Open Your Heart Therapy

06/22/2025

06/22/2025

You are not your ego.
It’s just your self-image—
A mask built on approval, control, and fear.

But beneath the mask…
Is your true self.
Pure awareness.
Unchanging. Eternal.

Notice the ego.
But don’t become it.

06/22/2025

The research and reporting for this article is so impressive, but the content is tough. As I read about mothers monetizing their daughters despite the real risks to their mental health and the onslaught of predatory men, I emotionally bounced from disbelief to anger (with judgment rising).

I was shocked to read that nearly one in three preteens lists influencing as a career goal. What do we need to understand about influencing and being influenced? This might be the very worst side of the influencer/creator economy, but I think it holds lessons for all of us.

When reading about the mothers who felt like they could not stop the influencing or shut down accounts despite knowing the harm it was causing, I kept thinking, "Damn, this sounds a lot like addiction."

I know social media can feel like addiction. Even when it's hurting us, we don't stop.

Two things:

1. Please know that we talk about child exploitation and the sexualization of girls in this conversation.

2. We're still experimenting with comments. We built a commenting platform on brenebrown.com. We're trying new things to see what works and what doesn't. Is it possible to have meaningful convos and debate on what's going on in the world today? Jury is still out.

podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/new-york-times-journalists-jennifer-valentino-devries/id1494350511?i=1000651995233

06/22/2025

You know I love a good metaphor! In this conversation, Amy compares the unpredictable change that's happening right now to hitting a patch of ice while you're driving. She explains that we have to resist the human reflex to slam on the brakes and instead steer into the ice.

It's the perfect metaphor because that out-of-control spin-y feeling is exactly how most of us feel right now.

I think you're going to really love her take on the world, the three trends that make up the current "super cycle" of change (AI, wearable technology, and biotechnology), and the need to increase our capacity for uncertainty (ugh).

https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/futurist-amy-webb-on-whats-coming-and-whats-here/id1730985049?i=1000653430864

06/22/2025

A new “Unlocking Us” episode just dropped! It’s the first of eight podcasts in a series I’m calling, “On my heart and mind!”

Grab a cup of tea and join me and the wonderful Valarie Kaur for a conversation about her new book, “Sage Warrior.” Valarie is building a movement to reclaim love as a force for justice, healing, and transformation in America.

She believes the love ethic is essential to birthing a multi-racial democracy and a sustainable future.

I love this quote from her: “Revolutionary Love is the call of our times — the choice to leave no one outside our circle of care.”

It’s not just a book — it’s an invitation! ❤️

https://apple.co/3MHepiw

06/22/2025

One of my favorite books on trust is “The Thin Book of Trust,” by Charles Feltman. His definitions so beautifully capture what emerged from our data on trust. The third edition of the book is available now — very much worth the read!

06/22/2025

Dr. Sarah Lewis’s work is so powerful that I often find it disorienting. “Unseen Truth” left me breathless on several occasions, and sent me on twenty different research deep dives. “The Unseen Truth” shows how visual tactics have long secured our regime of racial hierarchy in spite of its false foundations — and offers a way to begin to dismantle it.

When I asked Dr. Lewis about her hope for the book that took her over a decade to research and write, she said:

“My hope for this book is that it leads us to summon the will to do away with the fictions that prevent us from being not just our best selves, our true selves, but the society that, in fact, we are destined to create. The book asks us to summon that will after going through a process of reeducating yourself and de-conditioning yourself from any understanding you might have had of yourself.”

Sarah describes herself as, “a woman who takes seriously a mission put on her life to understand what we have failed to see.”

I am profoundly reeducated, actively de-conditioning, and deeply grateful to Sarah for our conversations and her astounding work.

https://apple.co/4ejwLlo

06/22/2025

I absolutely love reading Roxane Gay’s work, and getting to talk to her about that work is an absolute (and often uncomfortable) joy.

In this conversation we discuss her long-form essay on Black gun ownership including how the gun industry frames women as victims in waiting and the importance of dismantling the trope of the “good man with a gun.” We also delve into the societal cost of our resisting, rejecting, and resenting nuance and the importance of holding the tension of competing ideas.

https://apple.co/3ZEkpQG

06/22/2025

I’m so grateful to the “menoposse” — the courageous medical professionals, activists, and researchers — who are openly talking about women’s health. So many women my age are navigating the grief and rage of watching our mothers being dismissed and discounted as they asked hard questions and begged for answers about the changes they were experiencing — many of them life altering and certainly quality of life changing.

Here’s to honest debate, discourse, and discovery about women’s health across the lifespan. No shame, no stigma.

I hope you enjoy the conversation with Dr. Mary Claire Haver — her work has been an essential part of the menopause conversation for me.

https://apple.co/3Y4Qik6

06/22/2025

The saying "never meet your heroes" is probably smart advice, however, I had the great privilege of talking to one of my heroes — historian Dr. Heather Cox Richardson — and I was blown away. It was one of my all time favorite conversations. I've been a huge fan of her books and her daily letters for a while, and I love history — we could have talked forever.

There's an interesting intersection where our work meets, especially around the emotional power of nostalgia. I've written about nostalgia in several places, but most recently, I did a deep dive on it in "Atlas of the Heart." My new definition of nostalgia is "the way things used to be . . . when people knew their place." There can be a wonderful and even fun side to nostalgia, but it can be weaponized in a heartbeat. And it's certainly an authoritarian dog whistle around the world when it comes to immigration.

In this two part series on American democracy, we talk about the history that led us to this moment, what's at stake, and how protecting and expanding democracy is absolutely possible if we have the political will to do it.

I learned so much talking to Heather — I can't wait for you to listen!

https://apple.co/4eDRtNm