Vulnerability: A Dirty Word or a Life Changer?

While I was out with my dog, Kye, for a walk this morning, I had a thought, but first I have to confess that March has always been a bit challenging for me. In fact, it’s begun to feel like the cold and damp will never end, and to make it worse, I developed a drippy, stuffy cold. I’ve noticed that as human beings, when we don’t feel well, we can become vulnerable to the voices in our heads—the same voices we would laugh at when we are feeling healthy and balanced. As I struggled against the voices in my head and thought about how vulnerable I was feeling, it occurred to me what I want to share with you today.

I’m going to back up to 2011 for just a moment where I was hanging from the end of my rapidly fraying rope. Just in the nick of time, a friend introduced me to the work of Brene Brown. If you are not familiar with Brene, which I was not at the time, she is a research professor who has become well-known for her work on the topics of shame, vulnerability and courage. By the time I finished watching her TED talk for the first time, it was obvious to me what I needed to do. If I was going to move forward and heal, I needed to be as honest and real with myself as Brene is in her presentation, AND I needed to be open and vulnerable with those I loved. I needed to change.

This Brene Brown video on vulnerability is twenty minutes, and fully worth every second.

I can honestly say that the ideas, thoughts and concepts in this video literally changed the path I was on at the time. I am generally not someone who watches twenty-minute videos, but I have watched this one time and time again. As I listened to it once more today, it even occurs to me how in alignment our work is.

Over the next few weeks, I’m going to take a hard right into the hard stuff: shame, vulnerability, and courage. But don’t worry—there is nothing to fear. I will continue to wrap in the idea of examining these tough topics with curiosity as a means to finding understanding by thinking about it all from a different perspective.  

I hope you will stick with me. I think this will be interesting.

#vulnerability #changeyourlife #letmylegacybelove #ACEs