Tag: vulnerability

Book Summary: Daring Greatly p12

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THE VULNERABILITY

THE word persona is the Greek term for “stage mask.” In my work masks and armor are perfect metaphors for how we protect ourselves from the discomfort of vulnerability. Masks make us feel safer even when they become suffocating.

Vulnerability is the last thing I want you to see in me, but the first thing I look for in you.

Common vulnerability arsenal:

Foreboding joy: the paradoxical dread that clamps down on momentary joyfulness;

Perfectionism: believing that doing everything perfectly means you’ll never feel shame;

Numbing: the embrace of whatever deadens the pain of discomfort and pain.

THE COMMON VULNERABILITY SHIELDS

THE SHIELD: FOREBODING JOY

Joy is probably the most difficult emotion to really feel. 😎 Because when we lose the ability or willingness to be vulnerable, joy becomes something we approach with deep foreboding. We just know that we crave more joy in our lives, that we are joy starved.

What the perpetual-disappointment folks describe is this: “It’s easier to live disappointed than it is to feel disappointed. It feels more vulnerable to dip in and out of disappointment than to just set up camp there. You sacrifice joy, but you suffer less pain.”

Softening into the joyful moments of our lives requires vulnerability.

Once we make the connection between vulnerability and joy, the answer is pretty straightforward: We’re trying to beat vulnerability to the punch. We don’t want to be blindsided by hurt. We don’t want to be caught off-guard, so we literally practice being devastated or never move from self-elected disappointment.

We’re desperate for more joy, but at the same time we can’t tolerate the vulnerability.

We’re visual people. We trust, consume, and mentally store what we see. 👀

💐🌷🌹🌸🌺 Dare 💐🌷🌹🌸🌺

Book Summary: Daring Greatly p5

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Chapter 2 (continued)

The willingness to show up changes us. It makes us a little braver each time.

In the song “Hallelujah,” Leonard Cohen writes, “Love is not a victory march, it’s a cold and it’s a broken hallelujah.” Love is a form of vulnerability and if you replace the word love with vulnerability in that line,
it’s just as true.

MYTH #2: “I DON’T DO VULNERABILITY”

When we were children, we used to think that when we were grown up we would no longer be vulnerable. But to grow up is to accept vulnerability. To be alive is to be vulnerable. Madeleine L’Engle

MYTH #3: VULNERABILITY IS LETTING IT

Vulnerability is based on mutuality and requires boundaries and trust.

Vulnerability is about
sharing our feelings and our experiences with people who have earned the right to hear them. Being vulnerable and open is mutual and an integral part of the trust-building process.

We need to feel trust to be vulnerable and we need to be vulnerable in order to trust.

When the people we love or with whom we have a deep connection stop caring, stop paying attention, stop investing, and stop fighting for the relationship, trust begins to slip away and hurt starts seeping in.

With children, actions speak louder than words. Because they can’t articulate how they feel about our disengagement when we stop making an effort with them, they show us by acting out, thinking, This will get their attention.

Trust is a product of vulnerability that grows over time and requires work, attention, and full engagement. Trust isn’t a grand gesture—it’s a growing marble collection.

MYTH #4: WE CAN GO IT ALONE

Going it alone is a value we hold in high esteem in our culture, ironically even when it comes to cultivating connection. I have that rugged individualism in my DNA.

Most of us are good at giving help, but when it comes to vulnerability, we need to ask for help too.

Until we can receive with an open heart, we are never really giving with an open heart. When we attach judgment to receiving help, we knowingly or unknowingly attach judgment to giving help. We all need help. 🤗

Vulnerability begets vulnerability; courage is contagious.

Going back to Roosevelt’s “Man in the Arena” speech, I also learned that the people who love me, the people I really depend on, were never the critics who were pointing at me while I stumbled.

Nothing has transformed my life more than realizing that it’s a waste of time to evaluate my worthiness by weighing the reaction of the people in the stands.

Sometimes our first and greatest dare is asking for support. 🌹

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Book Summary: Daring Greatly p4

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Daring Greatly

CHAPTER 2
DEBUNKING THE VULNERABILITY MYTHS

There’s no equation where taking risks, braving uncertainty, and opening ourselves up to
emotional exposure equals weakness.

MYTH #1: “VULNERABILITY IS WEAKNESS.”

The perception that vulnerability is weakness is the most widely accepted myth about vulnerability and the most dangerous.

We’ve come to the point where, rather than respecting and appreciating the courage and daring behind
vulnerability, we let our fear and discomfort become judgment and criticism.

I define vulnerability as uncertainty, risk, and emotional exposure.

Love is uncertain. It’s incredibly risky. And loving someone leaves us emotionally exposed. 💔

To put our art, our writing, our photography, our ideas out into the world with no assurance of acceptance or appreciation—that’s also vulnerability.

we’ve confused feeling with failing and emotions with liabilities.

The research taught me that the best place to start is with defining, recognizing, and understanding vulnerability.

Vulnerability sounds like truth and feels like courage. Truth and courage aren’t always comfortable, but they’re never weakness.

We are totally exposed when we are vulnerable.

According to the Merriam-Webster Dictionary, the word vulnerability is derived from the Latin word vulnerare, meaning “to wound.” The definition includes “capable of being wounded” and “open to attack or damage.” Merriam-Webster defines weakness as the inability to withstand attack or wounding.

“Far from being an effective shield, the illusion of invulnerability undermines the very response that would have supplied genuine protection.”

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