So I'll start with this. A couple years ago, an event planner called me because I was going to do a speaking event. And she called, and she said, I'm really struggling with how to write about you on the little flyer. And I thought, well, what's the struggle? And she said, well, I saw you speak, and I'm going to call you a researcher, I think. But I'm afraid if I call you a researcher, no one will come because they'll think you're boring and irrelevant. And I was like, okay. And she said, so. But the thing I liked about your talk is, you know, you're a storyteller.

So I think what I'll do is just call you a storyteller. And of course, the academic, insecure part of me was like, you're going to call me a what? And she said, I'm going to call you a storyteller. And I was like, why not magic pixie? I was like, let me think about this for a second. And so I tried to call deep on my courage, and I thought, you know, I am a storyteller. I'm a qualitative researcher. I collect stories. That's what I do. And maybe stories are just data with a soul, you know? And maybe I'm just a storyteller.

So I said, you know what? Why don't you just say, I'm a researcher, storyteller? And she went, there's no such thing. So I'm a researcher, storyteller, and I'm going to talk to you today. We're talking about expanding perception. And so I want to talk to you and tell some stories about a piece of my research that fundamentally expanded my perception and really actually changed the way that I live and love and work and parent. And this is where my story starts. When I was a young researcher doctoral student my first year, I had a research professor who said to us, here's the thing. If you cannot measure it, it does not exist. And I thought he was just sweet talking to me.

I was like, really? And he's like, absolutely. So you have to understand that I have a bachelor's in social work, a master's in social work, and I was getting my PhD in social work. So my entire academic career was surrounded by people who kind of believed in the life's messy, love it, and I'm more the life's messy. Clean it up, organize it, and put it into a bento box. And so to think that I had found my way to found a career that takes me really one of the big sayings in social work is lean into the discomfort of the work. And I'm like, knock discomfort upside the head and move it over and get all A's. That was my mantra. So I was very excited about this.

And so I thought, you know what? This is the career for me because I am interested in some messy topics, but I want to be able to make them not messy. I want to understand them. I want to hack into these things that I know are important and lay the code out for everyone to see. So where I started was with connection. Because by the time you're a social worker for ten years, what you realize is that connection is why we're here. It's what gives purpose and meaning to our lives. This is what it's all about. It doesn't matter whether you talk to people who work in social justice and mental health and abuse and neglect.

What we know is that connection. The ability to feel connected is neurobiologically, that's how we're wired. It's why we're here. So I thought, you know what? I'm going to start with connection. Well, you know that. That situation where you get an evaluation from your boss, and she tells you 37 things that you do. Really awesome. And one thing that you kind of, you know, an opportunity for growth, and all you can think about is that opportunity for growth, right? Well, apparently this is the way my work went as well.

Because when you ask people about love, they tell you about heartbreak. When you ask people about belonging, they'll tell you their most excruciating experiences of being excluded. And when you ask people about connection, the stories they told me were about disconnection. So very quickly, really, about six weeks into this research, I ran into this unnamed thing that absolutely unraveled connection in a way that I didn't understand or had never seen. And so I pulled back out of the research and thought, I need to figure out what this is. And it turned out to be shame. And shame is really easily understood as the fear of disconnection. Is there something about me that if other people know it or see it, that I won't be worthy of connection? The things I can tell you about it, it's universal.