The Surprising Gift of Vulnerability

Do you shy from being vulnerable and sharing your struggles with others?

Reaching for my phone, half awake, I am greeted with a blog post from my son Theo’s favorite high school teacher, Mr. Armstrong. The opening sentence is, “I just taught from my living room (due to the pandemic) what will probably be my last high school English class ever.” Oh no! I am so sad, for Mr. Armstrong and all the kids who will miss out on delving into their being with the most amazingly life-changing teacher. The really heart-wrenching part is it means the disease that makes him unsteady on his feet and challenges his speech, has gotten the upper hand.

I know all this because he vulnerably shares who he is on the page. Reading between the lines, I hear him explore and expose what it means to live with an incurable disease. And watch him embrace and express his passion for passing his life wisdom onto his precious children and students. He says, “I tried to be my most honest, vulnerable self. For the students sake. For my sake. In fact my best teaching often happened in the privacy of my heart and mind.” His words just split me wide open. Jay makes me think about the power of vulnerability to bring us peace and wisdom. 

Owning Our Life

What courage it takes for any of us to show our insecurities, our self-doubt, our weakness, even our ugly parts. But it’s not just us, it’s everyone. Every single one of us knows we possess less-than-perfect-parts—because we’re human! And when someone like Jay shows us his pain, his truth, it opens us to ours. What a gift! His writing brings me insight into why I revealed so much of my own life challenges and suffering in my book, The Affirming Way of Life: See the Good, Speak the Good, Spread the Good.  

If you’ve read my book or blog (even if you haven’t, I’ll give you a taste my of nakedness on the page), you know it took me a good portion of my adulthood to heal myself from a dysfunctional childhood living with my loving, bipolar mother. I’ve shown you my struggles of raising my one precious son with ADHD, in a school system unprepared to support his learning style. I’ve told you about my stormy relationship with my step-mother who blocked me from getting close to my dad. How my husband and I were mired in negative attitudes toward each other (they piled up from years of not discussing our grievances and hurts) until a momentous conversation that set us on the road to rekindling our love for one another. Add to that my lion’s share of negative self-talk. And this is just a summary!

 I share who I am in the hopes it will help others accept and embrace their less-than-pretty-parts, too. And in the process see that living an affirming way of life is possible even with all of our imperfections. And there’s more.

Unraveling my experiences on the page, has helped me to own my life. I gain perspective. I distance myself from the situation. And I see a brave woman who just wants to love and be loved.

Vulnerability Deepens Relationships

“Vulnerability is the birthplace of connection and the path to the feeling of worthiness.”

— Brene Brown

There’s a bonus to sharing our shameful parts. It helps others feel safer to open up to us with their fears, insecurities and less-than-pretty-parts. And that’s where deeper more meaningful relationships are born.

Writing this piece, helps me remember when a friendship became a sistership.

For the first ten years of my friendship with Lynn, I turned to her for support and encouragement as I navigated through a very unsettled time of my life. She empathically listened and offered wonderful advice as I spilled my anxieties and fears. Yet she never opened up to me. In my eyes she had the perfect family life and was the together person I hoped to become.

A shake-up in her life, cracked her perfect façade—her husband left her. She turned to me for the support she’d always given me—and our deeply loving, most authentic sistership was born.

Lynnie (she became), shared with me her need to appear perfect living with her perfection demanding husband. She revealed that she too had a bipolar mother (such a surprise, I thought I was the only one at the time), and cried to me about her fears and insecurities of being alone for the first time in her life.

For over 40 years now we share the precious gift of sistership. Our relationship is so close because we both share our full selves together. We truly listen, embrace each other’s shameful parts, and see the best in each other when the other can’t. My vulnerability opened two hearts to create the deepest of relationships.

Vulnerability Brings Peace and Wisdom

It’s all about opening. Opening our own heart and mind to feel our pains and our shame. When we are brave enough to crack our shell and embrace our very human innards we open to the flow of peace.

Wisdom grows, as we continue to share in our trusted relationships, all the complexity of being our very human self. And that’s the opportunity for everyone of us!

Your Takeaways

• Openly sharing who you are, your doubts, imperfections and fears makes you more real, more human.

• Writing or journaling our pains and doubts can help us own our beautiful imperfect life.

• Reach out to others you trust with your pain. It can not only heal you, but build the most meaningful life-enhancing bonds!

• The pay off of making peace with your full self, is wisdom.

WHY NOT EMBRACE YOURS AND OTHERS VULNERABILITY AS A STRENGTH!

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3 Rituals for Connecting in Covid-19 Times

What are you missing during Covid-19? One sad loss we’ve all seen highlighted on the nightly news is graduation ceremonies. High school and college seniors who looked forward to celebrating this major milestone with their classmates and family, will not get to do so.

“Rituals matter in our society,” says Chancellor Rebecca Blank of the University of Wisconsin, Madison.  “When you get to the end of one part of life and go to another that needs to be marked.” Yes it does.

Chancellor Blank got me thinking about how important rituals are. Rituals enable us to share major life transitions to receive emotional support from our loved ones and community. Sadly these most important life events like weddings, bar mitzvahs, baby showers, and even funerals have been put on hold.

Creating Rituals for the Times

Amidst this time of great loss, something inspiring and amazing is showing up: the creativity of the human spirit to find new ways to celebrate and connect. Nothing shows this better than the care and creativity of administrators, teachers and parents finding joyous way to make their children’s graduation memorable. Here’re some that stick out to me:

• A Brooklyn principal lined the school fence with posters of the seniors portraits

• Graduate parades of cars strung with streamers and gold 2020 balloons

• Students cruise the Indianapolis Raceway track to pick up their diploma

• And my favorite – The father of Gabrielle Pierce of Louisiana graduated his daughter from Xavier University, on a stage in full regalia in their driveway to the hoots and cheers of family and neighbors 6 feet apart in the street!

I look forward to these displays on the nightly news. They make me smile and laugh and bring tears to my eyes. What doesn’t go as expected makes even better memories!

Making Meaning

In Finding Meaning, David Kessler, grief expert and former collaborator with Elizabeth Kubler Ross, has written an amazing book that is helping me reflect on how we can make the best of our life circumstances during Covid-19. The focus of his book is how to go on living a life of meaning, purpose and someday even happiness, after the loss of a loved one. On a global scale, we are all coping with the loss of life as we know it. David says,

“Our worst moments can be the seeds of our best moments. They have an amazing power to transform us… Loss is simply what happens in life. Meaning is what you make happen.”

And that is just what we see happening with the alternative celebrations of our graduates.

Rituals for major life events as well as daily rituals anchor our connection with ourselves and others. Rituals are important to us individually, as couples, with our families, our friends, and with our larger community. They give us feelings of comfort and stability, reinforce who we are and who we are with each other. Rituals are literally the stuff that structures our life and helps us make it meaningful and fulfilling.

Living during Covid-19 times is an opportunity to continue those rituals that are still possible and create new ones that keep the love and connection flowing.

Meaningful Rituals

1.  With Ourselves: Centering rituals that help us to feel connected to ourselves are an anchor at all times, but especially now. Even five minutes daily with one or more of the rituals I am suggesting can support your inner connection. I speak from experience, having felt unmoored for many years before adopting these.

• Meditation – has benefits that include improved focus and less stress. I recommend using a meditation app such as the one I use, Insight Timer. It offers guided meditations, soothing music, chat groups, a timer, and rewards to motivate your practice. It connects me to myself and meditators around the world. Beginning or ending your day with meditation is centering.

• Gratitude –helps us to develop a positive mindset. I began my practice by expressing daily gratitude for at least five things at bedtime. I now also express gratitude throughout my day for each blessing I experience. Things like receiving a loving text, a sunny warm day with a cool breeze, or my husband’s kind words for my cooking. Bookending your day with a gratitude ritual can change your life. It has mine.

• Walks in Nature – tunes us into the life force and beauty of the world surrounding us. Walking with others is a major pastime now, but a walk by yourself can help you feel connected to the environment and a greater spiritual reality beyond the four walls of your home. One friend has created a ritual of walking every afternoon with her 88-year-old neighbor. They explore different neighborhoods and have had the joy of getting to know each other better.

2.      With Others: Strange times call for new rituals for feeling connected with the people who matter to us.

• Zoom – of course, is the new way of connecting during corona virus times. Many of us are zooming to connect with individuals, groups, and to continue celebrating the important events in our lives.

  I usually have Passover at my house. This year my family zoomed an abridged Passover Seder and then 35 of us chatted. I felt uplifted for a week. Another friend had a zoom party for her husband’s birthday. I have a zoom ritual to chat with a dear friend weekly. Other friends zoom mahjong. The possibilities are endless.

• New Rituals With Those You Live With – Before Covid-19, my husband and I used to make plans like dinners out, entertainment, and vacations. Creating small rituals with those we live with can give us something to look forward to.

  I find my time with my husband all the more precious now. We’re doing small things together that we might have done on a vacation like reflecting, chatting, and enjoying the moment. We had happy hour each evening for the first month and half to take the edge off lockdown. Now, before dinner, we go for a walk and after dinner, work on a puzzle together. Watching TV series’ are our entertainment. On weekends we’ve begun walking or bike riding in lovely outdoor places we used to enjoy. Places that were commonplace before now feel thrilling to revisit. Our favorite ritual is when our son and his girlfriend come for weekly outdoor barbecues—six feet apart, of course!

  Other creative rituals I’ve seen: An Albany couple takes a daily walk including a photo of their shoes in different positions and something of beauty in nature. A group of seventeen year-olds from Irvington, NY, meet in a parking lot each night, roll down their windows, and sing and chat to the same radio station.

3.  With Our Larger World Community: I am heartened every time I get to see how people are coming together in unity to support others and have a little fun. It reinforces my sense of connection with all of humanity. The nightly Italian balcony singers and musicians inspired others all over the world to join together in a spirit of unity and creativity sharing their talents.

 I try to watch on the news at least one thing positive going on in our country and the world. There is so much generosity of spirit in the face of these fearful isolating times. Here are a few examples:

• Captain Tom Moore – the 99-year-old British war veteran who walked back and forth bent over his walker, to support Britain’s health care system and all those in need. His hope was to raise $1200. He actually raised a whopping $44 million thanks to the outpouring of support from the larger community.

• The Masked Warriors, with more than 1400 members sewing thousands of masks for hospitals in need. 

• Concerts streamed from performers homes like The Academy of Country Music, Broadway Disney Sings, and One World Together at Home to entertain us and raise money for hospital supplies and food for the hungry.

• Donating to WHO and local food pantries is my small contribution to our larger community in need.

Why not create some meaningful rituals of your own to feel connected to yourself, your loved ones, and the world? I’d love to hear about them.

Affirming Can be Awkward—Take a Chance…

How many times have you noticed something absolutely wonderful about someone—but didn’t tell them? Or, in the moment thought, what a difference this person has made in my life—but didn’t tell them. Or, you really appreciate the way someone was so there for you—but didn’t tell them. These missed opportunites occur with loved ones, acquaintances, even strangers, and for most of us, the number of times could be in the hundreds and thousands!

I want to share with you an inspiring story from a friend who woke up and became attuned to living her life with no more lost opportunities sharing her heart.

Monica’s Story

Monica is a generous, good-hearted person, yet very quiet and reserved. We became friend over thirty years ago, but drifted apart and hadn’t spent time together in many, many years. A few weeks ago, I saw Monica again when her daughter, a very dear, former student of mine, was in town and invited me to come visit at her mom’s house. As a gift I gave each of them a copy of my book, The Affirming Way of Life: See the Good, Speak the Good, Spread the Good.

A couple of weeks later, I received a call that I can only describe as a gift as valuable as gold. It was from Monica. She said:

“Gail, I read your book on the airplane on our return flight from vacation, and couldn’t stop reading it. It was like it was written for me. I don’t share what I think and feel. I grew up thinking what I thought wasn’t important. So I just kept it to myself. Even before I read your book I would catch myself at the grocery checkout thinking how beautiful the cashier’s lashes were or admiring her thick mane of hair—but I kept those good thoughts to myself.”

“It was so hard for me to make this call to you! I said to myself, I have to call Gail, and tell her how her book has opened the door to my heart. I tried texting the message, which would be less threatening to me, but each time I wrote the text—it disappeared! This is a sign, I thought, but if I call she’s probably not going to be home or she’ll be busy—this is the story I tell in my head!”

“Gail, I don’t know if saying I’m proud of you is appropriate, so instead I want to say, I’m proud to know you! Your book has given me a pathway to connect with others. I’m so grateful!”

The Impact of Monica’s Epiphany

I’m sharing Monica’s call with you as both givers and receivers of thoughts and feelings from your heart. When Monica told me about her thought process making excuses to avoid being vulnerable and possibly rejected by me, I thought, wow, I can relate to her feelings and I’ll bet many of you can, too. We all make excuses in our heads to not affirm others for fear of being perceived as foolish.

Monica’s openness touched my heart on many levels. I was so honored that my book enabled her to open up in a way she yearned to. I shared a growth moment with her which is always very exciting. I consider her more real and brave now. And as a receiver of her positive words, it was actually the first time she had expressed her admiration or appreciation to me in all the years I’ve known her. Monica’s openness with me made me feel more connected and closer to her. Now I’m looking forward to our sharing of a new more open-hearted relationship.

Living this affirming way of life makes me attuned to messages I hear about expressing our hearts and connecting with others from music, TV, books, or the news, but especially songs. As I wrote this blog Kelly Clarkson’s song, Breakaway—take a chance, make a change, and breakaway (from old heart restrictive patterns) came to mind! Though Kelly’s message is different, listen to it from the mindset of this blog, and be inspired in your own way by Monica’s bold change to continue expressing your heart. Your affirming words may be just what someone needs!

As always, I say, Why Not?