May 30, 2025

4 Talks by Brene Brown on Shame & Vulnerability

Author and podcaster Brene Brown has written six bestselling books and hosts two podcasts: the Unlocking Us Podcast and the Dare to Lead Podcast. Her popularity exploded with her 2010 TED Talk The Power of Vulnerability which has now been viewed over 20 million times.

Her research and talks on shame and vulnerability have certainly struck a chord with millions of people. And all her books since then have been bestsellers, including The Gifts of Imperfection, Daring Greatly, Rising Strong, Braving the Wilderness, Dare to Lead, and Atlas of the Heart. Below we’ll highlight four talks that Brene Brown has given on these topics starting with her original TED Talk:

1. Brene Brown: The Power of Vulnerability

Watch this powerful TED talk by author and researcher Brene Brown. In this insightful talk, she tells the story of how her social worker research lead her to study shame for over 6 years. Convinced she could use her data to deconstruct and control shame, she eventually came to a much different conclusion. She saw that the people who have a sense of love, belonging, and worthiness, also had a sense of vulnerability where they did not know the outcome of their decisions. This led to Brown having a “breakdown” in her own ideas of shame and worthiness, which lead to even more insight into how we numb our emotions to avoid vulnerability.

2. Brene Brown: Listening to Shame

Watch Brene Brown’s follow-up TED Talk to her popular talk The Power of Vulnerability. In this talk, Brene confronts the shame epidemic head on, and she explores how shame is brought about for men and women throughout our culture. She emphasizes that vulnerability is not weakness, but that it is at the heart of creativity and “daring greatly”.

3. The Courage to Be Vulnerable

Professor and author Brene Brown’s research on shame and vulnerability have hit home with many people as evidenced by her popular TED talk The Power of Vulnerability and her bestselling books including The Gifts of Imperfection and Daring Greatly. In this interview with Krista Tippett from the On Being radio show, Brene Brown tells the story of how she found out the characteristics of someone who is “whole-hearted” and how she discovered they were the opposite of who she was at time. In a culture that often demands perfectionism and shames those who fall short, Brown’s work has been insightful into how we can develop the courage to be more vulnerable and open to our own emotions, in our relationships, and in parenting.

4. Brene Brown: The Power of Vulnerability

This talk is also called The Power of Vulnerability, but it’s different from her TED Talk. In this talk from the RSA, Brown emphasizes the prevalence of fear and blame in contemporary society. When we go through the day’s news, it’s almost always concerning what we should be afraid of and who is to blame. Brown says this societal obsession also translates into our personal lives, which are plagued with fear and blame. She also points out the pernicious pervasiveness of shame and perfectionism. Brown encourages us to flip the script on these emotions by pushing us towards empathy and vulnerability. She defines the difference between sympathy and empathy and provides many examples of how we can put empathy to work in our daily lives.

Enjoy these talks from Brene Brown, and you can check out all her titles on our site here:

Brene Brown Audio & Video on LearnOutLoud.com

May 29, 2025

Watch for Free Bill Moyers 5-Part Documentary Series Healing and the Mind

In 1993, journalist Bill Moyers created a five-part documentary series looking to explain aspects of the mind-body connection and ways it can be applied in alternative healthcare. This series won the Emmy Award for Outstanding Informational Series and had a lasting impact on new ways people thought about healing and health. Two of the parts of the documentary are available on Vimeo and the other three parts available on the American Archive of Public Broadcasting. You can check them all out at the links below:

1. Healing and the Mind: The Mind Body Connection

In this introduction to his 5-part series Healing and the Mind, Bill Moyers takes a look at the mind-body connection and why separating the mind and body in medicine may be neglecting a powerful tool in staying healthy. Research has come a long way since this 1993 documentary in proving the importance of the mind-body connection for various illnesses. In this documentary, Moyers asks doctors and scientists fundamental questions about the mind and emotions and the role they play in our physical health. He follows patients who’ve tried Western medicine like medications without success and are turning to alternative treatments that relate to the power of the mind. Moyers even connects with a young Dr. Dean Ornish, who is utilizing diet, meditation, and group therapy to help treat heart disease. This is a good introduction to Moyers’ popular series.

2. Healing and the Mind: The Art of Healing

In this episode of the Healing and the Mind series, Bill Moyers goes into hospitals and interviews the doctors and patients involved in medical care in the United States. He explores the connection of mind and body through the relationships a patient has with his doctor and his support network of friends and family. He goes into a Neonatal Intensive Care Unit and shows the bonding necessary to nurture a preterm baby. Moyers also is told again and again how a patient and their family need to take initiative in their own healing for the best outcomes. With the modern technology and busyness of today’s hospitals, they can often feel cold and intimidating, and Moyers seeks out a hospital that is looking to change this viewpoint with the help of mind-body medicine.

3. Healing and the Mind: Wounded Healers

In this episode of the Healing and the Mind series, Bill Moyers visits a one-week retreat for people who have cancer called the Commonweal Program in Bolinas, California. The program was founded by Rachel Naomi Remen and Michael Lerner who are both interviewed by Moyers in this documentary. They make no claims that alternative health can cure cancer, but they exist to deal with the holistic health of individuals. Most of the film focuses on a single group of people with cancer who are talking about their emotions over the course of a week. Along with talking about their disease, they participate in massage, yoga, creative arts, and other activities. This community-based approach seems to help the well-being of the group, even if some of them are preparing to die.

4. Healing and the Mind: Healing from Within

Bill Moyers investigates the connection between peace of mind and physical illness in this documentary that takes a look at the innovative work of Jon Kabat-Zinn and Dr. David Spiegel. We follow Kabat-Zinn as he leads a group of every day people dealing with chronic pain in guided mindfulness meditation at the University of Massachusetts Medical School. Moyers also delves into a study Dr. Spiegel conducts with cancer patients on the emotional benefits of group psychotherapy. Both Kabat-Zinn and Spiegel approach these concepts of inner healing with a mainstream medical training background, but are open to finding new ways to help their patients heal, cope, grieve, and live with the stress of serious illness.

5. Healing and the Mind: The Mystery of Chi

In this hour-long episode of Bill Moyers’ Healing and the Mind series, Moyers travels to China to discover healing power of Chinese medicine and the mystery of Chi. Moyers is joined by Dr. David Eisenberg who served as the first U.S. medical exchange student to the People’s Republic of China and spent over 10 years there. Dr. Eisenberg teaches Moyers about Chinese herbal medicine, acupuncture, Chinese massage, tai chi, chi gung, martial arts, and the ideas of Taoism. Learn about Chinese medicine and health practices that have been around for thousands of years.

If you want to explore Moyers’s programs further, you can view a collection of over 800 programs in the Bill Moyers Collection on the American Archive of Public Broadcasting website:

Browse Over 800 Video Programs in the Bill Moyers Collection on the American Archive of Public Broadcasting

May 20, 2025

Tony Robbins Responds to the September 11th Attacks

Motivational speaker Tony Robbins has been leading seminars for decades. For an example of his seminars, check out the audiobook Unleash The Power Within. But nothing could’ve quite prepared Robbins for the seminar he gave on September 11th, 2001. He was giving a seminar on leadership and emotional mastery that day, and this video is a 2-hour condensed version of the seminar. The thumbnail isn’t showing, but the video still plays:

Leadership In Times of Crisis

Tony Robbins put up for free on his YouTube channel his 2-hour seminar “Leadership In Times of Crisis” which was recorded on September 11th, 2001. Robbins shows his leadership skills by weathering the emotional rollercoaster of the day and sharing dialogue with the wide array of responses to the attacks. He provides lessons in emotional mastery, demonstrating that the responses of individuals come from their habitual patterns, and pushes certain individuals to shift their response to a higher level. In the second half of the program Robbins facilitates a unique dialogue of peace between a Jewish man from New York and an Arab man who are both struggling with conflicting emotions over the September 11th attacks. Watch this free 2-hour seminar on YouTube.

May 20, 2025

Watch Wayne Dyer’s Documentary The Shift for Free

Dr. Wayne Dyer was the author of many self-help books from his 1976 classic Your Erroneous Zones to his bestsellers The Power of Intention (2004) and Change Your Thoughts – Change Your Life (2007). Dr. Dyer passed away in 2015, but one of his publishers, Hay House, is making sure his wisdom lives on. They’ve recently uploaded over 20 of his full-length talks to their YouTube channel for over 40 hours of Wayne Dyer wisdom:

Dr. Wayne W. Dyer Official Playlist on the Hay House YouTube Channel

One of the videos they uploaded is a two-hour documentary starring Wayne Dyer called The Shift (2009):

In this feature film that skillfully mixes drama and interview footage with Dr. Wayne Dyer, the viewer learns various lessons on how to overcome the ego, break the chains of self-driven ambition, and find personal purpose in life. In three parallel story-lines, a selfish business executive, a bullheaded film director, and an unfulfilled homemaker learn how to “find their nature” as Dyer puts it during a weekend retreat. This mix of fiction and documentary not only illuminates Dyer’s concepts through dramatic illustration, but also provides new footage of the popular speaker talking lucidly about concepts he’s spent a lifetime developing. It is now available for free to watch on the Hay House YouTube channel.

For much more from Wayne Dyer check out our author page on him:

Wayne Dyer Audio & Video on LearnOutLoud.com

May 19, 2025

Two Audio Documentaries on Great African American Speeches

American Public Media’s documentary unit American RadioWorks (now called APM Reports) has produced over 100 high quality audio documentaries on various topics which you can check out on our American Public Media Publisher Page or on their APM Reports Documentaries Podcast. We’ve previously blogged about some of these documentaries:

Free Audio Documentaries from American Public Media

Two of their best audio documentaries cover great African American speeches that are mostly from the 20th century, with excerpts and analysis of these speeches. Listen to these one-hour audio documentaries from American Public Media:

Say It Plain: A Century of Great African-American Speeches

This hour-long audio documentary from American RadioWorks is an excellent introduction to great African American speakers of the last century. In chronological order it covers speeches all the way back to Booker T. Washington’s address at the Atlanta Cotton States and International Exposition up to Barack Obama’s recent speech at the Democratic National Convention. The hour-long documentary features excerpts of the speeches with interviews and commentary on their significance, and if you liked a particular speech American RadioWorks offers each speech individually as streaming audio so you can listen to it in its entirety.

Say It Loud: Great Speeches on Civil Rights & African American Identity

American Public Media presents this follow-up audio documentary to their production Say It Plain: A Century of Great African-American Speeches. In this audio documentary, they present speeches from prominent African-American figures from the 1960s up to the 2000s. They start with Malcolm X’s The Ballot or the Bullet speech, which was critical of the nonviolent protests of the civil rights movement and in support of Black Nationalism. Other speeches in the documentary come from a variety of voices, including playwright Lorraine Hansberry, civil rights leader Martin Luther King, Jr., Black Panther founder Bobby Seale, affirmative action critic Ward Connerly, comedian Bill Cosby, and President Barack Obama. In this documentary, you’ll get a wide range of views on the political goals of African-Americans at a time where significant civil rights achievements had been made, but rates of poverty and incarceration among African-Americans are also disproportionately high. Historians and intellectuals chime in with commentary on the speeches presented throughout the documentary. For transcripts of speeches and some audio excerpts of the speeches, check out the American RadioWorks website.

Enjoy these and more excellent audio documentaries from American Public Media!