I was always quite inspired by the Brene Brown Ted Talk on Vulnerability. Check it out if you haven’t already. She speaks about this being our centre point of courage, creativity and innovation. It’s a lovely talk.

Vulnerability is an unusual word and I can’t help but feel when anyone hears it we think I don’t want to be vulnerable as we associate it with weakness. Brene Brown herself comments on this and takes the angle I agree with totally that it is about courage, creativity and innovation.

She writes and speaks in a very eloquent manner I can really connect with and often this pops up in my couples work with clients as we speak about their relationship and connecting showing that it is definitely not a weakness at all but in fact profound human courage.

A few days ago one of my Coaching teachers, Annie Lalla, made a video speaking on this and said about just having the word honesty rather than necessarily seeking to be vulnerable.

I hadn’t really thought of it this way before but although I totally agree with Brene Brown in the sacredness of this vulnerable sharing and that real connection point which is really beautiful I felt that the idea of just being ‘honest’ to be so much more immediately accessible and less scary while perhaps better reaching the same benefits.

When I work with clients in couples and individually a big part of the work can be the expressing of the unsaid. When we say these things in the counselling space, and to others we can be free and experience the connection of another (potentially at least).

A member of a couple will sometimes express in a session how much something did actually bother them and share that they would really love for more of x y z to take place. This is just honest. It’s being human and real. It’s an expression of the unsaid and thereby bringing about the possibility of something new.

The habit of just being honest inevitably brings about points such as the above whereas we are vulnerable as Brene Brown would say.

So I wanted to just give you this, then you can maybe reflect on your life currently, your relationship to yourself and to others and maybe you don’t need to think about if you’re being vulnerable enough or even worry about that necessarily but simply look to be honest. If you’re being as honest as you can then healthily relating to yourself and to others (and these beautiful vulnerable courageous creative moments) should be able to follow.

I see a shift in myself and in people around me to two opposites of either too much grind or too much sugar.

I say the grind here in terms of the grind of building a business, raising a family, building a relationship. These things that genuinely take huge chunks of hard work.

In terms of sugar I see as partly the stuff that’s just fun; the beer, the trips out, ,the falling in love phases.

I see people get so involved with the grind that they lose themselves. There’s a kind of fatigue and cynicism. I’ve been in this space at different points myself.

Then there’s the over sugar. Everyone likes a bit of chocolate but the problem here is when that’s all life is built on. Life can’t be just built on sugar. The idea you can be a millionnaire over night without any work or a relationship would never have any issues. I’ve done this too.

The recognition that great things take time. The idea of building systems and structure is hugely important. Words like discipline and the principle of delayed gratification are important here and often come up in religious types of teachings too.

In ‘The road less travelled’ by Scott Peck he starts out by the statement ‘Life is difficult’. He goes into this and says how once we accept that we immediately transcend it. A lot of our culture seems based on sugar. The idea that life should just somehow be easy and if its not then theres something wrong with us or there’s just something wrong. The idea of really showing up and building something seems to fall away sometimes.

I’ve been working with my personal coach recently on ‘the grind’ as we called it and this being healthily mixed with sugar (because hey we all like a bit 🙂 ). It’s a great thing to work with. This idea of acknowledging stuff is hard (as it should be) and feeling the sense of commitment and at the same time taking the time to celebrate and to reward yourself and recognise the journey you’ve been on and where you’re heading.

So I want to ask how you’re acknowledging your journey. Are you in the grind and able to manage the grind with the bit of sugar?

My very hard working week has been good and successful and my sugar is going to involve a trip to the cinema I’m excited about. How about you ?

I just got inspired to write this after just seeing a video about changing your physiology to alter your state and seeing someone dancing around while cleaning.

Now don’t get me wrong, there is a truth in that for sure. In fact I practice it with clients and in myself when doing more coaching style work. It’s a great way to take control and manage ourselves.

For whatever reason though seeing that today just made me think of what I’m learning about the potential dark side of the industry we call personal development. I’ve only become aware of this more in the last few years how it can (maybe totally non intentionally) give the idea that if you can’t just take control like this then there is something wrong with you.

In my view whatever you may do to get into a more peak state to achieve more the fact still remains there will be a level of your own archeology and the fact you may just be ‘going through something’ and it’s this going through something which needs the attention.

In my work as a Counsellor and Coach I often speak openly about what I see as a potential dark side of both (while both obviously having great benefits). On a coaching level I see that things come back to a regaining of control and a forward movement. If Coaching is taken from the way it was taught to me it’s not really an issue since by it’s nature it is based on an assumption you are already in a good space and are just seeking to move, therefore if you’re not then some kind of referral e.g. to a Counsellor is needed.

In the personal development world though and in certain examples I’ve seen live it’s taken to be the extreme of everything just being about a certain belief and about the regaining of control and this is where I believe it can be a problem.

Swiss Psychiatrist Carl Jung coined the term ‘the dark night of the soul’ and my understanding here is there are things you just need to feel and go through to be able to ultimately transform and move to a new level. The idea of owning your state and regaining control are great still but if there is an experience taking place which needs to be honoured it’s wrong in my view to deny it.

The Counselling dark side can go to the other extreme of a recycling of emotions and therefore non intentionally reinforcing a certain more disempowered state.

So I guess we come to some conclusion of whatever is occuring for an individual right now is happening so there’s always going to be a needed level of being with that. By starting from this point we can explore the archeology of the individual in terms of what’s occurring and what the story is and from that place explore and strategise as to what the best way forward is.

I was once in a group titled ‘It’s okay to be human’. I think this is a good philosophy to work with along with ‘whatever is occurring right now is okay’.

I’ve had a pillar of my work for some time now in helping people with relationships which have become destructive.

I know from my own personal experience in the past and also in my work with clients that often we get wrapped up in wondering if the other person is a diagnosable narcissist then we get wrapped up looking for evidence and researching deeper and deeper.

I’m not saying some level of practical knowledge is not useful but I think that ultimately the reality to focus on which I find most helpful is to take back to your own emotional reality.

Your emotional reality always gives your truth and by honouring this you can put yourself first rather than the relationship and then decide what you’d like to do.

Obviously working with a Counsellor can be in itself a self connection practice where people often report the experience of being validated helps them to just know they are not crazy but have their own sense of truth and an experience which is real which everyone is entitled to have.

Personal practices to build this experience can be activities like journal writing, meditation and just doing some things for yourself. Some call it an occasional ‘self date’.

When we can just realise we’re a valued person worthy of respect I find then we can bring out what it is we really want from this relationship. It’s important to keep in mind they may not change but the good news is you don’t need them to change for you to feel okay.

Making yourself the priority typically comes first then this being followed with a combination of good adult communication (which we practice in sessions) and also where needed a level of a clinical working with the respective other individual helps shifts to occur.

Remember you’re not crazy but you may just be being impacted by a crazy maker.