USG SGM August 2013 ~ Vulnerability

Transcription

1 Quotes for Inspiration USG SGM August 2013 ~ 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 Many of us have had experiences in childhood and beyond that have made it feel unsafe and terrifying to be vulnerable in life. These experiences are valid and it would be perfectly normal to rebel or be scared of vulnerability. However, we need to look at what it is costing us to remain in this place. ~ Julie-Anne Shapiro, SelfGrowth.com To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything, and your heart will certainly be wrung and possibly be broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact, you must give your heart to no one, not even to an animal. Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements; lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. But in that casket - safe, dark, motionless, airless - it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable. ~ C.S. Lewis To share your weakness is to make yourself vulnerable; to make yourself vulnerable is to show your strength. ~ Criss Jami Vulnerability is the only authentic state. Being vulnerable means being open, for wounding, but also for pleasure. Being open to the wounds of life means also being open to the bounty and beauty. Don t mask or deny your vulnerability: it is your greatest asset. Be vulnerable: quake and shake in your boots with it. the new goodness that is coming to you, in the form of people, situations, and things can only come to you when you are vulnerable, i.e. open. ~ Stephen Russell We're never so vulnerable than when we trust someone - but paradoxically, if we cannot trust, neither can we find love or joy. ~ Frank Crane There can be no vulnerability without risk; there can be no community without vulnerability; there can be no peace, and ultimately no life, without community. ~ M. Scott Peck With each passage of human growth we must shed a protective structure [like a hardy crustacean.] We are left exposed and vulnerable but also yeasty and embryonic again, capable of stretching in ways we hadn t known before. ~ Gail Sheehey I can honestly say that nothing is as uncomfortable, dangerous, and hurtful as believing that I m standing on the outside of my life looking in and wondering what it would be like if I had the courage to show up and let myself be seen. ~ Margarita Tartakovsky, 3 Myths about Vulnerability (in the additional resources) Real dishes break. That's how you know they're real. ~ Marty Rubin Chalice Lighting Owning our story can be hard but not nearly as difficult as spending our lives running from it. Embracing our vulnerabilities is risky but not nearly as dangerous as giving up on love and belonging and joy the experiences that make us the most vulnerable. Only when we are brave enough to explore the darkness will we discover the infinite power of our light. ~ Brené Brown 1

2 Check-in Share briefly what s been on your mind lately or your highs and lows since we last met. Spiritual Exercises In our additional resources section Julie-Anne Shapiro provides helpful options for spiritual exercises in the area of vulnerability. Let s give them a try. These are directly from her article: 1. Ask for something you need or would like: This may be as small as asking a coworker for a cup of coffee. The idea is to take bigger risks as you see the experiences you are generating. Generating a different experience starts to sit in our body. Our body realigns with the new experience and the practice of showing up in a new way becomes natural and organic. 2. Engage rather than cut off or withdraw: We make so many assumptions and conclusions about other people's motives for doing things. Someone does something or does not respond in the way we would like and we draw the conclusion that they don't like us or are a bad person in some way. We take it personally and never engage an inquiry into what may have been going on for them. We also go through agony in tolerating behaviors rather than engage. In doing this we never give ourselves, or others the opportunity to experience more connection in relationship. 3. Group exercise: Amateur Psychology, from the UUA Youth game book, Deep Fun Leaders should probably bring extra blank paper and writing implements. Then ask people to write down, one at a time (leaders can do it as well if they haven t looked at the key ahead of time): 1. Their favorite animal, and a word describing it. 2. Their favorite color and a word describing it. 3. Their favorite body of water and a word describing it. 4. Their favorite fruit and a short description of how they eat it. 5. Tell them to close their eyes and imagine themselves in a circular room with smooth high walls and no ceiling. It is night and, although there are no windows or doors, they can look up and see the stars. Have them write down how they feel. When everyone is finished, reveal the hidden meaning behind what they wrote down and offer time for people to reflect on their answers and whether the meanings make sense. (I will put the key in a separate document, it won t really work if you look at the key before you do it.) Reading The path of vulnerability includes understanding what generates so much fear about stepping into more vulnerability in our lives; learning to sit with the discomfort to create more self-connection; finding ways of redefining vulnerability as strength; discovering an inner sense of safety; and securing support in inhabiting more authenticity. More than anything, though, the path of vulnerability is about choice: How can we muster inner strength to understand, face, and transform our fears so we can have the aliveness and authenticity that come from the willingness to share our truth? ~ Miki Kashtan, from Vulnerability as a Spiritual Path (in the additional resources) 2

3 Sitting in Silence Take a few moments to sit quietly and reflect upon your thoughts. Sharing/Deep Listening Respond with your thoughts on the following questions or your experiences with the Spiritual Exercises. 1. Can you think of times in your life when you could have chosen vulnerability or protection? What did you choose? What were the results? 2. Describe a time something positive came of allowing yourself to be vulnerable. 3. Where in your life could you choose to be vulnerable now in hopes of making a positive change? Reflection This is a time to respond briefly to something another person said or to relate additional thoughts that may have occurred as others shared. Singing First and third verses of Just As Long As I Have Breath, 6 in Singing the Living Tradition Just as long as I have breath, I must answer, Yes to life; though with pain I made my way, still with hope I greet each day. If they ask what I did well, tell them I said Yes to life. Just as long as my heart beats, I must answer, Yes to love; disappointment pierced me through, still I kept on loving you. If they ask what I did best, tell them I said, Yes to love. Closing Words Security is mostly superstition. It does not exist in nature, nor do the children of men as a whole experience it. Avoiding danger is no safer in the long run than outright exposure. Life is a daring adventure, or nothing. ~ Helen Keller Additional Resources Vulnerability as a Spiritual Path by Miki Kashtan Posted on joylivinglearning.org/lauras-blog February 4, 2010 by L'aura Real fearlessness is the product of tenderness. It comes from letting the world tickle your heart, your raw and beautiful heart. You are willing to open up, without resistance or shyness, and face the world. You are willing to share your heart with others. - Chogyam Trungpa, Shambala: The Sacred Path of the Warrior Ask yourself a simple question: What is a good baby? If you have been raised in a Western culture, chances are you know the answer right away (whether or not you agree with it): A good baby is one that doesn t cry! The training against vulnerability starts very early in life. It is no surprise, then, that most of us wear some layers of protection, and know the experience of contraction, a desire to hide what is true inside. Yet many of us know that as we loosen the protection and become more and more naked, we come closer to how we once were, to our essential humanity. When we recognize this complex truth, we can begin 3

4 to imagine choosing, moment by moment, how much protection would be helpful, and how much protection is keeping us away from the flow of life. Fear of vulnerability is one of the core obstacles to inner freedom. Some of the fear is internal, a message that there is something wrong with us if we show emotion. Some of the fear is external, a concern that by being authentic and revealing ourselves we risk being hurt by others. Either way, our quest for inner freedom includes the willingness to step into the unknown, into discomfort. As Rachel Remen says, The choice is never between slavery and freedom. We will always have to choose between slavery and the unknown. If we embrace the possibility of opening up and remaining soft in the face of whatever comes our way then we actually grow in our capacity to be ourselves in full. The path of vulnerability includes understanding what generates so much fear about stepping into more vulnerability in our lives; learning to sit with the discomfort to create more self-connection; finding ways of redefining vulnerability as strength; discovering an inner sense of safety; and securing support in inhabiting more authenticity. More than anything, though, the path of vulnerability is about choice: How can we muster inner strength to understand, face, and transform our fears so we can have the aliveness and authenticity that come from the willingness to share our truth? Usually when we think of the meaning of the word vulnerability we think of it as an experience of being exposed in a way that could lead to hurt. When we talk about choosing vulnerability rather than having it simply happen, we are embarking on an extraordinary journey of changing our relationship with fear. As Chogyam Trungpa says, true fearlessness is not the reduction of fear, but going beyond fear. Sitting with our fear, or with any difficult emotion really sitting with it creates possibility. As we open our hearts to ourselves, we find the needs underneath our emotions and actions. Connecting with the needs provides us some wiggle room around the stories that feed our fear such as rejection, humiliation, or betrayal. We also recover more room by connecting with others humanity in charged moments, with their needs that could lead to their actions or reactions. This eases our own fear, because it allows us to take everything less personally, to approach others with compassion, and to keep our hearts open as we engage. What does choosing vulnerability look like? Here is a personal example. After a painful breakup with a partner many years ago, I took on the practice of examining myself closely for months to see the ways that I contributed to the relationship not working. Every time I found something, I shared what I found with my former partner. I felt exceedingly vulnerable, as if I was providing my former partner with ammunition, a way to prove that it was my fault that the relationship ended. But I also loved the practice. I was being true to myself instead of protecting myself. And after a few months it meant we could be friends again. Think of a situation from your life in which you had the opportunity to choose vulnerability or to choose protection. As you reflect on your situation and on what you did, bear in mind that inner freedom means becoming conscious of the fact of making choices, and then changing how we make choices by connecting them to needs. Which did you choose in your situation, vulnerability or protection? What needs were you attempting to meet with your choice? Did those needs get met through your choice? What needs were not met by your choice? One key to this journey is to recognize that habitual choice is also based on needs. Once we become aware of what needs we are trying to meet by the habitual choice, then we can inquire deeply: Is this habitual strategy really meeting the need? At what cost? Can we find 4

5 a willingness to make a different choice even though it s uncomfortable? With full connection with our needs, we may well choose to engage in the habitual behavior some of the time, knowing what needs we are prioritizing in those moments rather than automatically out of fear or habit. We may also choose to embrace fuller authenticity and vulnerability because we have clarity about what needs would be met that make the discomfort worthwhile instead of basing the choice on an internal demand or an idea that is not connected to our needs. Either way, we are more able to meet life fully. We do not embark on the path of vulnerability once and for all. In each moment the balance of our needs may shift. By inquiring into the lived truth of this moment we become present and step out of stories about what things mean. In each moment, we solve the emotional equation of that moment: With all of the needs that are on the table for this moment, what s the action to take in this moment? What needs rise in significance in this moment? Which needs are less important in this moment? What needs might be met by choosing vulnerability? Self-expression, authenticity, strength, integrity, or connection. What needs might be met by choosing protection? Peace of mind, safety, compassion for ourselves or others, ease, or relief. If we judge either set of needs, we lose our capacity to choose, the foundation of our inner freedom. When we start working with vulnerability we discover what Sally expressed in a workshop: I don t think the fear will ever completely disappear, so I have to find a way of accepting the fear. Like every difficult emotion, we have three basic options: to run away; to grit our teeth, tough it out, and do things despite the feelings; or to make room for the feelings and experience spaciousness around them. The point of being on the path is to find the freedom, not necessarily to always have to be vulnerable, but to have the option to be vulnerable when we choose. by Miki Kashtan Brené Brown s TED talk on Vulnerability: From Becoming Powerfully Vulnerable-The Key to True Connection and Intimacy, by Julie-Anne Shapiro, on SelfGrowth.com So, how can we begin to be more vulnerable and feel safe in doing so? How can we use vulnerability to start to feel more connection in our relationships? Start small. Know that it will feel like a risk at first and that is ok. When we have been entrenched in these patterns for so long, breaking the cycle will feel like a big deal. Here are some ways to start: Ask for something you need or would like This may be as small as asking a co-worker for a cup of coffee. The idea is to take bigger risks as you see the experiences you are generating. Generating a different experience starts to sit in our body. Our body realigns with the new experience and the practice of showing up in a new way becomes natural and organic. Reveal something about yourself 5

6 Choose a friend or someone you trust at first. Tell them something about yourself that you have never said before. It may be that you tell them something that you find difficult to do or a so-called 'weakness' that you have. You may tell them about a challenge you're having and ask for their feedback. You may tell them something that you perceive as 'shameful', something you may have been hiding from people. Engage rather than cut off or withdraw We make so many assumptions and conclusions about other people's motives for doing things. Someone does something or does not respond in the way we would like and we draw the conclusion that they don't like us or are a bad person in some way. We take it personally and never engage an inquiry into what may have been going on for them. We also go through agony in tolerating behaviors rather than engage. In doing this we never give ourselves, or others the opportunity to experience more connection in relationship. Remember, it is the willingness, the intent and the way that we take the actions above that really counts. We don't want to be too attached to the outcome, we want people to have the space to consider and make a choice. We want to own and express our feelings and experience and also engage a dialogue about what may have been happening for that person. We want to know what their experience may be. We want to use the experience to further grow ourselves. Is there something we are doing that is having them respond to us in a certain way? We want to be open and receptive to feedback and give feedback from a place of partnership and building connection rather than resentment and conflict. 3 Myths about Vulnerability by Margarita Tartakovsky, M.S. on PsychCentral.com Vulnerability is scary. But it s also a powerful and authentic way to live. According to author Brené Brown, Ph.D, LMSW, in her latest book Daring Greatly: How the Courage to Be Vulnerable Transforms the Way We Live, Love, Parent and Lead, Vulnerability is the core, the heart, the center, of meaningful human experiences. She defines vulnerability as uncertainty, risk and emotional exposure. Think about the vulnerability it takes to love someone whether it s your parents, siblings, spouse or close friends. Love is filled with uncertainties and risks. As Brown notes, the person you love might or might not love you back. They might be in your life for a long time or they might not. They might be terrifically loyal or they might stab you in the back. Think about the vulnerability it takes to share your ideas with the world, not knowing how your work will be perceived. You might be appreciated, laughed at or downright skewered. Vulnerability is hard. But what can make it even harder needlessly so are the inaccurate assumptions we hold about it. Brown shatters the following three myths in Daring Greatly. 1. Vulnerability is weakness. According to Brown, the funny thing about vulnerability is that we love when others are open and honest with us. But when it comes time for us to share, we sort of freak out. Suddenly, our vulnerability is a sign of weakness. Brown describes vulnerability as the core of all emotions. To feel is to be vulnerable, she says. So when we consider vulnerability to be a weakness, we consider feeling one s emotions to be so, too, she says. But being vulnerable connects us with others. It opens us up to love, joy, creativity and empathy, she says. 6

7 Plus, when we look at what makes up vulnerability, we quickly start to see the opposite of weak. In the book Brown shares the various responses she received after asking her research participants to finish this sentence: Vulnerability is. These were just some of the replies: starting my own business; calling a friend whose child just passed away; trying something new; getting pregnant after having three miscarriages; admitting I m afraid; having faith. As Brown says, Vulnerability sounds like truth and feels like courage. 2. Some of us don t experience vulnerability. Many people have told Brown that they simply don t do vulnerability. But, actually, everyone does vulnerability. Life is vulnerable, Brown writes. Being vulnerable isn t the choice we have to make, she says. Rather, the choice is how we respond when the elements of vulnerability greet us: uncertainty, risk and emotional exposure. Many of us respond by avoiding vulnerability. But when we do, Brown writes, we typically turn to behaviors that don t align with who we want to be. For instance, one of the ways we shield ourselves from vulnerability is with what Brown calls foreboding joy. When things are going well in your life, have you felt a pang of horror that something bad will happen? For instance, you just got a promotion at work. You re excited and happy. But then, bam, a wave of holy crap, I m going to do something to screw this up washes over you. Or it s oh, no! what if the company goes bankrupt? That s foreboding joy. Brown describes it as the paradoxical dread that clamps down on momentary joyfulness. (In the book Brown describes several other ways we try to shield ourselves and offers valuable strategies for taking off our ineffective armor.) 3. Vulnerability means spilling your secrets. Some of us automatically balk at vulnerability because we assume that being vulnerable means wearing our secrets on our sleeves. We assume that being vulnerable means spilling our hearts to strangers, and as Brown puts it, letting it all hang out. But vulnerability embraces boundaries and trust, she says. Vulnerability is about sharing our feelings and our experiences with people who have earned the right to hear them. Being vulnerable takes courage. But it s worth it. It s worth it to be ourselves, to connect to others. I worry when I put my writing and thereby myself out into the world. What will readers think? Is that sentence stupid? No, I don t think so. OK. Maybe. Will they like the article? Will they hate it? Hate me? But for me to stop writing and sharing my writing would mean losing a pivotal part of myself. So I ll continue to put my words, my ideas, myself, out into the world. I love what Brown concludes about daring greatly. And, without question, putting ourselves out there means there s a far greater risk of feeling hurt. But as I look back on my own life and what Daring Greatly has meant to me, I can honestly say that nothing is as uncomfortable, dangerous, and hurtful as believing that I m 7

8 standing on the outside of my life looking in and wondering what it would be like if I had the courage to show up and let myself be seen. Ready for a vulnerability hangover? Five ideas from Brené Brown By Roman Krznaric Published: 16 October 2012 I recently had the great privilege and pleasure of interviewing Brené Brown, one of the world s most original and exciting thinkers about emotional life, before a packed audience at London s historic Conway Hall. It was no surprise that the event, organised by The School of Life, sold out its five hundred tickets within a record time of 48 hours. Brené a research professor at the University of Houston is seriously popular. Her 2010 TED talk on The Power of Vulnerability has been seen by over six million people, and her new book, Daring Greatly: How the Courage to Be Vulnerable Transforms the Way We Live, Love, Parent and Lead, is at the top of the New York Times best-sellers chart. To give you a taste of her book, and the conversation we had, I d like to pick out five of Brené s ideas that I find to be particularly insightful, original and applicable to everyday life. 1. Having a vulnerability hangover is good for you Brené s big idea is that vulnerability is good for you, or as she puts it, vulnerability is our most accurate measure of courage. We live in a culture where making yourself vulnerable exposing your fears and uncertainties, taking emotional risks is considered a form of weakness, and something most of us want to run away from. But Brené s research reveals the hugely positive outcomes that emerge from stepping into the arena of vulnerability. It is precisely when we expose ourselves perhaps in a relationship or at work that we have experiences that bring purpose and meaning to our lives. But the bit I like best is the concept of the vulnerability hangover. If you really take that big step and make yourself vulnerable, then it is pretty likely that the next morning you ll wake up thinking, Oh my God! Why did I share that? What was I thinking? In fact, if you don t feel any vulnerability hangover, then maybe you didn t go far enough. 2. Narcissism is the fear of being ordinary We live in a culture of scarcity, according to Brené. But she s not talking about material scarcity. To understand what she means you need to grasp her idea of the never enough problem. Most of us, she argues, see ourselves as never X enough. And that X could stand for never GOOD enough, never PERFECT enough, never SUCCESSFUL enough, or maybe never SMART, THIN or EXTRAORDINARY enough. In other words, we are always striving but inevitably find ourselves lacking in some fundamental way. And that erodes us and diminishes our self-esteem. Worry about scarcity is our culture s version of post-traumatic stress, she writes. Now let s focus on the idea of never EXTRAORDINARY enough. One of my favourite sentences in Brené s latest book is this: when I look at narcissism through the vulnerability lens, I see the shame-based fear of being ordinary. I think this offers a really unusual and insightful way of thinking about narcissism. Forget the standard idea that narcissism is about an excessive and self-indulgent form of self love. Rather, it is the fear of never feeling extraordinary enough to be noticed, to be lovable, to belong, or to cultivate a sense of purpose. 8

9 The message, perhaps, is not simply that being ordinary is OK, but also to embrace the beauties of the ordinary moments in life, like sharing a meal with close friends and family, rather than constantly striving for the extraordinary. 3. Women and men experience shame differently Alongside vulnerability, Brené s other major area of research is shame. Probably the best place to start with her thinking is to watch her 2012 TED talk on Listening to Shame. She defines shame as the intensely painful feeling or experience of believing that we are flawed and therefore unworthy of love and belonging. And there are three things we really need to know about shame: we all have it, we re all afraid to talk about it, and the less we talk about it, the more control it has over our lives. Yet what I find especially compelling is her argument that women and men experience shame differently. She sums it up like this: For women, shame is a web of unattainable expectations that say, Do it all, Do it perfectly, and Never let them see you struggle. For men, the primary shame mandate is, Do not be perceived as weak. When she asked women what tended to trigger shame, the primary response was how they looked despite years of consciousness raising and critical awareness, women still tend to feel shame about not being thin, young and beautiful enough. Men s most common response was that shame was triggered by a sense of failure whether it was at work, on the football field, in bed, in marriage or with children. 4. Empathy is the antidote to shame But if shame is such a burden, what are we supposed to do about it? The answer is developing shame resilience, and it is empathy that is the real antidote to shame. What does she mean? If we can share our story with someone who responds with empathy and understanding, shame can t survive. So we can t really get over shame without other people. We can t keep shutting it out by keeping ourselves busy (or distracted). We can t wish it away by denying our feelings. What we really need to do is seek connection with someone who is going to lend us an empathic ear, someone who is able to listen to us and endeavour to understand our fears, anxieties and uncertainties. The implication, as I see it, is that our emotional health requires socially positioning ourselves within a community of empathy. This is not to say that every friend we have has to be an empathic genius. But rather we should be wary of being without empathic support. If you drew a map of your social support network, how many people could really offer you the gift of deep empathy? Of course, the flip side is that if we want people to display empathy towards us, this is most likely to happen when we display our vulnerability to them. Without exposing ourselves, making that human connection we need to combat shame is nearly impossible. 5. The Museum of Epic Failure One of my personal pet projects is to create the world s first Empathy Museum. With this in mind, my final question to Brené was as follows: Imagine you could create a Museum of Daring Greatly. Not a dusty Victorian museum full of displays behind glass cabinets, but an experiential and conversational public space that could really transform people. What would you put in the museum? 9

10 To which she replied, without a moment s pause, I wouldn t found a Museum of Daring Greatly. I would found a Museum of Epic Failure. I love that idea a museum full of examples of people who failed at what they strived to achieve, who took risks, who made themselves vulnerable. Only when we realise how much failure has been a staple of human affairs, and how many people often renowned figures have failed in their endeavours, will we be ready to embrace failure, like vulnerability, as a kind of virtue. In answering my question Brené was no doubt thinking of the 1910 speech delivered by Theodore Roosevelt that gave the title to her new book and which applauds a certain kind of epic failure: 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 better. The credit belongs to 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 again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; 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. Roman Krznaric is the author The Wonderbox: Curious Histories of How to Live and How to Find Fulfilling Work. He is a founding faculty member of The School of Life, and blogs on empathy and the art of living at Watch his RSA talk on The Six Habits of Highly Empathic People. Follow 10