Brené Brown’s voice, that of a teacher and a Texan, is amicably upbeat and frays a little at the edges. When she speaks, the combination of her mild Southern twang, propulsive intellect and swear-jar cordiality can be hypnotic. Brown, a research professor who holds a doctoral degree in social work, is famous for her viral talks on a range of uncomfortable emotions most people prefer not to think about. In the wake of the coronavirus pandemic, and with the help of a new podcast called “Unlocking Us,” she’s teaching an attentive audience to navigate the ones it can’t escape.

“A crisis highlights all of our fault lines,” Brown said, speaking by phone last week from the house in Houston where she’s sheltering with extended family. “We can pretend that we have nothing to learn, or we can take this opportunity to own the truth and make a better future for ourselves and others.”

Brown, 54, is perhaps best known for her TEDx talk “The Power of Vulnerability.” Recorded at an event in Houston in 2010, the talk is one of the five most popular in TED history, with more than 60 million views. It summarizes a decade of Brown’s research on shame, framing her weightiest discoveries in self-deprecating and personal terms. (A central anecdote tells of an emotional breakdown that led to a visit with a therapist, to whom Brown then issued a list of approved discussion topics.)

“The Power of Vulnerability” introduced the world to a new star of social psychology — a working wife and mother who referred reverentially to “the data” while recognizing her own life as a kind of natural experiment. Brown followed it with another TED Talk, “Listening to Shame,” and a book, “Daring Greatly” — both released in 2012 — that earned her an ardent following and the admiration of celebrity self-help connoisseurs like Oprah Winfrey, Gwyneth Paltrow and Marc Maron.