vulnerability

i have had a great weekend and i've barely left my house.

friday night i went to the temple.  i didn't feel like going but i needed to go.  i felt restless, almost angry, unsatisfied, bored, unfulfilled, stagnant blocked, un-spiritual, cloudy.  i was going with yumi, the primary president and it ended up that leilani, our secretary and her aunt our relief society president, came too.

 yumi drove us all in her mini van.  i sat in the back with leilani and we chatted.  she noticed that my hair was different and i told her about my toilet paper roll experiment.  "so you can tell it's different?" i asked her. i thought it might end up looking the same or different only to me.  "yes." she said scanning it with her eyes, "it looks nice."  i told them how i did it.  yumi laughed about the toilet paper rolls.  i laughed too.  "you can only do it once because they get wet." i told them.

so we drove and chatted.  and made it to the temple in plenty of time.  i got ready quickly and sat in the chapel.  i opened a bible and began to read randomly in psalms.  i read for a while and then i thought of a scripture i wanted to read.  i knew it was in ezekiel but i couldn't find it.  just as i discovered it it was time to go in.

i struggled with sleepiness as usual. i've given up on that.  i think it's just part of my mortality.  i get sleepy when the lights go out and when i watch something i've seen over and over.  i feel it is enough that i just struggle with the sleepiness--that that is acceptable to God.  maybe one day i won't be sleepy.  maybe i always will be.  it doesn't really matter.

i saw something differently.  i understood something a little better.  that's the good thing.  the good thing is how i feel in the celestial room afterwards.  how i feel in my life after a session in the temple.  and i feel better.  i feel stronger.  i feel clearer.  i feel lighter.  that's the good thing.

we were in the last session of the night and we were cleaning the temple after.  i felt so giddy as i changed into my flattering white pants and white top with white no-slip socks.  i felt so happy.  i couldn't stop smiling from ear to ear at all the people i was cleaning with.  i was paired with melissa and we had to clean two bathrooms.  it was simple and over so fast.  it felt so special to be there cleaning God's house. i can't explain it.

on the way home i couldn't stop talking.  the words and the questions and the stories kept bubbling out of me like spring of water from the ground. i felt happy.  hours before i had been feeling miserable.

i spent all of saturday in my pjs on the couch.  mostly i was working to finish the ceremony part of eryn's wedding but i took a break to watch two episodes of expedition impossible.  i love the team no limits so much. they make the whole show.  so much heart.  i love all that heart. i'm totally in love with jeff.  i don't care about his looks, not that he looks bad, but i love love love the way he is.  i love the way he cares and leads. i love his spirit.  i love the way he's so positive and supportive of everyone.  he builds everyone up.  i love that.  i super love it.  it's what i loved about steve nash in the 2000 summer olympics.  if i ever meet a guy like that i'd swallow them whole with love.  i love that there are men like that out in the world.  love.  love it.

after seven thirty at night i felt burn out coming on so i put the computer down and went to the kitchen for some creative rejuvenation.  i made bethany's yummy salad.  mine wasn't quite as yummy as hers but it was pretty yummy.  seriously bethany's yummy salad is one of the best salads ever.  some salads are made by one or two extremely good ingredients--stars of the show, if you will.  yummy salad is a salad of all stars.

i posted kleowsky ceremony  just after midnight and then i started watching ted talks and i stayed up until quarter to 3.  i really have to stop doing that.  but anyways i found a talk by brene brown on vulnerability. if you want to watch it--here it is.

i thought about it as i got up to go the bathroom and then to bed.  i had lots of thoughts and an insight.  she talks about shame and connection.  how shame is about not feeling worthy of love and connection.  and then i understood something that had stumped me for some time.  i feel shame when someone i love, someone i'm vulnerable with and trust with the true me, when that person treats me badly in front of someone else.  i feel so ashamed when that happens. if someone who i love treats me badly it's almost like i'd rather hide it and not let anyone know that.  but i never understood why.  it doesn't make much sense.  the person treating me badly should feel bad, not me.  but last night i realized that i'm ashamed because i fear that the truth is that i'm unworthy of love and i'm ashamed for someone else to know that, to see that.  it's like i want people to think i'm lovable but somewhere inside me, i know it's not true and when someone treats me badly then my un-lovability is revealed.

crazy.  i know i'm worthy of love.  i know i'm lovable.  but i guess i don't know it on all levels and on all parts.  i might believe that there are parts of me that are not lovable.  brene says that the key to connecting to others is being vulnerable.  in having the courage to be seen.  she says "The root of the word courage is cor—the Latin word for heart. In one of its earliest forms, the word courage had a very different definition than it does today. Courage originally meant “To speak one’s mind by telling all one’s heart.” i got that from her blog which of course i then searched out.  it's full of good stuff.  the kind of stuff i eat up.  the kind of stuff that when i learn about it, think about it, have ideas about it, makes me feel alive.


i realize that i hide myself in so many different ways.  i tuck away the parts i think no one will love and i shove the lovable parts out into the spotlight.  i think during different times of my life i have been more courageous than others.  life sometimes sends me diving for cover.  embracing vulnerability was what my poem nude was all about. 



Nude  

i want to be a nudist--
a maple in winter weather
shake off lusty leaves
yellow-lime pools at my feet.
i want to reach bare arms to heavy slate skies
let biting rains drench
and wild winds bow and quiver
and be stark
until the snow.

i want to shed my skin
like mandrin peels
and sit plump
in God's palm.


i don't want people to see the shape of my stomach.  i don't want people to notice the hairs on my chin or the ugliness of my feet and the cracks on my heels. i don't want people to see me sleeping with my mouth open and snoring.  i don't anyone to see the messy way i wolf down a donair.  i want to hide the fact that i perpetually have dishes in the sink, some that are moldy.  and that i leave emptying the litter box until the last possible moment.  that i am sometimes lonely.  that i sometimes don't know what to do or what to say or how to act.  that i am sometimes needy for approval and praise because i worry about being good enough.


i want them to see the parts of me i like.  the colour of my eyes, the magical wilderness of my hair.  my lips and my fingers.  i want them to see my thoughts and my intelligence.  my cheerfulness and my independence.  my uniqueness.  my empathy.  my talents and skills.  my wit and my humour.  my art.  


but good and bad, both are me.  all is worthy of love.  all together, the total package--that's beautiful. i am beautiful because i am.  because i am God's child.  he created me.  he loves me.  all of me.  he has infinite tenderness and care for me just the way i am. and he has every confidence  in what i can become. i'd like to thank brene brown for reminding me of the power of vulnerability.  bringing it back into focus for me and allowing me to take a look at myself and where i am.  


and being vulnerable gives me power to create and to be more creative. brene interviewed an author named gretchen rubin and this is the part i especially liked from her answers:

 Is perfectionism an issue for you? If so, what’s one of your strategies for managing it?I remind myself, "Don't let the perfect be the enemy of the good." (Cribbed from Voltaire.) A twenty-minute walk that I do is better than the four-mile run that I don't do. The imperfect book that gets published is better than the perfect book that never leaves my computer. The dinner party of take-out Chinese food is better than the elegant dinner that I never host.

 such goodness.  so true. gretchen also said "the days are long but the years are short."  amen to that.  so my mind is so full of goodness and thoughts and ideas.  thoughts that if i don 't catch on to them and pin them down they may fly away.  i love that kind of fullness.  i'm so grateful.  such a good weekend.