vulnerability:: brene brown

incredible lecture by brene brown i listened to tonight - really, it's worth the 15 minutes.

i connected with this so much tonight.  we live in a culture that teaches us to fear vulnerability, making us emotionally numb and teaching us to put up a shield of perfection.

for the next week, i'm going to put aside my "not enough's."  i'm going to physically create my surrender box and write all those i'm not enough statements down on paper.  i'm going to put them in my surrender box where they won't be accessible.  where i can't get them back out.  then i'll be grateful for what i have - i'll notice the beauty in the ordinary in my life {because i do not want to live in disappointment and i refuse to believe that my life is not good enough because it's ordinary and simple}.

these are the tools i'd like to pack into my tool kit:

1} connection: when i feel not enough i want to connect with other real people.  people who can tell me to stop it.  people who can ask who are you, really?  people that can pull me out of my perfection.

2} self-compassion: to prove to myself that i am important.  to stop negative self-talk and start positive affirmations.

3} courage:  when my fear and shame tell me that i can't or that something is way to scary, i want to do the opposite of what that fear and shame are telling me to do.  i want to have courage to connect.

courage to be vulnerable again.