Vulnerability

Many months ago I heard this, I no longer remember how I had come across it, but I found it so good, so true, so me.

Her concepts about taking that leap, investing without knowing the outcome are things I have been struggling with for some time. In fact it resonates a bit with a conversation my sweetheart and I were having yesterday. We do not really name our relationship, we do not refer to one another with any titles, as well we are both in similar and different places with regards to our fear of defining a future for the "us". 

It also resonates with some of my thinking about my clients, taking a leap with them on their journey. Brown mentions a social work expression of "leaning into the pain", and later reframes in as "leaning into the joy".  This is interesting when I consider the situation of two of my clients where it is hard to find the joy in their worlds. They are so bound by circumstance, isolation, mental illness (we will leave aside the arguments about that expression and its various meanings). With people so entrenched in the social services system the regularly depersonalizes experiences and interactions, where is it safe to explore your vulnerability? When you have been betrayed by family, those who should be a safe haven, where do you find that life raft of compassion? 

I do not have quite the barriers to being vulnerable in that I know there are people who deeply care for me, that ask me to be more exposed - making clear they will help me from leaking over the edges of myself. My jetties are self constructed from fear, disappointment and hurt than from systematic rocks like my clients. My work, as I have dwelled on here just recently (and ad nauseum throughout the history of this blog) is to keep trying to push past these barriers, to install windows and doors in my walls.

This site has some quotes, that while many are trite, convey the direction I am trying to move into, bit by bit, day by day.

Always more to learn about oneself, isn't there?