The Resilient Mind - Are You Secretly Afraid to Feel Joy? - Brené Brown

Episode Date: October 6, 2026

Brené Brown is an American professor, social worker, author, and podcast host. Brown is known for her work on shame, vulnerability, and leadership, and for her widely viewed 2010 TEDx talk. She has written six number-one New York Times bestselling books and hosted two podcasts on Spotify. This episode is brought to you in partnership with Steven Bartlett for more inspiring videos: https://www.youtube.com/c/TheDiaryOfACEOTake action and strengthen your mind with The Resilient Mind Journal. Get your free digital copy today: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://bit.ly/Download_JournalExplore tools from past guests of the podcast. Some links below are affiliate links, meaning we may earn a commission at no extra cost to you:💓 HeartMath: https://www.heartmath.com/resilient🧠 Muse: https://choosemuse.com/resilientmind🌿 Brain Ritual: https://www.brainritual.com/THERESILIENTMIND🌍 The Resilient Mind Podcast is a proud member of 1% for the Planet — building resilient minds and a resilient planet. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

On that point about me and vulnerability, is vulnerability important? Because there's a lot of performative vulnerability taking place. For sure. Is it an important thing for my health, happiness, my future, to be a vulnerable person? Well, let's define it. Vulnerability is the emotion we experience when we have, when we are up against uncertainty, risk, and emotional exposure. So vulnerability is what I feel. It's the cringe, the awkward.

The thing that I, the emotion I feel in times of uncertainty, risk, or emotional exposure. So it was really interesting because I had a hard time helping people understand because we're so raised to believe that vulnerability is weakness that it took a trip to Fort Bragg working with special forces to ask soldiers a question. Give me a single example of courage in your life. One example that you've witnessed or you yourself have done. one example of courage that did not require uncertainty, risk, or emotional exposure. No one could answer it. Finally, a young soldier stood up and said three tours. There is no courage without vulnerability.

So is vulnerability important? It is if we want to be brave with our lives. If we want to be able to manage ourselves in a way that's values aligned and courageous, we have to be able to reconcile. how we feel when we're uncertain at risk are exposed. I mean, and really, weirdly, the next week after the trip to Fort Bragg, I was with the Seattle Seahawks, the football team, NFL team. Yeah.

Ask the players. Give me an example of courage on the field or off. They did not require vulnerability. They said that it's not possible. There is no courage. Like, if you're doing things in your life and your work, and there's no risk, no uncertainty, and no exposure, then they're not brave.

If you know how it's going to end, that is not courage. Courage is the willingness to show up and be all in when you cannot predict the outcome. Courage is saying, I love you first. You want to know what vulnerability is? I love you first. Have you ever said, I love you first? I'm not sure. Yeah.

It's been a while. But it's hard. It's, you know. So I need to give contact. It's been a while since I've been in that situation. Well, you've had to go first. Yeah, we've had to go first, yeah. Yeah, I mean, there's just a great story that I tell about, I gave a talk here.

It was actually in L.A. And afterwards, a kid came up to me. He's probably 22 or 23, and he said, can I tell you a story about your work and how it's really changed my life? And I was like, sure. And it kind of a crowd grew around. And this is like the last time I ever got penned, like not being able to exit a stage because it was such a traumatic. It wasn't traumatic, but it was like, he said, well, I was dating this woman. And I was so crazy about her.

So I took her to eat to our favorite restaurant. And I waited until the dessert came because we love this chocolate volcano. And I ordered it. And I said, I love you. And she looked at me and she said, I think you're awesome. And I think we should date other people. And then she Ubered home. And so I was like,

like, God damn, this is the worst story I've ever heard. This is not a good story. And he said, so I got in my car and I drove home and the whole way home, I just kept saying to myself over and over, fuck Brne Brown. Fuck Bray Brown. When is this? When's the turn on the story, you know? And he said, I got home and I walked into my apartment and I pushed the door open.

And both my roommates were wired in. They were on their computers. And they looked up and said, dude, what's going? on. And he said, I told her I loved her. And she told me I was awesome. And one of my roommates looked at me and said, what was the fuck were you thinking? That's not how it works. When you are going toward them, they go away. So you're always kind of going away. So they come toward you. And he goes, oh, oh, no, no. I don't want to, I don't want to be that dude. I was daring greatly. And he said both of his roommates just got teary-eyed and went, right on, man, right on.

Like, there is no courage without vulnerability. How can you say you're brave if you're not putting yourself out there? So many people have been through things which have made it very, very difficult for them to be vulnerable. I was like to speaking to someone yesterday who was cheated on a bunch of attachment issues in their early childhood. And funnily enough, when I was talking to her about, I was asking her questions about, because I'm very deep person, like this carries over into my personal life,

I was asking her questions about the things she'd been through whenever else. She just shuts down and she told me that she, what were the exact words? She said that she finds vulnerability to be a form of intimacy that she tries to stay away from because she needs to really, really,

really trust the person before she has, opens up. And I think this is a trend you see across a lot of people. They, they won't open up enough to form a connection because they've been hurt before by opening up. And it feels too scary to do that. And that results in them being single, alone, unhappy, so on and so on. Yeah. I mean, I think there's, what you said was so loaded with so many things. So first of all, there's this very interesting relationship between vulnerability and trust. And how does that work? And people always ask me what comes first, trust your vulnerability.

Do I trust you first, then I'm vulnerable? Or am I vulnerable first and then I trust you? And I think it's a very slow stacking. We get to know each other. I share a little bit. I don't share, hey, nice to meet you, Stephen. Here's my darkest, horrible, most painful trauma. You know, because that is actually, that kind of litmus testing is actually a form of armor.

I'm going to throw something at you that our relationship. in no way has been built long enough to hold, you're going to go away, and I'm going to use that as verification that vulnerability is dangerous. Like, that's litmus testing. Let me prove to you that you're not trustworthy. No, no, no, no, no, no. Oh, I see. You're backing away. That's what I thought. I'm backing away because we haven't built a relationship that can bear the weight of this story. Can we start, can we start small? Okay. Vulnerability, trust, vulnerability, trust, vulnerability trust. I think in my work we call that like the smash and grab.

Like I'm going to hit you with something really big and then watch you go away and use it as evidence. Yeah. And it takes a really skilled person to say, yeah, I'm really, I'm taking in what you told me. I want to be respectful and honor that. And I don't have a way to file it right now because I don't know you well enough. So I appreciate the share. I mean, we also call it spotlight.

So like if I had a military grade spotlight that they use in the wilderness, I work with the military a lot. And I picked it out and put it in your face right here. What would you do physically? That's what that's our reaction to too much vulnerability too fast. Yeah. Like, yeah. I don't know you. Yeah.

So you're talking about the slow stacking of courage and vulnerability and trust. And then you're also talking about that when. when we've had a lot of hard things happen to us, I think this is where I really believe the democratization of coaching and therapy that a lot of times we have to work with people. Like we have to get help to be able to open up and take off some of the armor

that we put on because sometimes that armor that we put on is freaking survival. I mean, and you want to start adding, you want to start adding variables like race, gender, like, you know, anything where there's social systems also at play. That's survival. Like telling me right now my career, like, hey, you should be vulnerable with your new team and talk about your previous failures, you know.

Well, of course I could do that. And I would do it and everybody would clap and they'd think, oh, man, she's so brave. And take the new person who's a young black woman or the new first LGBTQ person on a team and say, hey, tell everybody, don't tell anybody shit. Develop trust first. Develop, see how, how trust your own instincts about the accountability of this group to hold themselves accountable for their behavior. Like, vulnerability is not more necessary for any of us than anybody else,

but certainly more difficult for other, for some people, for sure. And I think what's hard about that, what's so painful. painful, probably the most painful part of my career, is that regardless of why the armor is on, without vulnerability, you cannot access the experiences that are the most meaningful in life. Love. To love someone is to be vulnerable from the time you wake up to the time you go to bed. You know that. You're in a relationship.

To love is to be vulnerable, right? And have you ever buried someone you loved? Like I lost my mom two years ago Like my kids It's like having your heart live outside of your body Like to love is to be vulnerable Because it's to risk grief and losing Belonging is vulnerable

The most vulnerable human emotion Joy Joy is so vulnerable That when some of us get close to it We dress rehearse tragedy To prepare for disappointment Like, it's so vulnerable that we don't even let ourselves feel joy because we're so afraid someone's going to rip it away and we're going to get sucker punched by disappointment. Yes or no?

Like, people choose to live disappointed rather than to feel disappoint, risk feeling disappointed and get excited about something. You know, it's like the first time my kids shared with me when they were young. Certainly not the way I was raised, but, you know, I really, really want to make this team, mom. And I said, I want to pause you for a second and tell you how brave it is to talk openly about something you want so much when you don't have control over whether you get it or not. I want it for you because you want it. But regardless of what happens, I admire your courage for wanting something and sharing out loud that you want it. Because if you don't get it, I'll know that it was a crushing blow. But that's so great because I'll be here for you when that happens either way.

So we, and I'm really, I'm a really, we call it foreboding joy, that joy is so good, just waiting for the other shoe to drop. And people who have trauma histories are really like that. Like for me, because the way I was raised, when something good happens, I'm like, oh God, now what's going to happen? Statistically, bad shit's going to roll around any second now. And it's interesting because the group of people that we research, the only group of people that could take that, you know, there's a bodily quiver, right, of vulnerability. Do you have you felt it? Yeah. Yeah. The only people that can really lean into joy consistently are people who use that vulnerability quiver as a reminder to be grateful to be able to practice gratitude in that second. So gratitude is a huge enabler.

of joy. Thank you for listening. Continue strengthening your mind by subscribing and listening to our other episodes.