Both my mother & sister figure in a lot of what I write. Naturally, they were so intrinsically connected to all levels of my evolution. Those two were my greatest instructors in what to do & to avoid; it feels like my clearest life lessons were learned through them. For which I bless them & thank my lucky stars that I was open to hear & hopefully to have learned.
Important know - my sister was eight years older, graduated from high school at the far end of "the '50s" & was in elementary school at some point at the same time of both her older sibs & her younger brother, in high school at the same time as our #2 brother. Which is to say she grew up in a very different time than I did, had a very different relationship with her sibs than mine.
Mim & I had very different styles. She stayed on the edges of the action, but knew how to participate, be part of a greater whole. I also tended to hold back, but am still challenged when it comes to integrating.
My great gift was the ability to see & not get emeshed in what I saw. My inclination, although I hadn't a clue for most of my life, was to treat even the most hurtful event or moment as information, to see the lesson tucked deep within.
It was that gift, part of my original operating instructions, that helped me see that Mim COULD not see the awesome gifts the rest of us saw were hers. That helped me realize that she self-bullied - Mim never needed anyone to tell her she was inadequate, subpar, the dregs of the universe because she was busy saying all that, and I am sure far worse, to herself. I could see that & not get emotionally twisted by what was in front of me.
Mom couldn't do that. Seeing Mim's plight, she kept thinking that if only she found a better way of talking to Mim, her "bip-ith" would see the gifted & graced self the rest of us saw. Here's the bitter irony - because she couldn't see the wounded Mim right in front of her, she straight-jacketed her older daughter into the image of what Mom could accept.
Reading Brene Brown, it's easy to guess that something happened to make Mim fiercely fearful of feeling vulnerable. Is it any wonder that she had tremendous issues when I came along, with my free & easy attitude toward the very thing that terrified her? Or that the family, as a whole, banded together in support ot Mim, who had to be protected at all costs. They never saw & I failed miserably at explaining that shutting down, making invulnerability the great defense, didoes just the opposite - leaving Mim unprotected, unsafe & smack in the middle of harm's way.
It's tempting to feel downcast over such am epic fail, but am instead heartfelt grateful that, at 64, I have the good fortune that Brene Brown is out there, writing her wonderful books & giving her terrific talks about shame & vulnerability, truth & courage.
Above all, I am grateful that whatever came at me in life, I never lost my core connection to the birthright gift of vulnerability, that no matter how unworthy I seemed to feel, some deep down part always believed in ME.
That's something that seems to be lost in too many of the older people I see, that I talk to, that matter to me. Too many seem to have lost their belief in themselves. They aren't who or what they were, so they are nothing, or at best a faint shadow of what was.
How to connect what Brene shares about vulnerability with oldsters elders & ancients?
I think about Mom. In spite of the challenges difficulties heartbreaks she experienced from her mid teens, ones she worked double-time to protect against, deep deep down there was always a kernel of that birthright gift. It's why she could connect - instantly - when she heard Stephen Covey say, "Between stimulus & response is a moment when you can choose your response."
Mom was ready, but she was also open to the possibility that MASSIVE change was possible in old age. How to click other olders onto that? How to keep them from boarding themselves up against the pitfalls of being vulnerable?
THAT daunting task is the gauntlet the Universe has thrown before me. How to move them from ho hum to AH HA! A task I eagerly pick up with delight, expectation & full confidence that wonders are ready to unfold before me.
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