Brene Brown

            I really enjoy and connect with Brene Brown’s speech showed in class. I tend to let myself be completely open, because I agree that taking chances is way better than living in fear. If you keep things bottled inside, chances are your feelings will never be expressed, and therefore never truly dealt with. If you are in love and never express that to your partner because of fear, then you might lose them anyways. I find that those people that are afraid of being wrong, and messing up, do not fulfill everything they dreamed of. If you cannot try new things, out of fear of failure, then you’ll never truly know if you could have been great.

            I also appreciated her thoughts on the ineffectiveness of using substances to numb emotional pain. It is very difficult to numb certain experiences of one’s life, without numbing every other experience. Many people think the only way to cure emotional pain is with substances, but what happens when they become sober again is an intense rushing back of these emotions, sometimes with more force than before. This is called repression; where memories and negative feelings are pushed to the back of the mind. Just because a memory isn’t at the front of your mind, does not mean this memory is gone. In my opinion the best way to deal with sadness and bad life events is to talk to someone that can help. Also I find exercising and sports to be very helpful in releasing stress and anxiety. I know these methods may not work for everyone, but I find them more proactive then partaking in substance abuse.