An Open Book (#7)

I really enjoyed watching the Ted talks from Brene’ Brown this week in class. I have listened to these talks in some of my pervious social work classes, but actually listening to the talks again put a lot of things into perspective for me. I appreciate her for studying human connection and how the power of vulnerability plays into that human connection. I gained so much information from this video and learned that vulnerability is not a weakness but is a tool that is needed in making connections. Before I even heard about Brene’ Brown’s research I always viewed vulnerability as a weakness and felt that many people would judge me and see me as weak if I did let my emotions show. I have been told that I am too vulnerable (emotional) by guys but I guess being caring makes you vulnerable. I also doubt myself sometimes before I even try to anything and I think this is where the shame and fear comes in that Professor Brown talked about. As she conducted her research on shame and fear she found that excruciating vulnerability lies within these to emotions, and listening to her explain this more I totally agree. I feel that a lot of us put up walls and have these stoic personas to us. I am also a person who does this because I don’t want people to judge me and at times I am afraid to let people see the real me, unless they are really close to me. The fear/shame that we have as individuals keeps us from doing many things in our lives and making connections with people. Nobody in this world is perfect and there is no such thing as perfection, so why are we still afraid to be vulnerable around others?  

This talk was more intriguing to me the second time around because I was able to apply it to my own life and in my work as a social worker. The one thing that stuck out to me that I feel is good for social work practice is where she said “we can’t practice compassion with other people if we cannot treat ourselves kindly.” This is the number one key competent I feel is essential to your work as a social worker especially on a micro level when you are working with your clients. In order to help others we have to know how to help ourselves first (self-care). As social workers I feel that we are empathic towards our clients and their situations but at the same time we have to control our emotions to help our clients achieve their life goals (we can be vulnerable but not too much because we have to draw a line between business and personal). The connections that we build with our clients and the empowerment that we give our clients (by showing them that they are worthy of more) is what I want to strive for throughout my career as a social worker. At the organizational level I feel that we have to be compassionate about the people in our community and understand the community that we are  living in and show the people in our community that they are worthy of belonging.

Observation

There will be an a human trafficking talk on October 21^st held at Gregory Plaza from 7-9pm where students can talk and connect with organizations working to end human trafficking and the issues that led to this. https://www.facebook.com/events/155520127991799/