Necessary Ingredient for Growth: Vulnerability

A friend recently sent me a link to a TED video by Brene Brown, a research prof at the University of Houston in Social Work. It might be called "Deconstructing Vulnerability, Constructing Wholeheartedness."  (It's not, though - just called TEDxHouston Brene Brown.)

But that's all by the by.  Just watch the thing: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X4Qm9cGRub0.

She makes a compelling argument for vulnerability, the willingness and ability to be vulnerable, as the basis for growth, creativity, joy, belonging, and love.

In the Sweet Medicine SunDance Path, one of the wheels we study is the Blocks to Maturity.  This wheel includes shame, blame, and fear - three things which effectively block our willingness and ability to be vulnerable.

A few months ago, I wrote about our questioning of ourselves regarding whether we are good enough, whether we have what it takes.  This is another take on how to answer that question, through looking at those emotions/reactions which lead us to feel inadequate.  Brown has written extensively on overcoming shame etc., so we can simply recognize that we ARE enough.

But by this, she does not seem to mean the self-satisfied, kick-back-and-wait-to-be-served enough.  She means instead the "enough" that allows us to engage fully in life rather than holding back because we are afraid someone will actually see us.

And that - without that kind of engagement, we just can't grow, we can't learn, we can't become.  We can only exist.

Dancing to the Music of the Unknown

I've spent a good deal of my life looking at the relationship between fear and the unknown, learning to calm the anxiety that comes up when I don't know what to expect, or how to behave, simply by normalizing it. Until recently, I figured that was the best outcome - normalize fear as a reasonable response to the unknown, and then just get on with things.

Turns out, that approach takes way too much effort. Normalizing fear puts a box around it, gives it a label I can live with; but the fear is still there. I'm just using tricks to get over it, under it, past it, setting my will and intent so that fear doesn't keep me from totally missing out (curled in the fetal position or hiding behind some tree).

I thought that "grit my teeth" strategy was working - but I've recently figured out it's really kept me away from the unknown far more than it has ushered me into it. I might dip my toes in, or peek around a corner - but again and again, I've sought the comfort of the known to help me assuage the discomfort of the unknown. And in doing so, the known stays my focus.

While leading a healing ceremony last week, I discovered a whole new approach: let that initial flare of fear signal where the unknown can be found, but then let my curiosity, my love of learning, and my determination for excellence open the door. It's not a muscling through type of thing - it's delight and questions and humility. And connection - especially connection.

In fact, connection is the key. When I'm convinced that I'm all I have to rely on in this world, that throws me back into the known every time. When I'm actually connected to Spirit, trusting that Spirit and I are in a dance together, then the unknown becomes the music, the invitation to movement, the guide that takes me into partnership with Spirit, showing me the way.

Ceremonial Jitters, Redux

Like Ms. Morganstern, I recently had the opportunity to experience ceremonial jitters.  Or, was it emotional jitters?  Or was it excitement?  Or was it a cold coming on?  It was really hard to tell! 

It was hard to tell in part because the upcoming ceremony touched many parts of my life, in addition to being a training for me. 

It was also hard to tell because the physical feelings were much like those I've experienced in a variety of situations.

I've noticed that there are some physical feelings, ones which I associate with emotions, that could actually be tagged in a variety of ways.  That is, I could attribute my feeling of nausea to an unpleasant encounter I had yesterday, or to nervousness about something coming up, or to the fact that I did a vigorous workout too soon after eating.  If I'm not careful, I can easily attribute it to the wrong thing, and end up taking that thing much more seriously than it deserves. 

In this case, I decided to become an observer of myself: to observe what was happening when the feelings came up, how they affected me, how long they lasted.  I learned something valuable to take into the upcoming ceremony: namely, that it was nothing more or less than a movement of my energy, which I could handle in whatever way I chose.

In some ways, this is a basic Red Lodge Year 1 teaching: balanced choreography. And in another way, it is more related to my condition of bodily appearance: how I am in my body, how I handle myself, how well I know myself.  And in yet another way, it's really all about maturity: do I have the self-awareness and self-control to stop myself from going into an unproductive reaction, and just see what's really there in this specific circumstance? 

It's a bit like my experience of performing.  When I first started, I was so nervous I could hardly do anything, and afterward I was totally (and destructively) focused on the mistakes I made.  My reactions were controlling me.  But as I did it more, and worked with those reactions, I became much more able to see them for what they were - energy, nervous energy, fear - and give them their own place at the table for what they brought, without projecting what that might be.  In particular, I was able to turn my attention away from the focus on mistakes.  That made it much easier to keep from making mistakes.  It also made performing much more pleasant, and also usually meant I would learn something from it and come out of it a better performer rather than a more fearful one.

In other words, having those feelings or not was really not important.  What was important was what I did with them.