Explosions from Vulnerability

#myliferightnow

It's been another week of considering monasteries and of testing the 15th century French theory that women's heads would explode if they studied too much (source unverified) and of losing one more defective vein to the almighty laser. 
You know, the norm. 
Not to mention the considerable amount of energy I put into forward motion. 
And just living the college dream and all. 

So since coming home from my mission (#referencepoints), I've been kind of obsessed with the principle of vulnerability. Maybe that comes from the forward motion thinking. But mostly because of Brene Brown and her brilliant books and Tedtalks and youtube videos (her most famous being http://www.ted.com/talks/brene_brown_on_vulnerability). Maybe because my whole life I've been told that being a perfectionist wasn't a good thing to be (despite the extolling of perfect things) but I never knew why and then all of the sudden my mind exploded (but not because I'm a woman, contrary to popular belief) upon finding out that mistakes and risks were actually good things. 

Now here's the thing.
Safe spontaneity is one of my fortes.

Example #1: small risk left on a doorstep

Huge risks with explosive potential are not. 

I take chances with caution to try to avoid aforementioned explosions. 
But I learned from Brene Brown this week that if you're not failing, you're not really showing up. So if there are no explosions, there will be no desired results. (Again, these explosions have nothing to do with women's capacities to study and learn). 
At this point on my trip of enlightenment, I took a step to reflect on the explosions I've had/created in my life. And by that I mean those big risks that went beyond my innocent impromptu late night chalkings or leaving strange things on friends' and acquaintances' doorsteps. 
Unfortunately, those bigger explosions never seemed to work in my favor. They always seemed to burn down more bridges than to create better, improved room to build new ones. 
But the funny thing is that I don't regret those eruptions of destruction and fire. 
Because I know I showed up. 
And because I failed, I know I was there. 
Because it takes effort to fail. And even more effort to keep failing. Or courage. Or a mix of both.

#vulnerablecakeexplosion

It's not so much about winning and losing though as about showing up, about exposing your vulnerability and letting yourself feel and try deeply even if it hurts.

Obviously I haven't mastered this yet. I still try to pass (unsuccessfully) as part of a bush or tree in groups of large people and I still prefer hiding in my cave (known to common folk as "my room") to meeting hordes of new people. But I'm getting better at being vulnerable with people I somewhat know, with the people who matter to me or who I want to matter to me. Hoping that someday the explosions I leave behind will create something beautiful, something precious and feeble created from the raw exposure of feelings and the will to risk it all. 

So here's my why-vulnerability-stinks list:

• it makes me feel uncomfortable
• it leads to a lot of unpleasant explosions
• it makes me feel weak
• it doesn't always pay off
• it makes things hurts more

And here's my why-I-love-vulnerablity list:

• it forces me out of my comfort zone
• it encourages forward motion
• it makes me feel powerful
• it makes my joy more profound and the victory sweeter
• it helps me see the beauty in my imperfection and my risks
• it promises to be worth it someday

That last promise is why the emotional exposure (or the attempts thereof) is worth it. 

Vulnerability sounds like truth and feels like courage. 

And as good ol' Theodore Roosevelt put it:

"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, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat."