Vulnerability. What does it mean? I love Brene Brown's definition, "the willingness to be 'all in' even when you know it can mean failing and hurting" . She adds that this kind of vulnerability is a brave endeavour, to reveal ourselves when there is a potential cost. As a doctoral student, about to immerse myself into the world of research, I feel the pull towards wanting to hide, to shut away my voice, to save what it is I have to say until it is 'ready' and 'complete'. Surely I only need to be vulnerable at the end, when it's ready to be bound up as the final thesis and handed to the examiners? The temptation might be to 'sit tight' until we have the answers, to hold on to anything in formation until the finished product is ready to be placed on the table. Will it ever be ready or complete? On the day that happens though, that's the day that I stop learning.
I often talk with my clients about pushing into physical sensations, leaning into what the body is saying, tuning in to what lies beneath the noise, the chatter, the words. In terms of my own experience, what I often find when I do this exercise with myself is fear - fear of being 'found out', of not knowing as much as the next person, of wondering if what I say and do will come across as silly (yes, therapists think these things too!). Over time though, I have found that if I lean into the fear rather than try and push it away, I seem to also find an urge to trust. Given that fear and trust may be opposite sides of the same coin, it makes sense that they can be found within close proximity given a little bit of soul-searching. What this has meant for my own experience is that to give myself over to trust does not mean that I won't feel fear. Or to choose a brave path does not preclude me from also feeling anxiety. When I return to what Brene Brown says, this for me is what encompasses being "all in" - all of me, all of my emotions, all of my senses. Even when they are difficult, conflicting, shameful.
So, in the spirit of vulnerability, I am choosing to publish this - my first, and definitely imperfect, blog post. And to reveal what has been a long time in the making, a very much work-in-progress title for my doctoral project: "A constructed grounded theory exploration of how Christian therapists work clinically with those who have encountered spiritual abuse/trauma in a Christian context". This is very much *not* a finished product, in fact, I have barely begun. But I have a feeling that in sharing the process with others from the beginning, in its incomplete state, it'll be a less lonely journey when it gets hard.