Guilt and Shame

Brown TED Talk Brene Brown's Ted Talk on listening to shame provided some important anecdotes for many of the willing listeners who understood what she was talking about. The purpose of this essay is to incorporate the lessons presented in that talk and infuse that information on how it can benefit me in my internship. This essay will first describe the talk before relating those ideas to my internship in The Second Step Organization which attempts to foster the safety of domestic violence survivors.

Browns' TED talk contained some useful information to help people better understand their emotions. Brown's focused on the more negative aspects of emotion when she discussed the ideas of shame and guilt. In here talk shame is a useful emotion that can guide and lead and individual to a more healthy path, where guilt is presented as a demeaning and lessening emotion that is dangerous if overused. Brown also described empathy as a means to fully understand others and their path in life.

In other words, everyone has their own cross to bear and respect, tolerance and patience are important ideals in helping better to understand these issues. Brown also explained how gender plays a role in emotional reactions. She described this "The other thing you need to know about shame is it's absolutely organized by gender. Shame feels the same for men and women, but it's organized by gender." Although this idea does not make clear sense to me, I infer that men and women have different attitudes about emotion.

Using these ideas from Brown's TED talk in my experiences with my internship should be very useful and beneficial. Domestic violence survivors no doubt have had differing and most likely more turbulent experiences in their life. Saving families, an objective of The Second Step Organization, requires the use of empathy in order to best understand the situation at hand. For me, as a non-victim of violence, it is important that I use common sense and reason to best relate to these people and understand the differences between guilt and shame.

While the words Brown utters in her speech do have some value and some of the information can be used within the context of my internship, I do not fully agree with her approach and her personality. While the concepts of guilt empathy and shame need to be fully understood by those who are working with people who.