30 May Opening Our Lives to Susceptibility
Perhaps few experiences are as susceptible in our lives as falling in love– deciding to accept possibility with another person even if it implies you’re opening the door to potentially getting hurt, too. Dr. Brené Brown has put in years studying susceptibility and she claims that it’s the only way to live. Through her work she has discovered that we often consider vulnerability and weakness as the same thing. Here’s the thing, though: nothing might be further from the truth.
While experiencing life, everyone encounters things that are hard– experiences that bring complicated emotions that we’d rather not feel sometimes. Life is inherently vulnerable: there are downs and ups, frustrations, failures, sorrows, and pain. According to Dr. Brown, vulnerability is also the “birthplace” of the good things in life: love, joy, creativity, belonging, and faith.
She asserts that as a culture, we are becoming increasingly uncomfortable with vulnerability. That means that we almost feel a sense of sadness with it because we are aware that it might not continue. These things become coping mechanisms to block the unpleasant stuff we don’t want to feel.
But here’s the thing: it’s impossible to shut out those negative emotions and still feel the good ones. We can either choose to embrace vulnerability and open our arms to feeling everything, or we can opt to close ourselves off and withdraw from what is happening to us. Surprisingly, our word courage comes from a Latin word that implied to” tell the story of who you are with your whole heart.” This idea of coping with your heart (living vulnerably) is something that is definitely key if you want to have true connection, genuine relationships, and enjoy belonging and love.
It’s like what Theodore Roosevelt believed: “It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them even better. The credit comes from the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short repeatedly … who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly.” The people who live in the arena choose to take chances and thrust themselves into the action knowing that they’ll win some and lose some. They decide to” go for it” with no assurance of what the outcome will be. Sounds a lot like love, doesn’t it?
We let the ways we don’t feel we’re enough dictate whether we can connect with others. Interestingly, shame is believing that we are bad– that there are things about us that, if others knew, they ‘d determine we’re unworthy of love and affection. This is completely different from feeling bad when we’ve done something wrong.
But keep in mind how you can’t precisely block? Dr. Brown mentioned it so succinctly when she put it this way: “Ifwe don’t allow ourselves to experience joy and love, we will absolutely miss out on filling our reservoir with what we need when … hard things take place.” We won’t know what it is to genuinely love and be loved, and we won’t experience the connection that comes when we are our true selves with others.
We frequently see this process happening when two people fall in love, and it’s a beautiful thing. That vulnerability is brave and courageous and lovely, as two people embrace the precariousness of life and choose togo for something– even though there are no certainties of what will happen tomorrow.
Are you busy planning a wedding for two lovebirds in your life? We’d love to make the transportation for your special day stress-free and seamless!
The details for this post originated from the following links:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_UoMXF73j0c
https://www.ted.com/talks/brene_brown_listening_to_shame#t-1210074
https://www.ted.com/talks/brene_brown_on_vulnerability