layers

i love nail polish. i have a whole bag of it. my aunt C taught me how to put on nail polish. she would paint my nails, put on music, and then we would dance around the living room shaking our hands to help the polish dry. for years, i had no idea that it would just dry on its own. i thought you had to do the nail polish dance, or at least shake your hands around and blow on your nails. 

i have a problem with nail polish though ... i can't seem to keep it on. i do my nails and within a few hours they are chipped ... within a day they are chipped badly and i have to take the polish off, or touch up the corners and tips of my nails. 

my toes, on the other hand ... well they get chipped or the polish rubs off, but i am too lazy to get out the nail polish remover and scrub my toe nails clean. so i paint another layer on top. and when that one starts to peel off, i paint another layer on top of that. 

layers. 

i think we paint layers on ourselves when we start to peel or chip. when we start to show our true selves, we panic and cover it up. just like when my nails start to show through the shiny enamel colour, i repaint to hide my nail. in the same way, we hide our true selves for fear of being vulnerable. 

“If we’re wrapping ourselves up to conceal any vulnerability, whatever happens to us has to go through all those extra layers. Sometimes love doesn’t even reach where we truly live.” ― Alexandra Katehakis

being known, truly known, is the scariest most beautiful feeling in the world. peeling back layers of colour, layers of protection, layers of identities, to reveal the truth underneath ... letting yourself be seen for who you truly are with all your "perfect imperfections" ... this is what it means to be vulnerable. this is what it means to be authentic. this is what it means to be loved. 

not all layers are there for protection from the outside world. some of our layers are simply experiences that make us who we are. each experience adds another layer to our life story. 

A grownup is a child with layers on.

Woody Harrelson

growing up is like learning that you don't need to do the nail polish dance to dry the colourful polish. each experience adds a layer of truth to ourselves. each event adds a layer to our life. 

will you peel your layers? remove them? paint over them? how will you expose yourself past your layers to let the world in and to let yourSELF out?

be kind to yourself, 

It's our challenges and obstacles that give us layers of depth and make us interesting. Are they fun when they happen? No. But they are what make us unique. And that's what I know for sure... I think.Ellen DeGeneres

xoxo

...

horoscope

i don't usually pay attention to horoscopes. and when i do, they are just silly. however, my last 2 horoscopes have been incredibly accurate and right on. this morning i woke up feeling vulnerable and raw. and this was today's horoscope that i will go through bit by bit. 

May 27, 2014
A Loving Trust
Aries Daily Horoscope

You may feel wide open and vulnerable today, and you could feel the need to reach out and share your fears and insecurities with others. It's possible you will seek the company of dear friends or loved ones, individuals you know you can trust. 

i use my blog as a way to reach out and share with others. seeking the company of people i can trust is my plan for today. 

You might consider asking one of these people to get together with you today to have a long conversation. If you do, you might first think about how you're feeling today and what may be at the root of any worry or conflict you could be experiencing. If you communicate these things openly with another person, allowing yourself to be vulnerable, you may get emotional support in response. 

i am meeting Zed for coffee this afternoon, with the plan to have a long conversation about all our worries. and my constant goal at the moment is to be open and vulnerable. which is why this horoscope speaks to me so deeply. 

Should you wish to be open and vulnerable today but feel blocked, you might consider letting yourself really trust those with whom you speak.

Trusting the people we are closest to allows us to be vulnerable. Having faith that others love and want the best for us creates an atmosphere of openness and willingness. We are able to set aside our fears and can freely express anything that weighs on our minds or hearts. 

trust. i put my trust in my readers that my openness and my willingness to share the deepest parts of myself with be received with love and not with judgement. 

The simple act of communicating these things to a caring person lightens our burden. The more we share, the better we feel, and the more closely connected we are to the other person. Trust that those you choose to be open with today care about you and appreciate your honesty, and they will respond to your vulnerability with love and support. 

trust, openness, vulnerability ... those are the messages i will carry with me today. 

yesterday, i was having a bad day and i reached out to gigi's mom and told her how i was feeling and why. she shared with me a website called  www.dailyom.com which had these horoscopes as well as a beautiful message about grief. this was yesterday's horoscope:

When we are trying to piece together the puzzle of our future, we can get help and guidance from other people. 

gigi's mom offered me support and guidance and hope in her email to me. she gave me a piece of my puzzle. 

Everyone we interact with has something to contribute to our journey. As we engage with others and listen to their advice, we can formulate our image of the right path, solution, or action for ourselves. Each person we question can add a small piece to the puzzle of our future. 

gigi's mom set me on the right path as i was wavering in an opposite direction. 


Seek recommendations and guidance from others regarding your aspirations today, absorb the wisdom that benefits you, and watch a new piece of your life's puzzle fall into place.

each person who offers me wisdom has offered me a piece of my puzzle, or as directed me as to where my piece needs to go ... i have never been good at puzzles, so having help makes me feel less lonely and less alone. 

it's amazing how one person can say one thing that can have a huge impact on your day. be that person today ... be that person who says something to someone that changes their day. 

be kind to yourself, and each other,

xoxo

...

betrayal and marbles

i remember my first ever betrayal by a friend. i was in kindergarten. we were sitting in circle and the teacher was talking. i whispered to my friend that the doctor said i didn't have to wear glasses anymore ... the teacher yelled at us for talking and asked if we were talking on topic. my friend could have lied and said yes. she lied all the time. but she didn't. she said "no" so i got yelled at some more. 

i remember that feeling of my heart sinking. of knowing that my best friend didn't have my back. 

so what do we do with these feelings of betrayal? i want to share with you a really important part of Brene Brown's Daring Greatly. she wrote about trust as a jar of marbles. 

when someone does something trusting, we add marbles to their jar, and when we are betrayed we take marbles out. she wrote:

When we think about betrayal in terms of the marble jar metaphor, most of us think of someone we trust doing something so terrible that it forces us to grab the jar and dump out every single marble. What’s the worst betrayal of trust? He sleeps with my best friends. She lies about where the money went. He/she chooses someone over me. Someone uses my vulnerability against me (an act of emotional treason that causes most of us to slam the entire jar to the ground rather than just dumping out the marbles.)

All terrible betrayals, definitely, but there is a particular sort of betrayal that is more insidious and equally corrosive to trust. In fact, this betrayal usually happens long before the other ones. I’m talking about the  betrayal of disengagement. Of not caring. Of letting the connection go. Of not being willing to devote time and effort to the relationship. The word betrayal evokes experiences of cheating, lying, breaking a confidence, failing to defend us to someone else who’s gossiping about us, and not choosing us over other people.

These behaviors are certainly betrayals, but they’re not the only form of betrayal. If I had to choose the form of betrayal that emerged most frequently from my research and that was the most dangerous in terms of corroding the trust connection, I would would say disengagement. When the people we love or with whom we have a deep connection stop caring, stop paying attention, stop investing and fighting for the relationship, trust begins to slip away and hurt starts seeping in.

Disengagement triggers shame and our greatest fears - the fears of being abandoned, unworthy, and unlovable. What can make this covert betrayal so much more dangerous than something like a lie or an affair is that we can’t point to the source of our pain - there’s no event, no obvious evidence of brokenness. It can feel crazy-making.

so what do we DO? how do we recover when we notice the marble jar is empty?

we trust ourselves in asking for what we need. we notice the people whose jars are over-flowing and we focus on those relationships. we let go of our fear of being abandoned and alone and we turn to our full-jarred relationships. because those are the people who will fill your life with more than simply marbles. 

as well as remembering my first betrayal, i also remember the first time someone had my back. it was my cousin D. i was the youngest kid on the street and all the older kids used to tease me and bully me. i had these shoes ... these really cool red plastic sandals. and the boys on the street would tease me by calling them orange. i know how dumb that sounds. i really do. but i was only 7 years old and it was one of the many things the boys did to make me cry. they seemed to take pleasure in my tears. tying me up to the tree with skipping ropes, trying to get me to eat poison berries ... anyway ... my cousin D was visiting. he is 3 years older than me, so he seemed like a big grown-up teenager to me though he was only 10. and he stood up to those boys and told them that the shoes were, in fact, red. RED. 

such a small thing. but it has stayed with me for 30 years. D remembers it too. his jar is over-flowing with marbles. 

who are your full-jar people? how do they add marbles to the jar? what will you do to add marbles to theirs?

be kind to yourself,

xoxo

...

vulnerability part 2

When we were children, we used to think that when we were grown-up we would no longer be vulnerable. But to grow up is to accept vulnerability... To be alive is to be vulnerable.

Madeleine L'Engle

today, nosy nora told me that my blog is helping people. she told me that vulnerability, with maturity, means putting yourself out there, opening up, and not getting hurt the way you did as a child. 

I spent a lot of years trying to outrun or outsmart vulnerability by making things certain and definite, black and white, good and bad. My inability to lean into the discomfort of vulnerability limited the fullness of those important experiences that are wrought with uncertainty: Love, belonging, trust, joy, and creativity to name a few.Brene Brown

to stay out of the discomfort of vulnerability, i found ways to numb myself. i ignored my feelings, and i didn't share my stories out of fear of rejection and abandonment. 

what i have learned from allowing myself to be vulnerable, to be heard, and to be known, is that the people who love me - who truly and deeply love me - will stay BECAUSE of who i am, not in spite of it. 

In the beginning, people think vulnerability will make you weak, but it does the opposite. It shows you're strong enough to care.

Victoria Pratt

i care enough to share myself with others. with the people who have earned the right to hear my story. my vulnerability is seen as courage and strength. 

being seen is really scary. like, really, REALLY, scary. being seen means letting my darkness into the light. it means being willing to tell my truths. 

Through my research, I found that vulnerability is the glue that holds relationships together. It's the magic sauce.

Brene Brown

being willing to tell my truths means forming relationships based on trust. 

i hope that you can find a way to "lean into" your vulnerability. 

monarch butterflies are the most vulnerable creature i know. they manage to find their way from canada to mexico, following the path their ancestors took. the route somehow ingrained in their dna. landing on the same trees their predecessors landed on. and then flying all the way back to canada to lay their eggs and start the process again. the eggs are left on their own, and the caterpillar somehow knows to eat milkweed, which is poisonous to other critters. and then it just knows to spin a chrysalis and trust that as they dissolve into a goo, they will weather the storms until they re-form themselves as a completely different creature. 

if a monarch can do all that, then you can share your stories. email me your story and i will happily share it here, under your name or a pseudonym. i look forward to hearing from you. 

be kind and truthful to yourself, 

xoxo

...

Personal Truth and being a fraud

wise woman wrote to me yesterday and said ...

Getting to know our personal truth can be extremely challenging ... We lie to ourselves as often, if not more, than we lie to others. And sharing your personal truth can be even more of a challenge. 

But without it, where would we be?!

so what is truth? truth is the real facts, the quality or state of being true. truth is the feeling in your gut that tells you the difference between right and wrong. truth is the little voice in your head that screams (sometimes silent muffled screams) when something is disingenuous. 

personal truth is the story inside of you that you try to protect others from knowing, because you are afraid if they really knew you, they would leave. personal truth are the thoughts in your head about yourself that are valid (not the voice of the inner critic click here and here for my posts about the inner critic ...). denial is very powerful, and sometimes our personal narratives are disingenuous. or as wise woman said, "I think we're good at self deception though ... our 'wishful personal truth' narrative might not always be accurate." 

telling the difference is the biggest challenge of our lives. 

so how do we tell the difference? how do we combat the feeling of being a fraud?

i usually feel like i am faking my way through the things that i need to do. faking being competent at my job. faking knowing how to sing. faking knowing anything at all. sometimes i feel like a fraud because i borrow ideas from other people. 

other times, being a fraud means not being truthful to myself. when i am trying to be something that someone else wants me to be. and that is a scary place to be. 

wise woman said "part of being fraudulent is difficulty owning how brilliant we are." ... this rings so true for me. 

part of being fraudulent is difficulty owning how worthy we are ...

difficulty owning how deserving we are ...

difficulty owning that we are enough ...

i am often terrified to speak my truth for fear of being misunderstood, for fear of being judged, for fear of being vulnerable. or for fear of being found out that i am really a fraud. 

however, lately i have been letting myself be seen from the inside out, and surprisingly, no ceilings have fallen on my head, no lightening has struck me down, and more importantly, no one has left me after i have shared (bared) my personal truth - after finding out who i truly am. 

our truth makes us whole. our truth makes us authentic. when we begin to embody our truths, we can move through the world with more confidence and ease. our truth is our personal narrative. it is how we recall our lives. it is subjective and purely, solely, ours. 

as mark twain said, "a lie can travel half way around the world while the truth is putting on its shoes [...] if you tell the truth, you don't have to remember anything."

be truthfully kind to yourself,

xoxo

...

dreams and shame

www.businessinsider.com

i have done quite a bit of research on dream interpretation over the years, and i have my own spin on the meaning of different images in dreams. but i have always been stuck on the meaning of the following recurring images: elevators, basements, closets, secret passageways, and bathrooms/toilets.

i often dream about elevators. and most of my dreams are about confusing elevators that take me to the wrong place. and i get lost. sometimes getting lost is okay, in my dreams, but sometimes it means i have gone somewhere terrifying. 

In general, the up and down action of the elevator represents the ups and downs of your life. It also symbolizes emotions and thoughts that are emerging out of and submerging into your subconscious. To dream that the elevator is out of order or that it is not letting you off symbolizes that your emotions have gotten out of control. It may be a reflection of your life or your career. You are feeling stuck in some aspect of your life etc.  Citation 

i suppose that the emotions i have have been experiencing lately are certainly up and down. but i feel like the elevators i dream about are confusing and they take me to places that i don't want to go. like if i am trying to get to my hotel room on the 3rd floor, the elevator won't have a "3" button.  

these dreams connect to the secret passageway dreams. because often i have to go through tunnels or passage ways to try to find my way from where the elevator has taken me. the passageways and the elevators have an ominous feeling attached to them. they aren't pleasant dreams. 

the secret passageways in my dreams usually end up in the basement or i have to go through a tunnel in a closet.

To dream that you are in a cellar, represents a part of your subconscious mind where you have kept your fears and problems hidden. To dream that you are going down the cellar, signifies that you are digging deep into your own past and facing your fears. To see a closet in your dream symbolizes something in your life that you have kept hidden. citation

http://bestdoordesignideas.com/closet-doors/

there is a lot of negative emotion - fear, shame, sadness - attached to my struggle to get through the passageways, the elevators, the closet. 

so what do these dreams mean? why do i constantly dream about being lost, about riding in elevators, about climbing into closets and through secret passageways that lead to the basement? 

http://sambot.com/2005/03/breaking-and-entering.html

last night i had my elevator dream. only this time, the elevator had 3 toilets in it. no stalls, just toilets. and i remember thinking to myself, who would use a toilet in an elevator? 

i dream about toilets a lot too. i can't lie. usually it is a dream where i need to pee but i can't because the toilets are dirty, or clogged, or the door won't close, or i can't find the toilet because i have to go through a labyrinth of secret passageways to try to find the toilet. 

i used to think that these dreams were about needing to get something out of me that i was keeping inside: an emotion, a thought, something that i needed to tell someone. but nosy nora suggested that toilet dreams are about shame. and that is starting to make sense to me. i carry a lot of shame about a lot of things. i carry it as extra weight on my body. each extra pound is the external representation of my internalized shame. 

and as i reveal my shames, the dreams are shifting and changing. the toilets in my dreams are clean and available. and out in the open for use. 

my hope and goal is that as my shames are spoken out loud, i will start to feel lighter inside, and as a result, perhaps i will start to be lighter on the outside.

AG read this post for me because i was trying to decide whether or not to publish it. regarding shame she said, "you're bringing it to the surface. shame can't survive in the light. it thrives in darkness and hiding." i would like to know what i did to deserve such kind, thoughtful, wise, and caring friends???

i want to talk a bit about Brené Brown and shame resilience. if you haven't watched her TED talk on vulnerability, i highly recommend it. and i thank KM for sending it my way originally and introducing me to Brown's ideas. Here is a link to the video: 

http://www.ted.com/talks/brene_brown_on_vulnerability.html

Brené Brown suggests 4 aspects of shame resilience: 

Recognizing and accepting personal vulnerability: All of us are vulnerable to experiences of shame, our shame triggers. When we recognize the emotional and physical signs of shame, we have the chance to understand what’s happening and why, and to seek help. Conversely, when we fail to acknowledge shame, we are taken off-guard, we are flooded with overwhelming emotions, and we fail to recognize what we are feeling. 

Raising critical awareness regarding social/cultural expectations: Critical awareness surrounding shame is the ability to link how we are personally feeling with society’s sometimes conflicting and shaming expectations of us as individuals. We see the big picture (we contextualize). 

Forming mutually empathetic relationships that facilitate reaching out to others: When we reach out for support, we may receive empathy, which is incompatible with shame and judgment. We recognize that our most isolating experiences are also the most universal. We recognize that we are not defective or alone in our experiences (we normalize). 

“Speaking shame,” possessing the language and emotional competence to discuss and deconstruct shame: By learning the language of shame, we learn to draw distinctions between shame, guilt, embarrassment, and humiliation. We can “name shame” by separating it from secondary emotions such as anger, fear, and isolation. We learn to ask for what we need. We learn and share what we know with others (we demystify).

Citation 

shame resilience involves; accepting and allowing ourselves to be vulnerable, contextualizing our shame within our cultural/societal expectations, finding people who show you empathy which cancels out shame, and recognizing when we are experiencing shame. 

AG said that my shame is a gremlin who lives in the dark, thriving and growing. through being vulnerable by speaking my shame and understanding where it fits in my family culture and societal expectations; by speaking my shame to people who show me empathy; by speaking my shame and discovering that others experience the same vulnerability; i can recognize when i am experiencing shame and i can bring those gremlins out into the light to shrink them in the sun.

so my dreams ... are they about my shame? are my dreams of being lost in a labyrinth, of trying to find a bathroom but it being so dirty and unusable, of climbing into closets, through secret passageways and ending up in basements ... are these dreams of shame? shame that i need to bring to the surface?

last night i told KM that i feel lately, as i uncover my shame, that i have opened pandora's box. and i think i have only begun to unpack the box. i think i have only let loose the top layer. i don't even know what is at the bottom of the box. 

but as i sift through this box (of memories, of shame, of past experiences) i am ever grateful for the empathy and compassion that i am seeing reflected in the eyes of SC, of my friends, of nosy nora, of pokey sue ... (this week i told pokey sue that i come to her clinic for love and compassion and then i end up getting stabbed ... to which she replied, "it's not stabbing, it's poking.")

for more reading about shame and shame resilience, see  Brené Brown  


xoxo
...

the number yellow ...

sometimes trying to explain what is happening to me these days is like trying to spell the number yellow. 

there isn't really a why. 

there is a just an is. 

why don't i want to go to work? why don't i want to do anything when i am at work? why don't i enjoy singing anymore? why don't i want to get out from under my blanket cocoon? why don't i want to get off the couch? or leave the house? 

there is no one answer for anything of these things. 

nothing "happened" to set this in motion. nothing changed. 

except me. and my willingness to be vulnerable and to "lean into" the darkness. 

i was reading some poetry that i wrote when i was a teenager. in my memory, it was angst. but reading it now, all i can say is ... HOLY CRAP I WAS SAD !!! i was so, so, so sad. my poems are dark, and lonely, and sad, and longing for something. longing to be heard, to feel loved, to feel understood. 

looking back, i can see that i have suffered from depression my entire life. it just wasn't identified as depression. and i found ways to self-medicate and to repress my feelings, and to stuff them down with food. 

there is a light at the end of the tunnel, and not just because butterflies don't get to choose to morph from their caterpillar state and leave their cocoon ... there is a light at the end of the tunnel because i am not going through this alone. i am getting the help and the support that i need. 

finally. 

i am finally DEALING with the things that i have never dealt with. dealing with the things that i just ignored. 

and it's challenging. 

and i am doing it anyway. 

but it will take patience. from myself and from the people around me. people who have gotten used to me picking up my pieces and just dealing. 

right now, i am still trying to find all my pieces. and some of them are lost. and i will find them. and it is going to take time. 

oh, and one more thing that brings the light ... 

there is a way to spell the number yellow. 

it actually CAN be done. 

the number yellow is actually spelled F-I-V-E. i learned my numbers as colours and still think in colours when i add and subtract. 

i guess that means that even the most complicated situation has an explanation, even if it is tricky to understand. and even if it only makes sense in my own head. 

to me, 

5 + 5 = orange. 

and 

brown - red = 6. 

maybe things aren't nearly as complicated as they first appear. maybe i need to be patient with myself, and listen ...

                                                                  cuisenaire rods link

xoxo

...

showing up ...

Vulnerability is about showing up and being seen. It's tough to do that when we're terrified about what people might see or think. - Brene Brown

sometimes showing up is the most i can do. and i find that really hard to accept.

i have been an over-achiever for as long as i can remember. committees, organizations, clubs, volunteer positions, and more than one job at a time is how i have always lived my life. 

high school involved showing up at 7:30 am to program the announcements into the electric sign in the cafeteria followed by an 8:00 am meeting of whatever club was on that day. then classes. then a lunch time rehearsal. then more classes. then an afternoon rehearsal for something else. and i also had regular babysitting gigs, and class performances. 

and every May i would have a freak out melt-down and think that there was no way i could possibly complete everything that needed to be completed, and then i would cry and my teacher, MD, would basically tell me to pull myself together and do it. and i would do it. because it wasn't impossible. at all. i just needed to get the crying freaking out meltdown out of my system. 

in grade 13, after my best friend died, i wasn't thinking clearly. i applied to universities and was accepted. but wasn't planning to go. i was going to take a year off. likely because i was depressed and grieving and feeling alone and lost. when i found out that i was accepted into the university that i had wanted to go to since i was 9 years old and went on a tour there ... i called MD and told her that i got accepted but wasn't going. and i cried. (MD, if you're reading this, you probably don't remember any of this. but you absolutely influenced the course of my life on that day. thank you. thank you beyond words) ... MD said, "of course you want to go and you are going." 

NOTE: MD has become an important person in my life and it feels important for me to say that. she has been influential in many situations. and she matters to me very, very much. thank you for everything. for listening, for being there, for being part of my life for the last 23 years ... can you believe it has been 23 years!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?! much, much love to you.  

it was that simple. 

of course i wanted to go. i had been wanting to go there for 10 years. i had fallen in love with the campus at age 9. i had fallen in love with the women's centre. the idea that there WAS a women's centre. that feminism was part of the campus. it amazed me (at age 9).

so off i went. 

and i immersed myself in busy-ness. i held 3 part-time jobs, i volunteered at 3 different agencies, i took full-time classes, i became part of the women's community in the town. 

i was rarely home. i was always busy being a DO-ER of things. 

and this continued into my adult life until slowly i started to let go of obligations and turn more and more inward and insular. 

my life now consists of waking up (because i have to), going to work, going to choir practice (because i feel obligated most of the time - although singing heals me), spending time with SC (the love of my life), and sleeping. and then i wake up again. because i have to. 

showing up is the most i can do. 

i show up and i do what is minimal and at the moment, that is my best. 

i want to be more and i want to do more. i want to volunteer, and i want to be on committees, and i want to take a course, and i want to write a book, and i want to be in a show, and i want to go to museums, and to art galleries, and to travel, and to go out for dinners at restaurants i have never tried, and to spend time with friends, and to have coffee dates, and to be what someone referred to as "lively" ...

... and right now i can't do anything except show up. and be here. that's the most i can do. 

and if you are doing your best by just showing up, i hear you. i know. i understand. and it is enough. showing up for your life is enough right now. because it wont be this way for ever. even if it feels like it will be forever. it wont. at least, that's what they tell me. 

xoxo


...

vulnerability and putting yourself out there ...

“To share your weakness is to make yourself vulnerable; to make yourself vulnerable is to show your strength.” ― Criss Jami 

i am not sure what is more difficult; owning your story, or sharing your story. 

or perhaps they are intertwined. 

i have been "putting myself out there" lately - embracing my vulnerability. and it isn't easy. and yet, each time i share a piece of myself, it's like i have given away a piece for someone else to hold. 

"putting yourself out there" can come in many forms. it can be by telling a friend your secrets. by writing a letter. by starting a blog. 

“Vulnerability is the only authentic state. Being vulnerable means being open, for wounding, but also for pleasure. Being open to the wounds of life means also being open to the bounty and beauty. Don’t mask or deny your vulnerability: it is your greatest asset. Be vulnerable: quake and shake in your boots with it. the new goodness that is coming to you, in the form of people, situations, and things can only come to you when you are vulnerable, i.e. open.” ― Stephen Russell, Barefoot Doctor's Guide to the Tao: A Spiritual Handbook for the Urban Warrior

i'm going to tell you a story. 

a story about putting myself out there, being vulnerable, failing (not falling), and picking myself back up. as the incredible Brene Brown wrote: "vulnerability is not knowing victory or defeat, it's understanding the necessity of both; it's engaging. it's being all in."

last night i went to an audition. normally, i wouldn't be nervous. i am a singer. i put myself out there quite often. i love to sing. i love to perform. singing is my happy place. i also studied singing; i learned how to sight read a piece of music and sing it. i had tests in sight singing. so showing up to sight sing a piece of music in front of 2 people that i know fairly well wouldn't normally be concerning, or nerve wracking, or upsetting, or cause for worry. 

however, in the space that i am in these days, concentrating was challenging. being "all in" was challenging. because my vulnerability was bigger than me. 

there i was, in a room, with a piece of music in my hand, staring at notes on the page and having no freaking idea what the notes were. 

that was disconcerting and discombobulating. i just couldn't distinguish the damn notes. it didn't help that it bounced between flats and naturals and had some really awesome intervals. 

following that mess, i was given a line of music to read. in C major. i don't know if it was because my brain was still in the key of the other song, or if it was my depressed mood, but i sang that entire line of music in a minor key. 

crazy. 

embarrassing. 

humiliating. 

and what do you do when you humiliate yourself like that? 

what are your options? 

never audition for anything again? 
never put yourself out there? 
never be vulnerable? w
hat good would that do for me? 
what kind of life would i have if that were my solution? 

making myself hard and hiding away for the rest of my life is NOT a solution.  

“It’s the hard things that break; soft things don’t break. It was an epiphany I had today and I just wonder why it took me so very, very long to see it! You can waste so many years of your life trying to become something hard in order not to break; but it’s the soft things that can’t break! The hard things are the ones that shatter into a million pieces!” ― C. JoyBell C.

hard things shatter when they break. what a great lesson! 

being soft doesn't mean being a jellyfish, or being something that can be stepped on or squished. being soft means being bendable, changeable, malleable ...  being vulnerable means being soft enough that when you fuck up at an audition, it doesn't break you - no matter how humiliated you feel. being vulnerable means being soft enough that when your world feels like it is crumbling down around you, you wont break.

and at the same time ... change is FUCKING HARD AND SOMETIMES IT HURTS!!! Nosy Nora shared a quote with me today.  

 "The nature of understanding is that alone we can come to understand only what we already understand. To risk testing our organizing principles in dialogue with a text or a person makes possible a new meaning."- Donna Orange

sometimes changing isn't something that you can do on your own. sometimes you need a second opinion, another voice besides the (often critical) voice inside your head. sometimes you need a guide, a mentor, and someone to keep you on the path you need to (or want to, or are meant to) be on.

being vulnerable, and putting myself out there has been the most exciting, terrifying, liberating, and painful journey of my life thus far. sometimes i think that i am so very brave to be letting myself be seen. 

“Courage starts with showing up and letting ourselves be seen.” ― Brené Brown

sometimes i think that i am bat shit crazy for sharing this much of myself and of my story. 

what i have found, especially through readers who have been emailing me, is that sharing my story allows me to connect with people in a way that i never thought possible. 

i continue to be amazed as i discover that MY stories, MY emotions, MY vulnerability are imbued with the commonalities of my readers. by that i mean that i get emails from people who can relate to my stories, who have similar experiences, who UNDERSTAND. 

“It makes me sad that so many people feel they're only allowed to show their best face, while their humanity and vulnerabilities are forbidden and hidden. How else do we connect, but by commonality, by mutual understanding and truth in life's experiences? Whether it makes you smile or cringe, a truth spoken is a healing thing.” ― Jennifer DeLucy

and that makes me feel so much less alone. 

putting myself out there, writing this blog, going to an audition, telling my doctor the truth ... none of those things make me a hero. because as Brene Brown wrote, a hero is someone who puts their life on the line. and that isn't what i am doing. i am putting my life OUT there. but i am not putting it on the line. i am simply demonstrating courage; the courage to say that i am vulnerable and human and that i need help to navigate this journey ... the courage to say that i can't do it all alone. 

“Heroics is often about putting our life on the line. Ordinary courage is about putting our vulnerability on the line. In today's world, that's pretty extraordinary.” ― Brené Brown

xoxo

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