Kristin here, I haven’t posted yet about hope. This post may have come from the first caffeinated latte’ I’ve drank in three years, but Brene’ Brown led me to hope today, so I felt I needed to share.  Thanks for letting me.

I am obsessed with TED talks.  (click here to learn more).  I have input as a strength and that doesn’t mean I like to interject with my opinions, that means I like to take in a lot of information.  TED feeds this cute little gremlin inside of me.

In the last year, for some reason, people like posting this talk on my wall and three separate people have said, “This reminds me of you.”

It’s Brene’ Brown. It’s her talk on vulnerability.  I show it to every class I teach and I watch it almost every month. I am flattered, but it also scares me a little bit.

Good news is she posted another talk this week.  Bad news, it reminded me of me – that might not be so bad because it forced me back into what I know I’m good at, pulling the sheet off of myself.  And I pulled out my notepad.  It is a talk about shame.  Not about the action of it, but what it feels like at our core.  What we are taught to value and do and not the empathy that we desperately need to function holistically.

I had a meltdown last week.  Like the kind Heather talked about.  I got into my Ph.D. program and I didn’t get a scholarship.  Did I feel entitled to one?  I’m not sure, but I felt it said something of my worth, of my ability, and I felt an overwhelming amount of another gremlin named Shame saying, “Maybe you shouldn’t go back to school.”

Unfortunately, this kind of second-guessing hasn’t come just from inside me. Brene’ has some hard words to hear – words like “women are harder on people than others.”  I have heard the most doubtful questions from women about my changes in my life.  I don’t know what to do with that.  I appreciate the life-giving questions even if they are tough, but I am not talking about those.  I’m talking about the critical eye, the working moms versus stay at home moms debate that I am scared shitless of entering into when we start trying to have kids. Let’s be honest, I’m already a front row spectator to this debate just as woman.

I’m also scared about other things: That my voice won’t be good enough to be an expert in something; that I won’t get a job; that money will be wasted; that people won’t invest in me: in what I have to say, in developing me, in helping me, in letting me help them.  I’m wondering if people are asking, “When will she fail?”

My mom’s words when I told her I got into my Ph.D. program after she told me she was proud and she loved me were, “You do everything right.”  And it scared me so much because I thought, Does she see me?  I don’t want to be told “you’re great” – I want to be seen.  But have I also “engineered a life that keeps me small – keeps me under the radar just enough to still be pretending I’m okay,” as Brene says.  Am I limiting my own God-given abilities because the cultural narrative says stop trying so you don’t fail? Only let others, including those who birthed me, see my good side?

Does one desire failure? Desire for others to know the truth? Especially when it isn’t perfect or successful? I’m not talking about Eeyore syndrome where you spill yourself all over everyone all the time.  I’m trying to find what is true. I watched my parents fail and never admit it.  I’ve watched friends fail and turn to addiction.  Most of all I’ve seen that in myself.  Perfection is my addiction, now more than ever.

In raw honesty – baby showers scare the bejesus out of me right now, because they play directly into my addiction to perfection.  All of the stuff and advice and I did it this way, I did it that way – the permission for everyone to give advice, for the men to absent, for the diapers versus clothe things, for the breast feeding, the discipline models, the nurseries on pinterest… it’s enough to already feel like I’ve done it wrong and we haven’t even started.

“You’ll figure it out…You’ll be a great mom,” Some friends say, and I appreciate that, but I need to know that people will be there when I can’t figure it out and when I’m not a great mom (and IF I am a mom). I want to tell my kids the truth.  I don’t want to be by myself with spectators to my life saying you do it right all the time. I feel this way about school, babies, farming, the workplace. That’s what leads to numbing emotion for me – the need to feel like I have to have it all together before I’ve even started.  Vulnerability is my only way out of this cycle.  Failure is my teacher and hopefully being honest about it will provide safe spaces for others who feel this way.   I know that’s the hope that I need. I don’t need pat answers or exclusive clubs, I need authenticity.

I had an honest conversation my 20 year old self this week and what I told her surprisingly is that she will learn more by failing than anything else.  I met with someone this morning who feels like she has failed; I talked to my girlfriend last week who thinks her work is a failure.  And I as I told my friend, I have to tell myself, you’re right – you did… but not in the way you think.  It’s death and rebirth – it’s failure that is learning.  Too often I was told to not fail, to not cry, to not be seen – and what did that do to my soul?  I have been starving for truth.

My shame has taught me to move on and power through instead of being exposed and honest. My biggest fear is that I will wake up in 10 years, be 40, and have missed it all because I was so worried about exposing myself and embracing the mess…still. So I must keep writing.

Brene’ talks about how we try to make ourselves bullet proof and perfect before entering the arena of life, but when we get there people want to know our vulnerable stories.  So true.   When I tell my students stories of my life, they stop texting.  And they are not success stories.  They are just real stories.

Thank you Brene’ for reminding me of that. Of pushing me once again to expose these voices in a public place because if all of this is for one person, then it’s worth it… I just might be that one person.    If I can’t deal with these voices, they will haunt me and I will miss the life I’ve been given because I was trying to be skinny and perfect and nice.

I wrote a book about perfectionism when I was 27 because I wanted a different model.  And I wanted to be seen.  I don’t think I have figured it all out, but if there is one thing I do know, there HAS to be another way.  Hopefully authenticity will lead us there.

So it would be nice to know – are you with me as we move into our true stories?