{"id":296,"date":"2025-04-30T16:08:20","date_gmt":"2025-04-30T22:08:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/jewlee.com\/?p=296"},"modified":"2025-07-25T21:50:53","modified_gmt":"2025-07-26T03:50:53","slug":"the-power-of-vulnerability","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/jewlee.com\/?p=296","title":{"rendered":"The Power of Vulnerability"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"has-small-font-size wp-block-paragraph\">Originally published on September 23, 2012.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">There are realizations (many, MANY), realizations that I have made \u2013 years ago as well as moments ago that may or may not stick to the forefront of my mind in the years to come.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Realizing that vulnerability and tenderness are important, and surrendering into those emotions are progressive, but:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u00b7&nbsp; I am FAR too willful (i.e., stubborn and\/or obnoxious) to surrender to much of anything, except perhaps Rocky Road ice cream and white wine for dinner (on occasion, of course).<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u00b7&nbsp; My best-est of friends are just as willful\/stubborn at The Game of Life as I am, so Game Night is completely pointless (since we all just stare at the die, refusing to even pick it up to determine who must make the first move.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Surrendering is a foreign word in my vocabulary, so I&nbsp;<em>hardly<\/em>&nbsp;think I should be expected to know the dance moves. Except, I obviously am&nbsp;<strong>not alone<\/strong>&nbsp;in this struggle (i.e., waving the white flag to vulnerability). So, rather than surrender, I just&nbsp;<strong><em>numb the shit out of that bitch<\/em><\/strong>.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Only, by doing that (using whatever means or method I so desire),&nbsp;<em>I numb all of my other emotions too<\/em>&nbsp;(including the ones I want to be roommates with so we can braid each other\u2019s hair and stay up late watching awful movies like Clueless and Beaches). Therefore, I am exceptionally brilliant at numbing vulnerability. Only, in doing so, I numb joy and hopefulness and gratitude. And most importantly, I numb my&nbsp;<em>authentic self<\/em>. Then, that makes me feel the \u201cick\u201d of vulnerability all over again, so I numb (again), and the cycle continues.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">But I feel it\u2019s important to point out that \u201cnumbing\u201d does not always equal addiction. Sometimes, numbing only means (personally) a little scratch here and there, because I am extraordinarily marvelous at making the uncertain, certain.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">I\u2019m not sure how to fix this. Yet.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">But what I do know is this: <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">I&nbsp;<strong>must<\/strong>&nbsp;let myself live with my <strong>WHOLE heart<\/strong>. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-text-align-left wp-block-paragraph\">I <strong>must<\/strong>&nbsp;live my life knowing that there are&nbsp;<strong>NO<\/strong>&nbsp;guarantees.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-text-align-left wp-block-paragraph\">I <strong>must<\/strong>&nbsp;practice joy and hopefulness and gratitude and, ultimately&nbsp;<em>vulnerability<\/em>&nbsp;in order to arrive at the belief that I&nbsp;<strong>AM<\/strong>&nbsp;enough.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">That\u2019s all I have (for tonight). <br><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">If you are interested in what sparked this entry or would like to hear a story from the scientific researcher\/story-teller (i.e., Magic Pixie) who made this entry possible, spend the next 20 minutes or so of your life watching and\/or listening to&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.ted.com\/talks\/brene_brown_the_power_of_vulnerability\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">this<\/a>. It just might change your life.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Originally published on September 23, 2012. There are realizations (many, MANY), realizations that I have made \u2013 years ago as well as moments ago that may or may not stick to the forefront of my mind in the years to come. Realizing that vulnerability and tenderness are important, and surrendering into those emotions are progressive, [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-296","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-isnt-that-interesting"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jewlee.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/296","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/jewlee.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/jewlee.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jewlee.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jewlee.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=296"}],"version-history":[{"count":15,"href":"https:\/\/jewlee.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/296\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":312,"href":"https:\/\/jewlee.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/296\/revisions\/312"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jewlee.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=296"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jewlee.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=296"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jewlee.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=296"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}