Earlier this week I watched Brene Brown’s Netflix special, Call to Courage. Like anything else she touches, it was thought provoking and inspirational. If you don’t know who Brene Brown is, check her out. She’s incredible. In her special, she shares several very poignant stories from her life experience, emphasizing the significance of vulnerability, shame, courage, joy and resilience in our personal development. There was one anecdote that really stood out to me, because it got me thinking not just about myself as a person, but about how my personal experiences affect my approach as a therapist. It was a concept that I think applies to all of us and how we connect with others.
She said that loving others and experiencing joy are vulnerable by nature, because the more you value something, the scarier it is to recognize that something outside of your control could take it away. It’s why we have catastrophic thoughts about something terrible happening in our lives, even when things are great, or something tragic happening to someone we care about. Even when we’re really enjoying the good stuff, fear can creep in. She also made a connection between vulnerability, gratitude and empathy. People who practice gratitude, and feel grateful routinely for the joy in their lives and the people they love, have a more genuine capacity for empathy. It’s because only when we truly take stock of how lucky we are and how much we value our good fortune that we are able to fully understand someone else’s pain when they have experienced a loss.
This really stood out to me. I practice gratitude daily. I’m a natural empath. I’m prone to catastrophic thinking. I think it makes me a better therapist. When a client shares with me about loss and sadness, I’m able to understand how they might feel that much more because I’m conscious of how it would feel to experience the same grief. Brown suggested that rather than letting fear take hold when we start to feel vulnerable, we should practice gratitude, to redirect our thoughts to how fortunate we are.
I wonder what would happen if we all took time daily to be grateful. We might all experience less anxiety and become more capable of empathizing with others.