Latest news with #DaringGreatly
IOL News
16-05-2025
- Entertainment
- IOL News
Navigating change: Insights from Melinda French Gates' The Next Day
The divorce, especially, was a raw, vulnerable chapter marked by sleepless nights and emotional upheaval. Yet, through that darkness, she discovered a surprising sense of freedom. This renewal marked a pivotal moment in her journey—proof that the end of one chapter often makes way for a truer one to begin. From there, the narrative moves into the profound changes Melinda faced: her divorce after nearly three decades of marriage and her decision to step away from the Gates Foundation. These aren't just headlines or public milestones. They are seismic shifts in identity and purpose. She writes candidly about the pain, fear and uncertainty that accompanied these transitions. What struck me first was Melinda's tender reflection on her relationship with her father. She honours him as a steadfast advocate—kind, generous, always pushing to improve—much like Malala Yousafzai's father, who fiercely supported his daughter's courage. This tribute hit home for me, stirring memories of my own dad, now gone, whose gentle support and unwavering belief shaped who I am. Fathers like these are rare gifts, our first champions in a world that doesn't always listen to daughters. Melinda's acknowledgment of that love and advocacy sets a deeply human tone for the entire book. When I read The Next Day, it felt like sitting down with a close friend who's been through the storm and come out the other side with quiet strength and a heart wide open. The Role of Relationships Leaving the foundation was another bold step, choosing to redefine her philanthropic journey on her own terms, focusing more deeply on women's empowerment through Pivotal Ventures. What I found especially inspiring was how Melinda leans into relationships as lifelines during these upheavals. Her friendship with John Neilson, a dear colleague and family friend, is woven throughout the book with warmth and sorrow. John's battle with cancer while Melinda was pregnant with her son Rory, whom she named in his honour, captures the bittersweet interplay between loss and new beginnings. It reminded me how change is never just about endings or beginnings, but the messy, beautiful overlap of both. Lessons in Vulnerability Melinda also speaks to the power of women's groups and friendships—those circles of empathy and strength that buoy us when life feels unsteady. Reading The Next Day brought to mind Brené Brown's Daring Greatly, which teaches us that vulnerability is not weakness but the birthplace of courage and connection. Melinda embodies this truth, showing us how to meet uncertainty with openness rather than resistance. At the same time, Brianna Wiest's The Mountain Is You echoes in the background, reminding us that the hardest climbs are often within ourselves, and transforming self-sabotage is the key to growth. Together, these voices create a chorus of resilience, courage and hope. Melinda writes, 'Change doesn't demand perfection; it asks only for courage to begin again, one small step at a time.' This simple truth pulses throughout the book, reminding us that the next day is always waiting—an invitation to meet life with openness, kindness and hope. She shows us that vulnerability is not a crack in our armour but the light that guides us through the unknown, and that the quiet strength of those who believe in us—like fathers, friends and ourselves—becomes the foundation for every new beginning. Conclusion: A Companion for the Journey The Next Day is a warm, honest companion for anyone facing change, loss or uncertainty. Melinda French Gates reminds us that every ending holds the seed of a new beginning, and that with courage, connection and compassion, we can meet each next day ready to grow. This book isn't just about moving forward. It's about learning to begin again, wherever you are * The Next Day by Melinda French Gates can be obtained at Exclusive Books.
Yahoo
27-01-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
The McVulnerability Trap
In my psychology practice, when tears enter the room, they have a way of cutting through the noise—all of the defenses, all of the pretenses. A client's carefully constructed walls fall away, allowing something deep to emerge. I've seen this happen time and again, and it's why for years I saw crying as one of the purest forms of vulnerability—until I discovered crying TikTok. The trend is exactly what you might expect: People post videos of themselves crying (or trying not to). Some of these videos are slickly produced; some feature moody music; many rack up hundreds of thousands of views. These displays of vulnerability are, of course, not restricted to TikTok (whose fate, under the new Trump administration, is uncertain). They can also be found on YouTube, Instagram, and other apps, part of a broader online aesthetic. Influencers and celebrities strip down to what can seem like the rawest version of themselves, selling the promise of 'real' emotional connection—and, not infrequently, products or their personal brand. In a post titled 'Reacting to My Sad and Lonely Videos,' the YouTube star Trisha Paytas watches old footage of herself sobbing and is moved to tears all over again; this sort of post shares space in her channel with clips in which she pitches her own merch. On Instagram, influencers toggle between montages of sadness and sponsored videos that show them cozily sipping fancy tea. The weepy confessions are, ostensibly, gestures toward intimacy. They're meant to inspire empathy, to reassure viewers that influencers are just like them. But in fact, they're exercises in what I've come to call 'McVulnerability,' a synthetic version of vulnerability akin to fast food: mass-produced, easily accessible, sometimes tasty, but lacking in sustenance. True vulnerability can foster emotional closeness. McVulnerability offers only an illusion of it. And just as choosing fast food in favor of more nutritious options can, over time, result in harmful outcomes, consuming 'fast vulnerability' instead of engaging in bona fide human interaction can send people down an emotionally unhealthy path. [Read: The new empress of self-help is a TikTok star] Not long ago in American culture, vulnerability was largely associated with weakness. To be vulnerable meant to be helpless or susceptible to harm. Then came Brené Brown, the social worker and research professor who, with her viral 2010 TED Talk, became one of the most prominent voices transforming the perception of vulnerability for a new audience. In her book Daring Greatly, Brown defined vulnerability as the 'birthplace of love, belonging, joy, courage, empathy, and creativity,' and as a crucial element in personal growth—a liberating message for people raised to suppress their feelings and show toughness. This was well before the consumerist blending of therapy-speak and personal branding that has become commonplace on social media. It was four years before The Body Keeps the Score got the masses talking about trauma, and it was eight years before Nicole LePera launched the Holistic Psychologist on Instagram, today one of the platform's most popular therapy accounts. But in the past decade and a half, vulnerability's trajectory has come to mirror that of many psychological concepts—such as mindfulness, boundary-setting, and self-love—whose lines of insight have been tangled up with the attention economy and the free market. McVulnerability is perhaps an inevitable outcome of what the sociologist Eva Illouz identifies as a modern-day landscape of 'emotional capitalism.' 'Never has the private self been so publicly performed and harnessed to the discourses and values of the economic and political spheres,' Illouz writes in her book Cold Intimacies. Emotional capitalism has 'realigned emotional cultures, making the economic self emotional and emotions more closely harnessed to instrumental action.' That is, not only does emotionality sell goods, but emotions themselves have also become commodities. As people's vulnerability proxies—podcasters, celebrities, crying YouTubers—pour out their heart while shilling for their favorite cashmere brands, consumerism becomes unconsciously tethered to the viewing or listening experience. Studies have found that when people spend more time on social-media platforms, they are more likely to buy more things and to do so impulsively—especially when they feel emotionally connected to the content they watch. This is, perhaps, one of the more insidious effects of McVulnerability: It helps encourage a self-perpetuating cycle of materialism and loneliness, in which one inevitably spawns the other. Yet McVulnerability's practitioners are also offering supply to satisfy a real emotional demand. As Derek Thompson wrote earlier this month in The Atlantic, more and more Americans are retreating from in-person social interactions, turning instead to smartphones and other devices in search of intimacy. Yes, they may be communicating with friends and family. But they are also spending a lot of time 'with' people they don't know at all. [Read: 'Close Friends,' for a monthly fee] The rise of momfluencers serves as a perfect example. Many new mothers find themselves isolated and exhausted as they make the transition into parenthood. Maybe their families live across the country, or their friends are too busy to stop by. Starved for community, they might be struggling to find people with whom they can sit down and say, This sucks. On social media, they find influencers sharing tearful confessions about mom guilt or mom rage. But these posts aren't a substitute for actual community and support. Once the isolated moms put down their phone, they're just as alone as they were before. Not all of the vulnerability shared online is devoid of authenticity. It can be genuinely helpful when someone describes their personal trials publicly, such as a survivor of abuse who shares their story, galvanizing others to seek safety. Vulnerability caught on video can also offer a powerful glimpse into the gravity of collective tragedy. An emotional clip about losing a home to wildfires can, for instance, bring to life the human cost of crisis in a way that headlines and statistics cannot. And of course, some parents who share their difficult experiences online do provide a valuable service, offering validation and practical insights (on, say, postpartum depression) that aren't always accessible elsewhere. Next to those videos, it's not hard to see the ways in which McVulnerability, melodramatic and consumption-driven, merely masquerades as a chance to connect. McVulnerability offers a fleeting, convenient, and comfortable digital experience, allowing the people who consume it to skirt past the complications of being in a relationship with another person—although for some viewers, truth be told, that might be part of the appeal. In my years as a therapist, I've seen a trend among some of my younger clients: They prefer the controlled environment of the internet—the polish of YouTube, the ephemeral nature of TikTok—to the tender awkwardness of making new friends. Instead of reaching out to a peer, they'll turn to the comfort of their phone and spend time with their preferred influencers. At a talk in 2023, the psychotherapist Esther Perel touched on this impulse while discussing what she calls 'artificial intimacy'—pseudo-experiences of emotional closeness that mimic connection but lack depth. These 'digitally facilitated connections,' she said, risk 'lowering our expectations of intimacy between humans' and leave us 'unprepared and unable to tolerate the inevitable unpredictabilities of human nature, love, and life.' I understand where my young clients are coming from: Putting yourself out there is uncomfortable. But for the reasons Perel articulated, I also worry that by relying mostly on social media to encounter other humans, they're forfeiting opportunities to develop the skills that could help them thrive in the flesh-and-blood world. One of my psychology mentors has a point she repeats often: 'Vulnerability is generous.' It can be easier to project invulnerability, to pretend we don't believe strongly in an issue, to act as if we don't want. But being vulnerable—exposing ourselves via the unfiltered messiness of life—is one of the biggest emotional risks we can take, and one of the greatest gifts we can offer another person. When you choose to be vulnerable, you are essentially saying: I'm going to stand here as my full self, and I invite you to do the same. McVulnerability, from whichever angle you look at it, is the opposite of generous. It doesn't require risk. It may pretend to give, but ultimately, it takes. And it leaves most of its consumers hungry for what they're craving: human connection—the real thing. Article originally published at The Atlantic
Atlantic
27-01-2025
- Entertainment
- Atlantic
The McVulnerability Trap
In my psychology practice, when tears enter the room, they have a way of cutting through the noise—all of the defenses, all of the pretenses. A client's carefully constructed walls fall away, allowing something deep to emerge. I've seen this happen time and again, and it's why for years I saw crying as one of the purest forms of vulnerability—until I discovered crying TikTok. The trend is exactly what you might expect: People post videos of themselves crying (or trying not to). Some of these videos are slickly produced; some feature moody music; many rack up hundreds of thousands of views. These displays of vulnerability are, of course, not restricted to TikTok (whose fate, under the new Trump administration, is uncertain). They can also be found on YouTube, Instagram, and other apps, part of a broader online aesthetic. Influencers and celebrities strip down to what can seem like the rawest version of themselves, selling the promise of 'real' emotional connection—and, not infrequently, products or their personal brand. In a post titled ' Reacting to My Sad and Lonely Videos,' the YouTube star Trisha Paytas watches old footage of herself sobbing and is moved to tears all over again; this sort of post shares space in her channel with clips in which she pitches her own merch. On Instagram, influencers toggle between montages of sadness and sponsored videos that show them cozily sipping fancy tea. The weepy confessions are, ostensibly, gestures toward intimacy. They're meant to inspire empathy, to reassure viewers that influencers are just like them. But in fact, they're exercises in what I've come to call 'McVulnerability,' a synthetic version of vulnerability akin to fast food: mass-produced, easily accessible, sometimes tasty, but lacking in sustenance. True vulnerability can foster emotional closeness. McVulnerability offers only an illusion of it. And just as choosing fast food in favor of more nutritious options can, over time, result in harmful outcomes, consuming 'fast vulnerability' instead of engaging in bona fide human interaction can send people down an emotionally unhealthy path. Not long ago in American culture, vulnerability was largely associated with weakness. To be vulnerable meant to be helpless or susceptible to harm. Then came Brené Brown, the social worker and research professor who, with her viral 2010 TED Talk, became one of the most prominent voices transforming the perception of vulnerability for a new audience. In her book Daring Greatly, Brown defined vulnerability as the 'birthplace of love, belonging, joy, courage, empathy, and creativity,' and as a crucial element in personal growth—a liberating message for people raised to suppress their feelings and show toughness. This was well before the consumerist blending of therapy-speak and personal branding that has become commonplace on social media. It was four years before The Body Keeps the Score got the masses talking about trauma, and it was eight years before Nicole LePera launched the Holistic Psychologist on Instagram, today one of the platform's most popular therapy accounts. But in the past decade and a half, vulnerability's trajectory has come to mirror that of many psychological concepts—such as mindfulness, boundary-setting, and self-love—whose lines of insight have been tangled up with the attention economy and the free market. McVulnerability is perhaps an inevitable outcome of what the sociologist Eva Illouz identifies as a modern-day landscape of 'emotional capitalism.' 'Never has the private self been so publicly performed and harnessed to the discourses and values of the economic and political spheres,' Illouz writes in her book Cold Intimacies. Emotional capitalism has 'realigned emotional cultures, making the economic self emotional and emotions more closely harnessed to instrumental action.' That is, not only does emotionality sell goods, but emotions themselves have also become commodities. As people's vulnerability proxies—podcasters, celebrities, crying YouTubers—pour out their heart while shilling for their favorite cashmere brands, consumerism becomes unconsciously tethered to the viewing or listening experience. Studies have found that when people spend more time on social-media platforms, they are more likely to buy more things and to do so impulsively—especially when they feel emotionally connected to the content they watch. This is, perhaps, one of the more insidious effects of McVulnerability: It helps encourage a self-perpetuating cycle of materialism and loneliness, in which one inevitably spawns the other. Yet McVulnerability's practitioners are also offering supply to satisfy a real emotional demand. As Derek Thompson wrote earlier this month in The Atlantic, more and more Americans are retreating from in-person social interactions, turning instead to smartphones and other devices in search of intimacy. Yes, they may be communicating with friends and family. But they are also spending a lot of time 'with' people they don't know at all. Read: 'Close Friends,' for a monthly fee The rise of momfluencers serves as a perfect example. Many new mothers find themselves isolated and exhausted as they make the transition into parenthood. Maybe their families live across the country, or their friends are too busy to stop by. Starved for community, they might be struggling to find people with whom they can sit down and say, This sucks. On social media, they find influencers sharing tearful confessions about mom guilt or mom rage. But these posts aren't a substitute for actual community and support. Once the isolated moms put down their phone, they're just as alone as they were before. Not all of the vulnerability shared online is devoid of authenticity. It can be genuinely helpful when someone describes their personal trials publicly, such as a survivor of abuse who shares their story, galvanizing others to seek safety. Vulnerability caught on video can also offer a powerful glimpse into the gravity of collective tragedy. An emotional clip about losing a home to wildfires can, for instance, bring to life the human cost of crisis in a way that headlines and statistics cannot. And of course, some parents who share their difficult experiences online do provide a valuable service, offering validation and practical insights (on, say, postpartum depression) that aren't always accessible elsewhere. Next to those videos, it's not hard to see the ways in which McVulnerability, melodramatic and consumption-driven, merely masquerades as a chance to connect. McVulnerability offers a fleeting, convenient, and comfortable digital experience, allowing the people who consume it to skirt past the complications of being in a relationship with another person—although for some viewers, truth be told, that might be part of the appeal. In my years as a therapist, I've seen a trend among some of my younger clients: They prefer the controlled environment of the internet—the polish of YouTube, the ephemeral nature of TikTok—to the tender awkwardness of making new friends. Instead of reaching out to a peer, they'll turn to the comfort of their phone and spend time with their preferred influencers. At a talk in 2023, the psychotherapist Esther Perel touched on this impulse while discussing what she calls 'artificial intimacy' —pseudo-experiences of emotional closeness that mimic connection but lack depth. These 'digitally facilitated connections,' she said, risk 'lowering our expectations of intimacy between humans' and leave us 'unprepared and unable to tolerate the inevitable unpredictabilities of human nature, love, and life.' I understand where my young clients are coming from: Putting yourself out there is uncomfortable. But for the reasons Perel articulated, I also worry that by relying mostly on social media to encounter other humans, they're forfeiting opportunities to develop the skills that could help them thrive in the flesh-and-blood world. One of my psychology mentors has a point she repeats often: 'Vulnerability is generous.' It can be easier to project invulnerability, to pretend we don't believe strongly in an issue, to act as if we don't want. But being vulnerable—exposing ourselves via the unfiltered messiness of life—is one of the biggest emotional risks we can take, and one of the greatest gifts we can offer another person. When you choose to be vulnerable, you are essentially saying: I'm going to stand here as my full self, and I invite you to do the same. McVulnerability, from whichever angle you look at it, is the opposite of generous. It doesn't require risk. It may pretend to give, but ultimately, it takes. And it leaves most of its consumers hungry for what they're craving: human connection—the real thing.
