So, right before I went to sleep last night, I watched a TED talk by
Dr. Brene Brown about vulnerability, who is a shame researcher at the University
of Houston. Lo and behold, I wake up and
check my emails this morning and there is my word of the day from SSJE (Society
of Saint John the Evangelist – the Episcopal monastery): vulnerability. Damn.
So, I open the email and the writer even names the TED talk in his
meditation and refers to Daring Greatly,
Brown’s latest book. And so here it
goes…
As I read Daring Greatly,
I’ve been trying to look at ways that I hide myself from others, where am I
afraid to truly be myself, to be vulnerable. It’s becoming clear to me that I’m
pretty good at revealing the big things in my life to others like my struggles
with depression; divorcing and remarrying the same man; my son getting addicted to
drugs; miracles I have witnessed.
The small, every day things are where I hide myself the best. I have very few friends who truly know me. It’s not that what I’m showing people is fake,
I’m just not showing all of me.
In my consulting practice, I developed a workshop to teach public
speaking. The seminar opens with my
story about suffering from perfectionism, specifically perfectionist procrastination. If I don’t think I’m going to do something
perfectly, I procrastinate. I joke about how someday, there will be a 12-step group for perfectionists. “Hello, my name is Molly and I’m a
perfectionist. It’s been six days since
I’ve edited a document to death.” My
vulnerability is in direct proportion to how perfectly I think I can deliver.
A few years ago, I was preparing for Christmas Eve dinner. As I rushed around trying to get the table
ready, I couldn’t find my Christmas tablecloth.
I finally found it in the bottom of a hamper. It had been in the dirty laundry since the
previous Christmas. Yep. That is a little thing that I find very embarrassing. At the time, I was reading Brown’s book, The Gifts of Imperfection. I called a childhood friend and said, “You
are one of the few people that can truly appreciate this. I just found my Christmas tablecloth in the
hamper from last year.” We laughed our
heads off. I shared with her that I was
reading The Gifts of Imperfection and
she remarked she was very gifted. This Christmas tree is still standing in my daughter's room as of today. So there and it is July.
Vulnerability looks like different things to different people. To me, it means showing that I’m not perfect
- that I don’t have it all together. I am
making progress but I can tell this is only the tip of my shame iceberg. Some of you may think this is silly. I can hear you now saying that I am sweating
the small stuff. But you’ll notice I
don’t have a list of the small things that I can share – only the big
things. I’m not there yet. Those small imperfect things are, to me, the
most intimate. It feels like sharing the
big things may help someone else because there is a common theme - in all those
stories, I witnessed God at work and that makes me brave.
People tell me that they admire my courage for writing this blog; I
don’t feel courageous. I only write when inspired and if people don’t like it,
I don’t take it as a reflection of my worth.
I believe God gives me the words so I’m pretty much off the hook. While the big things connect us by showing
God’s divine hand, the little things connect us through our humanity. Jesus was fully divine and fully human. He was there on the mountain top and in the
dirty stable. We know all of Him so that
God’s purpose can be revealed. Can you
let the world know all of you?
2 comments:
Hello to our new reader in Romania. Welcome!
Well said.....So true!
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