Why we need to be vulnerable

No one ever said vulnerability was comfortable. But its necessary.

To be vulnerable, we have to allow ourselves to be seen. To let go of who we think we should be and tell the story of who we really are. To be willing to say I love you first. To be willing to do something where there are no guarantees. To be willing to invest in a relationship that may or may not work out.

One of the things that keeps us from being vulnerable is our fear that if other people truly see us they will deem us unworthy of love and connection. So we try to numb vulnerability. But you cannot selectively numb emotion. You can’t just numb vulnerability, grief, and shame without numbing the other emotions - like joy, gratitute, happiness. When you numb emotion you are left feeling miserable, looking for purpose and meaning.

Vulnerability is the core of our shame and fear and our struggle for worthiness. But it is also the birth place of joy, creativity, belonging, and of love.

We have to believe that we are enough. Because when we believe we are enough, then we stop screaming and we start listening. We are kinder and gentler to the people around us and we are kinder and gentler to ourselves.

Sometimes to be vulnerable we need to revisit past experiences. Past rejections. Explore old wounds. Assimilate personal history into current circumstances. We need to embrace these experiences. Accept that they happened, practice gratitude, and find healing. 

Universal struggle, does not mean the struggle is universal

The past 2 weeks have been hard. My head hurts from lack of sleep. My body aches from the constant nightmares. My throat hurts from screaming through the tears. I am tired.

I have been drowning in my own loneliness and in my own fears, and now I am finally trying to come up for air.

Anxiety has a way of shutting you down. Closing your eyes and your mind to the struggles of those around you. It suffocates you and clouds your judgement. It makes you feel like you are the only one in pain and that there is no one on your side who could possibly understand. 

But the thing is, no one in this world has an easy life. We just get caught up in our own troubles that we don’t notice them. And we expect people to understand. We hope they will be sympathetic. We want them to be on our side. But everyone has a hard life. Everyone is struggling. And there is no reason why anyone should have to take on our struggles as their own. We can’t expect everyone to feel what we feel. To hurt as we hurt. To understand.

As someone who lives with mild-severe anxiety, I think its important to understand and remember that everyone is struggling. And while everyone may not always share in our struggles, we are not alone. We are not alone. We are not alone. 

Living with Psoriasis: Mea Cutis Pretiosa

Back in 2013 I was diagnosed with Psoriasis, an autoimmune skin disease in which part of the body’s immune system becomes overactive and attacks normal tissues in the body. This causes the skin cells to multiply 10 times faster than normal and form patches of thick red and silvery scales on the surface of the skin. Oftentimes it can be very painful to touch and very unsightly to look at. 

Living with psoriasis has unique challenges. There have been nights when I couldn’t sleep from the sheer pain and discomfort. And there have been days when I would wake up with blood on my arms and legs from intense scratching that I could not prevent while I was asleep. I had little energy and often found it difficult to focus. But most of the time, I struggled with the emotional repercussions. 

I experienced my first psoriasis flare my senior year of college - working 2 jobs, running a dance team, applying for post-grad jobs, and trying to figure out my plan for life after college. I was incredibly stressed 24/7, running on little sleep and little food. And as much as I liked to pretend that I had everything under control, my skin said other wise. Every emotional reaction I experienced triggered a physical reaction that showed up everywhere on my body. And it was completely debilitating to my self esteem. The more I stressed out the worse my skin got, and the worse my skin got the more I stressed out. As if seeing these angry welts on my body every time I rolled up my sleeves, changed my clothes, caught my reflection, or even looked down at my own skin didn’t cause me enough distress, there were also the inevitable comments and stares. 

“What’s wrong with your skin? Did you get bitten by bugs? Is that an allergic reaction to something? Can’t you just put lotion on it? Don’t you have medicine for that? Why aren’t you taking care of yourself?” 

All the questions and stares made me painfully self-conscious. I didn’t want to take pictures, I was scared to wear shorts, and dresses, and short sleeve shirts. I didn’t want to be seen. Thankfully with the right medications, the right amount of rest, and most importantly time - I was able to return to a state of near normalcy. But the emotional repercussions lingered. And with every flare that followed, my experience gnawed at the little self confidence I had left. 

It wasn’t until my recent flare up during my trip to Costa Rica that I saw just how much of my self confidence my psoriasis had taken from me, when I was spending hours editing out the evidence of its existence from every single one of my pictures. It seemed ridiculous to me to try and pretend that I didn’t have this condition when the scars had barely even faded from my skin.

I realized then that it was time to be honest, because this is what living with a condition like psoriasis is like. And if I am going to continue to experience these flares in the future I need to build up my emotional strength and accept that this is a part of who I am. So here it is - I am directly saying that I have psoriasis. Its a burdensome condition that often alters my physical appearance but it has no bearing on who I am. There will be good days and there will be bad days. But I will still be me, and this will still be my skin. And it is still precious.

 Mea cutis pretiosa. 

Learning how to be alone: Living a life unplugged

What I mean is, learning how to be by yourself and just “be.”

This can be a challenge living in a society immersed in distractions, where there are new trends, new people and new experiences constantly competing for our attention. Our generation has become so overwhelmed by external stimulation that we have lost the ability to sit there by ourselves and be alone with our thoughts.   

We have this fear that if we are not constantly occupied with something to do, we will begin to feel lonely and isolated. And when we recognize these feelings starting to creep in, we gravitate to the closest form of human connection we can find - which in some cases can be our phones. 

With new social media trends, we are constantly sharing every single moment of our lives online in order to feel truly connected with other people. There is nothing wrong with this. As human beings, we have a natural inclination to be social and to share our lives with others. However the extent of our need to be constantly connected, is changing the way we interact with others and how we interact with ourselves. We have developed such dependency on social media to help us feel connected and appreciated, that we are now more content talking through a screen than looking in a person’s eyes; we look for distractions rather than dealing with our emotions.

I know that I am guilty of this. 99% of the time I have my headphones plugged in, music going, my phone never far from my fingertips - deeply connected and completely distracted. This is just how society has progressed.

We put so much effort into constantly being connected in order to busy our thoughts and feel more productive and efficient. But instead we feel more isolated, depressed, and anxious. Because there is always something at the back of our minds that we have left unattended and unaddressed, nagging at us to deal with it. 

We need to start building back up our ability to sit by ourselves and just be. When those feelings of loneliness and isolation start to creep in, we need to just let them hit us like a truck and embrace those emotions. Because once you are able to face them head on, you feel this sense of relief wash over you and you can feel yourself allowing happiness to come back in.   

Part of becoming an adult is learning how to cope and deal with our emotions, and knowing when to close the laptops, push away the phone, and sit with our thoughts. And this is something that we need to start including in our daily lives. 

Challenge: Let's talk about Mental Health

There  is an ongoing trend in society, and that is this theme of hiding who you are in order to appear normal and to be accepted. And although we have come along way over decades and centuries of discrimination and prejudice - learning to see our differences, not as flaws but as positive attributes - we still have not come far enough.

When I saw this video by JacksGap, it struck a chord with me.

There have been an increasing amount of stories in the media - tragedies - of people hurting themselves and hurting one another in order to deal with their emotions. People resorting to violence and suicide. People drowning in grief and pain, and seeing no other way out than to make everything stop. 

I recently noticed that a couple of other YouTubers have begun speaking up about this issue of Mental Health. They have  created and promoted videos on their channels, admitting to having anxiety, panic attacks, and depression, and confirming that even the most public figures get upset and break down. And that this is okay. It’s not something to hide, but something to embrace and talk openly about. 

Society has placed this idea that the best of us are the ones who never break down, never get upset, and always have a plan of action and a solution. Essentially people who have their shit together all the damn time. And we glorify these people. But the thing is these people don’t really exist. Not truly. That’s just what we see on the surface.

Everyone gets upset.  We are social and emotional beings, meant to feel and care deeply. We get upset when we care about something and our natural instinct is to share with one another.. 

 And so the problem with glorifying this idea of someone who never breaks down, or gets upset, is that it makes anyone, who feels like they can’t meet this standard, want to hide away any signs of pain, struggle or inner turmoil  in order to feel normal and be accepted.

But hiding who you are and how you feel has a price. There are life or death consequences and social repercussions. When you bury so much feeling and emotions inside, you create this pressure to be perfect. That pressure eventually builds up and requires an outlet.

This video presents a challenge to open up a discussion on mental health and the stigma surrounding it, in hopes of creating awareness.

“Mental Health Disabilities are an illness not a weakness. They are an issue, not an identify. It is okay to be suffering from a mental illness but its not okay to not talk about it.  Because then we achieve nothing.”

Beyond DNA #changedestiny

Beyond DNA #changedestiny

Another post on how society has set the precedent that has limited what we believe to be normal and acceptable.

Our society has set standards where even our own DNA can limit our ability to shape our lives and achieve our dreams.

However 2015 is setting a new precedent. We are now in the midst of a visual culture shift, where more and more campaigns are capitalizing on positive and original video content that tell personal stories - opening the conversation on being different and proving that it is not a hindrance but a motivation.

When I was younger, I was always told that my small frame meant I would never be able to be physically active. I broke and bruised too easily. I was weak and sickly, and I would never be able to do sports. And for most of my life I listened. But when you find something you love, you find a way to make it work.

I discovered volleyball my freshman year of high school. And I loved it. Finally a sport I could play and be good at. But my endurance was bad. My forearms were bruised and sore after every practice. I couldn’t jump high. I couldn’t run far. And my parents were concerned I would suffer too many injuries.

I didn’t see much court time my freshman year, other than saving a couple of plays.

So I started spending my off seasons training - running around the neighborhood, getting my own ball to practice with in the backyard. And the next three years on Varsity ended up becoming some of my best memories from high school - Conditioning, queen of the courts, game times, floor burns, jammed fingers, sprained ankles. I learned how to endure pain, and just how far I could push myself until I reached my breaking point.

Its funny - just when people say you can’t. You prove to yourself just how much you can.

“Everybody is born with something they struggle with. You need to fight for your own goals, and not somebody else’s standards.”

This is an inspirational video on how this petite framed ballerina defied standards of “ballerina beauty” and took control of her own future.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/01/30/this-ballerina-couldnt_n_6478820.html?ncid=edlinkushpmg00000030