It started with vulnerability
A really long post about a coming-of-age story for community.
This week, the final week, is dedicated to Working out Loud, receiving and offering acts of generosity and kindness. Here is my final reflection.
How much must we see ourselves in order to receive acts of generosity, words of kindness, gifts of appreciation?
In a session with my coach on baring inner feelings and being vulnerable, she surmised, that perhaps safety and being seen do not come together. When one is safe, they are not seen. When one isn’t playing it safe, they have the opportunity to be seen.
I want to believe that we are beginning to live in times where the masses take up arms and show strength by vulnerability, where relating to others demands nothing short of us being our unapologetic selves — where our one biggest commonality is the gift of our difference.
Yet in most workplaces, it is tricky showing up fully as yourself. It is akin to asking everyone in the team to walk around naked (only a joke), give up control of the impressions they make, be identifiable where they fall out of behavioral norms… and in the process jeopardize job ‘security’. In fact, it is a myth that we are even safe within families, friendships, marriages…. we are just not used to feeling safe with each other.
So we still have one foot stuck in a time where people are only strong when they perform, when they achieve, progress, overcome. In still far too many occasions, to show weakness is to lose out— unless the weakness has been fixed. We exist in the short-lived moments of winning every day, but on balance we risk losing our whole lives, our true complex selves.
The truth is, these past few weeks on PSM Intensive has had me squirming around in vulnerability. I have been trying to speak my truth, but I still felt weak from revealing complex feelings or unsettled thoughts. I felt like I was bringing weight into a shared space. If this was a traditional work set-up, I am that colleague — who suspects team unity with the questions, What was that look? What did they think about what I said? Are we on the same page?
Unexpectedly, even though my questions were never verbalised on the calls on team discussions, they were miraculously answered this week, by my fellow course participants.
Julie and Nick E. separately reached out to say, Yes May, your self-expression was received, your voice was heard, and it is appreciated. For the transparency of self I was braving, I experienced unexpected, generous feedback.
Because of their words of affirmation, I am learning that when I decided to bring my whole self into the room, I had not fully understood its value or purpose — for myself or for others. I did not trust, I did not bring kindness or generosity into my looking and listening, instead I stood at the door of the room feeling exposed, and that is when vulnerability was a liability, and not a potential or opportunity.
But people do reciprocate to vulnerability. People do hold mirrors to your higher self, you just don’t always see that. But when you do, it is a true gift. I was seen, more than I could see myself.
And with each experience of being seen in this old/new world, I feel more certain than ever that I can do it for others. Acts of generosity, words of kindness, gifts of appreciation — paying it forward.
The value of being your true self always, is to expand your ability to participate in this world. When one forgets who they are, they are not seen by others, for even they do not see themselves. But when one is seen, they are called to act — both to receive and to give. This is not The Truth, just how I experienced it.
Who will answer the call?
After 5 intense weeks of trying to wade into the waters of self management, having had very little prior understanding of it, I fear I am muddling things up. But if it is what I experienced, then I think self management is messy. It is hard work. It requires guts. It doesn’t let you sleep at night until you hear your own true voice. In a traditional working world, we only need to bear in our hearts, the voices of the power. The voices of reason. The voices of certainty. Not your voice.
But I want to belong to a world of questioning. A world of doubt and uncertainty. A world where we try and we fail.
I am in awe of the sense of this community. And I want to make up a story about it now. That the secret of this community, like any other great community, was that it started with someone being vulnerable. I meet this group of individuals because Someone bravely shared a vision of the world they were trying to build, and Someone Else hedged faith into this vision and supported its coming into being, and in that brave space, Others with the same longing for that world came. And will continue to come.
On top of loving everyone whom I joined on this 5-week journey, I would like to especially thank Susan Basterfield for being a tremendous force of spirit calling us with the singing bowl, and Lucia Die Gil with the audacity to return to organisations, different.
