Emotional vulnerability admits strength, not weakness
Andrew Sandoval
Mesa Legend
Emotion is a critical part of the human experience. Yet something muffles your voice, restrains you, halting you from asking out that person you’ve been admiring for so long or stopping you from being the first one to say I love you. Fear is the epitome of our emotional depths and it is what holds back you, me and everyone else who suffers from its affliction. Worst of all in this time of disconnected connection we as a society have become experts in deceiving one another, we hide our true feelings behind a vale of personas and we lie to ourselves claiming that the fear isn’t there. Continually we try to mask our fear by numbing the truth with the abuse of medication, food, alcohol, drugs, money, and false social identities.
I am a man who suffers from fear and the byproducts of it but I also know there is only one way for me to conquer the fear, in fact it is its greatest adversary. Courage, the power that defines the people who stand out amongst us, I don’t mean the loud ones who go stomping around like they own the world, usually they are the most afraid. I mean the genuine folk who speak with their heart, the people you look up to, that inspire you to do better, the ones whom have an understanding that you must give in and be willing to be vulnerable to live fully. In a recent viewing of a 2010 TED Talk on vulnerability, the speaker Brene Brown gives us insight into why we live our lives in the fear, basically boiling it down to one thing; shame and the idea that we are unworthy of connection.
She goes on to say that the ones who have defeated that fear or shame are the ones who believe in their worth and have the courage to be imperfect. They have an unwavering willingness to be compassionate to themselves and those around them. Brown wraps things up with some powerful ideas claiming, “We must let ourselves be seen and love with our whole hearts, that we must practice gratitude and joy and know truthfully that I am enough”. All it takes is the smallest ember of courage to ignite your flame of possibility, pushing you into completing your goals and achieving your dreams. Not because those feats were ever impossible to reach but because you denied yourself the belief of self-worth in the first place. If you ever wish to truly evolve yourself beyond fear and reach new plateaus of happiness, you must give into nakedness and be willing to be seen. You have to be willing to be broken if you want to be whole.
