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Saturday, June 11, 2016

Vulnerability for the Single Man or Woman

I recently watched an incredible Ted Talks video about vulnerability from a social researcher that truly made an impact on me. Any socially relevant information I take in,I always try to apply to myself and evaluate it from a single person's vantage point.  Her name is Brene Brown and she is a social researcher.  A very thought provoking talk that caused me to ponder how vulnerability affects single people, but after much thought, I believe it doesn't matter whether you have a significant or not.

As young women, we entered into our first relationships with all the hope, faith and innocence young girls often possess.  Hoping that we would find mates who would be great providers, husbands and fathers.  Dreaming of years of hard work, raising loving families, celebrating milestones and transitioning together into golden years of fond memories of love and mutual respect.

This simply didn't happen for me.  It didn't happen for the large majority of us.  Even for my friends and acquaintances who are still married decades later to the same spouse, staying together was a struggle and the reality of life and work and children often brought them to one crisis after another crisis, another adjustment and a lifetime of choices and compromises.

Those of us who simply could not weather the storm and ended our marriages for one reason or another, mourned the loss of our innocence, our hope and faith and set about rebuilding our lives as single women.  Though we all defined what that life would be differently, we all as a self defense mechanism start to build these walls and insulate ourselves against being hurt again.  We enter into a type of survival state where our fight or flight instincts are on high alert.

Those who stayed married, they built up walls too as life became challenging, but I believe that single women are artful and skilled at reducing and numbing their vulnerability.  I believe single men do this to a higher degree as well than their married counterparts.

But what spoke to me the most that Brene Brown had researched and studied was that when you are focused on numbing and reducing your vulnerability, you are in turn, numbing and reducing your ability to feel and experience joy and pleasure.  That being vulnerable is essential to experiencing joy and happiness.

Wow.  Im going to give this some additional thought.

I highly recommend watching this!

https://youtu.be/iCvmsMzlF7o


















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