Braving the Wilderness

I love Brene Brown. This book felt shorter and less meaty than her others, but I still loved it. She calls me on all my shit without even knowing me.

No rating. I only picked this up to fulfil a prompt in a reading challenge (it was the shortest I could find). As much as I wish it were - self-help books are not for me. I feel like I'm being lectured to and told how I'm living my life incorrectly. My issue I know - I wonder if there is a self help book for that (haha)?

This book spoke to me at the beginning but towards the end it felt really rant like and thrown together with too many topics, but overall I enjoyed it. if I could give 3.5 stars i would.

Boundaries
Reliability
Accountability
Vault
Integrity
Non-Judgement
Generosity

Brene Brown has done it again! Inspirational.

I love Brené Brown and this book did not disappoint. True belonging is something many people struggle to understand. Brown makes it easy to apply her strategies to our own lives. Just wish it was longer!

This book was a difficult read for me. I wrote a long review and then was so frustrated when there was an error in posting it.

I think that Brené Brown's editor (Ben Greenberg) might be to blame for my biggest frustration, unless of course she wrote STET next to it. This simile pissed me off: “It's not just global and domestic terrorism that embeds fear in our cultures. Pervasive, random gun violence, and systematic attacks against groups of people, and the growing vitriol on social media— all of these send fear, like hot lava, flowing across our communities, filling in the holes and eventually working to ravage already fragile and broken places.”
That's not how lava works, when lava fills in holes it fixes the hole; it fills it in and when it cools it become sediment. This is an antithesis to her intended point; it baffles me.

I disliked the biographic technique she used to write it (although a few members of my book club appreciated it), as I found it to be somewhat kind of manipulative and unbelievable (such as her story about not being accepted to the drill team; I'm not into sports and even I know you at least wear school colors to your tryout, then she says her dad was captain of his football team and her mom was a cheerleader). I did like her story about pulling over when learning about the Challenger explosion, however I would have found it more interesting had she cited an additional source rather than just her anecdotal experience. I looked up what she described and found a few newspaper articles that corroborated her story.

She never comes out and says it, but this book is about America, she only uses American examples.

I did like the concept of “give yourself permission”.

I'm reading that some people feel like this book was phoned in/incomplete and I can see that. At some points I thought that too, but it made for a great 5ish hour audiobook!

I always feel like I learn/relearn a lot from Brown's book and I got the same feeling by this book too.

I like the difference between fitting in/belonging. I really enjoyed also the chapter of getting closer and having a strong back but soft front.

Another amazing book by Brene Brown!

Short book. The whole book has an intimate feel to it.

I had a few takeaways:
(1) Give yourself permission to have fun. She says she actually uses written permission slips for this.
(2) “It's hard to hate close up” Get to know people, listen without judgement. Yes, this will be hard
(3) sharing joy and grief with others makes us happier - do things with other people in real life.

Gosto da Brené, desde antes desta hype devido ao filme do Netflix. Fui uma das pessoas responsáveis pelos 4M de Views quando publicaram pela primeira vez o TEDx sobre vulnerabilidade. E a acho incrível desde então. Pois ela é, ou pelo menos transmite ser, uma pessoa que realmente se esforça e se preocupa com seu trabalho e acredita nele. Gosto dos exemplos que ela oferece para justificar seu ponto de vista, muito embora o que ela proponha seja muito difícil de concretizar nesse mundo de loucuras que vivemos hoje.
No entanto, o livro começa ótimo [muito similar ao TED inclusive, só faltou ela dizer ‘como eu disse há minutos atrás...' e seguir como se nada tivesse ocorrido], mas em alguns momentos, acho que ela se extende e delonga em pontos que já foram explanados, mas mais uma vez são reforçados, e acabei me perdendo no que realmente importava [como sair do ponto de true belonging para embrace de wilderness num Back and forth a toda velocidade, mas enfim]. Ou seu posicionamento ácido com algumas questões que, na minha vida prática por exemplo, não seriam possíveis de serem tomados.
Fato que não impediu em momento algum de me emocionar, dar umas risadas altas, ou tomar nota de frases que quero levar para projetos futuros, e mencionar figuras do meio das celebridades [como a historia de vida chocante da Viola Davis / chocada até os últimos respiros da minha pequena vida], ou dos autores que a inspiraram e figuras cultas.

Seguirei acompanhando o trabalho dela, e espero que tenha uma desenvoltura de outros temas, com mais bom exemplos.

I love Brené Brown but her recent books are starting to seem rehashed and diluted. Also, lots of wishy-washy both-sides we-must-be-civil stuff in here. Not her strongest work.

Powerful. Great work.

At one point while reading the first chapter of this book, I almost had to throw the book across the room, because the point Brown made hit so close to home. This is very timely, for the state of the world right now as well as the state of my own life. It's an accessible read yet challenging as well.

Dammit, who is this person and how does she know so much about the goings-on in my head? Why does she hit so hard, pierce so deeply? Why do I have such a hard time reading her oeuvre, and an even harder time admitting to it?

This is my second reading. My first, in October, I felt stunned and upset and even angry: at her observations in one paragraph, then angrier because often in the next paragraph she addressed the very counterargument I was mentally preparing, and she would very likely do so by confessing her own difficulty accepting her findings, which would ordinarily be disarming but not my first reading—I was too busy feeling embarrassed by my initial reaction. This time I was better prepared. So what does that mean? Should I recommend this book, but only if you skip your first reading and move directly on to the second?

Remarkably heavy stuff for such a light book. Many pages hit hard. Many are easy to skip or ignore—“oh, sure, that may be fine for her but my situation is different; that doesn't apply to me.” Again, on second reading, one might be more open to the possibility that she knows what she's writing about. I wonder what my third reading will be like.

I really don't know who this book is written for. I've always been tribeless, never belonging in any sort of organized group. I'm used to the loneliness and yet have, through great good fortune, managed to find some pretty amazing people in this world to connect with deeply. I hesitantly put forth that Brown writes for the tribeless; that there are others of us out there, maybe more than I dare imagine. And she has some good (but difficult) words for us. If any of what I've said resonates with you, pick up this book. But make sure to only read it the second time.

This book took me way longer to read (over a month) then it really should have. I found myself struggling to stayed consistently engaged which concerned me more than anything else. I immediately began to doubt the research of Dr. Brown and started to form my scathing review of how lacking her book was. As I am not one to not finish a book no matter how terrible it is I persisted, and I can say it was one of the best choices I've made recently. While the beginning is slow to start and in some areas Dr. Brown drones on, I began to feel the genuine parts of her spirit that she poured into her writing. I realized that as she wrote she is not seeking attention nor acceptance, but is simply making herself vulnerable in order to offer herself on the path less traveled. 

As I'm mentioned in previous reviews I am not a sucker for self-help books, yet lately I've been drawn to a distinct selection of books meant to empower the human spirit. I can say for sure that Dr. Brown does this here. While she challenged some of my notions for how the world is, she also opened my eyes to be willing to accept a certain level of responsibility for the way I choose to interact with the world around me. Dr. Brown offers four unique approaches to walk in the wilderness:

People Are Hard to Hate Close Up. Move In
Speak Truth to Bullshit. Be Civil
Hold Hands. With Strangers
Strong Back. Soft Front. Wild Heart

I won't spoil the approaches because Dr. Brown takes the time to paint such a unique and effective picture in explaining each of these. My only advice is to read her book with an open mind and be ready to have your way of thinking challenged. I did not agree with every point she made, but I did understand the perspective and angle she was writing from. This is the first book I have read of her's but I do intend to read her others.  

Thank you Dr. Brown for your work and continue to be one who blazes a path in the wilderness. While we each need to walk our own path it allows us to take heart that someone has been there and is offering to be a guide on the path. 

I rated this book a 3/5.

The fact that this book felt so timely with all the polarization happening right now makes me wonder if it will still feel relevant in 10 years. Not that I have high hopes for the future of discourse in America, but mentioning the current political climate is a good way to date things. Nonetheless, I think it's a good reminder to step outside the echo chambers. Unfortunately, I think the people that most need to read this book are the people who never will.

The concept behind Braving the Wilderness was nice in theory, but didn't quite come together for me. The whole book felt a bit short, rushed? And while I thought YES! in the beginning, it felt like it ended too soon, or on the wrong note. While I think it's worth reading, it's not my favorite of Brené Brown's.

A good book changes us. This book changed me.

Brown takes on the hostile climate in our world, and offers ways to soothe it, temper it, and, in the process, befriend the hostility. I often find myself getting angry with those who (as I see them) are sitting, fully armed, in the I-don't-want-to-listen room. I want to speak out against their hatred by spewing my own (good) hatred. But that's no answer. Brown suggests civil and true conversations, and I love that.

I also took away this beautiful quote, from one of Brown's friends:
“Tonight we will exhale and teach. Now it's time to inhale. There is the in-breath and there is the out-breath, and it's easy to believe that we must exhale all the time, without ever inhaling. But the inhale is absolutely essential if you want to continue to exhale.”

I think I need to do a little more inhaling, a little more gentle conversing.

Places hand over wild heart and stands up. Wants to give a standing ovation but does not want to remove hand from heart in order to begin clapping. Sees a stranger and high fives her repeatedly.
#OvationAccomplished #Connected #BreneUnderstandsMyWildHeart

Validating. Inspiring. Real. I 💛 Brene.

Favourite quote:
“There will be times when standing alone feels too hard, too scary, and we'll doubt our ability to make our way through the uncertainty. Someone, somewhere, will say, ‘Don't do it. You don't have what it takes to survive the wilderness.' This is when you reach deep into your wild heart and remind yourself, ‘I AM the wilderness.'” - 163