About Brené
Dr. Brené Brown is a writer, researcher, and educator. She is a member of the research faculty at the University of Houston Graduate College of Social Work where she has spent the past ten years studying connection - specifically authenticity, belonging, and shame, and the affect these powerful emotions have on the way we live, love, parent, work and build relationships.
Dr. Brown teaches graduate courses on shame and empathy, global justice, qualitative research, and women's issues. She has won numerous teaching awards, including the College's Outstanding Faculty Award. In 2008, Brené was named Behavioral Health Scholar-in-Residence at the Council on Alcohol and Drugs Houston. She also serves on the working board of The Nobel Women's Initiative - a peace and justice initiative established in 2006 by six Nobel Peace Laureates to help strengthen work being done in support of women's rights around the world.
Brené is the author of I Thought It Was Just Me (but it isn't): Telling the Truth About Perfectionism, Inadequacy, and Power (Gotham, 2007).
Her latest work focuses on the importance of nurturing authenticity, love and belonging, and a resilient spirit in our families, schools, and communities.
Brené lives in Houston with her husband, Steve, and their two young children, Ellen and Charlie.
For a copy of Dr. Brown's CV or a publicity photo, click here.
A Note from Brené
When I stand back and look at the work I’ve done over the past ten years, I can clearly see that the heart of my work is about the very human need to live with authenticity, love and belonging, and a resilient spirit. I call this WholeHearted living. I have dedicated my career to studying difficult topics like shame, empathy, and vulnerability because I want to know, in my head and in my heart, why we’re all so afraid to let our true selves be seen and known. I want to hear and tell the stories that inspire us to be real, imperfect, and powerful. The core of WholeHearted living is connection.
My passionate and hopeful search to understand WholeHearted living has taken many forms, including a book on my 8-year study on shame and empathy, my work on addiction and behavioral health, my parenting research, the personal writing I do on my blog, my shame-resilience curriculum, my teaching at the University of Houston Graduate College of Social Work, my activism, public speaking; and certainly my own spiritual journey.
Last year, an event organizer called me and said, “I’m trying to put your bio statement together for the publicity material and I’m having a really hard time.” She explained, “When I went to your lecture, I was really moved by your stories so I thought I’d describe you as a storyteller. I’m just worried that people may not believe what you’re saying if I describe you that way.” The open-minded part of me was trying to listen and the scared, academic part of me was thinking, “Storyteller? Are you kidding me? What’s next? Magic pixie?”
She continued, “I also thought about describing you as a researcher, but that won’t work either. They’ll believe you, but they’ll also assume that you’re going to be boring and irrelevant.”
I drew a deep breath and exhaled. “Trust me. I understand. It’s the story of my life. Literally.” I thought for a minute then called on my courage and said, “Why don’t you just put researcher and storyteller.” There was dead silence on the other end of the phone. After a few seconds, she forced a diminishing laugh and said, “That’s ridiculous. There’s no such thing as a researcher storyteller.”
I am a researcher and a storyteller. I am an academic and a lover of the intuitive. I am afraid to write and I am a writer. I am an activist and a sucker for good face products. I am a teacher and I am a student. I am seriously focused and I am whimsically creative. My safe place is with my husband and children and the space I most often crave is alone time. I am full of fear and I am full of courage. I trust my head, I'm learning to trust my heart, and I try to live in the soulful place that connects the two.
I know the world looks good when everything is stuffed into neat little boxes, covered in shiny wrapping paper, and tied with big, crisp bows (I like the Pottery Barn holiday spreads as much as the next person). The problem is that, despite our desire to stuff ourselves and the people around us in those convenient compartments, I've never met anyone who really fits in one neat box. We're all more complex than that. Plus, the gifts – joy, gratitude, hope, love, resilience, grace – are inside those boxes. We’ve got to rip off all of that stuff to get inside. Unwrapping, ripping, and untying lots of seemingly mismatched boxes is a big mess. A big, wild, authentic, wonderful mess.
I recently wrote a piece on my blog about my journey to live authentically and soulfully. I received several emails asking me what I meant by living authentically and soulfully. For me, the soulful piece is about living in the spirited space that connects my head and my heart (which is a huge challenge for a head person, like me). Trying to come up with a definition for authenticity forced me to tap deep into my research to find the words that capture what I've learned in my work and reflects what I've actually lived. Here's what I come up with:
