to hold this space with people now that I have developed appropriate and healthy internal and external boundaries and have done a lot of healing work. It is freeing and empowering to realize we do have a choice and responsibility to be self aware in how we view ourselves and others.

[all4peace]

I think Bloomie makes a crucial point in how we get from wounded to this much more generous perspective: "appropriate and healthy internal and external boundaries...a lot of healing work." I think this is key.

[bloomie]

Just had to add this because I can't seem to not... benefit of the doubt living... is kind of how I term this for myself, is easier in this way as well... someone may be doing their best and it doesn't change that they are not safe or healthy for me to be close to because their "best" still hurts or at the very least is incompatible with the way I engage in relationship and they may also not be who I choose to cohort in a hotel room with.  Just sayin'.

[all4peace]

Thank you for clarifying that.

Someone can be doing their best and still harming others. But choosing to give them the benefit of the doubt allows us to live in a more joyful and hopeful place, while hoping that someday they heal and grow and start behaving more safely.