Vulnerability is a crazy thing. We are so scared and preprogrammed to view vulnerability as a weakness, as the opposite of strength....Well, what if we changed this point of view and began to think of vulnerability as something much more...
Vulnerability is a crazy thing. We are so scared and preprogrammed to view vulnerability as a weakness, as the opposite of strength, and as something with a negative connotation. Why? Are we socially programmed as such? Are we really just so scared of showing our true self because we are so worried of what our true self actually is? Are we that self-conscious?
Brene Brown, not sure if you have heard of this phenomenal woman or not yet but likely you will at some point…she is just that fantastic. She catapulted her career with her Ted Talk on Vulnerability. She essentially combats the stigma of Vulnerability and emphasizes that vulnerability is actually strength rather than a weakness. Think about it…she is dead right. You cannot invent anything, literally nothing, without being vulnerable first. Nothing new could be created without the possibility of being wrong or getting it wrong. Love is vulnerable, is it not strength to still love even though you may get your heart broken? It takes more strength and less effort to show vulnerability than to put up a front and it almost always produces far greater results.
I have been thinking about this quite a bit lately as I continue my journey of identifying my core values in life and who I really am and who I want to be, let alone my journey of healing from my past traumas. You know, tackling them all at once…super smart I know. Anyway, I don’t want to be sugar coated or layered with frosting when on the inside I am sour or literally melting. Nobody likes a half-cooked cookie, right? I mean either warm out of the oven or give me some raw cookie doh. Why, why would I want to live in this false sense of reality? What benefit am I gaining from this? Not too much really, perhaps a few minutes of relief but followed by years of fake friendships and relationships and continuing to push down further and further my traumas and real emotions. You know, keep it pushed down; keep it together; keep it light, tight and right.
My husband tells me all the time that his favorite friend of mine is my friend Lauren. He says because when I talk to her or when I am around her, he likes who I am and that I am the most real with her. That I am the most ‘me’ when I am around her. Thinking about this more, he is right. I’ve known her well before I even knew myself, since we were 11. That’s 27 years of my growth and experiences that she has been around for. She knew me before boobs; before sex, drugs, and rock-n-roll; before careers; before marriage and kids; basically, before I knew me. She knows my in’s and out’s and definitely when I need to be checked back to reality. And guess what, she loves me, all of me. The good, the bad, and definitely the ugly. And guess what, I value her friendship more than any other. I can be authentically who I am without hesitation around her. I don’t sugar coat or say I am okay when I am not really okay. I don’t put on a front like I have more than I do because she knows all that I do have, she has been there through it all. I literally cannot fake the funk with her…and again, guess what… I am better for it.
The comfort of simply having her in my life, that she authentically chooses to be my friend for all these years and continues to be with all my flaws and weaknesses front and center, literally warms my soul and makes me think she is bat shit crazy too…but that’s really just my lack of confidence in my overall awesomeness. Hehe. With her in my life, I never fully feel truly alone.
What if I presented my authentic self and my vulnerable self all the time? What would be the drawback? Me actually developing more relationships of quality; actually managing my true emotions; actually dealing with, healing and overcoming my traumas; and occasionally allowing someone else to show their true colors and me coming to the realization that I may not want them in my life anyway? Really and truly, once I get over myself and MY FEAR of rejection or MY FEAR of being targeted, I really can’t find a negative. And once I do confront my fears and overcome them that is what I identify as strength, just like my girl Brene says. Strength in numbers too! I’ll add to that list of forever friends and expand my girl squad even more so.
So, I have decided to be on the journey to be healthy, all around. To have real relationships and to be physically and emotionally healthy and in order to achieve that, I need to be open and honest about my pain, my struggle, and my weaknesses. Maybe then I will actually allow myself to acknowledge them enough to work to better them.
More to come on this topic I am sure…. It is easy to write and say but when it comes down to it…yeah… I totally agree with you… easier said than done, I know. So, I’ll try by leading by example. Next post coming at ya soon!
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