Daring to be Vulnerable
Let's take a moment to all think back to our middle school experience. Actually, let's not. If any of you are like me, then middle school is a time where you look back and think, "thank goodness that stopped being a thing." Instead, let's look at the present, where I'm a 23-year-old working at a camp. But, am I really? Most of the kids that I work with are middle school and high school students, the exact time period which was seriously uncomfy and awkward for me. In order for me to be a good facilitator, I have to reach back to that time in order to identify with these kids who would like to do absolutely anything besides talk about God or, even worse, their feelings.
The issue is, I'm totally with them. Ask me my spirit animal. Ask me to list out my favorite foods. Ask me about my favorite bad pickup line. Literally ask me anything before you ask me about how I feel about things, what makes me sad, what my greatest fears are, what I hope for in the future. On the flip side, my favorite foods aren't going to tell you anything about me the way that my biggest dreams and greatest fears do. This conflict is the reason why I try to share how I feel anyway, no matter how much I hate it. It's vulnerability, and I'm learning to wield it as a source of power rather than a fatal flaw.
A year or two ago, I was introduced to the work of a person by the name of Brene Brown. I was working on a retreat team, and one of the team members encouraged me to watch her TED Talk about the power of vulnerability. I watched it that night, and those 20 minutes were basically me staring agape at my computer and thinking, "How does she know me? How has she just described my life?" To be totally hyperbolic, the video changed my life. I'm putting it here and maybe she'll describe your life too.
Since then, I've been working on being vulnerable, on being honest, on being open. And it is totally awful. But slowly, it's been getting less and less awful to say how I really and truly feel. To talk openly about my faith and how important it is to me. To admit that something scares me or makes me uncomfortable.
And then I started working at a camp.
I've never felt the need to be vulnerable more than when I'm working. These are kids who are looking for someone to say, "I feel that way too." I have a responsibility to these kids, because many of these groups have goals in teambuilding and leadership. I expect them to talk about how they feel, to overcome challenges and difficulties together, and to celebrate their achievements. How can I expect that from them when I can't, or won't, give the same? It's the biggest challenge that I've set myself here: to answer questions about myself and offer myself as fully as possible in the name of helping just one of my kids grow in themselves. I have talked about my image of God with a group of high school freshmen, I have shared how I'm scared of heights with several people who are too petrified to even step up the ladder at high ropes, and I have talked about personal difficulties in my job with my colleagues and my supervisors. And I think I am more effective in my job because of those things.
Last Christmas, I was given one of Brene Brown's books, Daring Greatly. I never really got around to reading it until now, because I wanted to make sure that I devoted the time to it that I really wanted and thought that it deserved. And let me tell you, every chapter is like the first time I saw her TED Talk. And I'm only three chapters in. I appreciate what she does because she talks so freely about the importance of vulnerability, and yet acknowledges herself just how hard it is to be vulnerable and how much she personally would prefer to not be vulnerable at all if she thought that it was an acceptable option. I always read it armed with a highlighter, ready to mark up my favorite passages. The passage below is one that I not only highlighted, but surrounded with exclamation points.
"Vulnerability is the core of all emotions and feelings. To feel is to be vulnerable. To believe vulnerability is weakness is to believe that feeling is weakness. To foreclose on our emotional life out of a fear that the costs will be too high is to walk away from the very thing that gives purpose and meaning to living."
Would you like a challenge? I challenge you to be vulnerable today.
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