This article was written by The Zillennial Zine’s summer editorial intern Jordyn Centerwall. Find her on Instagram at @jordyncenterwall. If you would like to share an article with The Zillennial, send us an email at thezillennialzine@gmail.com.
Are you starting your self-help journey? Chances are you’ll run into Brené Brown early on. My own introduction to the author and shame researcher came in the midst of the pandemic. Her Unlocking Us podcast quickly became my go-to hot girl walk listen.
The podcast got its start in March of 2020 and over the last four years, Brown has released weekly episodes featuring everyone from Dolly Parton to Laverne Cox to Oprah Winfrey. Even though many of the early episodes include considerable discussion of isolation and the pandemic, the content remains evergreen and applicable to everyday life and relationships today.
Who is Brené Brown?
Brené Brown has become a household name in the last twenty years, but here are some of the stats the University of Houston research professor has acquired: six books, two long-standing podcasts, 25 years of marriage, two kids, one Netflix and one HBO special, two TED Talks, and more research publications and media appearances than I could list here. She has also been CEO of her own education and research company since 2016.
A handful of months after Brown launched the Unlocking Us podcast, she launched a second podcast called Dare to Lead. Four years later, both podcasts are still ongoing and have covered a wide breadth of topics. I haven’t dipped into Brown’s second podcast, but her interviewing format and the compassionate tone she brings to each tear-jerking, anger-inducing, and inspirational conversation in the Unlocking Us series have made me return to it over and over throughout the last couple of years. It’s a lot to jump into, so here are five episodes from the Unlocking Us podcast that resonated with me that I think you should hear too.
Drs. John and Julie Gottman on What Makes Love Last
The Gottmans have dedicated their lives to studying how people can have the most successful and fulfilling relationships. Together they founded the Gottman Institute which prioritizes research, workshops, and training mental health and counseling professionals in their findings about the things that help preserve and strengthen relationships. In this episode with Brown, the Gottmans discuss the importance of avoiding the urge to turn our partners into us. They share that successful couples communicate during times of conflict using “I feel” statements while also providing something constructive that they need at that moment. Listening to this conversation is inspirational because you get the sense that you’re getting a peek into not only the work the Gottmans have done, but their own relationship of 40 years.
Susan Cain on How Sorrow And Longing Make Us Whole
In this two part episode Brown features Susan Cain, author of Quiet and Bittersweet. In 2012, Cain released Quiet, which highlights the strengths that introverts can bring to a world that reveres extroversion. Then in 2022, she made the argument in Bittersweet for sitting in emotions like melancholy and not treating so-called “negative emotions” as behaviors to overcome but as necessary parts of the whole in terms of the human experience. Both of these books are at the center of their discussion.
In the discussion of Cain’s subject matter, she and Brown rejoice over their shared love of sad music. They pick apart the phenomena of effortless perfection that people and students especially feel the need to perform. The net sum is an understanding that darkness is necessary to appreciate the light in life fully.
Tarana Burke and Brené on Being Heard and Seen
The first guest that Brown invited onto her podcast is Tarana Burke. Burke is an activist who has been credited with starting the MeToo movement long before it became a trending hashtag. Burke and Brown have since written a book together about the Black experience with shame and vulnerability titled, You Are Your Best Thing. In this episode, they discuss Burke’s own experience with sexual violence and her work with young Black victims in which she sought to push the message of “empowerment through empathy.”
The two also discuss how terrifying it can be when someone sees you in a romantic partnership, and how the MeToo movement arose as a way to be heard so that her story and the stories of so many others could be realized. The episode is a powerful start to the Unlocking Us podcast and hard to listen to at times, but I found that it made the message all the more important to hear.
Aminatou Sow And Ann Friedman On Big Friendship
This episode hit my post-grad heart hard. Brown brings on Sow and Friedman who ran the Call Your Girlfriend podcast for nearly eight years and have been friends over distance for even longer. In their discussion with Brown, they emphasize the importance of working at your friendships and unpack why it feels shameful for friendship to not be something easy, but instead something that requires and is worthy of effort. Sow and Friedman share the story of their friendship, the intention they bring to their communication with each other and it becomes clear how much of that rests in not being afraid to challenge each other.
Brené On Places We Go When the Heart Is Open
This episode is just Brown speaking and in it, she shares an excerpt from the audiobook version of her most recent book, The Atlas of the Heart. In this section of her book, Brown draws on the work of bell hooks in All About Love to define love and what it means to live by a love ethic.
There is one quote in particular that has stuck with me over the years since I first listened to this episode. Brown says, “We are imperfect vessels to hold the love of another person.” This is not meant as an excuse, but instead as a reminder that part of what we commit to when we love is hurt, and the possibility of hurting others. Brown covers lots of other positive and negative things we open ourselves up to experiencing when we open ourselves up to love. Each are necessary and codependent on each other, what matters is how we communicate with each other when faced with hurt.
There are so many more episodes of the Unlocking Us podcast that I and so many others have laughed to, cried to, and journaled about. I hope you take the chance to check it out on Spotify, Apple Music, or at Brenebrown.com.
Do you have a favorite podcast? Drop some more episodes we should listen to in the comments below!
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