The courage to be Imperfect

I watched 2 TED talks today by a lady named, Brené Brown. (or as I should probably refer to her, Dr. Brown, ....but I'm not going to.)

Besides the fact that I love her first name, cause it's pretty much mine. I also loved her talks because she's discussing things that I find fascinating. Shame and vulnerability.

You know I find them fascinating, because I talk about them on my blog a lot. So much of humanity/my life is wrapped up in those two feelings, and avoiding them.

I really like what she has to say about them... I tried to make a list of my favorite quotes, but it was ridiculously long, so here are are few that I have something to say about, but I strongly encourage you to watch the TED talks:

Courage, the original definition of courage, when it first came into the English language -- it's from the Latin word cor, meaning heart -- and the original definition was to tell the story of who you are with your whole heart. And so these folks [the people living their lives whole-heartedly] had, very simply, the courage to be imperfect. [...] The other thing that they had in common was this: They fully embraced vulnerability. They believed that what made them vulnerable made them beautiful. [...] They just talked about it being necessary. They talked about the willingness to say, "I love you" first, the willingness to do something where there are no guarantees, the willingness to breathe through waiting for the doctor to call after your mammogram. They're willing to invest in a relationship that may or may not work out. They thought this was fundamental.

That is the type of person I want to be... Wholehearted. I think that much of my childhood/teenage years were spent in trying very hard to not be vulnerable. To not do something because someone else was doing it and risk competing and losing or looking like a "follower," to not admit weakness, to not be vulnerable with anyone who I didn't already trust completely (aka my family.) So I just didn't try or told myself I didn't care-- But that's a very lonely way to live... Brené touches on that as well:

When we numb [hard feelings like shame, vulnerability, grief, fear, hurt], we numb joy, we numb gratitude, we numb happiness.

That's so true. And please know I'm not saying that you shouldn't take anti-depressants or anti-anxiety pills if you need them, but to live a life where you try to make yourself invulnerable... means you don't get the joy, gratitude, or happiness, either. And that will make for a pretty terrible life in my opinion. Besides, there is something good in being vulnerable.

Vulnerability is not weakness. I define vulnerability as emotional risk, exposure, uncertainty.[...] Vulnerability is our most accurate measurement of courage.

I'm not sure if I mentioned this on a previous blog, but a while back I was discussing grief (mine in particular) with a friend and he said that he thought that one of the reasons that I had done so well with managing my grief is that I let people help me.

I said that was funny because I felt like I was really terrible at letting people help. I didn't want meals or any of those small things that people ask to do when you have a tragedy. 

He said, "Yes, but you kept coming to church. You were here. You weren't unavailable. You let yourself be seen. You didn't pull away to go deal with 'your' stuff."

I think that's actually the same general idea, though grief and vulnerability are not necessarily strongly correlated, except in that they are hard. The hard stuff is what breeds connection though, I think. It creates empathy, it creates kinship, it creates sympathy, and things to talk about to get you through the initial awkwardness. And if you refuse to be vulnerable, can you really expect someone else to be vulnerable with you? What's that saying? "People don't care that you know till they know that you care." 

Or was it, "We love because He first loved us."

But that's so hard, because it's all too likely that if you are honest and vulnerable then you will be hurt. And maybe even hurt very badly- If you say "I love you" first and it isn't reciprocated. If you invest in a relationship that doesn't last. If your child takes what you've tried to do for them and throws it back at you as "not good enough." Because, despite what Jacob Black would have you believe, sometimes it's not hard for people to resist that level of commitment and adoration. Sometimes, it's astoundingly easy for them to resist it.

There is a school of thought that says that perhaps you shouldn't be too honest with other people. Don't be too real. Just let people see the positive and have strong defensive barriers up.  Somewhere in there is a balance that seems nigh on impossible to pin down. Because you still care what others think... Now somehow you are supposed to find that magic place where you care but not too much or too deeply... And here is the last Brené Brown quote of the evening (This one came from a TED Q&A interview):

For people to look at other folks who are trying to come up and share their work with the world, or their art, their ideas, their writing, their poetry, whatever, and say “You can’t care what other people think” is bullshit. When you lose your capacity to care what other people think, you’ve lost your ability to connect. But when you’re defined by it, you’ve lost your ability to be vulnerable. That tightrope is what my talk is about, and I think that balance bar we carry is shame resilience. I think it’s the thing that keeps us steady. If we can understand that I’m not the best comment, I’m not the best accolade I’ve received, and I’m not the worst. This is my work.

I try very hard to be perfect. God grant me the courage to be imperfect. The courage to be me.