{"id":1055,"date":"2015-03-11T22:18:36","date_gmt":"2015-03-12T02:18:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/lunarivervoices.com\/staging\/?p=1055"},"modified":"2020-02-21T21:07:18","modified_gmt":"2020-02-22T02:07:18","slug":"lets-get-shamelessly-vulnerable-part-vi-the-view-from-our-knees","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lunarivervoices.com\/staging\/life-love-family\/lets-get-shamelessly-vulnerable-part-vi-the-view-from-our-knees\/","title":{"rendered":"Let\u2019s Get Shamelessly Vulnerable Part VI: The View From Our Knees"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Welcome to Part VI, the final in this blog series based on Bren\u00e9 Brown\u2019s<\/a> studies of vulnerability, courage, worthiness, and shame. You may also want to listen to an interview Ms. Brown gave with Krista Tippet<\/a>.<\/p>\n

To recap, \u201cvulnerability is the core, the heart, the center of meaningful human experience,\u201d Brown tells us. It is not weakness; it is courage well disguised. We fear vulnerability in part because we avoid the potential for being shamed. Shame questions our self-worth. Shame asks us Who do you think you are?<\/em> and tells us You<\/em>\u2019<\/em>re not good enough<\/em>. And if that isn\u2019t enough fun, Brown says we also base our self-worth on what we produce. We are a nation that values doing over being.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou\u2019re a talented writer, but no one wants to read a personal-spiritual journey memoir by an unknown person. If you were Paris Hilton, I could sell it.\u201d Thus spake a literary agent after I pitched to her my story about living in a Sufi community in Scotland. A year later, Elizabeth Gilbert published a book called Eat, Pray, Love<\/em>. You may have heard of it; it\u2019s a personal-spiritual journey memoir written by, at the time, someone largely unknown. On the best-seller list for years, the book made Gilbert millions. Nine years after the agent\u2019s stinging comment to me\u2014and 15 years after the experience itself\u2014I\u2019m still wondering how best to share my memoir with the public.<\/p>\n

In Part I of this blog series I mentioned that Brown\u2019s work helped me understand the root of my predicament as a creative writer: I haven\u2019t been vulnerable enough. Novels, short stories, screenplays, and essays all in various stages of incompletion stuff my filing cabinets, unread by anyone but me. Polishing them for publication would require an act of courage\u2014an act of vulnerability. It would also expose me to public criticism, possibly shame. So you think you<\/em>\u2019<\/em>re a good writer, huh? <\/em>says the little voice inside. Wait<\/em>\u2019<\/em>ll the public gets a hold of this and tears you apart!<\/em><\/p>\n

According to Brown, creativity\u2019s shame trigger is comparison\u2014the number one killer of creativity. Add to that our penchant for linking self-worth to productivity, it\u2019s no wonder some artists suffer from alcoholism, drug abuse, depression, or simply stop creating their art.<\/p>\n

In Part III, I posed Bren\u00e9 Brown\u2019s query about whether our capacity for putting our whole heart into life can never be greater than our willingness to be broken-hearted. That is, do we show up only to the extent we can be certain the outcome won\u2019t harm us, won\u2019t shame us? Her question opened my eyes to my own creative writing. Fear of criticism has prevented me from publishing. Comparing myself with others has stunted my creative chops. Defining success as getting rich from my art has kept me from creating much at all. Yet, I\u2019m a writer in my soul, which is why it\u2019s myself, not others, whom I cannot afford to fail.<\/p>\n

For a long time the popularity of Eat, Pray, Love <\/em>pissed me off, as did the literary agent who praised my writing but had no faith the topic could sell. To be fair, no one could have predicted such a book would sell. Though it helped to have a publisher who believed in her, Gilbert\u2019s success stemmed from her foray into vulnerability, and what a job she did writing about extremely personal things. For some, it was TMI, and she was harshly criticized for writing vapid prose. She probably cried all the way to the bank.<\/p>\n

I can blame literary agents or let the success, or failure, of other writers keep me from my own writing, but the real reason I haven\u2019t pursued my creative writing more enthusiastically is fear of putting myself out there. The potential to be publicly criticized brings me to my knees. As far as memoir writing goes, Gilbert had what I lacked: the courage to be vulnerable in the rabbit hole of criticism and shame. That is what is truly enviable, not her millions.<\/p>\n

Lessons learned: (1) Write what\u2019s in your heart for your own sake; (2) Don\u2019t let others keep you from creating your art, especially those who have to gamble on your monetary success for their own bread and butter.<\/p>\n

What brings you<\/em> to your<\/em> knees? Go there, be afraid, lose your way, admit you don\u2019t know the answers. Focus on effort, which you can<\/em> control, not on outcome, which you can<\/em>\u2019<\/em>t<\/em> control. People will take advantage, hurt us. We\u2019ll be embarrassed, humiliated, and sometimes lose. Our hopes will be dashed. We might feel crushing failure. By letting vulnerability inform our experience, we can begin developing our capacity for broken-heartedness. It will sting but it won\u2019t kill us\u2014and it might even save our lives from disappointment and what-might-have-beens.<\/p>\n

Live as if you were truly worthy; love as if a broken heart could save your soul; act as if shame is not an option. By \u201cdaring greatly,\u201d we invite possibilities we never knew existed, find passions that bring us to life; discover strengths we thought reserved only for superheroes. What are we waiting for? Let\u2019s get shamelessly vulnerable together and discover what kind of trouble we can make for those who dare ask us who we think we are or tell us we\u2019re not good enough\u2014including our own little voice inside.<\/p>\n

Who do we think we are? Creatives, everyone, with gifts to share with the world and for which humanity would be diminished if we didn\u2019t. Are we good enough? We\u2019re here, aren\u2019t we?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Welcome to Part VI, the final in this blog series based on Bren\u00e9 Brown\u2019s studies of vulnerability, courage, worthiness, and shame. You may also want to listen to an interview Ms. Brown gave with Krista Tippet. To recap, \u201cvulnerability is …<\/span> Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_price":"","_stock":"","_tribe_ticket_header":"","_tribe_default_ticket_provider":"","_tribe_ticket_capacity":"0","_ticket_start_date":"","_ticket_end_date":"","_tribe_ticket_show_description":"","_tribe_ticket_show_not_going":false,"_tribe_ticket_use_global_stock":"","_tribe_ticket_global_stock_level":"","_global_stock_mode":"","_global_stock_cap":"","_tribe_rsvp_for_event":"","_tribe_ticket_going_count":"","_tribe_ticket_not_going_count":"","_tribe_tickets_list":"[]","_tribe_ticket_has_attendee_info_fields":false,"_EventAllDay":false,"_EventTimezone":"","_EventStartDate":"","_EventEndDate":"","_EventStartDateUTC":"","_EventEndDateUTC":"","_EventShowMap":false,"_EventShowMapLink":false,"_EventURL":"","_EventCost":"","_EventCostDescription":"","_EventCurrencySymbol":"","_EventCurrencyCode":"","_EventCurrencyPosition":"","_EventDateTimeSeparator":"","_EventTimeRangeSeparator":"","_EventOrganizerID":[],"_EventVenueID":[],"_OrganizerEmail":"","_OrganizerPhone":"","_OrganizerWebsite":"","_VenueAddress":"","_VenueCity":"","_VenueCountry":"","_VenueProvince":"","_VenueState":"","_VenueZip":"","_VenuePhone":"","_VenueURL":"","_VenueStateProvince":"","_VenueLat":"","_VenueLng":"","_VenueShowMap":false,"_VenueShowMapLink":false,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[55],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1055","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-life-love-family"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lunarivervoices.com\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1055","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lunarivervoices.com\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lunarivervoices.com\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lunarivervoices.com\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lunarivervoices.com\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1055"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/lunarivervoices.com\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1055\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1056,"href":"https:\/\/lunarivervoices.com\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1055\/revisions\/1056"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lunarivervoices.com\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1055"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lunarivervoices.com\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1055"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lunarivervoices.com\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1055"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}