A Series of Very Small Victories

Day 3

Awake: 7:44am

Left for School: 8:31am

What is vulnerability? If you ask this, most people would respond in any or all of the following ways: "weakness, failure, defeat." This is how I felt until this morning.  Brene Brown has devoted her research to a group of people whom she has collectively dubbed, "the whole hearted". As an aspiring human being, that sounds like bliss to me! The interesting thing is, Brene Brown found very unexpected but attainable results.  She speaks of these people being authentic, of being the most courageous, the mose compassionate people of her research.  The difference that she found was their utter surrender to and acceptance of vulnerability. 

Now here's the interesting part where I'm concerned.  Brown says that these people who take risks and put themselves in less than ideal circumstances - situations that scare them - re not absent of fear, but rather acutely aware of it to the point that they gain joy as a result of their risks. 

Great! Because that is how i live my life! I can be whole hearted too! This is true for me in all areas of my life, save one - love. In the last five years, I have taken many risks that scare me, but the one risk that i am continually afraid to take is in the realm of love.  Why? Because putting yourself out there will lead to weakness, failure, and defeat.  This is what i thought.  I told myself that I just didn't want that.  I told myself that was not how I want my life to unfold - settling down, being still, having a constant in my life, but what Brown says is that THE HAPPIEST PEOPLE DO NOT CONSTRAIN THEMSELVES WITH PRECONCEIVED NOTIONS OF WHO THEY WANT TO BE, but are free in who they are.  For years, I confused my shackles with goals, aspirations, and the like, but just the opposite was what mattered.  Where I was finding the most joy in my life was in the areas where I took the most risks.  Numbing the pain will numb the joy as well.  Logically, I've known this for years.  Why could I not practice it?

It took four months and one boy to unravel me.  What a perfect time to see this video.  I feel secure in my emotions.  They are not weak of a sign of failure!  They make me brave! Willingness to be the authentic me in ALL aspects of my life is the ticket to having a whole heart. Is it terrifying to put myself out there right now? T let all you lovely people see my self-perceived inadequacies and imperfections? In a word, absolutely. But I can be brave just this once.  And just once next time.  And one more time, still.  Because what is success, really, if not a series of very small victories?