Loosing Sight of Joy

TEDxKC - Brené Brown - The Price of Invulnerability   (YouTube)

Brene Brown has a wonderful way of being able to Talk directly to your shame without having you want to crawl into a dark hole thinking you must be a terrible person. This segment of TedTalkxKC enabled Brown with the platform needed to discuss how unknowingly ...or knowingly... we numb ourselves to moments of potential joy due to possibilities of exposing ourselves to emotions of vulnerability. 


Why would I want to wait till that moment happens - that state of fear...when everything bad is happening to me and I can't do anything about it?
Isn't then already going to be too late? ...I'm consumed by fear and in a state of total weakness and everything around me seems unreachable and ...I fall apart.

Isn't it better to always be ready, ...anyways?
Why not just be ready - all the time.

...Because this [just staying ready] has you living in continuous fear of life.

"I don't want to ruin the moment by enjoying it cause as soon as I let me guards down, everything will fall apart...and I won't be ready."
" I can't not be ready. Are you crazy - everyone is depending on me to hold it all together. I don't have time to enjoy things... I'm just there to take care of things, to make sure they're all perfect."
"I enjoy moments... I just enjoy them after they're all done - cause then I know it went well. And I can reminisce on what happened."

Can you not spot the lacks in the above statements?
The lack of life;
the lack of living in the present moment (the now);
the lack of vulnerabilily; etc...

Brene presents a solution of choosing a gratitude-attitude.

Yes, life won't always be perfect - but living the ordinary is extraordinary!
Be grateful in the moment, every moment - because this is your moment, this is your life.

...don't waste time fearing what won't happen and then regretting that lost time.

Live the now and fill your your spirit with love, joy, happiness, and peace -
let go of the fear, guilt, anxieties and worries.

And then -if-, and ONLY if, something was to happen negatively...
...you'll be better prepared to deal with it.
 Because now you're able to retrieve [pull] from your spirit all the good energies gained while you are living in the moment - which is continuously providing you with the strength and courage to pull through anything and everything.

"Believe in yourself and there will come a day when others will have no choice but to believe with you." Oscar Wilde

THE COLD WITHIN

The following poem by an unknown source tells the sad take of what happens when people pre-judge one another.

Six humans trapped by happenstance, in bleak and bitter cold,
Each one possessed a stick of wood, or so the story's told.

Their dying fire in need of logs, the first man held his back,
For of the faces 'round the fire, he noticed one was black.

The next man looking 'cross the way saw one not of his chirch,
And couldn't bring himself to give the fire his stick of birch.

The third one sat in tattered clothes, he gave his coat a hitch,
Why should his log be put to use to warm the idle rich?

The rich man just sat back and thought of the wealth he had in store,
And how to keep what he had earned from the lazy, shiftless poor.

The black man's face bespoke revenge as the fire passed from sight,
For all he saw in his stick of wood was a chance to spite the white.

The last man of this forlorn group did naught except for gain,
Giving only to those who gave was how he played the game.

Their logs held tight in death's still hand was proof of human sin, 
They didn't die from the cold without - they died from the cold within.

AUTHOBIOGRAPHY IN FIVE SHORT CHAPTERS

FROM There's a Hole in My Sidewalk

by Portia Nelson

I

I walk down the street.

There is a deep hole in the sidewalk.

I fall in.

I am lost ...I am helpless.

It isn't my fault.

It takes forever to find a way out.

II 

I walk down the same street.
There is a deep hole in the sidewalk.

I pretend I don't see it.

I fall in again.

I can't believe I am in the same place.

But, it isn't my fault.

It still takes a long time to get out.

III 

I walk down the same street.

There is a deep hole in the sidewalk.

I see it is there.

I still fall in. It's a habit.

My eyes are open.

I know where I am.

It  is my fault. I get out immediately.

IV

I walk down the same street.

There is a deep hole in the sidewalk.

I walk around it.

V

I walk down another street.