What I've learned from my Vulnerability and Shame By Katherine Lightwood

What I've learned from my Vulnerability and Shame

By Katherine Lightwood

Hello World!!
It's been a week that I haven't written a thing.

As you might know from my previous post that I had to catch a flight and go somewhere I don't like or maybe you don't, doesn't matter.

Now, the thing is that after a lot of time spent alone away from internet and city life I had some realizations. Realizations which usually wouldn't have struck me if I haven't been in a break. So break is very necessary my friends, if it's taken in the right way.
So, you might be wondering what are those "fanciful realizations" of mine that would be worth sharing with the whole world. As I've told you before, my life is not that mundane anymore. It's been a hurricane every day. So, without wasting much time let me share with you some of the realizations of mine.
I am just a girl who woke up after twenty-three years and realized that I am living in a state of conflict, conflict with who I feel I am at my core and conflict with who the world tells me as the person I should be and it's real I am not making that up. But I don't have a desire to fit into the current broken definition of "perfection".

Now, if you knew me as a person you might see me as an extremely quiet and awkward freakshow. I don't blabber that much like I do here, I am not very vocal about my feelings too and because of that, I've been getting stuck into lots of uncomfortable and toxic situations lately. And over the years, I've collected a sack full of shame into my mind, my character, and my behaviors. So, I've always hated to be vulnerable. I was scared as if people will take advantages of my vulnerabilities, brake my spirit. And that was wrong, it was my terrible fear that was restricting me to move on in my life. We give permission to the people to take advantage of us, and not either way.

And even though, I told myself that this is my new beginning but I was still dueling on my past. So, I've decided to break free of that behavior as it was making my life toxic. And some of the ways I've been practicing to 'break free' of these behaviors are by creating experiences that force me to be vulnerable. So, if I am experiencing shame around in my life I practice diving straight into it no matter how scary it is. In doing so I found out that I've taken away its power and my display of vulnerability can in some cases give other person permission to do the same.

For example, a while ago I was wrestling with an issue which was completely getting out of my hand. My mental and physical health was deteriorating because of that and it was affecting my work. I wished if I could talk to someone about this so that I could get some fresh perspective as these issues were clouding my judgments. But, I was so paralyzed by fear that they would judge me and see me as weak and I will lose my standing as the persona I made for myself. So, after spending months of frustration and anxiety I somehow managed to find the strength to talk to the people I wanted to talk about what I was going through. But when I did that something amazing happened, I realized that I wasn't alone because other people that I was talking to was also struggling with the same issues that I was facing. And as soon as I found that strength and courage to share my shame, it was gone.

Now, I've learned over time that if I want to practice being vulnerable then I need to build a system of accountability. And that's why I've started blogging. I wanted to speak out to the people, to the masses. I've taken a responsibility to extract the positive message from the negative life experiences that I have making sure that I don't preach my negativity to my colleges, acquaintances, and people I meet. I want to pay my gratitude to the those who I look up to in my life for inspiration and don't want to let them down. And I try not to let my shame cloud my sense of judgment in life. I am learning from my shame and I will keep on learning till my last breath. And that is my realization.

So, my friends now it's time to "sign out" from Crimson Creed. To see more posts like these from our other teammates make sure to visit our main page and Facebook page. Till then take care.

Katherine Lightwood