Social Experiment article

Pedagogy: The purpose of this assignment is to engage the practices for dealing with internalized shame outlined by Brené Brown in Rising Strong. This assignment provides an opportunity to explore the core concepts of the book, including curiosity, shame, vulnerability, wholeheartedness, reckoning, rumbling, and revolution.

Step 1

Before even starting this paper, you will need to choose a core personal conflict or issue to work with. You can look in a variety of places in your life. On a personal level, you can choose an issue that has consistently caused you distress. Some examples of that could include:

• “I tend to overeat when I am nervous or upset.” • “I sometimes speak unkindly to people when I feel frustrated.” • “No matter what I accomplish, I always feel like it is not enough or that people will see

through me.” (Imposter Syndrome) • “I constantly worry about what people think of my body.”

You can also choose an ongoing issue that you have with another person, such a friend, family member, co-worker, or romantic partner. For best results, choose a tough and intractable problem – an issue that keeps coming up over and over again. Some examples:

• “My boss rarely acknowledges the good job that I do at work, but they seem to compliment my co-workers a lot.”

• “My parents are not supportive of my (sexual orientation/gender identity/choice to pursue a college education/choice of major/choice of partner).”

• “I frequently experience a lot of jealousy in my partnership, or my partner is constantly jealous of my relationships with other people.”

• “I’m not sure whether my friends truly like and respect me.”

It doesn’t matter for the assignment which issue you choose, but you’ll get the most out of the process if you pick something that has caused you grief over a long period of time. A significant persistent issue will give you more to reflect on, as well as more to take action on.

Step 2

Reread/review Chapters 3, 4, 5, and 10 from Rising Strong to make sure you are clear about what each step of the Rising Strong process is.

Step 3

During the next few steps, you will begin to do the work and take notes on that work. These notes will become the basis for your final paper, so put good energy and thoughtfulness into them; your labor on the front end will translate into a very easy final draft.

There are two ways that you can go about this. Both are equally permissible for the paper, although one has the potential for more personal growth and insight than the other. It’s up to you to decide which is the right path for you at this time. You can choose one of the following:

• If you chose a personal issue that does not involve another person, you can complete the process entirely on your own, using your insight to push your thinking and growth.

• If you chose an ongoing conflict with another person, you can go through the Rising Strong process with that person, which means that you’ll be having a conversation with them in which you attempt to resolve the conflict.

Step 4

Complete the Reckoning stage, as described by Dr. Brown in Chapter 4. Take some quiet time with yourself and do a deep written analysis and check-in with your emotions and bodily sensations, even those that do not appear on the surface to be relevant. Enter this process with abundant curiosity. Assume you will discover new things and consider yourself in the light of the fascinating character that you are. As you think through your issue, take notes on the emotional and physical sensations that come up, the things you do to cover up or suppress your discomfort, etc.

Step 5

Complete the Rumble stage, as described by Dr. Brown in Chapter 5. Write a very messy SFD “shitty first draft” in which you outline the parameters of the story you have made up about yourself and other people with regard to your issue. It’s okay for this to be ugly; indeed, that’s the point! Dr. Brown provides a good outline for starting an SFD on pg. 86:

• The story I’m making up: • My emotions: • My body: • My thinking: • My beliefs: • My actions:

Feel free to use this as a way to get started. If your SFD strikes you as a whiny, sad, depressed, or angry temper tantrum, you are doing it right. A successful SFD will exhibit obvious curiosity; an inadequate SFD will tend to be calm and rational and short.

Complete the Rumble stage by following Dr. Brown’s guidelines on pages 92-94, and then explaining what is in the delta (pp. 94-97) between the story you made up and what might actually be true.

Step 6

Complete the Revolution stage (Chapter 10) by doing some work on your issue – either alone or in conjunction with the person you’re struggling with.

If you are doing a solo issue, take some deeper notes at this point on how the story of this issue relates in a larger way to feelings of shame, fear, anxiety, etc. in the rest of your life. How are the two linked? What connections can you see between this story and the general regard in which you hold yourself, or the ways that you either connect with people or avoid connecting with them? Get ruthless with yourself. Which

parts of your story might NOT be true? A good way to explore that is to consider which parts you lack actual evidence for. (Hint: it will be most of them!) In what ways do you tend to use binary thinking? Binary thinking is when we use extreme ideas like “always/never” (as in “my partner always rejects me”) “everyone/no one” (as in “no one ever invites me anywhere” to describe how you experience yourself).

If you are working with an issue that involves another person, you can either do it on your own as in the previous paragraph, OR you can take it to that person. If you feel you can, I strongly recommend this second route, since one of the most powerful aspects of this practice is reality-checking your story. We are all incredibly gifted storytellers in the sense that we can convince ourselves of things that have no bearing in truth. One of the most reliable ways to get at the truth is to talk to the person who can fill in the missing pieces of information (in the absence of which you are making up your story).

If you take it to your person, use your best communication skills. Before you begin, make sure the other person has time and space to talk. Tell them what you are trying to do and let them know that you need their help. It can be especially valuable to let them know how important they are to you, and that you want to resolve this issue for yourself so that you can be more wholehearted and present in your relationship with them. You might also let them know that they can do the same. If the other person is not a willing participant, however, this course of action is not the right one to choose; simply revert to doing to project through your own self-introspection. If the other person does not respond well during the conversation, stop the conversation and complete the project on your own (and if this happens, as it may, remember that the other person is responding to their stuff, not to you).

In either case, remember that the key thing to bring to this party is vulnerability. What would it look like for you to approach resolving this issue with your full vulnerability at hand? Do not do this in a way that could seriously endanger your physical or emotional safety, but do practice being vulnerable by pushing those personal boundaries on the other side of which you know immense growth could be possible.

Step 6

Gather your notes and your SFD and write your paper. Here is what to include:

• A catchy introductory paragraph explaining what the paper is about (this is not a thesis, just a heads up to the reader), explaining why it matters, and explaining what is at stake for you.

• One page or so explaining the backstory (or history) of your story. The way Dr. Brown introduces her Travis Lake story in Chapter 2 is a great example of how to do this (although yours needn’t be as long, of course). Be descriptive, and include whatever aspects of your history and upbringing would be relevant. Include what you discovered about how you felt in the course of completing your Reckoning so that you are setting the stage for the reader to make sense of the rest of your work.

• 1-2 pages explaining the contents of your SFD (Rumble). If you want, you cut and paste the whole messy thing in verbatim. Or, if it’s too personal to share or you would like to neaten it up a bit for whatever reason, you can edit as you see fit. Just make sure that the important pieces remain intact: what emotions are you feeling? What physical sensations accompany them? What happened? What story are you making up about what happened? You can analyze your SFD if you like, explaining why your life history makes it more likely that you would make up such a story.

• 1-2 pages explaining the insights you had when completing your Revolution. If you worked on a personal issue by yourself, this is the part where you will walk the reader through the analysis you did of your own thinking, and any changes to your behavior or relationships that may have resulted. If you completed your Revolution by having a conversation with another person, walk the reader through that conversation. What was said? How did each party respond? What was the result? What did you find surprising when you actually checked in with your person about the accuracy of the story you were making up? Were parts of it true and parts of it false? Was it all false? Was it mostly true? How did having this conversation alter your relationship? How did it alter how you think about yourself?

• 1 page or so in conclusion. What did you learn from this process? What directions could you see yourself taking this kind of work? If you were not ready to have the conversation with another person, what did you learn from having it with yourself? If you were going to talk to another person at some point, can you identify an issue you would want to talk about? What are the obstacles that could get in your way? How might you work to overcome them? (Note: you can think of this as similar to the “directions for further research” discussion that appears in many sociological research articles, where the researchers suggest adjacent topics that would be worth investigating in the future). After completing this project on an personal issue of importance to you, what do you see as the sociological relevance of this process on a larger scale – for example, as a society? How could vulnerability and wholeheartedness contribute to the kinds of social connectedness and justice that we have been discussing this quarter?

The Fine Print

Please make sure that your paper is: • Beautifully edited for spelling, grammar, and punctuation. • Tied together with smooth transitions between body paragraphs and sections. • Written in a professional yet personal tone (you will need to use “I” throughout)

Organized into logical paragraphs that are of normal paragraph length (i.e., not two sentences and not one page), each of which has a well written topic sentence and is filled with content relevant to that topic sentence.

• Resplendent with the care and passion that you feel for an issue of central importance to your life, and reflective of the care and concern that you have for yourself as an individual and for your potential to fight for justice and understanding in the world.