Brené Brown’s Netflix Special Features a Critical Quote on Dealing with Haters

Shame is a feeling we’ve all felt—and, once felt, never wanted to feel again. But Brené Brown‘s Netflix special, The Call to Courage, gives new words to help you understand the feeling, and a clear path to help you live with those moments in life. (Because yes, they will happen, and yes, you will survive.)

Brené describes shame as the feeling you’d get after walking out of a room full of people, and they all start saying such horrible, hurtful things about you that you don’t think you could ever walk back into the room and face them again.

It’s something she experienced firsthand, after her June 2010 Ted Talk went viral. To date, it’s brought in more than 39 million views, racking up 2,041 comments. And it was those comments that she found herself caught in a shame spiral, wishing she could escape reality for a while.

“You can study shame, yet you are never prepared for the terrible stuff online,” Brené admitted.

Suddenly, she was faced with every worst thought she’d ever had about herself, only amplified—and all at once. Armed with her three degrees in social work, Brené says she did the one thing she knew how to do to cope with the outpouring of negativity: eat peanut butter and watch Downton Abbey. She’d been trying to hide away from the real world. “It wasn’t worth it to me to step into my power…because I didn’t know if I could withstand the criticism,” Brené explained.

The Quote That’s Come to Define Brené Brown’s Work:

It wasn’t until 7 hours later, when she googled just about every question relating to Abbey that popped into her head, that she stumbled upon the Teddy Roosevelt quote that would inspire her breakout book, Daring Greatly:

“It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.”

—Teddy Roosevelt

In that moment, Brené says she realized that vulnerability isn’t weakness—and that anyone who wasn’t putting themselves out there, taking risks and sharing their truth with the masses, doesn’t matter.

The Thing to Remember When You’re Shame Spiraling:

“The internet is filled with people in the cheap seats. Stop catching what they hurl at you and analyze it and hold it close to you,” Brené said. Amen to that.