Lesson 3: Be vulnerable

The third and final lesson I have to master in order to open my heart, find intimacy, and create connection is: be vulnerable.  However, I want to make it clear that I don't think there is an order to the three lessons.  I suspect that they are interrelated, and mastery of one will lead to mastery of all.  Or, maybe mastery of all will require mastery of only one...but, which one?

• Make time to do the things you love and love what you do
• This is the day the Lord hath made; rejoice and be glad in it.
• Be vulnerable

I've played with these three a bit over the three weeks since settling on them as my lessons for the year.  It doesn't really matter which I start with, I believe any one of them can and will lead to the others.  For example, if I am doing things I love and loving what I do, I will rejoice and be glad.  If I am conscious that God has made the day, and I am joyful, I am more likely to make time for the things I love.  I would feel safe and warm, so I'd be more willing to be vulnerable.

By contrast, if I am willing to be vulnerable, I'll risk confronting things, people, and circumstances in my life that keep me from doing the things I love.  Then I will be joyful.

Finally, if I make time for the things I love and love what I do, the bubble of God's love will provide the security to be vulnerable. I will most certainly be grateful and joyful.

So, slow down, Kay.  Just be. Do what you love. Rejoice. Be vulnerable.

I am taking baby steps.  I left work at 5 p.m. tonight even though my colleague who usually works late, and I choose to let me feel guilty, really wanted to talk about a project.  I felt quite vulnerable making the choice, but I have to say that the building didn't quake because I left on time. She didn't protest even a whimper.  I scheduled time tomorrow evening to talk with her, an evening when I have an extra hour to kill between work and a dance class.  I will love working with her; she's great.  I will love the dance class.

I had an extra two hours.  I've done several things this evening that I at least enjoy, even if they aren't quite in the "love to do" category.  I had leftovers from a meal out, but I took time to artfully arrange them on the plate and make a special labor-intensive salad.  That I loved doing. 

I've had some paperwork to complete a certification I started about six weeks ago.  I've been putting off doing it. I just didn't think I could add one more thing to my plate. When I emailed the instructor that I needed to put it off for a while (being vulnerable,) she was relieved because she is over-taxed. 

I really wonder how many times when I've pushed myself to near-exhaustion that I've pushed others as well.  At the very least, my pushing back probably wouldn't have been a concern.

Even if any of the lessons will lead to the other two, I have a hunch that "be vulnerable" may actually be the easiest to bring to consciousness.  I am not sure why, but I think that in any given situation, if I ask myself, "What will make me the most vulnerable?" that I will not fail--will not fail to be human.  I will finally feel secure in abandoning superwoman.  Sigh.  What a relief just to say that!

In the spirit of full disclosure, I am not sure that I've ever totally mastered one of my lessons during a single year.  I have always made progress.  The way it has usually happened has been that sometime down the line, a year, two years, or five years, I will suddenly realize that I am doing the very thing that I'd committed to mastering.  Once we set an intention, we unleash a powerful force to support our desires.  Then acting in accordance with that choice incrementally carries us toward that intention.

I am unequivocal about choosing to open my heart, find intimacy, and create connection.  I will master these lessons--one day at a time.

Connecting Against All Odds

My retreat launched with three intentions. One was to create connection. As my journey drew to within three days of its ending, I regretted the failure to connect as I have in the past when I've traveled, feeling more like I was a target for a sale than someone to know and care about.

Over my several days in Santorini, I kept running into a couple that I would guess were of about my age. We would smile, they in Greek and I in English, but the magic is that we could understand the smiles perfectly. We were connecting.

When we all returned to our lodging last night, they offered to let me go up the stairs first. I motioned for them to go ahead, signaling that my chronically aggravating hip was slowing me down. She said, "knee." We limped up the stairs in file with her husband, pulling up the rear. We were connecting.

I found myself needing a piece of information about the Athens Metro, and none of the English speaking travel folks seemed to know the answer. Emboldened by one word--knee, I wondered if the couple was from Athens and might answer my question. I approached them after our file up the stairs. They didn't know the answer, but first thing this morning they were able to.

Two times we ran into each other in town and "chatted," each time me braving to use a little more Greek and she more English. We road to the port together, and they invited me to coffee while we waited for our ferry. Given the extent of our common language, the hour we had could have been painful. Instead, it was delightful.

For most of the hour, we each stretched ourselves, my Greek more than her English, which was much better. I learned about her profession: she had been a high school science teacher, as had her husband. I learned about her two sons. (Thank goodness for the Greek lessons that taught me about family members.) I shared some about myself. Rarely did we stop. Occasionally, her husband jumped in to bridge our gaps in vocabulary.

As we approached the ferry gate, where we would part, I was pointing to the hawkers of hotel rooms, and saying the Greek word for hotel, and she answered in English "rooms to let," as we both laughed. What a special moment of connection! And it had all begun with her single word--knee--and both of our willingness to be vulnerable.

As I think about it, what more is there to creating connection than looking for a bridge and allowing ourselves to be vulnerable. What a nice way to learn that lesson.

As an interesting post-script, Amalia found me on the ferry, and we exchanged Facebook addresses. Through the modern miracle of technology our connection can continue.

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Doubt

On Sunday (1/12/14,) I wrote that our assistant rector had said that we find God by being vulnerable.  Sunday afternoon I was reading a book in which the author twice dropped the line, "Doubt is how you find God." Unless I missed something, it really never went anywhere directly, but the line really piqued my interest. In one day, more than one way to find God. Or, is it really the same?

Doubt implies that we don't know, at least not for sure. Maybe we think we know, but we don't trust what we know.  This whole thing about listening to guidance: how can we know; I mean, really...for sure?  Is what we think we are getting real, or isn't it?  Most often when I ask for guidance, I say, "Give me a sign--a real clear sign that even I can get." My silent prayer is to make it so definite that there will be no confusion.

For years, my guidance came strong and clear...and often almost immediately.  In recent years, not so much.  What I get is muddled, or I get contradictory guidance, and I don't know which is true.  In truth, I don't think the guidance was any more clear before: I think that I had less mind chatter.  Less to muffle the messages. 

Dr. Jill Bolte Taylor, author of A Stroke of Insight, is a Harvard-trained MD, who studied brains.  At 37, she had a massive stroke that disabled the left side of her brain for weeks.  She couldn't talk, and the mind chatter stopped.  When she was forced to live in her right brain (some might say she was in her right mind,) she says she experienced complete and utter peace.  She was aware of people and events around her, only no matter what happened she was peaceful. 

I believe that no mind chatter = no doubt.  If we can still the mind, the messages come strong and clear.  In that place of peace, we are probably more vulnerable than anywhere else, and at the same time we know we are completely safe. I have never had a time when I clearly followed guidance that things didn't work out. They didn't always work out the way I would have liked or a way that was easy, but they worked. 

Back in the day when the messages came strong and clear, I didn't question; I just followed.  I didn't allow doubt: I allowed God.  Oh, if my left brain became engaged, usually through questioning of some other person, doubt would bubble up...and quickly.  I would find my vulnerability almost instantly in the doubt.  In truth, I think that was when I really became vulnerable, but I just couldn't see that the second-guessing was what created the vulnerability.

The image that comes to me is of an egg in boiling water.  I think that the doubt and vulnerability are like the boiling water that keep things stirred up. Yet the moment the water is pulled away from the heat source, and the boiling stops, the egg drops to the bottom of the pan instantly. All is still. The egg lies there in the quiet water, easy to see and touch.  As long as our mind chatter keeps things boiling, we can't pay much attention to God.  When we still, it is like the water calming. It is almost as if God is in the middle of the doubt and vulnerability, and all we have to do to find it is calm to know.

Science has taught us that what is real is what we can touch, feel, see, or hear. Yet, most religions have some concept of God as mystery--that which cannot be known.  For most of us, we feel most vulnerable when we don't know.  Caught in the conundrum between what we have learned academically and what we know in our hearts, doubt boils around God.  The mystery brings doubt and vulnerability...and peace and clear guidance.  It is all in the same pot.  Which will get my attention?  I am confident that when I can still the doubt and be comfortable with the vulnerability, I will find God.  And when I do, I will find the complete and utter peace that Dr. Taylor found. There I will find the answers.

Risking Greatness

In my book The Game Called Life, spiritual guide/guardian angel Helen explains to Lizzie, the person she is helping, the steps to "living a prayer in the real world."  The "real" world is the spiritual world, as opposed to the "fictional" world, which is the one in which most of us think we exist.  Step Six is "risk greatness." 

She says: "I am not speaking of greatness in fictional world terms where people reach a high level in their worldly work or make a lot of money. Greatness in the real world means speeding the evolution of humankind." Later she explains why "greatness" is a risk.

"Greatness itself isn't the risk.  The risk lies in the willingness to consistently answer a call that usually cannot be understood.  The path to greatness requires players to do things that they may never have been done before or at least to do them in unconventional ways."

In recent days there seems to be a magic that as soon as I publish one blogpost, a related idea pops into my head which builds on that post.  After yesterday's post on vulnerability, I realized that what I'd really been writing about was risking greatness.  Am I willing to be personally vulnerable in order to evolve humankind? 

I've crossed that bridge before.  Leading from the Heart and The Alchemy of Fear were not exactly conventional business books. I knew at the time I wrote them that I was exposing myself to criticism from traditional management audiences, as well as more conventionally religious readers. I couldn't prove what I was about to write.  I had no data (and still don't) that leading and working from our spiritual cores and making the increase of love be our motivation would help organizations, but I'd seen it. I knew what I knew.  I could evolve the way we work.  So, I wrote, and many people read.  Both books received some official recognition, but in serving the spirit world, I did marginalize myself for a long time in the management consulting world.  It was as if that community thought that my left brain evaporated, as I wrote what the right brain told me.

Then came The Game Called Life which explained "how the world worked" in a somewhat unconventional way. Life is a game, but most of us just don't know the rules. The Game and Choice Point, which hasn't seen the light of day beyond a small circle of friends who have been deeply moved by it, not only flew in the face of many conventional religious beliefs but also are contrary to many popular "New Age" teachings. I couldn't prove it, but I knew what I knew, so I wrote. 

I've stood in front of audiences and shared deeply personal parts of myself because I thought that doing so would help others sustain their own spiritual journeys. 

Although I am not sure that anyone would say that I achieved greatness in the normal world (what Helen would call the "fictional" world) context, I still hear from people who were empowered for their own journeys by the words that have moved through me.  While it was a risk to take on these major constituencies, my spiritual center told me that it was my work to do.

Have I been vulnerable? Of course.  Would I do one thing differently? Never.  If vulnerability is how we find God then each of those writing experiences have been other worldly.  I have surrendered to the words that wanted to move through me.  I have learned for the first time as I read what was on the screen in front of me. To surrender so completely is by definition risking and vulnerable.  And, only twice have I felt closer to God than when I am writing.

I stand at the precipice of vulnerability, ready to jump,...again.  I am ready to risk greatness in the hope that I can have the teensiest role in evolving human kind.

Choosing Vulnerability

Today was our last Sunday with  Michael Angell as Assistant Rector at our church.  (Cool name for a man of God, wouldn't you say?) Michael has been very special in my personal spiritual development, and I will miss him terribly.  Although he is just a man in his twenties, he has the wisdom of an old soul.  His sermons have often touched me profoundly, sending me home to meditate on a thought or phrase.  So, it seems appropriate that his last sermon as Assistant Rector should have sent me pondering deeply.

Although his overall message was something different, as he often does, Michael buried a provoking thought in his homily.  "We don't find God from being perfect," he said.  "We find God by being vulnerable."  Vulnerability.  Much of what our popular culture teaches us about life is how to keep ourselves from being vulnerable--how we can protect ourselves from every possible thing that might make us helpless physically, emotionally, spiritually, and financially. "How do we armor ourselves from being hurt?" is shouted to us almost from birth.

I wrote a book on transforming fear, yet I find myself imprisoned by fear of vulnerability.  Yesterday, I told me friend that until recent years I'd never made a decision, based on money.  Yet, I continued, facing retirement was few assets and a long life expectancy, I have been increasingly paralyzed from doing what I know is right in my heart for fear of financial vulnerability.

My heart has been seriously broken several times, and this month it will be 20 years that I have been grieving the end of my marriage.  I say I would really like to have someone else in my life.  But would I?  Would I be willing to be vulnerable to the potential pain, in exchange for the gifts that come with love? Even if I would allow myself to be so emotionally vulnerable, would I even know how?  I am not sure after so many years of guarding my heart that I would know how.

Over the last year, I've slowly been losing the short-range functionality of my right eye.  For all intents and purposes, it is now gone.  There is a surgery that could restore my vision. The success rate is 99%, but if the surgery is not successful, I will lose my vision in that eye.  I am skittish.  Really!? I've lost functionality. Could losing my sight in that eye be so much worse? And, of course, the surgeons are really frightened of being legally vulnerable if I lose my sight.  It is like we are pulling each other back in the face of all reason.

So, if we find God in vulnerability, I have more than enough opportunity to have a really first-rate encounter with the divine.  What is the problem here, Kay? 

Two days before I withdrew from the world to begin writing Leading from the Heart was my birthday.  I had a party with all my closest friends to wrap myself in their love as I went into a truly vulnerable spot--allowing God to use me to share a message with the world.  I didn't know if I'd be successful, or how it would work, but I had to try.  At that party, my niece gave me a birthday card that said, "If we are forced to leap off a cliff, either a bridge will appear or we will learn to fly." 

I think this may be how vulnerability works.  If I am willing to leap off the vulnerability cliff, either God will catch me or I will learn to fly.  Neither of those seems like such a bad option. As I stand at the precipice of vulnerability, I feel myself wrapped in the love of friends and angels cheering me and ready to meet God in the vulnerability. And, so I send Michael off on his own spiritual adventure, knowing that his parting gift to me has been my wings of vulnerability.

What Does It Mean to be a Friend?

Today I have been in intense exploration of the question, "What does it mean to be a friend?"  Although I say "today," because today it has been very focused, I believe that I've been playing with this question for almost a week.  Last Sunday I watched Brene Brown on OWN's Lifeclass.  She is a prominent researcher on "vulnerability" and "shame."  She said that in a lifetime, we should count ourselves lucky to have one or two friends with whom we can totally share who we are--to whom we can open our hearts, and they are willing to just empathize with us.  She calls it opening our "arena" to that person and letting them in to our vulnerability.

"Wow!" I thought.  One or two in a life time.  I must be very fortunate indeed with so many friends.  That is when the pondering began.  I have people I do things with. I have people I turn to for spirited discourse. I have people that I strategize with.  I have people I know I can depend on and who know they can depend on me.  But, do I truly have people in my life that I can totally open my heart to and with whom I can share my "shame"?  Do I have people who can just sit there and be with me and ride through it with me without trying to "fix" me or somehow move me around my vulnerability?  I am not sure that I do...and I have a really evolved group of friends, well populated from the "helping professions."

I am a staunch believer in when I am pointing my finger at others, I should notice three other fingers pointing back at me.  So I noticed.  Could I really sit with one of my "friends" and ride with them into their shame and vulnerability?  I'd like to think that I could, but the truth is that I am more likely to help them reframe, excuse, justify, strategize, or encourage than to just sit with them in their vulnerability. 

Have I unconsciously invited a group of people into my life that could function with me at a superficial level because that is my comfort zone?  They don't show their vulnerability, and I don't show my own, and we can safely avoid the discomfort of just being empathetic with each other.  That hurts.  But, what to do about it? Do I need new people?  I hope not. Can I change the fundamental nature of my relationship with the people in my lives?  I hope so, but wonder. 

I am tired of hiding behind a wall that I've built to keep others from knowing who I am in my heart, and I am terrified at coming from behind the wall.  But the wall is built of stuff I need to forgive myself and others for.  The wall is built of the past and keeps me from the present.  The wall is what keeps me from being fully who I am.  What I know in my heart is that if I can find the courage to come behind the wall, "my people" will be there for me.  The question for me is can I forgive, be in the present, and be fully who I am?  Now that is the question.