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Yesterday, i wanted something to watch while i was eating a lunch while Christine dozed. I went to my evernote list and grabbed the oldest thing that had been tagged "@watching," a TED talk that somehow came to my attention on 13 January: http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/eng/brene_brown_on_vulnerability.html
The speaker's self deprecation is entertaining, and there's some dynamic about self-deprecation and the willingness to be vulnerable that seems like a magician's slight of hand trick: I'm vulnerable, but not that vulnerable.
Regardless of how she practices the lessons she's learned, the lessons she shares are powerful.
She spoke of two things that struck me as she explained the dynamics of experiencing connection: one is that the whole-hearted, the people with courage[1], are people who understand they are deserving of being connected to others even with their imperfections. The second was that as she spoke with the whole hearted, they understood the unpredictability, the risk, that entering into connection introduces.
I have a sharp memory of when i had the visceral realization that beauty (not just aesthetic beauty but spiritual beauty) was linked to risking pain. It was in the first semester of college, when i had started taking engineering classes, the "safe" choice at an Engineering school. Under a full moon, in meadows near Meredith Lake, with fog rising, i felt an overwhelming conviction that i needed to risk pain to be authentic (although "authentic" was't part of my vocabulary then). I pledged myself to Beauty that night, and that gave me the clarity to remain in relationship to Christine (leaving for conservatory) and to leave engineering and change my major to Physics.
That was probably twenty five years ago plus a month or so.
It's been twenty years that i have been working at seeing and feeling clearly, peeling away the inherited and learned filters and misunderstandings. And do i see change! Especially in the last five years, working with N with the somatic experiencing modality, i've had such wonderful healing. Simultaneously, i feel joy and frustration: i have grown and changed so much for the better and yet there is still the numbing blanket in my mind that pulls over and makes me hide from connection.
I've been poking my depression with a stick recently. I read what Hyperbole and a Half posted about her depression, yesterday. From that i can tell how much more at ease i am with my depression: i remember the panic and fear i used to have of the depression. I can tell i've learned how shaming and haranguing are not the way out.
Instead i walked yesterday. I sat in front of the lamp this morning. I thought about those things for which i am grateful. I snuggled with cats.
I didn't do any of the things i am procrastinating on doing, but i suppose i accept that.
I wonder about the first quality Brene Brown spoke about: the belief the whole hearted had that they deserved connection. And i suppose i live with a pre-shame, a recognition that i cannot live up to my expectations for myself and that if i enter into connection i know i will let people down.
Can i help myself be willing to face that pain?
[1] Courage is a word i've used in my garden mandala meditation, long before i had an understanding of what it was. I was oblivious to the linguistic linkage of "courage" with "heart" for a long time. Brene Brown spoke of the early definition of courage as being able to tell one's story with a whole heart, which made me raise an eyebrow. I don't have access to the OED at the moment, but i found this definition by Paul Tillich at wikipedia:
"Courage is the self-affirmation of being in spite of the fact of non-being. It is the act of the individual self in taking the anxiety of non-being upon itself by affirming itself ... in the anxiety of guilt and condemnation. ... every courage to be has openly or covertly a religious root. For religion is the state of being grasped by the power of being itself."
The existential statement at the beginning of the quotation resonates with me; his following definition of religion is a curious string of words that intrigues me. Talking about the quotation with Christine (after she had coffee) i realize it's because i think of religion as a system, not a state.
The speaker's self deprecation is entertaining, and there's some dynamic about self-deprecation and the willingness to be vulnerable that seems like a magician's slight of hand trick: I'm vulnerable, but not that vulnerable.
Regardless of how she practices the lessons she's learned, the lessons she shares are powerful.
She spoke of two things that struck me as she explained the dynamics of experiencing connection: one is that the whole-hearted, the people with courage[1], are people who understand they are deserving of being connected to others even with their imperfections. The second was that as she spoke with the whole hearted, they understood the unpredictability, the risk, that entering into connection introduces.
I have a sharp memory of when i had the visceral realization that beauty (not just aesthetic beauty but spiritual beauty) was linked to risking pain. It was in the first semester of college, when i had started taking engineering classes, the "safe" choice at an Engineering school. Under a full moon, in meadows near Meredith Lake, with fog rising, i felt an overwhelming conviction that i needed to risk pain to be authentic (although "authentic" was't part of my vocabulary then). I pledged myself to Beauty that night, and that gave me the clarity to remain in relationship to Christine (leaving for conservatory) and to leave engineering and change my major to Physics.
That was probably twenty five years ago plus a month or so.
It's been twenty years that i have been working at seeing and feeling clearly, peeling away the inherited and learned filters and misunderstandings. And do i see change! Especially in the last five years, working with N with the somatic experiencing modality, i've had such wonderful healing. Simultaneously, i feel joy and frustration: i have grown and changed so much for the better and yet there is still the numbing blanket in my mind that pulls over and makes me hide from connection.
I've been poking my depression with a stick recently. I read what Hyperbole and a Half posted about her depression, yesterday. From that i can tell how much more at ease i am with my depression: i remember the panic and fear i used to have of the depression. I can tell i've learned how shaming and haranguing are not the way out.
Instead i walked yesterday. I sat in front of the lamp this morning. I thought about those things for which i am grateful. I snuggled with cats.
I didn't do any of the things i am procrastinating on doing, but i suppose i accept that.
I wonder about the first quality Brene Brown spoke about: the belief the whole hearted had that they deserved connection. And i suppose i live with a pre-shame, a recognition that i cannot live up to my expectations for myself and that if i enter into connection i know i will let people down.
Can i help myself be willing to face that pain?
[1] Courage is a word i've used in my garden mandala meditation, long before i had an understanding of what it was. I was oblivious to the linguistic linkage of "courage" with "heart" for a long time. Brene Brown spoke of the early definition of courage as being able to tell one's story with a whole heart, which made me raise an eyebrow. I don't have access to the OED at the moment, but i found this definition by Paul Tillich at wikipedia:
"Courage is the self-affirmation of being in spite of the fact of non-being. It is the act of the individual self in taking the anxiety of non-being upon itself by affirming itself ... in the anxiety of guilt and condemnation. ... every courage to be has openly or covertly a religious root. For religion is the state of being grasped by the power of being itself."
The existential statement at the beginning of the quotation resonates with me; his following definition of religion is a curious string of words that intrigues me. Talking about the quotation with Christine (after she had coffee) i realize it's because i think of religion as a system, not a state.
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