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.

Is it spirit, or what?

The Sweet Medicine SunDance Path is one in which we don't separate spirit from body, or from emotions, or from our sexuality.  It is all part of our desire for and path to growth.

In the first year of the Red Lodge Longhouse, we look at our 5 aspects, and what we call "proper choreography."  In other words, what do we do with our physical body?  Do we determine with it - e.g., the strongest person gets to be the boss?  Or do we give with it - e.g., taking care of everyone else's needs while our own go neglected?  What do we do with our emotions?  Do we determine with them - e.g., the person who screams the loudest or cries the longest wins?

How we coordinate our spirit with our bodies, our emotions, our thoughts, our sexuality, is an important part of spiritual growth as we speak of it on this path.

Some traditions, in some periods of time, have a perception of the body as evil :
"For if ye live after the flesh, ye shall die: but if ye through the Spirit do mortify the deeds of the body, ye shall live."  The King James Bible,  Romans 8:13

That is not the case in the Sweet Medicine SunDance Path.  We ask, what have we come into human form to learn?  What is our spirit, our soul, demanding in this lifetime?  And so every part of us contributes to our spiritual growth.

How does your spiritual tradition work?

Again, Ceremony: the Gateway Process

I just have to say that the SMSD gateway process is, for me, a continually surprisingly effective path of self-growth.

You know how, when climbing up a mountain, you stop at various turnings and look down, and are struck by how far you've climbed?  That's what the gateway process is like for me.  I know I'm climbing, but only realize how far when I stop for a moment to look back.  And, looking back, I can also see how the path has been constructed in such a way that it is possible - rather than impossible - for me to climb.

I'm grateful.  That's all.