So each of us has shame. No exceptions! No exemptions! To be a part of the human race is to have experienced shame and to carry some residual shame. While there’s no way to measure shame, Brene Brown reminds us that we can certainly know what it looks like when shame is largely replaced by authentic living.

People who live authentically know that they are worthy of belonging. They do not have to belong to anything except the human race, but authentic people experience a sense of being acceptable. Acceptable to self and acceptable to others. Therefore, they can engage the world as the need arises to do so in a wide variety of capacities.

Not needing to always be the same, people who live authentically aren’t afraid to speak up when they have something to say--if they want to put forth the energy to say it. They make wise choices in this regard, choices that may not be the choices that everyone else would make. They sometimes do stand out in the crowd and to lead people. It challenges us all to think differently and to move in new directions--sometimes as individuals, sometimes in great mass, such as we recently saw with the election of Barack Obama.

Shame resilient people feel confident, but maintain a realistic understanding of what they are capable and not so capable of doing. They aren’t ashamed to say: “This isn’t one of my strong points or skills.” Being a work in progress doesn’t mean to the shame-resilient person that she or he is flawed because of the rough edges. Having rough edges just makes us know that we belong. We don’t have to pretend, and we aren’t necessarily running ourselves down by admitting our weaknesses. In fact, we can even smile at ourselves as we look in the mirror.