The Power of Vulnerability

A strange thing has happened these last few days. I've been quite nostalgic and quite up and down about a whole range of things going on in my life right now and I've also been preoccupied with thinking about the future and where my life is heading. And somehow, in the midst of this, the word Vulnerability kept cropping up. First I was hunting for great quotes online (a hobby of mine) and it popped up in a poignant and rather apt quote. then, later whilst watching some downloaded lectures from TED, I came across a lecture on Vulnerability, which I'll share with you shortly. Then, randomly, reading a book that I've been picking up and putting down for the better part of two months, I turn the page and BAM! There it is again! A whole chapter on Vulnerability!

I think the universe is trying to tell me something.

So I've been mulling over this for the last day or so and I think I'm ready to put forward my thoughts (and the thoughts of others) on this serendipitous occurrence.

“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’Engele

Realistically speaking, a mentally healthy individual is one who can tolerate ambiguity in life. Tolerating ambiguity means tolerating vulnerability, in both self and others. It is the well-adjusted person who can feel vulnerable but not be terrified by it. Accepting that we are all susceptible to life’s ravages is a part of being human and in many ways defines how happy we can be in a world full of uncertainty. Nobody likes to live a life filled with worry or fear. So many people search out the ultimate way to remove their fear and their pain, and in the process they are completely focused on fear and pain. Vulnerability and your acceptance of it is what allows you to move beyond the fear and pain because it allows you to acknowledge that they are both integral aspects of life, and that life goes on, whether you like it or not. By accepting vulnerability you are not giving it power over you because you are aware and expectant of the presence of both fear and pain but you are not trying frantically to avoid it. Unfortunately, modern society has taught us that we are supposed to be invulnerable. We are supposed to be strong and impervious or resilient to life’s hardships all the time. But what is really interesting is that this very attitude is what cuts us off from the support and love and care that we need to weather life’s storms. It makes us into an island or a bastion, alone and battered. As we try to show others that we are invulnerable we are also pushing them away because we feel this should be something we can handle all by ourselves, which is of course society’s greatest lie.

This was brought home to me by the chapter I mentioned earlier. It’s in a book called Just Listen: Discover the Secret to Getting Through to Absolutely Anyone by Dr Mark Goulston (M.D.)(Psychiatry). Basically the book is about effective communication in both your personal and public lives. The underlying premise is that in order to be heard, you have to listen. Listen to words, listen to bodies, listen to emotions and listen to silences because the only way you'll ever get heard is if you shut up and listen first. Dr Goulston is a psychiatrist and he goes in depth into the biological workings of the brain to uncover the secrets to successful communication. What he found is that people who feel listened to are the people that you will get through to on a deeper level. I won’t bore all my non psychologist readers with the gritty details. In a nutshell, it works like this: The brain is hard-wired to read all signals from words, body language, emotion and surroundings. These receptors are called mirror neurons. Studies show that when we see or hear of someone else’s emotion, sensation or action, the same parts of the brain that they use to process these things are activated in our brains. Essentially our mirror neurons fire in the same way that theirs are firing at the time. In this way we can empathise and understand what they are going through. Our brains mirror theirs in order for us to understand. How does this relate to vulnerability?

Well, the chapter in his book is called “When all is lost- bare your neck”. Seems a little counter-intuitive does it not? To cut a long chapter short the underlying premise is this: When you are in a situation where you need to connect and you are feeling a little vulnerable, you need to be assertive and show the other person your vulnerability.  Dr Goulston calls this Assertive Vulnerability. And it works because- mirror neurons. By showing other people your vulnerability you are stimulating in their brains the same emotions, fears and messages that your brain is experiencing. And biologically they respond to this as if these messages are their own. Most healthy individuals will react to your vulnerability with the desire for the pain and vulnerability to stop, because to some degree it is now their pain and vulnerability too. This leads to a desire to help. Is it slowly becoming evident how showing your vulnerability can be a useful tool for connecting with someone on a deeper (even biological) level? There is of course a qualifying statement here; you cannot expect someone’s mirror neurons to activate the right response if you’re not showing the response you want to be activated. I.E. you cannot scream at someone about how vulnerable you are feeling and expect them to calmly and with care talk about your vulnerability- they are likely to scream back. Take a good attitude and speak from the heart if you want the same in return. And please, don’t take it from me. Do your own reading about mirror neurons and see for yourself. Big things happening in that field right now.

And lastly I turn to the video clip I found on TED (Don’t ask, I have no idea what it stands for). If you've gotten this far through the blog post then you owe it to yourself to take 20 minutes extra to watch the clip. Really, it has so many wonderful insights that it simply must not be left unexplored. There’s no way that I can do justice to what Brene Brown has to teach us in this clip, but I will leave you with a brief description of the talk. “Brene Brown studies human connection – our ability to empathise, belong, love. In a poignant, funny talk, she shares deep insight from her research, one that sent her on a personal quest to know herself as well as understand humanity. A talk to share.”

Click here to view The Power of Vulnerability by Brene Brown

This past year has been such a growing experience for me and I have no words to describe the ways in which I have been so often vulnerable. Incidentally, a few months back I posted another blog piece entitled Be Brave…Be Vulnerable. I have learnt so much more since then that I wish I could share with you all but I feel that after watching this clip I felt as if someone had opened a door to a place I already knew existed but had always been too scared to find. I leave it up to you to open that door for yourself now. I hope that in your life you can embrace vulnerability as the courageous choice which will bring you closer to others, to humanity and most importantly to yourself. Vulnerability does not make you weak, it makes you accessible. Know that your vulnerability can be your strength.

Letting Go

We are often surrounded by so many things to be grateful for and to be joyous in but we struggle to let go of the things which have, in one way or another, hurt us. The journey of letting go is not an easy road and it seems to stretch into eternity, even when we know somewhere deep down that it will come to its destination.

Dealing with the pain of a breakup is not meant to be easy. The feelings of anger, betrayal, guilt and grief that might come with the splitting apart of two people are natural considering the investment each makes in the other. You don’t stop loving someone just because your relationship status no longer acknowledges them. Being single is not a category- it’s a relationship to the world and to yourself. When you’ve been with someone for any amount of time in which you’ve come to develop affectionate feelings for them, you come into a different relationship to your own ideas of self and other. And that doesn’t change overnight.

I’ve been having dreams about my last partner. This is unusual for me because I don’t dream often. Some of these dreams have bordered on nightmares, and others have been so beautiful that waking up has been painful. Strangely, I don’t like these dreams because they show me just how much I still have invested in him emotionally. We may have moved on, but the feelings and thoughts are still lurking there in the background trying to be dealt with as best as my subconscious mind knows how. Sadly, we don’t seem to be in a place where him and I can work it out together, so that we can both move on to being happy again. And in reality, you can never know where the other person is at anyway, so I’m speaking more for myself than him in many ways. One thing I do know is that whilst this process of letting go is difficult it is also very growth producing.

Being forced to acknowledge those parts of you that are less-than-good or just downright bad is an essential part of the human condition. You cannot exist separately from the Shadow side of you that is always within you. It is important that the Shadow needs expression or else it seeps into other areas of your life and comes out in ways you least expect, and often regret. Outright hedonists will say that we need to just forget our boundaries and let all of the Shadow pour out when it wants to. I’d disagree with that. There are acceptable ways and times in which it’s ok to let the ugly side of you show. Being recklessly uninhibited serves nobody, least of all you. It’s more important to acknowledge when it is that your Shadow is present and be able to accept that in a moment you can be bad, or have bad thoughts, but that this is not you in your entirety. And to also know it’s ok to be like this with yourself but never when it could really hurt others. Strangely, we often find ourselves attracted to people who end up displaying traits or characteristics that we despise and which create much conflict between us and them. Ironically it is often these very traits which we were subconsciously attracted to in the beginning. It is an unconscious attempt to attain those Shadow parts of us that we so deeply lock away. Some people’s Shadow is so deeply disturbing to them that they cannot consciously accept that these aspects of them do exist, but the mind is always seeking integration. These people tend to find these characteristics in others so that they can then both ‘have’ and ‘reject’ these aspects. It’s easier to denounce an ugly truth in someone else than it is to do so in yourself.

I had issues with my ex because he embodied many aspects of myself that my conscious mind was too scared to acknowledge. I never trusted his loyalty, I was uncomfortable with his drinking and recreational use of dope. I couldn’t trust that he really loved me, in his own way. In reality, I am just afraid that my own loyalty is questionable, that I might be reckless at times and that I really do not have to idealise and ‘love’ every other person in order to be loved in return. In fact, I don’t ‘need’ to be loved by everyone anyway. And of course, my ex had the mirror image of what I had. His disowned parts where about being able to be loved- about not trusting that being loved is a normal and healthy aspect of any human relationship. Not believing that he is actually both worthy and capable of being loved. At least, that would be my educated guess.

Either way, I come to the same conclusion. Letting go is not actually about the loss of something. It’s about the gain. It’s about being able to integrate those very things which have caused you so ,much pain and angst. So much turmoil. It’s about seeing them for what they are and how they affect you, really.

The final two stanza’s of the poem “Letting Go” says it quite well, I think:

To let go is not to be protective,

it's to permit another to face reality.

To let go is not to deny,

but to accept.

To let go is not to nag, scold or argue,

but instead to search out my own shortcomings and correct them.

To let go is not to adjust everything to my desires,

but to take each day as it comes and cherish myself in it.

To let go is not to criticize or regulate anybody,

but to try to become what I dream I can be.

To let go is not to regret the past,

but to grow and live for the future

Horrible Love

Have you ever been in love?  Horrible isn't it?  It makes you so vulnerable.  It opens your chest and it opens up your heart and it means that someone can get inside you and mess you up.  You build up all these defenses, you build up a whole suit of armor, so that nothing can hurt you, then one stupid person, no different from any other stupid person, wanders into your stupid life.... You give them a piece of you.  They didn't ask for it.  They did something dumb one day, like kiss you or smile at you, and then your life isn't your own anymore.  Love takes hostages.  It gets inside you.  It eats you out and leaves you crying in the darkness, so simple a phrase like 'maybe we should be just friends' turns into a glass splinter working its way into your heart.  It hurts.  Not just in the imagination.  Not just in the mind.  It's a soul-hurt, a real gets-inside-you-and-rips-you-apart pain.  I hate love.  ~Neil Gaiman, The Sandman, Vol. 9: The Kindly Ones

Be Brave... Be Vulnerable

"It is not necessary to be strong in every place if, in the place you are vulnerable, you are loved." ~ Robert Brault


The constant tension between being strong and independent and simultaneously open to receiving  love and care is a lot harder than I first thought. Perhaps it's only me. Perhaps I am just an unfortunate collection of experiences and emotions that makes it difficult for me to allow myself the luxury, or the necessity, of being dependent on someone else for some emotional support. There is always the worry that I'll lose something. Lose the love, lose the safety, lose the ability to be strong for myself. But as I move along in the world I am learning that it is through love, through accepting that I am loved, that I am growing in strength.
The irony is that I am the people pleaser, the doormat, the emotional scaffolding for other people in many areas of my life. Yet, I am the emotionally detached one on many levels. It's not that I don't want to give- it's that I haven't learnt how to. And now, I find myself in a position where I want to give of myself. More than ever before, I feel the urge to be able to free myself from the emotional strictures of a Spartan, but I have only one method of learning; Trial and Error.
Trial
Being taken out of my comfort zone and not having an excuse, an explanation or a desire to give up. Dragging myself through an emotional fire-storm that threatens to consume my very soul. Some emotions are useful and others are not. Some are poisonous and some hurt while they heal. But they all teach us something about ourselves. To be put in a position where you not only question your motives, but your very emotions as well- that is a Trial.
Error
Realising, after the fact, that you've stuffed up. Wanting to change what you've done, said, felt. Knowing that you can't. Hoping that in future you'll see yourself coming and avoid the catastrophe that is you. This is Error.
Having the strength to tolerate Trial and forgive yourself for Error is the basis of Vulnerability. The acceptance of Vulnerability is the work of Bravery.


Be Brave...Be Vulnerable

Authenticity

As humans we are social animals. We live in relation to other people and as such we have ways of being that are socially regulated and socially constructed. And all for good reason. Through our relationships with others we are able to form our world and our reality. How many of your accomplishments in life are entirely your own? How many did you achieve without the help of a teacher, a facilitator, a support network or a role model? Would they even be worthy of praise if there were nobody around to applaud you?

This is, of course, a problem for our own ideas of autonomy and identity. We all like to believe that we are individuals, separate and distinct from others. Whilst this notion is not entirely wrong, it is slightly misguided. This idea that we have of our own personal identity has led to the parallel idea of our own authenticity. The statement of “who I really am”. As if in some way we have a being that is not dependent on our interactions with others, not affected by our exchanges. We spend a lot of our time involved in sorting out who we really are and who we are when with other people. And trying to be true to ourselves.

And then we meet someone who ‘allows’ us to be ourselves. In whose presence we feel safe, and loved enough, to reveal ‘who we really are’. But the beauty of it is that it feels natural. It feels authentic. You just are who you are without any thought of being so. Your focus shifts from yourself to the other because you are not self-conscious. And mysteriously we feel like this is the one person in the world who ‘gets’ us.

However, this is not so much a mystery as it is a gift. It is the gift of creation. The creation of a meaningful relationship and interaction that allows you to construct yourself in ways that you are happy with. You are not so much revealing your ‘true self’ as you are creating a self that you are happy with. The other person happens to be in a dance with you, in which you both feel like you know the steps. The flow between you seems both easy and exciting and you soon forget, at least consciously, that you are busy building a social ‘you’. If you were with another person would you still make the same choices, feel the same way, and do the same things as you do with this person?

So then what is your individuality? Where does your authenticity lie? Someone once said that between action and reaction, between cause and effect, lays the realm of choice. Your choices are the mediator between your reality and your inner world, your individuality. In every moment we can make choices. Choices that are consistent with your principles, your values, your beliefs. When we find someone with whom we interact on such an easy and successful level it is because the choices are easy. They fit the notions that you already have of how the world should be, how the other person is, and how you are. These notions are malleable and can be adjusted where necessary, assuming they do not entirely overthrow your worldview. But I digress. The point to be had here is that our authenticity is not a separateness from others. It is not a sense of ‘being different’ from others. It is that when we are engaged in the dance of relating, we make consistent and congruent choices, but which are mediated and aware of the unique interaction at hand. We can be ourselves by becoming a social being with others. We are allowed to make these choices and express these opinions only when we are given the opportunity to relate to another human being.

So then, remember that we are meant to be social. We are meant to live in harmony with others by becoming social when the time is right. No man is an island. Nor should he be. Have faith in your principles, your convictions and yourself. And you will soon find ‘yourself’ present in every interaction with another.

A Bad Year

To be honest, this year has been a pretty bad one. Weird really, if you consider that since I turned 18 I’ve had this strange notion that the year I turned 23 on the 23^rd day of the 2^nd month, that it would be somehow special or lucky. That it would be my ‘power year’. Needless to say, life turned out differently.

This year has been both painful emotionally and painful physically. It’s been filled with disappointment and with sadness. It’s been an all-round horror story. My family and friends have had their fair share, and I will admit that not all the bad things have been my own personal suffering. But sometimes it’s the very people we love and who are hurt that bring us the most pain, because we are sometimes unable to lift them out of their sorrow, and the helplessness stings.

On Tuesday the 6^th of February, at around 16:00 the Plettenberg Bay Airport lost radar contact with the Italtile Ltd company aircraft. Nine people left a gaping hole in the lives of many, many more as they stepped from this world into another and their lives became memories. My mother knew them all personally, and amongst them was her best friend and confidant. Her friend left a space so big that it would take countless others to fill her place. In truth, it never could be filled. And holding the position she does, my mother had to sit, for months afterwards, and deal with other people’s grief, confusion and anger. Between 8am and 5pm she couldn’t feel her own grief, her own confusion, her own anger. But when she got home, often late, she did. And all I could do was sit with her.

Do you understand the pain of being helpless to remove someone else’s hurt? Do you know what it’s like to watch someone you love crumble inside like an empty building decays whilst the façade remains? It shouldn’t have been as bad as it was, but when you’ve buried both parents, and your husband, and when you’ve been in a church for funerals more times than you can remember, it gets to you. I have never met anybody as strong as my mother. And whilst I don’t deny that there are people who have experienced worse, and overcome more, it will always be my mother who defines courage, determination, perseverance and love.

A few months later her niece committed suicide. They weren’t close, but she stood by her brother and her sister-in-law and offered as much as she could. They were fortunate enough to have a strong support network and whilst they struggle still, they know that they are loved and supported.

As facetious as it sounds, my academics took a dive. My own personal standard was not met and I felt both disappointed and frustrated. Objectively, I still did well. But my future is riding on the marks that I achieve and the next year, possibly three, are determined by my ability to impress those whose job it is to judge my performance. And so achieve I must. But I did not. Not like I hoped I would. And now, it comes to the end of my year and I have failed to gain access to my ‘plan B’ whilst ‘plan A’ doesn’t look hopeful. And there’s nothing I can do about it now. Such is life, I guess…

Cheyenne, our 13 year old Rottweiler, and the last living reminder of my stepfather, passed away. She died of depression. As laughable as it may or may not sound, she starved herself into heaven. She recovered from her operation well. She wasn’t in any pain. She had no infection or complications. She just wouldn’t eat, or drink. She just wouldn’t live. And to think that just a week beforehand she was running circles around our little Jack Russell terrier. I’m not really a dog person, but I can honestly say that she had the most caring nature of any animal I have ever encountered. She was as much a part of our family as I am, and my mother took it hard. Yes, we have a new companion, who actually lived with Cheyenne through her last days. He was probably the last things she saw. But he’s no replacement, nor should he be.

And just today, a few hours earlier, I dropped my stupidly expensive phone which will cost a stupid amount to fix and which I would be stupid to pay. But such is life, I guess…

There’s no moral to this story. It just is. Life continues. The birds are still chirping in the dusky light outside. The rain still falls softly. I have many things to be grateful for.

I have my family, whom I’m beginning to appreciate more and more.

I have my health.

I have new and old friends.

I have a new love in my life.

I have the good fortune of a roof over my head and food in my stomach.

And in the end, what’s past is past. It will only live with me as long as I hold it.

“Consider how much more you often suffer from your anger and grief, than from those very things for which you are angry and grieved.” ~Marcus Antonius

Jealousy- in two parts. (2)

Catharsis

I saw him next, fully armed with my self-righteous anger. And my immediate instincts were to ignore him. To visibly show my displeasure. To make him feel, somehow, even a small part of the pain and the hurt. He approached, with what seemed to me, an air of guilt and deceit around him. He spoke to me in his usual honey sweet way but for some reason, this time, it nauseated and cloyed my mind. My heart flared up with disgust. And then the strangest thing happened.

I saw it in his eyes. It stopped me mid-charge as I rushed to make him feel my pain. I saw…hurt. I had succeeded before I even realised it. He could sense that something was wrong and his usually bubbly state was reduced to an anxious gaze and a slightly forced smile. Unfortunately for him, his decision to tell me even more ‘bad news’ resulted in my anger taking over again. And I automatically assumed (imagined) that he was lying to me. Once again, no proof needed. I successfully ignored him for the rest of the hour. When he came up to say goodbye, purposefully coming close and touching my arm gently, to force me to look into his eyes, I turned a cold glare and a stone smile on him.

Bad idea.

My heart broke. Those golden-hazel eyes bored right through me and the realisation of my stupidity flashed through my mind in a million disjointed pictures- like a giant mash-up of all the shit that my jealous imagination had fed me. And I realised that I, by myself, at the command of my jealousy, had created the very monster that I claimed to be fighting. I had completed the self-fulfilling prophecy. My actions towards him had hurt him and he had put his guard up. He erected those walls between me and him because he was being attacked. And now they became real. They moved from the realm of my imagination into his feelings and his very real reactions. I imagined them, and they came to life.

So you see: jealousy is creative. It builds castles in the sky and then makes you pay the rent in pain and suffering. But how to defeat the green eyed monster? To kill the demon within?

I firmly believe it begins with the realisation that your feelings are your own. No person can ever put their feelings inside of you. You are the gate keeper. You are the one who decides how you will react to each and every visiting emotion. And there are ways in which you can do this.

Self-reflection is one. It is the longest and the most difficult process of the lot but it is more rewarding and stable than all the others put together. It begins with questions. Honest questions to your heart and your mind. Questions that make you look at yourself from a perspective other than your own instinctual nature. Why? How?

Relinquish control of the outside world; it is only an illusion of control. You cannot physically make anyone love you. You cannot bend their emotions or their will. But you can mend your own. You can decide how you will react, and how you will feel. You are the master of your own ship. When you so firmly enmesh yourself in the imaginings of your jealousy you are giving away your power to that emotion. Those ideas in your head are fantasies. They are not real. They can never truly represent or understand what is actually occurring. So put them in a glass box. Examine where they come from. Why do you feel jealous? What is the cause of the jealousy? What is the purpose of the jealousy? How is it serving you right now? Realise that you cannot control the act of feeling jealous in the first instance. Something sparks it off and only then do you become aware of it. But now that you are aware of it, you can choose how to react.

What would have happened had I chosen to react differently? If I had tried my hardest to put aside my feelings and genuinely greet my friend? That hurt that he experienced would not have been caused by me, and he would not have retreated to behind his walls. And my jealous imagination would not have been validated. It would be disproved, giving me back the power. When we engage in this kind of conscious thought we can build strong, beautiful relationships because we make others feel safe. We allow them to learn to love us because we make them feel that we are a safe haven for their love and respect. Focus on what you’re doing instead of what you think they are doing.

Here’s a question for you to think about:

Are our emotions the consequences or the causes of how we are thinking?