vulnerability

I just finished reading Brene Brown’s book: “The Gift of Imperfection.” After reading her book: “Daring Greatly” I was curious about her other books and wanted to see how they compared, and what I might learn in the process. “The Gift of Imperfection” does not at all compare to Daring Greatly (which I loved) but I still found some helpful ideas and inspiration. Brown has definitely evolved as a writer with each book.

One idea that really resonated with me was about looking at all the crap in our lives. So often we want to look at everything with sunshine and rainbows and the reality of life is that it is not always happy, perfect, and straightforward. We often have to take a trowel and dig into the past, or rake through the distractions that are blocking us from seeing our true purpose in life. When I read this quote from Brown the other day, I realized how right she is:

“We don’t change, we don’t grow, and we don’t move forward without the work. If we really wanted to live a joyful, connected, and meaningful life, we must talk about things that get in the way.” Page 35

We want the easy way out. We like to cut corners, get there faster, check the box off the list. That is not the way it works though. We have to do the work. We have to look at our dark places, what makes us angry, and what makes us react. All the different nuances and challenges in our life that rub us the wrong way, make us feel injustice, or just get in the way of who we are on the good days. If we use the trowel and rake, maybe, just maybe, it will mean that more of our days are happy and on purpose.

With poise, zeal, and excitement together we can look at the dark stuff in our life, our fears, questions, and all the crap that we push under our beds, into our closets, or the trunk of our car. The stuff we avoid to look at because we are scared of what it will tell us. Afraid of what we will learn about ourselves. Open the door, the trunk, and get under the bed and pull out the dust bunnies, and stinky socks, and let’s look at our dark places, talk about them, and see where it takes us.

I am excited to start talking about the things that are getting in my way. Maybe, I will share a few here. You will have to come back and see.

I have found my favorite book of 2012. It is called: “Daring Greatly: How the Courage to Be Vulnerable Transforms the Way We Live, Love, Parent, and Lead” by Brene Brown. I cannot stop thinking about the ideas in this book. It is a must read book. It was just published in September, so it is hot off the shelf.

Brown talks a lot in her book about feeling loved, vulnerability, connection, combating shame, and perfectionism. Each are important ideas with a lot of depth for discussion. I first got pulled into her book with her analysis about vulnerability. Here is one quote on the topic:

“Vulnerability is the core of all emotions and feelings. To feel is to be vulnerable. To believe vulnerability is weakness is to believe that feeling is weakness. To foreclose on our emotional life out of a fear that the costs will be too high is to walk away from the very thing gives purpose and meaning to living.” Page 33

Vulnerability seems to be a term we do not hear as much about, so I was happily surprised when I heard about Brown’s book. Based on her above idea, why would we not want to be fully vulnerable? I guess first you have to want to feel. If you do not want to feel, then keep your vulnerability at bay. Most of the time I think we just do not want to get hurt, so we keep our thoughts and feelings inside. Other times I think we might be slightly ashamed or insecure about what others might think about our ideas.

What if we had no sensors at all, and always said exactly what is on our mind? That is how I am with many situations. I wear my heart on my sleeve and 95% of the time say exactly what is on my mind without censoring myself. Does that get me in trouble? Yes. Do I like being completely transparent? Yes. Does it feel liberating? Yes. What would the world look like if we all actually said what is on our minds at all times?

I will most likely have to publish another post on this book, as there are just too many nuggets I want to share.

What do you think about vulnerability? What is your favorite book of 2012?