Love and Vulnerability

Thanks to Oprah and her Super Soul Sundays, I discovered Dr. Brene Brown a few months ago. She has become incredibly famous from her TED talk on vulnerability, which has received over 11 million views (and counting).

Around the time that I started this post, I re-posted the "Whole-Hearted Parenting Manifesto" as a short-and-sweet entry. I absolutely love reading Dr. Brene Brown's words, and thinking how I can apply them to my daughter, and our family.

I have learned that vulnerability is the key to experiencing life's greatest joys. We all feel vulnerability, just in different circumstances. Sometimes vulnerability is necessary to ask for a raise. Or interview for a new job. Vulnerability is always necessary in a loving relationship.

When we mess up (which we all do, all the time), there is a huge difference in how we perceive our mistakes. This plays a huge role in our life behaviors. According to Dr. Brown, it's all about if we consciously choose to feel guilt, rather than shame, about something we have done or said. The difference between shame and guilt is "I am bad" and "I did something bad." The focus either being on  "self" or "behavior." (ex: Say you make a mistake at work, and it costs the company money. The way you process this can be either "I am a bad employee"....or "That was a stupid thing to do.") Interesting statistic...shame is highly coordinated with addiction, depression, eating disorders, aggression, and bullying. However, people who feel guilt rather than shame have far better outcomes in all of those measures.

Sometimes being vulnerable means being willing to feel like a relationship is one-sided, which is also a totally embarrassing feeling. What I constantly fear is growing too attached to my people, and then having my loved ones taken from me. Just the act of LOVING requires VULNERABILITY. Relationships can end by choice, or by death...and choosing to love, you are risking that love ending when you're not ready for the relationship to come to an end. But imagine the consequences of not loving at all....like the old expression says, "tis better to have loved and lost than never to love at all."

Without vulnerability, there is no risk. There is no wager. But, there is no joy.

Art by Katie Daisy

Being willing to stand in vulnerability is being willing to experience the greatest joys in life.

I can't think about losing these two people for even a second without having heart palpitations. But if I allow that fear to take over, I lose the moment. I accept vulnerability in exchange for the joy. 

ANYTIME I feel vulnerable, it comes with some anxiety. I posted recently about my "nursing letdown" and the mixed feelings that have come with weaning. I even opened up, ONLINE, about my issue with body image since having a baby. And what I have found MOST interesting about that vulnerable experience, is I have had more blog-views and more private messages about THAT BODY IMAGE post than almost any other post I've made...and what I have gathered is that people would literally rather read about my vulnerable musings on body image, than the birth of my daughter. Or her social media debut. Or my wedding. Wow. But then again, is this really that hard to believe?

I think vulnerability is REFRESHING online. I think people wanted to read about a girl who was once skinny, struggling with an image she sees in the mirror after a transformative life experience. Maybe old "frenemies" from my high school days read that post and snickered. But I think the majority of people read it because they could RELATE to it. And when people bond over mutual vulnerability, they open the door to bond on a very deep level.

Well yeah this day was PERFECT! It was PLANNED OUT! And I had hours to get ready! And we had a professional photographer! And florist! And all that jazz! If wedding pictures DON'T look good, something fishy is going on. 

And of course she looks perfect! BECAUSE SHE IS. Hehehe.

I get online and see dozens of baby pictures. Insane amounts of wedding pics. And a lot of work out pics, cute outfit pics, and posing with friends-looking-all-dolled-up pics. I rarely get online and see pics of people looking vulnerable.

***Sidenote, I don't think sexy-airbrushed-naked pics are "vulnerable" expressions just because the subject is lacking clothes. These images add to the collective insecurity of the female consciousness in this country... I'll elaborate on that some other time...

I don't know about yall, but when I open the Facebook or Instagram browser in my phone, I see a LOT of narcissism.

"Hitting up the gym!"
"Day 5 of my juice cleanse!"
"#nofilterneeded"

I'm not trying to be an extremist...of course, sometimes awesome life experiences occur, and in the world we live in now, it is totally appropriate to share those online! But are they balanced with the bad days? How often do we see posts like-

"Skipping the work out because my DVR is filling up!"
"Honey Butter Chicken Biscuits FTW"
"I got dumped but I know in the long run I'll be better off!"

(I know I see some posts like that sometimes, and when I do, I always love the person posting the status a little bit more...It's like comparing Angelina Jolie to Lena Dunham. When I see interviews with Lena Dunham, I fall more in love with her because her willingness to be vulnerable is just SO refreshing! Just this morning, she said "she wished she could say her hobbies were quilting and historical reenactments, but in reality, they consist of Netflix, the dog park, and eating. I LOVE HER FOR THAT!!!!)

I think we are craving vulnerability in one another, but it takes willing participants, and courage, to be vulnerable. I hope that I see more of it in my social media feeds. I am always more impressed with authenticity than mere compliment-seeking.

My main objective in posting pics like THIS is to show my friends/family what I am up to (being a mom to the light of my life), and also so that when I see people in REAL life and I look LIKE THIS, they don't take a second look, wondering if it's me! Haha! 

Like everything, moderation is key. If every post I ever made was super vulnerable, I'd be slipping into a god-awful Fall Out Boy emo-phase, and would need somebody to bring me back to life. But now and then, it's kind of nice. It makes being online feel a little more like real life, instead of this pretend life we are all living behind the glowing screen.

xoxo,
L