Last year I started reading Brené Browns work. For those that haven’t heard of Brené Brown I strongly suggest that you look up her name and purchase her books. Brené has an interesting story, one that she openly shared during a TED talk in 2017. Brené experienced a breakdown which she now refers to as her “awakening” that enabled her to move forward with “living, loving and making a difference” through her work, her research and her personal life. During her 2017 TED talk, Brené spoke of her research, which is based on fear/shame and her vulnerable moments…. all in front of a live audience (around 10,000 - gulp).
Interestingly, the talk generated millions of views. Her experiences connected with so many people. Now, I could talk about Brenés work all day. I am SOLD! But it’s taken me a long time to figure out why I connect so much with her writing. Over the past twelve months I have taken great solace in her wisdom and actively applied her strategies as a leader, a mother, a wife and as a researcher. BUT, there was always more…..a missing connection that I couldn’t identify until earlier this year. It took me some time to figure it out…..it’s actually because she has taught me about cultural competence. Brené encourages us to “lean in” and permit ourselves to be vulnerable and feel all of our emotions. This my friends, links to our journey in cultural competence.
Fear, is largely the response of the amygdala, an area in our brains known as the fear switchboard. The amygdala is responsible for many of the sensations we feel when experiencing fear (Kish-Gephart, Detert, Treviño, & Edmondson, 2009). Textbooks inform us that fear, anger, humiliation and shame are considered negative affects and these emotions influence our relationship with others and our ability to experience joy (Tomkins, 1962, 1963, 1991; Glower, 2005). Largely, these are emotions that we avoid.
There are many types of fear. We can fear social situations, people, places, environments, being lonely, disconnected. We can fear not being good enough, not being perfect enough or not having enough. Our fear can be crippling or simply uncomfortable. We all respond differently to fear and vulnerability. For me, when I experience fear, I buy supplies and cook. Random….I know. I cannot identify why I respond this way; I have never experienced poverty or a lack of food…… but this is my “go to” response. It is like the supermarkets are going to close forever and my oven will not work tomorrow…. type scenario. Guaranteed, my family will be well fed for days........I work through my fear and life moves on.
Research shows that fear is common and affects many aspects of life from the fear of not “being” enough to childbirth (Dencker, Nilsson.,Begley, Jangsten, Mollberg., Patel, Sparud-Lundin, 2019). Some see the fear and vulnerability as opportunities while others see them as something to avoid. Now the “WHY” behind our response is largely based on personality and lived experiences. The traditional ways to combat fear is through education and awareness (Seele, 2017)…and generally cooking doesn’t come into the mix J.
So, while that is all interesting, what is truly amazing is that we are seeing an increasing level of “fear” around the world. Now this makes my brain squeeze…..and wonder why? However, when I delve into the literature the answers aren’t too difficult to understand. You see, as we watch the news each night we graphically witness many stories of despair, tragedy and not a lot of good news stories (Furedi, 2006). We are programmed to fear through what we watch and our fear can be a conscious or unconscious response. For example, if we view something on television that reminds us of a fearful lived experience our bodies and minds will respond to the experience that we are viewing (Power & Dalgleish, 2008). We often hear about the things to fear…predators, stalkers, paedophiles, underdeveloped brains, addiction, violence, viruses, war, social media, the world ending! News is at our fingertips, LIVE and across the world. Now this is the interesting bit…research has shown that fear can provoke disconnection. Make sense doesn’t it? If we fear something then we avoid that thing.
Consider Coronavirus….many people fear contracting the virus so will avoid locations that the virus has been hosted e.g. a case has been identified in Singapore so I will avoid this location. The fear and the reality collide. Another instance, is when people use their fear to racially vilify and “other” e.g. anyone that has been to China or is of Chinese appearance = coronavirus (absurd! we humans are certainly complex mammals). The fear of the virus dehumanizes and the “other” is viewed as a threat.
Consider walking, late at night, alone in a metropolitan CBD………many women in Australia have died violent deaths, alone, late at night and these instances have generated fear. I certainly wouldn’t walk alone late at night in a CBD….I am afraid and the news and Australian statistics feed my fear and blur my reality. Now, I am not saying, “Face your fears Jessica, and walk alone, late, without a phone, in an area you don’t know well, preferably in a street without lights”. What I am saying is that it is useful to acknowledge fears and start to unpack how and why I have formed this view.
This then makes me wonder what our fear does to connection. ….would I decline in invitation to an event knowing that I would need to walk home, late at night alone- honestly…probably….YES. We can fear so greatly that we no longer have the capacity to connect. Now to understand disconnection we need to consider connection. Thankfully Brené has helped me and her definition links well with cultural competence research. Brené defines connection as the “energy created between two people when they feel seen, heard and valued; when they can give and receive without judgment” (Brown, 2017). So when we feel disconnection we generally feel either fear, shame or vulnerability. In fact the two (fear and shame) are linked but we will chat about this another time. What is interesting is that connection is required in the journey of cultural competence. Connection requires self-reflection….am I valuing others? Am I giving and receiving without judgement? Am I seeing, hearing and valuing? This requires us to work on our self and on our relationships.
In some research, that I conducted a few years ago, nursing students shared their fear of learning about Aboriginal culture. More specifically they were fearful of being taught about culture from staff that identified as Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples. The students felt they might say the “wrong thing” or be “perceived” in a way that wasn’t positive. Now remember fear comes in many forms and this fear was debilitating for the students who where unable to move forward in their learning. Their journey in cultural competence was frozen. The fear was disconnecting them from their learning. However, they acknowledged their fears and decided to make a change. They overcome their personal fears through connection and will be betters nurses in doing so. They leaned into their fear, acknowledged the emotions, acknowledged the impact and took meaningful steps to move forward. It required vulnerability, not fearing mistakes, and creating a connection.
Moving beyond our fears is important in cultural competence. This requires us to lean into our emotions, know the triggers and start to consider how fear may be involved. It requires us to make a connection and sometimes in our crazy world connection is scary. Sad but true.
So Brené, thank you for teaching me about fear, shame and vulnerability in the context of cultural competence. I still have much to learn but will continue to feel all of these emotions because I want to deeply acknowledge their triggers so that I can continue to connect with my fellow humans.
P.S If anyone is interested in exploring shame, fear and vulnerability in the context of cultural competence I welcome your thoughts, ideas and collaborations- connect with me via Twitter, LinkedIn, Instagram or my webpage.
Next topic: Seeking your truth
References
Brown, B. (2012). Daring Greatly. How the courage to be vunerable transforsm the way we live, love, parent and lead. Penguin Random House: United States of America.
Brown, B. (2017). Braving the Wilderness. The quest for true belonging and the courage to stand alone. Penguin Random House: United States of America
Dencker A., Nilsson C., Begley C., Jangsten E., Mollberg M., Patel H., Sparud-Lundin C. (2019).Causes and outcomes in studies of fear of childbirth: A systematic review. Women and Birth, 32(2), 99–111.
Furedi, F. (2006). Culture of fear revisited: Risk-taking and the morality of low expectations (4th ed.). New York: Continuum
Gower, P. L. (Ed.). (2005). New research on the psychology of fear. Nova Science Pub Incorporated.
Kish-Gephart, J. J., Detert, J. R., Treviño, L. K., & Edmondson, A. C. (2009). Silenced by fear: The nature, sources, and consequences of fear at work. Research in organizational behavior, 29, 163-193.
Power, M., & Dalgleish, T. (2008). Cognition and emotion. New York: Psychology Press.
Steele, P (2017). Stand up to stigma: how we reject, fear and shame. Berrett-Koehler Publishers, Incorporated: Oakland.
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