Rising Strong: How the Ability to Reset Transforms the Way We Live, Love, Parent, and Lead

Wow! This is a GREAT book! I've listened to it 3 times on my kindle and each time I hear something I didn't hear before. With Brene reading it, it comes 'alive' instead of words on a page. I feel like I'm in the same room with her living and experiencing the points she's making. It's also the first time I've heard anyone describe the fundamental issue that connects so many of the populations I've worked with over the 30 years of being in the Human Service field....and that's shame. I have worked in Adult Corrections, been a Child Protection Social Worker, a Counselor with Job Corps working with 'at risk' youth and now a Case Manger with Homeless Vets and I've never heard anybody address the issue of shame contributing to their experience or condition. The closest was in the book, 'Real Love' by Greg Baer, where he talks about most of us being raised in 'imitation love' that was misinterpreted as 'Love'. Thank you for the clarity. And thank you for the honest, vulnerable exposure of yourself in showing what being vulnerable looks and feels like. I got an antidote from your book that has been very helpful for me dealing with my expectations, which I've discovered are the reasons for the anger, frustration, righteousness, resentment and disappointments throughout my life. The antidote is to remember that people are doing the best they can at any given moment. Reminding me of that has brought me peace and balance. Believe me, as an employee of the government, that's a great gift!

Rising Strong

Brene Brown Rising Strong Book CoverDr. Brene Brown, research professor at the University of Houston and CEO of the Daring Way, adds to and builds on her previous work (I Thought It Was Just Me, The Gifts of Imperfection, Daring Greatly) in her new book, Rising Strong. I highly recommend that you read the others as well, but this book is still significant on it’s own. Through her interviews with thousands of people, she developed Rising Strong. The goal of the Rising Strong process is, “to rise from our falls, overcome our mistakes, and face hurt in a way that brings more wisdom and wholeheartedness” (2015, p. 40). This is described as a very messy three-step process:

The Reckoning: We need to identify and have an awareness of our emotions. Then we allow ourselves to be curious about our emotions and look for how they connect to our patterns of thought and behavior.

The Rumble: This is getting very honest about the stories we tell about others and ourselves. We have a tendency to fill in the information gaps in our narratives, which is likely not accurate. It is very important that we believe that people really are doing the best they can with their lives. We need to challenge our initial reactions and look for a deeper level of understanding.

The Revolution: Once we have rumbled with and owned our story, we then can rewrite the ending by growing and learning from what we have learned. Dr. Brown writes:

Men and women who rise strong integrate the key learnings that emerge from the rising strong process into how they live, love, lead, parent, and participate as citizens. This has tremendous ramifications not only on their own lives, but also for their families, organizations, and communities. (p. 41)

The process of applying your new insights will revolutionize your world. Critical Review

Dr. Brown has a very connectable approach to her writing and weaves in a number of personal stories that make this process human. Her work is brilliant, unassuming, and yet still feels like it could be a great conversation with a best friend over coffee. This is not your typical academic research book filled with complex methodologies and two-way ANOVAs. Dr. Brene Brown has managed to take her complex grounded theory research and translate it into concepts that are useful for anyone with a soul.

On the other hand, if you are a super academic social scientist type person, she does not fully explain her entire methodology and provide all the explicit details of that process. However, this would not be appropriate to her audience. I do appreciate the fact that she lists all of her references in the back of the book. You can further your reading and double-check many of the statements she makes if you have concerns. I value that level of research transparency and how she has put her work out there for criticism. She also includes highlights from her other works at the end of the book. My Own Experience

I noted several significant takeaways in the process of reading this book. Actually, there are too many to mention, so I will give some highlights.

It is very important to teach our children the truth of our stories and our family histories because it is their story. Nostalgia can be deadly.

The term chandeliering is one consequence of ignoring our own emotional pain. The term describes when a minor comment or conflict triggers a pain so great that we “jump as high as the chandelier” with our emotional response (p. 60). Some examples are road rage or even losing it at a sporting event. Dr. Brown writes:

Chandeliering is especially common and dangerous in “power-over” situations-environments where, because of power differentials, people with a higher position or status are less likely to be held accountable for flipping out or overreacting…Most of us have been on the receiving end of one of these outbursts. Even if we have the insight to know that our boss, friend, colleague, or partner blew up at us because something tender was triggered and it’s not actually about us, it still shatters trust and respect. (p. 61-62)

I enjoyed all of the personal stories. I cherished from my family systems background the insight into Dr. Brown’s family of origin. What moved me most was the account of her mother having a life altering counseling experience that was then translated into her parenting. It is a reminder that we can all change our family trees and break negative intergenerational patterns.

On spirituality, I also had a few notes. Dr. Brown’s work suggests that no specific church denomination was more shaming than others. Over half of her participants who experienced spiritual shaming ended up finding healing through spirituality. They changed churches or beliefs, but their faith was still a significant part of who they are.

Some items I need to reflect on personally after reading this are having the courage to communicate what works for me (what I need) and renewing my faith that people are doing their best at all times. As a lover of Narrative Therapy, I am all for reauthoring our own stories.

If you're like me and you've seen a bunch of Brene's talks on YouTube and you're worried that when you buy the book it's just going to be a repeat of everything she's already mentioned, it's not. All the talks I've listened to from her from the TED talks to all 3 of the Chase Jarvis Live interviews on YouTube are just the tip of the iceberg.

In the book she describes the 3-step Rising Strong process which is what you do next when you fall facedown in the arena and how you get back up and learn from it. She's got a lot of good and easy examples, quotes, and stories of people going through the Rising Strong process, and they don't feel repetitive. I find when I'm reading this that there's always a really insightful truth bomb or gem worth highlighting every few pages or so, even when I feel like halfway through the book "I think she's written everything she has to write about."

It's easy to read. She uses everyday words, doesn't use fancy 'long' words, and it sounds like she's talking to you. Good font, good line spacing, there aren't too many words on a single line, or too many lines on a page so that it's easier for us to digest the information.

Rising Strong is both relevant and informative. Brene Brown has proven (once again) with her newest book that she is committed to providing information that will actually help and heal those of us who are interested in doing the REAL work. This book comes after having received a lot of success with her book, "Daring Greatly." Which is .... by the way... a great book..... And I Dare to say for sure..... this book is her BEST book yet. I have numerous pages marked because I want to go back and glean more deeply the concepts that she brings to light in this wonderful read.

I liked Daring Greatly.......I LOVE Rising Strong. Rising Strong is for those individuals who want to know what their REAL work is. Through personal stories within her own life, as well as stories from those she has interviewed with her research, this book provides a TON of Grist for the mill!! Plowing through our own stories, getting UP after YOU FALL is what this book will help you to do.

This book is honest, courageous, brilliantly written, and a book that has opened ME up..... I will read it again. And again. You are going to stumble and fall in life. Period. This book helps to bring light to what you will need to do AFTER that happens. And it will. It brings light to those of us who WANT to stand up. Who HAVE to stand up. And this book helps to convey HOW to do that. How to HELP yourself and see what your STORY is, and how you can change it.

As a Spiritual Counselor, I am always looking for books that I can refer to my clients. This book I have already referred numerous times within my practice. There are a lot of Self-Help books out there...... most of the time they are very dry, and without any wisdom or ability to emotional present the material in a succinct and grounded way. This book does all that, and you will want to give it away and tell others about it.

Bravo Brene. I salute your ability to cohesively and coherently broach a subject that is both sensitive and extremely needed in our world. You are a new hero of mine. Thank you for writing this fabulous book!

ADDITIONAL NOTE ON MY REVIEW ..... I work to write my "Vine Reviews" from my Heart. After posting this review, I noticed that someone checked that it was "not helpful." The Fabulous Irony here is that after reading THIS BOOK I now get to "check in" and see whether "I" thought my review was helpful and look to what triggers of shame I may have with my authenticity about writing reviews. I did just that. My review stands.

I loved this book and think that everyone who wants to RISE STRONG should read this book. Brene teaches reality checking. She also helps you to work on practicing critical awareness and rethinking expectations that tell us what being imperfect means. In our world of "likes" and "helpful" or "not-helpful" votes her book will help you to conquer the fears you may have of putting yourself out there.

What I really appreciate about this book is what it seems has taken me a lifetime to learn: that when we fail as people -- whether in families, work, or community -- then we must stand up and own our part (the reckoning), work through it and come to a personalized understanding of why it happened (the rumble), and then move forward with greater resolve to become a wiser, stronger person (the revolution). I'm thankful it's all written down as a researched theory.

Just a few little things about the 4-star ...

I love qualitative research methodology, the importance of it and the unique perspective it brings in wrestling with social science related hypotheses. That being said, and with the amount of interviews and extent of Brown's research (that is excellently laid out in Daring Greatly), I wanted more stories from the research subjects themselves and less from the author's personal life. I know that the author's style is to be transparent with her own life and times, and after having wrestled with issues and resolving them prior to sharing out loud, yet I sometimes felt like I was peering into her private life and it just felt a little off for me. An example of what I would have liked to see more came out of Daring Greatly when she describes talking to Kevin Surace (a CEO out of Silicon Valley) prior to speaking to the entire group. She probes him about fear and then goes back to her hotel room and searches through her field notes until she finds information she gleaned from middle school students, and that says the exact same thing. THAT gives credence to research and allows me to see the inner workings of qualitative research design. I wanted more of that in Rising Strong.

Also, and in telling her stories, Brown focuses on the traditional dual-biological-parents model as her reference to families, even though less than 1/2 of the American population (and even less than that within the families themselves) fit into this box. I'd like to hear more about non traditional families that are living and thriving despite cultural expectations. Those are people who are in the arena 24/7 it seems and would have some amazing stories to contribute to Rising Strong. As an independent parent of 3, I kept inserting my own experiences throughout rising strong, and whenever she would speak about families.

Like most self help books, a reader can sometimes come away feeling worse than better upon entering the journey. This is mainly due to the ability of writers to invite the reader to turn inward and analyze personal failings and shortcomings yet that can trigger unresolved issues. Brown's disclaimer pages at the very end of the book about trauma and the helping professions probably should be moved to the front of the book. Readers with life long experiences in shame, blame, trauma and dysfunctional family dynamics to name just a few, most likely would benefit from this book under the guidance of a personal therapist or a legitimate support group.