Braving the Wilderness is my third read by Brené Brown. Like thousands of people, I became a fan of her after her TED Talk. I read first Daring Greatly (a classic); it changed the way I relate to vulnerability and the way I see men. Then, I read The Gifts of Imperfection, and although I didn’t enjoy it as much, I could really relate to the struggle against perfectionism.

In this book, Dr. Brown focuses on belonging. I’ve been ranting about wanting to find “my people” in the blogosphere while still being true to what I want to write, so I thought this would be a good book to help me find balance in that area.

Then, in the first chapter, she starts talking about the feeling of not belonging to your own family, and that was like a punch in the gut for me.

“Not belonging in our family is still one of the most dangerous hurts. That’s because it has the power to break our hearts, our spirit and our sense of self-worth. It broke all three for me.”

Braving the Wilderness

As always, she includes her own struggles in the book. When she talks about belonging, she’s not only talking about a larger collective, but also belonging to small groups, to your family, and especially, to yourself. And that’s the biggest lesson of this book. That you can only belong to a group once you start belonging to yourself first. And that involves a great deal of self-acceptance and authenticity.

I’ve always struggled with belonging, and like most people, it started in middle school for me. When I was 10 I left my beloved small school to a much larger institution. Coming from a small progressive and intellectualized community, I couldn’t fit in with the mainstream. I liked old songs from the 60s, they liked Spice Girls. I liked reading lots of books, they liked Leonardo DiCaprio and Titanic. I loved learning about science and history, they found that incredibly boring.

Instead of making compromises and changing myself to fit in, I went to the other extreme and started despising everyone. And of course, nobody wants to be friends with people who look down on them. So in my bunker of authenticity, I sat completely alone, class after class, recess after recess, among my 50 classmates. That daily struggle went on for 2 years, until I couldn’t take it anymore and asked my parents to move me to a smaller school that was more my vibe. There I’ve made many friends that I still cherish to this day, but the mark of being an outcast stayed with me.

Anyways, back to the book.

In the first 3 chapters, Dr. Brown diagnoses the problems: the epidemic of loneliness, the hyper-polarization dividing families, and the hate on social media. Then, in the following 4 chapters, she talks about the solutions, which she lists as:

1. People are hard to hate close up, move in.
2. Speak truth to bullshit. Be civil.
3. Hold hands with strangers
4. Strong back, soft front, wild heart

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People Are Hard to Hate Close Up, Move In.

“A trap that plays a tape in our minds that says hey, I can hate large groups of strangers, because the members of these groups who I happen to know and like, they’re the exceptions.”

Braving the Wilderness

Dr. Brown gives examples of how we got used to stereotyping and labelling those who don’t think like us, even when we’ve never met them. And once we start connecting with these people in real life, with openness and empathy, when we actually have to look into their faces, hating becomes much harder.

And here she makes some interesting points about curiosity.

“We don’t even bother being curious anymore, because somewhere, someone on our side has a position. And in a fitting-in culture at home, at work or in our larger community, curiosity is seen as a weakness.”

Braving the Wilderness

I noticed that before and I’ve talked on my Instagram about how polarization is killing curiosity. We don’t ask questions because we’re trying to fit in, but also because questions are constantly being seen as an aggressive take on something.

I’m a chronically curious person who loves learning about different cultures and languages. But when I asked in a post of an Indigenous Brazilian singer in which language she was singing, one of her fans went ballistic. Then I understood why nobody was asking questions in the comments. Curiosity became taboo.

Dr. Brown urges us to remain curious and engaged with what we so easily label as “the other side” or “them”. And she urges us to do that in person.

Speak Truth to Bullshit. Be Civil.

“Bullshit asymmetry principle, or what has become known as Brandolini’s Law: the amount of energy needed to refute bullshit is an order of magnitude bigger than to produce it

‘Civility is claiming and caring for one’s identity, needs and beliefs without degrading someone else in the process’”

Braving the Wilderness

Here she talks about having the courage to stand up for your values, while still maintaining civility. One of the hardest lessons of all: how to be firm and gentle at the same time. This is something I’ve been trying to master.

Hold Hands With Strangers

She makes a very good point about gossiping here. The idea of connecting to someone or a group just because you have a common despise or hate for someone doesn’t really foster true connection, but on the opposite, it generates distrust and hate.

“When we come together under the false flag of common enemy intimacy, we amplify cynicism and diminish our collective worth.”

Braving the Wilderness

And she goes on to make a parallel with the larger organizations that we’re sometimes part of. When we’re united in a common cause not to help a group of people, but to fight against another group of people, things tend to go downhill.

Strong Back, Soft Front, Wild Heart

“If we’re going to make true belonging a daily practice in our lives, we’re going to need a strong back and a soft front. We’ll need both courage and vulnerability, as we abandon the certainty and safety of our ideological bunkers and head off into the wilderness.”

Braving the Wilderness

This is her final lesson, which comes from a Buddhist teaching. How to have a spine without losing your ability to connect with others and to be true to yourself.

This book spoke deeply to me and I confess that I had several emotional moments while listening to it. I recommend it to anyone brave enough to explore what it means to belong to a community and mostly, to yourself.