Hello, Vulnerability

When I was a sophomore in high school, I tried out for the school soccer team. I had played on the freshman team the year before. After the first round of cuts my sophomore year, I stopped going. I literally stopped showing up for tryouts. Although I had made the first cut that year, I couldn’t bring myself to endure the second cut. To this day I don't know if I made the sophomore team. Five years ago, I was given a new job opportunity. I was terrified. I was working from home and had been out of the workforce for nearly twenty years. My days consisted of shuttling kids around, changing diapers, breaking up fights, managing laundry, and working in my spare time. I was a Neanderthal compared to women that worked among other adults every day. I spoke "pee-pee, poo-poo" while they were doing intelligent stuff. I'm not professional. I swear and tell inappropriate jokes. I didn't belong among civilized people and I surely didn't want to be seen. My regrets of the past weighed on me, the unknowns and what-might-have-been's. I had allowed the fear of failure steer more decisions in my life than I wanted to admit, and I was tired of being a puppet to my insecurities. I applied for the job and I ended up getting the position. About that same time, a good friend of mine suggested an audiobook that changed my life, The Power of Vulnerability, by Brené Brown. For the first time in my life, I realized what had been holding me back for 30 years. It was more than fear, it was vulnerability. Working outside the home, returning to college, and writing a blog all make me feel vulnerable. By letting others into my life and into my mind I stand before the world naked, cellulite and all. It is uncomfortable! But if I have learned one thing over the past five years it is that there is power in learning to be vulnerable. There is growth, and there is joy. "Vulnerability is not winning or losing. It's having the courage to show up when you can't control the outcome. Vulnerability is not weakness; it's our greatest measure of courage." Brené Brown.