Courage, Connection, Compassion and being Vulnerable

Whole Hearted...People who live whole heartedly- Thank you Brene Brown! The following are some key points I took from her talk. I loved it, I believe and I'm going to live it.

I was listening to a talk by Brene Brown...life changing. She reminds me so much of my friend. She talks about how people who live whole heartedly have some key commonalities. They have courage, connection, and compassion. But the cornerstone piece to all of these she found through her research was vulnerability.

She found they have compassion to be kind to themselves and then others. She talked about how because they had compassion they could be vulnerable and authentic which allowed them to have connection. By being vulnerable they discovered they could be connected, can say I love you first, they embraced vulnerability they were willing to embrace a friendship that may or may not work out, they took a risk at forgiveness, the way to live is to risk vulnerability. Wow, that's deep!

Vulnerability is the culmination of fear and shame and yet the birthplace of joy creativity and love.

We try to numb and ignore shame and fear, because we don't want to feel vulnerable. Who wants to take the risk? When we numb those however, we numb joy, gratitude, and happiness. It becomes a dangerous cycle.

So why and how do we numb? Do we avoid the person or people who may hurt us? Do we not say I love you, worrying it won't come back? Do we not let someone know our weaknesses in case they might abandon us? I wish I would've learned these things when I had time. I wish that I learned these things when it would have made a difference, but you will see through this blog I am going to practice what I preach. Even though I'm late in the game, I am going to practice this truth. I am going to be vulnerable. Let ourselves be deeply seen, love with our whole hearts even though there's no guarantee, practice gratitude and joy, be fierce in your love, be ok with vulnerability. Believe that we are enough. I am enough. I am worthy of love, I am worthy of unconditional love.

I found that had I been completely vulnerable in the situation with my friend, our connection would not have failed. It would have been stronger. I believe in many cases where we take a deep look at our lives we will see that many of us can benefit from the principle of vulnerability.

The full video is long about 20 min, but I promise you it is so worth it. Please watch!!! The link is below...
http://www.ted.com/talks/brene_brown_on_vulnerability.html