According to Brene Brown, feeling vulnerable, imperfect, and afraid is human. However, when we lose our capacity to hold space for these struggles, we become dangerous. This is what is happening in our culture and in our political life. We have no space, to be honest about things, to be vulnerable, to be imperfect and afraid together and it's become dangerous. Now, at the micro-level as individuals, we're not our best selves due to fear and collectively, we are certainly not our best selves and we're in fear. Brene feels that humans have grown weary of that and many of us are now sick of being afraid. Moreover, there's a growing silent majority of people who are thinking at a very basic human level that “I don't want to spend my days like this, I don't want to spend every ounce of energy I have ducking and weeping.”
Brene believes that we won't move forward without some honest conversations about who we are when we are in fear and what we're capable of doing to each other when we're afraid. Vulnerability is a part of our gift to the world and it enables us to connect and be compassionate. It points to one of the deepest paradoxes about Vulnerability, which is, when we meet people, vulnerability is the very first thing we try to find in them and it's the very last thing we want to show them in us. Vulnerability is the glue that holds connection together and it's all about our common humanity. When we own our stories and we share our stories with one another and we see ourselves reflected back in the stories of people in our lives, we know we're not alone. This is the core of wholeheartedness and is the center of spirituality and that's the nature of connection to be able to see ourselves and hear ourselves and learn more about ourselves in the stories people tell about their experiences.
