How vulnerable are you?

 I am privileged in my coaching role to be privy to lots of open and deep discussions, where people can  be brave enough to show their vulnerability. This is one of the most important aspects of a coaches role - being able to listen, with non judgement, and to then help the person they are working with come to realisations themselves. One thing that I love about being a coach is being able to hear people and the stories they tell themselves, and then being in a position to help support that person to really know themselves. I've talked about this briefly before - Know Yourself.

When you know yourself you understand your emotions, your social identities, your values and personality. You can then gain clarity around your purpose in life. If you know your purpose you will feel anchored in what you are doing and you as a being. 

When you truly know yourself you are acutely aware of your values and your beliefs - these values and beliefs may change over time (and should) and your behaviours reflect these. If you truly value time then you will make it important within your day - people that are late really get on my nerve ! If I organise a time to meet with someone and then they are a half hour late then I question "how much do you value my time?" 

Understanding yourself also mean we understand our character traits, our interests, identity, mind and psyche. We can develop stronger relationships with those around us. We can understand and show empathy with others when we understand how we respond to our own emotions. When you have a truly deep understanding of of these things about yourself then you can navigate your way through the myriad of life. Understanding these things about yourself means you can use your strengths to face the challenges we all face day to day. You can draw on these strengths to help you navigate and assist you in resilience. 

Being vulnerable is one of these emotions that we need to face. For many being vulnerable is uncomfortable. It's facing those fears that we may not want to face. 

Brene Brown is a fascinating researcher around this topic. Really worth a watch of all of her Ted talks and her book.  She defines it as the courage to be yourself. You cannot be yourself if you cannot be vulnerable with yourself. You may see things you don't like about yourself - she calls them the shadows. You have to be able to acknowledge those gifts and those strengths that you hold. One of the hardest things to do is to be vulnerable when we are by ourselves - that's when our minds take over and we spend a lot of time telling ourselves different stories about our view of the world. We need to be vulnerable with our thoughts and our feelings - that's where a gratitude journal can be helpful in assisting us to look at our strengths or a journal where we can open up. Once we are vulnerable - then we really can start moving forward and unblocking those barriers that we all put up. If you are leader its even more important - it doesn't mean we have to tell our life story but saying that we don't know the answer, we aren't sure where we are going, we've made a mistake are all ways that we can be more vulnerable.

Have a watch of the Brene Brown clip - ask yourself again how willing are you to be vulnerable? What will it take? Are you ready - do you truly have a good understanding yet of who you are. The older we become the more we dig deep into ourselves and the more we understand ourselves. I used the phrase yesterday with someone I was coaching - it's about Who are we becoming?? Who are you becoming?