Do you ever have that experience where someone just takes the words right out of your head and speaks them? Brene Brown's Ted talk couldn't be more on point with my recent reflections and the type of post I wanted to write around this week's word. So, throughout the post I will use different quotes from her talk to prompt my own thoughts. At the end, I have included her original talk for your viewing pleasure, if you will. (NOTE: If you are some random person that stumbled across this blog and you don't know about TED.com...wait until you have hours of free time and go there. You will LOVE it!)
Brene's talk was about vulnerability and courage (as it is defined above). another way she articulates this is that vulnerability/courage is, "the willingness to do something when there are no guarantees." Whether that thing is to enter into a relationship with someone new and dare to love them, forgiving someone who has deeply wounded you and daring to continue to be in relationship with them, or trusting a friend with a deep secret. Really, any way that you can put yourself out there in the world without knowing what the response will be.
Today, before I even watched Brene's talk, I was thinking about this very thing. (Note: I don't want this to be "cry me a river" time as I am merely illustrating the point.) There have been points in my life where I have been deeply wounded by family members. As a child, you don't really choose who you love. You have this sort of naive sense that the people around you are to be loved and trusted. When they breach that trust there is a sense of betrayal that can leave scars that even the best cocoa butter can't fade. It makes you have a heightened sense of self-protection. This is the story of my life (and I know of so many other people too).
Brene talks about her own struggle with vulnerability and how she shared with her therapist these words, "...vulnerability is the core of shame and fear and our struggle for worthiness, but it appears that it is also the birthplace of joy, of creativity, of belonging, of love..."
It is so true! I think about DB and how he was the first person I ever really let myself be truly vulnerable with. He was my first real volitional love. I chose to love him even in all his imperfections. By love, I don't just mean the warm and fuzzy feelings. I let him see deep parts of me and opened my eyes to that in him. He came into my life at a time when I had built walls upon walls around my heart, but I chose to chip them away as I grew in love with him. That's why when things went south I was wounded deeply (actually words cannot really adequately describe the pain the disintegration of our relationship caused).
My first reaction was to swear off of love. "never again, will I be a fool," was one of the many ruminations I had. But as the years have passed and I have been blessed with friends who love me and really care about who I am, I begin to value the lessons I learned through that experience. True love is never wasted nor foolish. We were made for it. It is weaved into the very fabric of our being. Love = Life and that is just the way it is."I lost the fight, but I won my life back." I definitely feel that way about my experience loving DB. I fought against vulnerability, but when I allowed myself to love him, I gained so much of my life back that I had hidden away after years of pain throughout my youth. "You cannot selectively numb emotion, you can't say, 'Here's the bad stuff, here's vulnerability, here's grief, here's shame, here's fear, here's disappointment...I don't want to feel these.' You cannot numb those without numbing the other affects or emotions." I had gone through so much of my youth numb. Numb to everything.
I said it in my last post, and Brene said it as well, sometimes the pain reminds us of the vitality of living and being in relationship with people. So I'll borrow the words of Alica Keys, "Yes, I was burned, but I'll call it a lesson learned...My soul has returned so I'll call it a lesson learned. Another lesson learned." It may be one of the most important lessons of all.
It takes great courage to "do something when there is no guarantee." I had started to become pusillanimous in my living: school, friends, and other areas of life. There is power in words (roommie recently wrote a blog around this statement) I think declaring a new attitude has been life-giving for me. It has given me the courage to persist and begin to enjoy my PhD journey, it has urged me to stop the rebuilding of walls I had begun (even with my own closest friends, smh), and it has given me eager anticipation (albeit, there is still some trepidation, let's be real here) to be vulnerable in that way again when the opportunity presents itself familially, platonically, and/or romantically. I have already started taking those steps. One great accomplishment was reading one of my more vulnerable pieces in the presence of my new friend Gloria (and a crowd of unknown people).
I can and will be indomitable!
Brene closed by urging us "To let ourselves be seen, deeply seen, vulnerably seen. To love with our whole hearts even though there is no guarantee. To practice gratitude and joy in the moments of...terror when we are wondering, 'can I love you this much?'; 'Can I believe in this this passionately?' ...Instead of catastrophizing what might happen to say, 'I'm just so grateful because to feel this vulnerable means I am alive.'"
AS PROMISED, BRENE BROWN:
