This afternoon I have one major thing I need to do - outline my message for tomorrow. So instead I have listened to several of Brené Brown's talks on vulnerability rather than write my own. The perfect way to spend an afternoon of procrastination, if I do say so myself. She said so many good things in these talks. Something she said really stood out to me; we are losing our tolerance of vulnerability in our society. As she dove into this idea, I realized how truly scary that is. Low tolerance of vulnerability leads to perfectionism, foreboding joy, disappointment as a lifestyle, extremism, disconnection, and numbing. Oof. Let's take these one at a time.
Perfectionism
I know some people would say that perfectionism is a good thing. I can hear you now, "isn't striving for excellence and doing our best a good thing?" Yes! But that is not what perfectionism is. Rather, it is the idea that if we can control every single aspect of life and make it all perfect, nothing can go wrong. This is impossible. Rather, perfectionism leads to burnout, mental health challenges, disordered eating, and isolation. We think that if we can just achieve perfection, or at the very least the illusion of perfection, then everything will be okay. Instead, what happens is that eventually the illusion crumbles and we come crashing down off the pedestal that we and others created for us. And let me tell you, that fall becomes really painful really fast.
Foreboding Joy
This is a term that Brené Brown coined, and I know we have all experienced it at some point in our lives. It is that feeling when everything is going well, so well, that we are waiting for the other shoe to drop. It is playing with your child on the playground, the spring day perfect, sun shining, your kiddo is happy and running around, you are laughing and taking pictures... and suddenly your brain thinks "I'm too happy, we are going to die in a car crash on our way home." Or maybe, "there is a kidnapper here who is going to swipe my kid and I will never see them again," or even "my spouse is probably getting terrible news from the doctor right now." It the defense mechanism our mind has against feeling too much joy, or rather the fear of losing the joy that we are feeling, by going ahead and preparing ourselves for the worst. This is a natural reaction, and the remedy is two-fold, gratitude and present moment mindfulness. Gratitude allows us to be aware of the joy that we are feeling and all of the reasons that we are feeling it, and mindfulness supports us in experiencing all that life has to offer right now without worrying about the ifs ands and buts of the future.
Disappointment as a Lifestyle
This one is rough. I felt a little gut punch when Brené described disappointment as a lifestyle. This is assuming that whatever we are looking forward to probably won't happen, or won't be as good as we expect, so we opt out and pre-disappoint ourselves, deciding that not looking forward to it and not doing it is better than the possibility of looking forward to it and it not happening. I see this one a lot in teenagers. The cool and aloof teen who "has no interest" in going to the party because it's going to be a waste of time anyways, but really deep down they are worried that they won't receive an invite. So they make out like they wouldn't go even if they were invited and make plans to play vide games on Friday night to avoid the potential disappointment and embarrassment of not getting the invite in the first place. I have noticed that I do this a lot more than I expected, especially with people or situations that have let me down before. You can't let me down if I've already dug a hole and gotten into it!
Extremism
This one is the one that I think is doing the most visible damage in our country right, especially in the areas of religion and politics. Because the future is uncertain, people latch onto their beliefs as the only right way, and then make everyone else wrong. When they are confronted with anything that differs from their beliefs, they double down and become even more extreme in the way that they express and fight for their beliefs, often harming others and themselves in their quest to be right at all costs. It is hard to have faith. To know that there are things we just can't know and control, and extremism is a way to combat that discomfort.
Disconnection
Brené described this a "low grade disconnection." We aren't fully disconnected but we also aren't fully connected. And much like a low grade fever, it's pretty miserable. I think about only ever making acquaintances, having lots of people to do things with, but never allowing anyone in deep enough to make meaningful friendships. Often we don't realize we are doing this until something hard happens and we realize that we don't have anyone that we can turn to for help and support. We keep everyone at arms length and think that by never truly opening our heart to love, we can't get hurt. But that low level of loneliness is far more painful than the potential of getting hurt.
Numbing
This is the biggie. The universal vulnerability avoidance technique. We numb ourselves to all feelings. This can be done in a million ways, big and small, socially acceptable and not. This includes everything from binge eating, eating restriction, drug use, drinking, watching tv, oversleeping, insomnia, partying, isolating, playing video games, scrolling social media, over exercising, staying busy.... I could go on with this list forever. Pretty much anything can be used as a tool for numbing, and pretty much anything that can be used as a tool for numbing is fine in moderation. Having an occasional drink with friends is great, going out every night and getting blackout drunk is problematic. Eating food that is nutritious for your body is wonderful, restricting calories to the point of starvation is problematic. Having a weekend binge of your favorite Netflix show is fun, watching so much TV that you forget what day it is is problematic. You get the point. We all numb sometimes, and numbing isn't inherently bad. It is when we numb constantly or use it as a way to avoid life that it gets to be a problem.
So what happens when we have an entire society that is losing its tolerance to vulnerability? Well, I think it is exactly the world we have now. Anyone can look around and see the effects of these coping mechanisms playing out in all arenas of society, from individual burnout to countries at war and everything in between. This is why it is so important for us as individuals to truly step into the practice of vulnerability. By doing so as often as we can we are creating safe spaces for others to practice vulnerability with us, and pretty soon we will have exponentially expanding pockets of authenticity and vulnerability that have the ability to change the world.
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