That word again — Vulnerability
I have never posted publicly about myself before.
My journal is full of thoughts, stories, and lessons learned throughout my 27.9 years on this planet. But I have never had the strength to be vulnerable enough to share my own experiences with strangers on the internet.
Vulnerable
There is that word again.
“Vulnerable” or “vulnerability” has become the buzzword of the decade thanks to the incredibly brilliant Brené Brown. I have consumed every book she has written, interviews, and podcasts. But I still could not find the path to this golden skill. OK, I get it. I should be vulnerable. But how in the hell do you actually BE vulnerable???
Well, it turns out reading about vulnerability does not flip a magic switch and suddenly make you this incredibly vulnerable and loved leader. It takes work — A LOT of deep, hard, scary work.
Brené explains vulnerability as opening up, removing masks, owning our story, and allowing true selves to be seen. That is scary shit!! And it may not even seem scary [consciously]. I know I didn’t think I was scared. I’m never scared. Or so I thought.
Being able to achieve what Brené talks about, you need to learn how to open up your heart. Live in your body, not your head. Keep your guard down. Connect with your own self, as well as the people and world around you.
Being capable of those things takes a lot of deep intentional work. You need to be seen by others in a way that you’ve never been seen before. You need to do the work to remove triggers that close your heart, keep you in your head, keep your guard up, and shutoff connections.
All of this is your nervous system thinking it’s protecting you. Its just doing its job!! Because your nervous system remembers when that painful event happened, that it did not go well, and it doesn’t want you to get hurt again.
So how do you get to a place that you can actually be vulnerable?
Dive deep inside yourself [ideally with a coach & guided meditation], identify the triggers, understand what they were trying to do, thank them for the work they’ve done protecting you, give them love, and tell them you’ve got it from here. THEN you have the space to be vulnerable. And you can hold space for others to be vulnerable too.
It is a beautiful and gruelling process.
But if I can do it, so can you. :)
