Pages in this Feature: Book Rewiew Interview with Author Brene Brown Excerpts from Thought It Was Just Me Brené Brown Tell A Friend About Us:

W e are all vulnerable to feelings of shame. Our culture is based upon shame and blame - shaming others into feeling they are not good enough and blaming ourselves for not measuring up, according to a new book, I thought It Was Just Me: Women Reclaiming Power and Courage in a Culture of Shame. Shame researcher Dr. Brené Brown defines shame, in part, as "the intensely painful feeling or experience of believing we are flawed, unworthy and unacceptable." It's these same feelings that prevent us from being our real and authentic selves. Brown's book is groundbreaking and timely because it exposes this often silent emotion that runs rampant among women in today's culture of constant comparisons that leave us feeling powerless.

For her research, Brown interviewed hundreds of racially, religiously and socially diverse women, and the central theme of the six-year study is that these women's experiences with shame are tied to the social expectations that dictate "who we should be; what we should be; and how we should be." Shame comes from many things, including society telling us what is acceptable or not - from the messages in the media to what our loved ones expect from us and even the goals we set for ourselves. And when we fail to meet those expectations, we feel alone, unworthy and somewhat different, like we are the only ones feeling that way. This book let's us know that we are not alone.

Brown is right on cue when she says, "Shame is the voice of Perfection." We see this in our need to be perfect and the quick fixes out there to get you there. Using her own experiences, along with the women's stories, she opens up the dialogue on this behind-closed-doors emotion that even the mental health community sweeps under the rug. The women talk about feelings of not measuring up regarding their bodies, sex, career, motherhood. We recognize the voices and are reminded of the overwhelmed mother trying to juggle career, motherhood and family; the woman who feels abnormal because she doesn't want sex as much as her huband; women's struggles with money and health issues; the woman caught up in attaining the beautiful body and impossible standards of beauty and the list goes on. If you've ever experienced feelings of shame, and who hasn't, the experiences of the women and Dr. Brown's observations strike a responsive chord in that we recognize our own struggles, and we can empathize with these universal feelings of shame.

Brown says while shame is enforced from the outside, what comes from inside us is our need to belong and connect. And shame disconnects us from our community. Shame is all about fear. We fear that our failures will be revealed, or we will be exposed as flawed, and we will be made to feel small in other people's eyes. Instead of exposing ourselves, we bury our shame and it becomes tangled in a web of fear, anger and blame. When we do not measure up, we blame and lash out - We blame ourselves for being stupid, ugly, fat and incompetent, and we blame and lash out at those closest to us. We yell at our children, and in the severest of cases, we mentally or physically abuse our spouses or children. We use self-blame language like, "I'm not a good mother. I am a bad wife because...." or we use negative comparisons: I am not as smart, as pretty, as thin. This is all very familiar dialogue that goes on inside our heads and hits us in the gut where we bury our self-disapproval.

I thought It Was Just Me offers hope as Brown says that we can overcome shame or at least build up our resilence to shame by first recognizing our shame, identifying what creates our shame and blocking it, and, finally, building up a resilence to it. Brown believes that through empathy and helping ourselves and others, we can overcome shame. With exercises and honest case studies, this book is for women who're ready to start a dialogue and reclaim their power in today's "you're not good enough" culture where shame is at the root of most of the self-esteem issues that plague women.

Dr. Brown's message is for us to accept ourselves instead of the "reject what you are" message that's constantly played everyday and gets imprinted onto our psyche. It is in accepting ourselves and others that we are able to take back our power and diminish the power that shame has over us. A little talked about human condition is given a voice, in which women can recognize pangs of their our own struggles with feeling flawed and living up to somebody else's expectations. Through the stories of others, maybe we can find the courage to verbalize our own shame as we realize that we are not alone in our struggles with feeling inadequate. We can take comfort and find hope in Dr. Brown's words, "It's not just you, you're not alone, and if you fight the daily battle of feeling like you are-somehow-just not "enough", you owe it to yourself to read this book and discover your infinite possibillities as a human being."

Back To The Cover       Book Cafe