Life Lessons...Lessons You Can Only Learn as You Go

So earlier this evening, as my boyfriend and I sat down to do homework, one of his assignments caught my attention (& distracted me from my own..oops!) The assignment was titled Letter of Self-Compassion (...or something of that nature) & started off by watching a Ted Talks segment. The womanwho was speaking, Brene' Brown, was a researcher in the area of social work & in short, the topic was about the power of vulnerability. She spoke about connection and the ability to feel connected is why we are here. The unfortunate reality that unravels and depletes connection is shame. Shame-this "I'm not *blank* enough"- this idea that you have to hide parts of who you are in order to feel connected. The reality is that in order to truly connect, you have to have the courage to be vulnerable and reveal who you are to others. That is when connection & deep connection really can blossom. The study showed that the difference between people who have a sense of love and belonging and those who didn't was simply this.. Those who had that sense of worthiness believed they deserved love and belonging. That's it. Anyway, his assignment (worth 100 points, btw) was to identify a struggle and then write a letter to himself (as himself from 5 years down the road) and offer words of encouragement as if speaking to a friend. I, being a lover of writing, happened to already have a journal and thought this would be an excellent prompt for myself and my own pursuit of personal growth. So I wrote. We played some awesome acoustic blends and we wrote. What I thought would be a paragraphed sized response, for me turned into a five page entry and an eye-opener for the greatest struggle I am currently dealing with in my own life. Beyond the daily humdrum of financial, academic, familial, and other "surface area" struggles (as I like to refer to them as) was my struggle. A most fundamental, yet insanely complex struggle. And that is of fear. Of what you are putting into the ground now to be harvested & yet fearing that the rains won't come and the sun won't shine, thus crippling yourself, and pushing you to squash out the foundations of what you've already put into motion. Long story short, the prompt, which for many, I can only assume, was a mundane act of busy work, for me opened my eyes and forced me to really examine how this fear was effecting my life in such a negative way. And me being me, just can't see something like that in myself and not do something about it.

More to come.