Live Without Regret

 

Life experiences are the tiles in the mosaic that make up who we are as people.  We are all works of art in our own way, and have tiles that we are proud of, and some that make us not so proud.  The sum of the whole serves as a comprehensive picture of our past, and can help guide us through our future.  Therefore many people say that you should live without any regrets because you learn from the experiences that have brought you both joy and pain, and the decisions you’ve made that have led to positive and negative outcomes.  I loved this idea, and bought into it like an eager stock broker on a hot stock.  I believed it was the perfect answer to adopt for whenever someone asked me if I had any regrets.  I’d respond with an emphatic “No way!” followed by the prideful philosophic declaration of how my experiences have made me who I am. 

I felt so good about having that wonderful answer in my back pocket because I believed having a regret meant that you were somewhat ashamed of who you were, or that it was a rejection of a part of your personality.  But as I’ve matured I’ve begun to realize, it’s just looking at a situation and if you could do it over again you would do something differently.  It means that even through regret, you can still have taken away a valuable educational experience from that situation, and you can still feel apologetic for your words or for an action or lack of action.

With this new frame of reference I’ve come to believe that I share with many other people one specific regret in common.  The regrets are the times in my life and possibly in yours that we were not our true authentic self.  I’m not referencing lying, that’s not what that means.  I’m talking about the times where some specific thought was held in, words were not said, or there was a lack of vulnerability to someone you trust.  This can even extend to being too proud to give in, or to admit to being wrong when deep down you were cognizant of your erroneous stance on something.

I wrote about vulnerability before in my post ‘Be Vulnerable’ and it’s a subject matter that has really great odds of surfacing again because it is the root of where your authentic self lies.  You see we have this thing in our life and in our society where we need to save ‘face’.  Face saving is a sociological concept that I’ve studied through the lens of interpersonal communication during graduate school.  It’s where shame, and pride reside as we interact with others in society because we desire for others to perceive us in a positive way.  Therefore we will hide our vulnerability, to meet the expectations of others or even ourselves so that we are not perceived as too soft or so that our pride doesn’t take a hit, or to be strong for someone else.  But what about you, what about yourself.  Why hide something that is truly who you are, just to be liked and seen in good favor?

When you lose your vulnerability, you risk losing what matters to you the most, and pushing people away that you care about the most.  Is that really worth it?  Do you want to be separated from the things in your life that you cherish just so that you can save face?  This can happen in any situation and it’s something that you have to be cognizant of because if you’re not, you are putting yourself at risk of losing what’s important to you.

Don’t be afraid to put yourself out there, and live with no regrets.  Brenè Brown a leading researcher in vulnerability says that vulnerability is our ability to be honest and to be seen.  So be seen, and be yourself!  Share with others how you feel, tell that special someone what’s happening in your life so that they can understand, or explain to those who care that you’re in a difficult place.  Forget about what the right words are, use all that you have to use even if you use too many.  You’re not an ad agency, so your message doesn’t have to be perfect and you’re not paying by the ad space or the letter.  Don’t hold back your true self so that you can save face.  The minute you hold back anything is the minute that you now will probably have a regret in your life, which is that you weren’t your authentic self.

Be Vulnerable

I enjoy intellectually stimulating experiences, so I’m addicted to watching TED talks.  If you’re not familiar with them, TED stands for Technology, Entertainment, Design and it’s a conference that brings together some of the most brilliant minds to talk about a myriad of topics and the talks are posted online.  Almost a year ago I came across a TED talk by Brené Brown about vulnerability and instantaneously I was enthralled with her message.  It was so poignant that I watched the video again, and searched YouTube to find more of her talks.

Brené is a shame and vulnerability researcher and it was her second TED talk that I watched that really hit home.  (I posted it below if you’re interested)  I had my own share of life events going on when I watched her and that’s why it was revolutionary for me.  I recently revisited it and that’s what brought me to write this post.  Her talk helped shift my perspective on the way I approached things in my life and how I interacted with those I considered important in my life.  I shared it with close friends and even built a training session around it for the team I supervised in order to create a shift in the workplace culture.  Now I’m sharing it with you because I admire her work and her message.

We hinder our full potential to achieve great things and live happily if we continue to hide under a security blanket.  You’ve done this and I’ve done this.  We’ve played it safe in a meeting, or a classroom, or in friendships and relationships.  We succumb to the voice of shame that she talks about and ultimately as I’ve talked about in a previous post, a paralysis by analysis happens.  We get stuck by over thinking the problem, out of a fear of failure in trying to solve it. 

It takes courage to be vulnerable and let people see your true self, and who you can be.  Yes sometimes it will lead to heartache, or something that doesn’t feel so good.  But there is a great potential inside you, and for the security of playing it safe, you’ve put up a wall to hide behind.  This wall is preventing you from being your authentic self and that’s a horrible thing because you’re great and you have greatness to share with the world. 

We are constantly in personal construction zones building fortified walls believing that the more walls we put up the safer we will be.  Sure there is some part of this that serves as a coping mechanism to be safer in many situations, but we are then protecting ourselves from emotions, connections, and the opportunity to experience life in its full, vivid, robust entirety as it was meant to be.  Who doesn’t want to meet that new best friend that you can share a million laughs with, or meet the person of your dreams?  Or worse you could miss out on that exhilarating and memorable experience that you never would have had unless you made yourself vulnerable. 

I haven’t been perfect at this so let’s not think that I do it in every situation, but I’m a work in progress and I make an effort to be more vulnerable so you can too.  Trust me it feels awkward at first because we aren’t socialized to be this way, but I’ve found more genuine relationships have been built because of it, and I feel more at ease not worrying what people will think.  I convinced myself wouldn’t I rather be around people who want the real me, as opposed to some tailored version to make them happy?

Brené says that vulnerability is our ability to be honest and to be seen.  I truly believe that statement and believe that is who we want to surround ourselves with.  We want friends, spouses, significant others and coworkers to be real, to be authentic.  If we are not authentic in return we won’t be able to foster such relationships.  That’s why without vulnerability that cannot occur.  So be yourself and take the risk that Brené talks about.  I believe in you.

 

 

The link to her TED talk that I enjoyed so much:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=psN1DORYYV0