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Thursday, April 21, 2011

Be Vulnerable

A friend recommended this amazing TED talk by Brene Brown. She shares her journey of learning the importance of vulnerability. The point is that we all crave connection but fear shame. Vulnerability is the path to both. We can't have the beauty of connection, joy, hope and community without the risk and experience of rejection, sorrow, loss and loneliness.

Brene describes this process from the perspective of where we need to be for personal happiness. We need to learn to embrace vulnerability, with the risk of pain, so that we can fully experience joy. I'll take it further: we need to learn to model vulnerability so that we can invite others to share the experience. And we need to create space that encourages vulnerability so that people can feel safe enough to take the risk.

How does your church prevent vulnerability? How could you encourage it? Model it?

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