On being vulnerable

When walking home from a local cafe I came across this brave little refugee flower. It resonated with where my mind was at. I had spent most of the week reading and listening to American shame and vulnerability researcher Brene Brown. Her basic thesis is that we expend a great deal of energy defending ourselves from vulnerability. She talks about 'foreboding vulnerability'. One example she gives is watching your sleeping children and being so overwhelmed with love for them that you start imagining terrible things happening to them. And it doesn't stop. My son gets a job as a tyre fitter and and I see him killed in a workplace accident, he gets a promotion to a management role and I have him gunned down in a robbery!

Brene Brown wants us to live wholeheartedly. If you don't allow yourself to feel vulnerable; if you forebode it, if you put up professional barriers or otherwise shield yourself, you miss the joy and happiness from truly connecting with others. When you live wholeheartedly you realise that you have enough and that you are enough. The people she interviewed who were living wholeheartedly all had in common the ability to be vulnerable and to be resilient to the shame that often comes from putting yourself out there at job interviews, on dating sites, when having a difficult conversation or attending a family event. Rejection, being judged against an impossible standard, confronting someone's distress or anger or the Shakespearean dynamics of a family Christmas day are something most of  us want to avoid. Wholehearted people survive these experiences with their sense of worthiness intact.

Brene Browne gave a TED Talk that so far has been watched over 6 million times. TED's mission statement begins:

We believe passionately in the power of ideas to change attitudes, lives and ultimately, the world. So we're building here a clearinghouse that offers free knowledge and inspiration from the world's most inspired thinkers, and also a community of curious souls to engage with ideas and each other.

 Here is the video of the talk