Brene Brown and Vulnerability

This is a very interesting talk. Brene Brown is a researcher in social work who wanted to find out things like what allows people to be loved. She found that they must allow themselves to be vulnerable. She refers to something she called wholeheartedness. The idea seems to be that without being vulnerable we are holding back from our lives and not being true to what we really are. We can avoid vulnerability by effectively hiding, but then we eliminate the good things like being loved. She mentions how various forms of hiding such as overeating, drinking too much and taking pain killers are at epidemic proportions in the developed world (she talks mainly about the US, but I reckon we can safely extend this to Europe). As long as we hide like this we will never be happy and will not live full lives.
Reading, understanding and internalizing this type of material is not easy, but is worth the effort. This is potentially life changing information in a way that many self help pieces are not.