Watch this powerful video on 'vulnerability'. I think vulnerability leads us to a place unknown to us...one where the outcome feels too unpredictable and is why, therefore, we avoid it. As Brene Brown so candidly demonstrates, letting ourselves be seen deeply is simply terrifying; we only need to look around to see the many ways we are committed to avoiding this unfamiliar place.
She talks earlier about our worth. I think she is trying to get at something related to value -- something like, we are valuable. She ends, unfortunately in my view, with the notion that we just need to believe that we are enough and that will take care of it. But something is lacking:
It is impossible for a person not to be puffed up by his good works unless he has first been deflated and destroyed by suffering and evil to the point that he knows that he is worthless and that his works are not his but Gods.
-- Martin Luther
I think we know we are not enough, but the problem is that we are quite active about not acknowledging this. Perhaps, doing so -- being vulnerable -- is the surprising, wonderful path to the One who is enough for us...more than enough...and to the One who helps us identify our truth worth (versus the one Luther is talking about above). By avoiding our vulnerability, however, we are endlessly avoiding Him.
Not necessarily related (but not necessarily not-related either):
"To be whole, let yourself break.
To be straight, let yourself bend.
To be full, let yourself be empty.
To be new, let yourself wear out.
To have everything, give everything up.
Knowing others is a kind of knowledge;
knowing yourself is wisdom.
Conquering others requires strength;
conquering yourself is true power.
To realize that you have enough is true wealth.
Pushing ahead may succeed,
but staying put brings endurance.
Die without perishing, and find the eternal.
To know that you do not know is strength.
Not knowing that you do not know is a sickness.
The cure begins with the recognition of the sickness.
Knowing what is permanent: enlightenment.
Not knowing what is permanent: disaster.
Knowing what is permanent opens the mind.
Open mind, open heart.
Open heart, magnanimity."
-- Tao Teh Ching
