Vulnerability

Brené Brown is a world leading expert - if not the expert - on vulnerability.

But when she learned what vulnerability, she had a breakdown. (Her therapist calls it a spiritual awakening, but she insists it was a breakdown). She considered it a betrayal of everything she had held normal.

What she found: vulnerability is not comfortable. Nor is it excruciating (when you're struggling to embrace vulnerability, and feeling the shame associated with it).

But those who know how to be vulnerable, acknowledge that it's necessary.

This is at the heart of being whole-hearted.

This is at the heart of learning compassion - and treating yourself with care first, before others.

When I practice being vulnerable - and it has to be a practice - it feels like exercising a muscle. It feels sore when overused. It can feel unsafe. It flies in the face of what my physical body think is comfortable.

But then, at some point along the line, there was a point where my body started to tell me the truth.

What the real extent of my comfort zone is.

What makes vulnerability necessary.