Vulnerability: Learning to Dare Greatly

I am sure that I am not alone when I say that I am not a fan of being or feeling vulnerable. The perfectionist in me shudders with dread at the thought of people seeing me at less than my best. I like to be early, organized, and prepared. Not late, messy, and wondering what is going on around me.

Seriously--my heart flutters (not in the good way) just thinking about it.

You can see why writing about my fertility struggles has been a distinct challenge for me then. When I first felt pressed to start sharing about it at The Ranch Librarian, my first instinct was "not just no, hell no!"

I didn't want others to know about my shame, my pain, my mess.

No way. Not a chance. Forget it.

Obviously, I began to get over that, bit by bit, as I started posting about my struggles with fertility.

Yet I still find myself resisting it. When I start to type a status update on Facebook that announces a new blog post, my stomach still lurches. I still fight the urge to block my posts from all the people I work with, or all the students that I taught at one point. It feels uncomfortable, being vulnerable to them, even on the internet.

But then I remember that sharing shame reduces it. I remember that one of those people might be struggling with the same things that I am struggling with. So I "lean in" to the discomfort and hit post.

"Leaning in" to discomfort is a term that comes from social work, and a specifically from the work of an amazing woman named Brene Brown. She's a researcher in social work, and her area of expertise is shame and vulnerability. Check out her Ted Talk on Vulnerability:

I get goosebumps each time I watch it! Brown is so insightful in the ways that we avoid vulnerability. And was anyone else completely floored by her revelation that numbing vulnerability comes at the cost of numbing all the other emotions as well?

WOW.

That hit me hard. Since I was a little girl, I have always been a passionate person. I feel strongly about things--my happiness, and my sadness as well. One of the pastors at the church I went to in college told me once, "You lows are low because your highs are high. You can't soar over the mountaintops without plodding through the deep valleys."

I have thought about her words for years now. And hearing Brene Brown talk about the power of vulnerability, the way that it keeps us feeling both the good and the bad, was so affirming.

Aside from this Ted Talk, I have also been reading Brown's most recent book, Daring Greatly. If I could make everyone I know read this book, I would. It's so wonderfully meaningful, not only for yourself, but for your interaction with others around you. Please, if you struggle with feeling like you don't want anyone to see your emotions, to see your mess, read this book. It might make all the difference for you.

The timing of reading this has been really apt for me, since I have been battling a desire to retreat lately. I have been trying to put words to my current feelings about my fertility struggles and have failed to do so. I don't feel apathetic, but neither do I feel hopeful at the moment.

I have an almost overwhelming desire to be done.

I don't want to struggle with this anymore. I want God to see that I have learned my lessons about faith, about trust, about building character and being patient...I want to move on from this. I want to emotionally "pack up" this part of my life and move to something else.

Of course, I know it doesn't work like that. Oh, how I wish it did. But you know what your grandpa said about wishing in one hand...

Yet I struggle, because I don't want to remain in this vulnerable place any longer. Some days I wake up feeling as though I have a "vulnerability hangover" (as Brown puts it); I can't shake the feeling that I have put too much of myself out there, revealed too much. So I feel panicked, for I can't gather it all back to myself at this point.

Then the still, quiet voice whispers something along the lines of "the point is not to gather it to yourself. The point is to gather it to me."

Surrendering takes vulnerability. It takes giving it all up to the One who heals and provides.

I think of the lyrics to David Crowder's Come As You Are:

"Earth has no sorrow that heaven can't heal. So lay down your burdens, lay down your shame. All who are broken, lift up your face. Oh, wanderer, come home. You're not too far. So lay down your hurt, lay down your heart. Come as you are."

How true, and how powerful.

Vulnerability = surrender.

Surrender = the comfort of the King.

I may want to be done, but clearly God isn't done with me yet. And that's a good thing. It's through my brokeness, my vulnerability, that I learn, connect, and heal.