Manic Mondays can at times be actually manic, and today was more or less steady, non-stop action...I ran errands, emailed, and gym-timed it. In there somewhere, I had to get a few things updated on my green machine--it's getting old ya know! LOL. Hence, the day late posting of the 'weekend review'. Sometimes you have to be in the right mood to write about whatever, and by the time I got to that point in the day I ended up reading a book I started but never finished due to the California transition. I spent most of my weekend working somewhere and working on my Jeep, and really all I had energy left to do was read. It's a simple pleasure I need to enjoy more of when I can. That being said, I will present one important point that the author presents as the most critical aspect of human interactions, but first just a touch on the weather.
After a scorching week of hot temps with a few nights of cool air, the weather yesterday was pretty Fall like. Yes! Even this morning required my light running jacket and Nike pants. It's good, and it feels great! There are clouds in the sky. The are is cool, and the sun is shining. It'll warm up later for sure, but right now, it's perfect....almost. Lol.
I've been reading a book titled Daring Greatly: How the Courage to Be Vulnerable Transforms the way We Live, Love, Parent, and Lead by Brene Brown. I started this book back in February of last year when I was visiting with K.C. for Valentine's Day weekend. It was recommended to me by one of my friends that's a therapist. As I continue to read, one point the author made stood out to me, and it is the ability to be vulnerable and her definition of what that is. She defines it as 'uncertainty, risk, and emotional exposure.' She goes on to state the matter of love or loving someone. Waking up every day and loving someone who may or may not return that love, who's safety we can't keep, who may stay in our lives or may leave you in an instant, who may be loyal to the day they die or betray us in a moment notice--that's vulnerability. Love is uncertain. It's incredibly risky. And loving someone, leaves us emotionally exposed.
She further sharpens the point by stating, "To let ourselves sink into the joyful moments of our lives even though we know that they are fleeting, even though the world tells us not to be happy lest we invite disaster--that's an intense form of vulnerability." The danger we encounter is letting ourselves think that of feeling as a weakness. With the exception of anger (a secondary emotion, one that only serves as a socially acceptable mask for many of the more difficult underlying emotions we feel), we're losing our tolerance for emotion and hence vulnerability. Brown goes on to make the connection between the loss of the emotional part of our lives and the passion and purpose in life by engaging our own vulnerability and using it to understand the emotions we have as good things versus liabilities.
The book continues to give me new perspective on a host of human needs and relationship dynamics that I've thought about but never from that point of view. I'll interject some the further I get into the book. Now, like in times past, I understand why things happen between people we love just a little bit better so I can hopefully apply to whatever happens in that department in the future.
That's the weekend wrap up....See ya next Monday!!
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