I’ve been thinking a lot about vulnerability lately.
For those of you who don’t know me personally, as far as I’m concerned, that might be the dirtiest word in the English language.
However, I recently watched this amazing Ted Talk by Brene Brown and she has me convinced it’s the key to happiness.
I’ve been working on my own personal Happiness Project inspired by Gretchen Rubin and her best selling book.
If you missed that post – Shame on you! Just kidding 🙂 Check it out here.
While researching happiness, I discovered one of the biggest things happy people have in common is living authentically.
In other words, being vulnerable.
So in the name of happiness, I decided to perform two Acts of Authenticity.
The first was to tell a certain someone how I feel about them.
To be completely honest, I might have had a couple (a lot) in order to get the courage to open up.
I’d rather be locked in a room full of cats then talk about my feelings.
I’m extremely allergic to felines and in general not a fan.
While the conversation may not have immediately yielded the desired results, it opened a dialogue, and made me feel like a million bucks 🙂
My second Act of Authenticity was to go out and about bare-faced.
Now I frequently leave the house without make-up on but, not with the crutch of a baseball hat pulled down low or some over-sized sunglasses.
I didn’t go anywhere special, just some errands around town.
Nor did I run into anyone I knew, but it felt seriously liberating to simply brush my teeth, get dressed, and walk out the door.
Bare faced and beautiful 🙂
As someone who lives an overly scheduled, jam packed life, I also fully appreciated the efficiency.
In fact, if it wouldn’t give off warning bells that I’d given up on life, I’d go to the office sans make-up just to get an extra 15 minutes of sleep!
Despite being sick last week, I still felt like I was walking on sunshine, which I attribute directly to my two Acts of Authenticity.
So I’ll be looking for more ways to embrace vulnerability on my journey to Happiness. Stay tuned!
How about you guys?
Does the thought of being vulnerable make you break out in a cold sweat?
Do you feel you live an authentic life?
How so?
