I just saw Brene Brown on Oprah's Super Soul Sunday. I had so many problems trying to watch it. But I was determined, and I am really glad that I watched. I suspect if you watch it, you will, too.
I have often said since being diagnosed that if you are scared of something, odds are it will show up - in your face. Brene was no fan of vulnerability when she started her odyssey. She even talks about the intention to "beat it back with a stick."
Some of the things she talks about and says (in her interview with Oprah) are:
- the #1 casualty of a scarcity culture is vulnerability.
- vulnerability is the "birth place of everything we are hungry for"
- perfectionism we think "protects us from being hurt, but prevents us from being seen"
- "there is no innovation or creativity without failure."
- inauthenticity "is contagious."
So many pieces of what she speaks to resonates for me and my experience. One piece she also talks about is how so many people have a hard time embracing joy. The reason, she says, is a fear of losing whatever brought that feeling of joy. She tells the story of a man who lived very much in the mid-zone of life. If it worked out, it was a nice surprise, if it didn't, he wouldn't be too disappointed.
He then lost his wife of 40 years in an accident. He then tells Brene that he should have embraced the joyful moments more when he had them, as his reluctance to embrace them when she was alive didn't keep him from feeling the pain that he was feeling at that moment, in her death.
..
It made me think about how things have been for me romantically the last few years. With great fear I allow myself to be in the relationship. It has taken everything I have each and every time. And each and every time I allowed myself to go there, I was extremely vulnerable. It was very scary. It was also more rewarding in ways that I would have a difficult time describing. I got things I never would have gotten, had I not allowed myself to be vulnerable.
And I think that man is right. I think I still would have hurt when things went a different way than what I wanted, but I wouldn't have had the incredible, delicious, wonderful morsels that I got by being so open and being so willing to risk. I am truly grateful for what was. Had I not been that way, I would have not only have "lost" those situations, I would have been left with an empty shell from my time spent.
There are some days I think that if my life had ended last May there would have been a lot more sadness and disappointment in my life for the things that I hadn't done. I think I have lived more fully in the last several months than I have lived the whole rest of my life. And I would have to say that being vulnerable and open is what has given me that gift.
However being vulnerable and open hasn't been so much fun. It has been difficult. It has been at times almost impossible. It has been frustrating. It has been disappointing. What it has been - is life. And the times that we try to remove those things from our life's menu, we are essentially removing our ability to live life.
If I found out that my time was up sooner rather than later at this point, I would have a whole different feeling now. I still wouldn't be happy about it (who would be?) but I would come to it with a greater sense of peace having allowed myself to truly live.
*Deep breath as tears gently fall.*
cancer came along and gave me a chance to truly live.
Who wouldda thunk it?
To be scared of something is not to understand it. I now understand what this experience had to offer me. When I looked at cancer before all I saw was death and despair and sadness and so many things that are scary. Now I look at cancer and what I see is...life.
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