I had this idea a while ago: what if I committed to a year of living in vulnerability? This is inspired by the work of Brene Brown, a brilliant mind in a field that she has come to define by scientifically examining how people process trauma and life experience, and how it defines their personality, actions, and lives. In my understanding of her work, which I have not studied in depth, allowing oneself to be vulnerable is the key to progress. If we are not vulnerable to being exposed to others, we are not really living. Healthy vulnerability is key to intimate, true relationships, relationships that will help us to grow. We must be truly present, as our true selves, to fully experience life and the human experience. Otherwise, we are merely existing.

As I dig deeper into myself, to try to bring my true self to actualisation, I return to this idea again and again. It takes bravery to show up, to be vulnerable, to feel exposed, to risk rejection. To achieve success, not in a capitalist fashion, but however we choose to define success, we must not even think of failure. Failure is only possible if we seek goals that are defined by the outside looking in. If we seek goals that are true to our hearts, humanistic, can we ever really fail? Or are we only destined to encounter setbacks that we can learn from, setbacks that will ultimately lead to the success that we ultimately seek?

Perhaps the word ‘success’ itself is the problem. The mere idea of a goal that is finite and attainable implies that there is an end to the road that we travel, an end to our path of life, a great garden of bliss and perfection that simply does not exist. Perhaps it is simply choosing a path that is our own, with both weeds and wildflowers along the way, muddy parts, washed out bridges, and beautiful vistas, too. Even the weeds have their purpose, and most often than not, they too can be used for medicine, if we only look deeper to discover the wisdom of our ancestors, to learn how they have been used over the centuries before us.

If I could commit to a year of living in vulnerability, how would my life change? Can I show up as my best self, vulnerable to the critics, naysayers, doubters, and non-believers? See there, how I automatically think about the negative. Today I revisited the idea of negative bias in the course that I am doing. Our brain has a natural tendency to remember the negative outcomes rather than the positive as this has served our primal needs for survival since forever. Our brain, and perhaps also our ego, remembers these lessons to keep us safe from harm, from pain, from predators. It is a survival mechanism. It also keeps us from changing, from evolving into better versions of ourselves. It says NO to us, to our dreams of bigger and better lives for ourselves, to the possibility of simple happiness, of lives lived telling ourselves the stories of our lives not with happy endings, but as tales of caution and protection. These are the fairy tales that we tell ourselves, with the big bad wolf and the old witch in the woods that eats the children who have strayed too far from home. These are the same stories that end with a happily ever after once the princess meets the prince that saves her from herself. These are not tales of lives long lived, lives that progress, change, develop, and grow until the end when souls are ready to leave this earth and start again, ascending into a new existence. Where are these tales? Perhaps they are ours to write.

What if I lived a year in vulnerability? How could I change my path, and the path of my family and children, if I were not afraid, not shackled to the earth by the tales I’ve told myself of lack and fear and failure? What if I started anew, today, to re-write the sorrows and difficulties of my life, to tell a different version of these thousands of days that I have lived. For I am here, now, living a day in the beautiful spring sunshine in the countryside, surrounded by flowers and leaves and wind. I am so fortunate to have this life, created by choice and by events in my past, both good and bad, and decisions I have made, and by the blessings of chance and by birth. The lessons I’ve learned have given me a rich encyclopaedia of experience from which to draw. It is time to stop only thinking of the negative, it is time to switch my perspective to the good things that I’ve gathered, and to recenter them in the story that I tell myself.

In a year of vulnerability I could change so much. I could feel the fear and do it anyway. But could the fear also be set aside? I do believe it can be, and I am learning how to do that as well. Commitment to me is the challenge, but I think that I can build up to being able to commit, as well, by taking small actions of commitment every day. This will move me towards feeling able to commit to bigger challenges. For now, I recognise that I am not quite there yet, but that I can be. Being in a place of possibility is wonderful, as before I did not feel this way, and this itself created a cycle of negative thoughts, implied failure, and inaction. Now, I begin to feel a little, quiet shift inside, a soft ‘I think I can’. One day I will be able to say about myself, ‘she thought she could, and so she did’.

For now I can at least imagine making the commitment of living a year in vulnerability, even though I am at my very core afraid of the changes that will bring. I can imagine being ok with having my world opened up to all the possibilities that I have imagined. For now, that is enough, as now I believe in that possibility. I think I can, I think I can, and so, when I am soon ready, I will.