Today I read Sam De Brito's column in the Sunday Age about worthiness, connection and vulnerability. In it he referred to a TED talk by Brene Brown, a researcher who studies the human condition. I've previously written a number of times about emotions, connectivity and the choices we make in our lives around them so I had to do a search and find the video (I really encourage you to take the time to watch it).
Brene makes a number of enlightening and challenging points in her talk, but one of the things that gave me an 'Aha see!' moment was when she spoke about how we try to avoid painful experiences and emotions; shame, hurt, heartbreak and all the rest. Brene says, 'you cannot selectively numb emotion, you can't just say, I don't want to feel these emotions, shame, fear, disappointment, vulnerability etc... Because you can't numb these feelings without numbing the other emotions, like joy, gratitude, happiness'. I've always thought I was a bit of a cliché when I say, 'if you can't feel pain and all the bad stuff, how are you supposed to actually appreciate and truly feel the good stuff when it happens?' But based on the research it turns out this is true, if we numb ourselves to the bad emotions we won't ever feel the good emotions and will actually end up making ourselves feel worse.
What we have to do is open our selves to it, to open our whole hearts and to accept and embrace excruciating vulnerability. Yes it might hurt to do this, but not doing it will hurt too so you might as well feel it.
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