Good afternoon friends🙋♀️
It’s the afternoon and I usually write to you in the morning, but today things are different. It’s weird not writing in the morning, because I feel like that’s when my mind is the clearest, but never the less here I am at 12:45 writing.
I told you I’ve been reading Daring Greatly by Brene’ Brown and boy oh boy is it a life changer for me. This woman just got right inside my soul and pretty much explained my life. And yours to if your willing to admit it.
I don’t know about you, but I read a lot of books. Some of them are phenomenal and some them I have to quit reading after 2 chapters. But this book is not a book I can put down and I think I need to read it again at some point.
I never realized how disconnected I was from myself and those that I love. How many times a day I choice avoidance over connection. It’s as though we spend our entire lives avoiding the real us, trying to keep busy in order to stay away from true feelings. We don’t like to feel uncomfortable, we don’t want to be seen.
We are constantly avoiding each other by never taking the time to be present. If we’re always busy, then we’re never really here. If we’re always distracted by something then we’re never forced to feel anything.
We don’t like uncomfortable conversations. We are actually made to avoid pain, so if we think connecting is bad, then we’re going to avoid it.
So often we do this unconsciously and we don’t even know that we’re doing it. As I sat there reading parts of that book, I thought holy shit she’s talking to me. When we feel self righteous it means we’re afraid. Instead of saying, hey I’m afraid we act out our emotions so we can get rid of them.
When our kids come home from school and they storm upstairs sad or mad or whatever they are, we have 2 choices. The first one is to keep on reading our book and ignore them hoping that they will figure it out.
Or we could go up to their room and be real with them. We could let them know about a story from our childhood. We could help them understand that we were once their age, and we get how hard it is.
If you ignore them, this is your personal choice. But you have to realize that you are choosing to step away from uncomfortable, by playing it safe. You are choosing to disengage instead of using it as a moment to truly connect.
That’s the part about being vulnerable we don’t like. We allow shame to control to many of our choices because we don’t know any better. But as the old Dr. Phil saying goes, when you know better you do better.
Just to make sure we’re clear on turning away, or choosing connections here’s another example. Do you ever shut down, or we get really angry and storm out when you can’t handle the conflict anymore?
These are all defense mechanisms we use to keep us safe from vulnerability.
It’s hard to sit at the table and have a real discussion if you’ve not done it before. I don’t mean a manipulative, dysfunctional conversation. I don’t mean a one side shameful conversation, where you still not being truthful about what’s going on in the inside.
I also don’t mean talking about other people either. I mean that your talking about your stuff, your feelings, your hurts, your weaknesses, your pains.
It’s hard because we’ve never been taught the importance of connection.
It’s also hard because we don’t understand we’ve been wearing a mask since we were children.
It’s never going to be easy to be seen, to be real, to be you, but it’s always going to be worth it. I understand that by showing up, I’m going to grow on the inside. I know that uncomfortable is scary, but you need to do uncomfortable it won’t kill you! Even if it feels like your being suffocated.
God gave you your spouse and your kids and your friends and your relationships for a reason. They are gifts that he handpicked for you.
May you Dare Greatly to show up and take off the mask day after day after day💜
I know I intend to do exactly that
TAYTAYSFRESHFACES 