So we watched the famous Brene Brown TED talk on vulnerability last week, and this week we decided to have a bit of a good old chat about it.

1. WholeHe
arted –
More on
Brené
Brown
Caféchurch Melbourne 10/6/14

2. Contextualising for
Caféchurch
If we are distinguishing
between fide (heart
based, trust, faith) and
assensus (head based,
belief, assent), this fits
mainly (but not entirely)
within fide

3. The Price We Pay for
Modernity

4. Numb
• It turns out that you
can’t only numb some
of your emotions
• If you numb the bad
stuff, you numb the
good stuff as well.

5. Connection
• Our basic desire -
“what we are here for”

6. Authenticity
• To connect with
people, we need to be
authentic – (only?) the
real me connects with
the real you

7. Shame
• Fear of disconnection
•“I’m not worthy”
• Not the same thing as
guilt
• If you really knew what I
was like, you wouldn’t want
to connect with me, so I
mustn’t let you find out

8. Vulnerability
• We need to be
vulnerable to be
authentic
• But it’s risky- you can,
and will, be rejected

9. Vulnerability
Shame
Connection
Authenticity
•What is the relationship between shame and vulnerability?
•Between vulnerability and authenticity?
•Between authenticity and connection?
Numbing

10. WholeHearted
• The people who are most
able to be vulnerable and
hence authentic, and thus
most able to connect have
one thing in common
• They believe that they are
worthy of love and belonging

11. What Does It Take To Be
Wholehearted?
• Courage
• Compassion
–To self
–To others
• Connection
– Authenticity
– Vulnerability
• Spirituality

12. Spirituality
“Spirituality is recognising and celebrating
the fact that we are all inextricably
connected to each other by a power greater
than all of us, and that our connection to that
power and to one another is grounded in
love and compassion. Practicing spirituality
brings a sense of perspective, meaning, and
purpose to our lives.” The Gifts of
Imperfection Brené Brown

13. The Woman at the Well
So he came to a Samaritan city called Sychar, near the plot of ground that
Jacob had given to his son Joseph. Jacob’s well was there, and Jesus, tired out
by his journey, was sitting by the well. It was about noon.
A Samaritan woman came to draw water, and Jesus said to her, ‘Give me a
drink’…. The Samaritan woman said to him, ‘How is it that you, a Jew, ask a
drink of me, a woman of Samaria?’
Jesus answered her, ‘If you knew the gift of God, and who it is that is saying to
you, “Give me a drink”, you would have asked him, and he would have given
you living water.’
The woman said to him, ‘Sir, you have no bucket, and the well is deep. Where
do you get that living water? Are you greater than our ancestor Jacob, who gave
us the well, and with his sons and his flocks drank from it?’
Jesus said to her, ‘Everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again, but
those who drink of the water that I will give them will never be thirsty. The water
that I will give will become in them a spring of water gushing up to eternal life.’
The woman said to him, ‘Sir, give me this water, so that I may never be thirsty or
have to keep coming here to draw water.

14. Theological Reflection
• “We love because he first loved us.” –
1 John 4:18
• Our sense of worthiness comes from
God’s action: we know that we aren’t,
in point of fact, always very worthy,
(i.e. there is such a thing as sin) but
that God’s prior action recognises and
names us as loved, and hence lovable,
and hence worthy of love.
•God sees what is, not what is not.

15. Limitation of Brown’s Idea
• She doesn’t make much
allowance for sin in this –
especially the deliberate aspect
of it.
•