Compass Star Wordsmith: Vulnerability

Vulnerability: Cost-Benefit Analysis

ric leczel — Thu, 16 Sep 2021 15:51:25 GMT

This is my first post in Compass Star Wordsmith, and it is a repost of a piece I had originally posted behind the firewall. I read something today on Linked-In that moved me to repost this.

I will be traveling out-of-town this weekend on a somber occasion. Please check in on the veterans in your life. They are extremely vulnerable right now, and the least equipped to express it before it is too late.

Pick a worth cause that supports veterans.

Thanks - Ric

I spent a lot of years trying to outrun or outsmart vulnerability by making things certain and definite, black and white, good and bad. My inability to lean into the discomfort of vulnerability limited the fullness of those important experiences that are wrought with uncertainty: Love, belonging, trust, joy, and creativity to name a few. Brene Brown

What am I leaning into? This project, that’s for sure. Vulnerability? Not as much. Or so I thought. This whole project is an exercise in vulnerability. The following excerpt is from an article written by Robert D Stolorow Ph.D.

Vulnerability
Vulnerability is constitutive of our finite existing.
Posted May 27, 2015

I have characterized shame and its variants as an experience of being exposed as flawed and defective (https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/feeling-relating-existing/201310/th...). It is pervasive in our cultural meaning-making to equate vulnerability--whether physical, emotional, or existential--with something shameful, an abhorrent weakness to be kept hidden and evaded, or counteracted through some form of reactive aggression and destructiveness. Vulnerability, in other words, is regarded as an aberration, a contemptible anomaly to be expunged from our experiential world.
Existential philosophy, by contrast, teaches us that the various forms of vulnerability are constitutive of our very existence as finite beings. Because we are limited, finite, mortal beings, vulnerability to trauma is a necessary and universal feature of our human condition (Stolorow, 2011; https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/feeling-relating-existing/201412/no...). Suffering, injury, illness, death, heartbreak, loss--these are possibilities that define our existence and loom as constant threats. To be human is to be excruciatingly vulnerable.
Poet David Whyte (2015) captures this existential truth compellingly:
"VULNERABILITY is not a weakness, a passing indisposition, or something we can arrange to do without, vulnerability is not a choice, vulnerability is the underlying, ever present and abiding under-current of our natural state. To run from vulnerability is to run from the essence of our nature, the attempt to be invulnerable is the vain attempt to be something we are not and most especially, to close off our understanding of the grief of others. More seriously, refusing our vulnerability we refuse the help needed at every turn of our existence and immobilize the essential, tidal and conversational foundations of our identity.

"To have a temporary, isolated sense of power over all events and circumstances, is one of the privileges and the prime conceits of being human and especially of being youthfully human, but a privilege that must be surrendered with that same youth, with ill health, with accident, with the loss of loved ones who do not share our untouchable powers; powers eventually and most emphatically given up, as we approach our last breath. The only choice we have as we mature is how we inhabit our vulnerability, how we become larger and more courageous and more compassionate through our intimacy with disappearance, our choice is to inhabit vulnerability as generous citizens of loss, robustly and fully, or conversely, as misers and complainers, reluctant, and fearful, always at the gates of existence, but never bravely and completely attempting to enter, never wanting to risk ourselves, never walking fully through the door."
A relational context, such as that exemplified by Whyte, in which our inescapable existential vulnerabilities can be accepted and shared, held and integrated, would make less necessary the destructive evasions of them that have been so lamentably characteristic of human history (https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/feeling-relating-existing/201110/th...).

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The concept for this post has been floating around in my head for quite some time. Two data points (really? data points?) provided the push I needed. One was the quote from Brene Brown that began this dispatch. The other is something a student wrote in the Bible Study lesson answer booklet I reviewed as part of the mentoring program I am involved with.

During this extended lockdown, the 16th of March being the one-year anniversary of being sent home, I have worked on becoming a better person. Part of that process is reaching out to acquaintances in the hopes of strengthening relationships, whether we are old friends distanced by time and space or former colleagues turned new pals.

One such connection has been very rewarding. An associate of mine from the event biz, we are both now out of that biz! Over the course of a few lengthy phone conversations, we discovered we had much in common: members of Gen X, fathers of daughters, husbands of independent wives. A love of woodworking and writing. Similar vulnerabilities.

During one call, he shared with me that he thought my writing expressed a great deal of personal vulnerability. The Wife just calls it my dirty laundry! When I started this subscription-based content, I wracked my brain to dream-think what on earth I could write that readers, paying money for words, would find interesting, much less valuable.

I hit upon Letters from the Prison Box series, but I didn’t want the paid content to be one-dimensional. This in an attempt to move away from a prompt-based essay with a pretty heavy topic and towards themes with a lighter note and maybe more universal in nature. After reading the two passages that started this article, the thought began to gel. Then I read what my student wrote.

The lessons are in order for students, starting with a basic Bible lesson, and a series of questions the student answers to help mentors gauge where the student is on the Bible knowledge spectrum. One of the early questions is

“What, in your mind, was the point in your life when you turned from God?”

I was completely and totally unprepared for his answer.

“The day I turned from God was the day I discovered my kid’s mom was dead, and the kids were crawling on her.”

He wrote it just like that. No other details. I froze. I turned cold and clammy. My heart stated beating faster. My mind was reeling, both from the images I was imagining and the questions storming my brain. I asked God “What the hell happened here?” It was everything and nothing, all at once.

Vulnerability and identity are intertwined within and without the human experience, as poet David Whyte so exquisitely elucidates. My friend behind the wall had so elegantly, and almost innocently, exposed the wholeness of his vulnerability and identity, all at once, in a simple statement of fact. The question was not what happened to your kids? Or wife? Or what went wrong?

Put yourself in his shoes. What would your answer be? Would it be as simple and honest as his? Could you express, and simultaneously expose, yourself so deeply and fully? Read Ms. Brown’s quote again in this context.

It is now a few days after I wrote all the words above this line. I have been struggling with what exactly is the point of this epistle. How can this topic be lighter in nature than letters from prison? I think I have an answer.

We spend so much more time on hiding our vulnerabilities than we do on incorporating them into our lives. It seems like hiding is more universal than the thing itself. Most of the time, we do not even know the name of the thing. We just know that it is wrong, shameful and bad. So hide it. Hide it all.

My writing makes me confront uncomfortable truths about myself. And I actively choose to share it with all of you. Why would I do this? To make a buck? Hardly. I do it out of selfish reasons. This is helping me.

My writing style has changed in the two months or so since I began this endeavor. I used to write and post as I live, fast and hurried. I am addicted to instantaneous action and response. I am the cause to your effect. It is part of the vulnerability thing. I am the one writing, posting, working, talking, instructing, directing, supervising, managing, controlling. That power is self-intoxicating. And self-destructive.

Time for a couple of definitions to refresh your memory:

Vulnerable
(adjective)
1. susceptible to physical or emotional attack or harm.
control
(noun);
1. the power to influence or direct people's behavior or the course of events.

The very act of control dominates vulnerability. I write about identity, especially as it relates to Gen X, here. David Whyte’s essay speaks to that dynamic,

More seriously, refusing our vulnerability we refuse the help needed at every turn of our existence and immobilize the essential, tidal and conversational foundations of our identity.

Our refusal to even acknowledge vulnerability, much less celebrate it in our lives, stunts our emotional growth, i.e. identity. And more insidious, it prevents one from seeking help. That is a huge part of my cultural identity. I spent my time controlling life situations instead of sharing vulnerabilities with my loved ones.

The survival skills and immortal delusions of youth linger on into adulthood, and infect the lives of everyone in the orbit of that person. What one thinks and truly believes about themselves, their identity and their place in the world is predicated upon the identity forged, or stunted, in adolescence.

And it becomes a life pattern. Until it stops working. Usually during a crisis. Then identity shatters. But there is good news here.

Sometimes, that realization comes on one’s death bed. I guess it would be a relief to experience that epiphany before one dies. But from here, it looks like too little, too late. I want to effect an alternative outcome. Now. (There I go again!)

I think to write. I write to feel. I feel to change. I change to elevate. I elevate to experience. Vulnerability is always there. One can embrace it. Or hide it. And hide from it.

The analysis is complete. There is more benefit to vulnerability than cost.

Go be vulnerable and live your best life today.

Ric

Be Vulnerable

ric leczel — Fri, 13 Aug 2021 14:54:19 GMT

I am easily trapped in states of compulsive consumptive obsession. I happen upon a new thing, like a song or a food, and I go off the deep end. It’s ok, though, it seems to match my short attention span.

I am usually a day late or a dollar short, like most things in my life. I’m usually not the first on a thing, but I finally come around. I typically use up the thing. During the pandemic, I found that my recent obsessions have more staying power. That might be a good thing.

Writing this platform for example. It sprang from an obsession. And immense dissatisfaction. If necessity is the mother of invention, dissatisfaction is the baby daddy. In October of 2020, with six months of lockdown in the bag, and a then-new forecast of a longer, darker winter, I was searching for something.

Like the sobered-up dude at 3 am standing in front of an open fridge door praying for an unknown culinary desire to just materialize, there I was. Standing in front of the open door of life. The broken promises of an overworked and under-satisfied normality were shattered pieces of a warped tarnished mirror behind me.

The unknown culinary desire wished for might as well have been the $350/pp nine-course Chef’s Tasting at The French Laundry. The Now-Normal I write about was just formulating in my head. I had purged, cleaned and feng-shuied the house to hell. Something had to crack.

It was me. Naturally. Way back in the day, one of my best friends created a custom t-shirt for me. It coined a term, and started a legend (in my own head). I still wear it proudly today. He explicked the inexplicable. Shout Out to Pat M.

Ric-ci-dent ( rik’ si dent ), n. 1. An unintentional or unexpected happening that is undesirable or unfortunate, esp one resulting in injury, damage, harm or loss, wherein one may or may not be responsible, at fault, or causative. 2. An accident or incident in which Ric has been involved: Honey, don’t be mad, but … I’ve had a Ric-cident.

Maybe that has something to do with the fact that every car I’ve ever had I wrecked. Well, not every single one of them. But certainly enough to establish a pattern. Crap. Those damn patterns again.

1972 240 Z Absolutely the best car I ever wrecked. A telephone pole lost its life in this one, but mercifully and thanks to God, my best friend Jim and I did not. Uncle Leo, I am so sorry I wrecked your car, and will replace it someday.

Well, the impetus for this whole project, and really, for this uncharted path I’ve ventured off into, was all contained in one box. And I had to open it. I’m gonna stand back and let this speak for itself.

12 Years After Incarceration, Letters from Crossroads Bring Him to Tears
by Paige Deur | May 25, 2021 | Latest News, Stories
After a non-fatal car accident involving nine others and a DUI charge more than a decade ago, Ric found his life forever altered. He went on to spend 247 days in prison – a place of punishment that became a sanctuary of transformation.
During his first thirty days in prison, the only book he had was a Bible he received from Crossroads. He would go on to read through its words eight times, using several different translations, before his release.
Ric completed six Crossroads Bible study lessons and received several life-giving letters from mentors, before his release. God’s Word had changed him in prison, and Ric vowed to give back by becoming a Crossroads mentor someday.
“After my release, I packed up the ‘prison box’ and stuffed it under the bed. Way under the bed, like all the way in the back, behind the ferocious dust bunnies,” Ric said. “My promise to God that I would become a mentor was soon forgotten. I had MY life back.”
As Ric sat in pandemic lockdown this past year, home on furlough, he felt a nudge to pull out that old box from under his bed. “It sat there for a day or two,” he said. He started by organizing the letters by date, but as he saw the letters from his children, who had just left home to live on their own this year, he found tears filling his eyes.
And then he came across letters from his Crossroads mentors, which opened “the floodgates of emotion,” prompting him to search for Crossroads online and finally make good on his promise to become a mentor.
As Ric looked through the materials from his time inside prison twelve years prior, he rediscovered the Crossroads lessons and letters from his mentors. It’s hard to relive his prison days, but he is grateful that the letters from Crossroads mentors prompted him to give back as a mentor.
“I still have only read very few of the letters. It is so emotionally overwhelming,” Ric said. “But I find that working with my students provides a calming salve for my soul. I feel God working on me as I review and comment on the lessons.”
Those six lessons Ric completed more than a decade ago are still making an impact on his life.
Since Ric decided to follow God’s leading to become a mentor, he has found peace in a season when his career remains uncertain. His eyes have been opened to God’s provision in his life. “I am so glad God is working through me,” he told us.
At the end of each letter he writes, Ric shares a poem that he wrote while he himself was behind bars, encouraging his students just as his mentors once did for him.
Ric shared the poem with us, and we want to share it with you:
The Fence
Before this, I sat on the fence of convenient belief, between the pasture of certainty and the desert of uncertainty. When pushed or fell, or most likely, jumped off into the desert, my discomfort caused me to cry for help. Why me? How could I be so abandoned? Why so alone to fend for myself? Anger and hostility were constant companions. However, in the pasture of certainty, into which I most certainly chose to go, I never questioned my success, for it was due to my hard work, my diligence, my self-righteousness. Never believing that both sides of the fence were under the province of the same controlling force. For it is impossible to know the difference: to enjoy the sweet sights and smells of the pasture of goodness, or to endure the agony and loneliness of the desert of bitterness, one must experience both. I have now an inkling of knowledge and understanding, and an abundance of faith and hope. For the fence is in the heart, not the mind. Its architect is self-doubt, its builder false pride, and it’s maintained by arrogance. I am caught in the desert, by my own hand. I question not, for I know. But as surely as I stand here, I am not alone. I am on my way back to the fence. Not to straddle it, never again. For my task now is to dismantle it and take it apart. And to use its posts, its timbers, and its nails, for they are strong and sturdy. I will construct a shelter in the pasture, a shelter of hope. A shelter for fellow travelers caught in the desert. So they will not find a fence, so they will know in their hearts, there is no difference between the two lands. They will find a shelter, a place to give thanks for the journey into the pasture of goodness. But more importantly, a shelter to provide them protection and comfort in the desert. A beacon of hope, to guide them out of the wilderness. For a traveler is never alone. Jesus walks every step of the way through both the desert and the pasture. Human choice is necessary, not to determine the destination, only to choose the traveling companion.

Please explore ways to help out this life-changing organization Crossroads Prison Ministry

I write often about vulnerability, and think of it more. It’s the unspoken thing in difficult things. Resistance to it creates friction against a forward movement. Friction is the mortal enemy of movement, and we create emotional friction all the time.

Once created, it’s a greedy bastard, friction. It seeps into every desire and need. It perverses your goal-setting. It weakens resolve. It saps will-power.

Friction’s kryptonite is vulnerability. I literally just learned that lesson during the past 16 months. Hey, you only have to hit me a couple of times in the head with a 2x4 until I get it. Alright.

All of the battles with my demons, all of the chases I’ve gone on with them, every false victory had been fought almost without arms. I recognize people from my past in their calmness, and I now know what I was attracted to: Vulnerability.

It is not a natural trait, especially for a 5’4” Leo with a Napoleon Complex. But it is something that can be mindful and thoughtful. I certainly haven’t perfected it, hell, I’ve perfected denying it, so it takes a bit to unpack it all. But working on it feels good. And things that feel good reduce friction. And lack of friction makes movement possible.

Start moving today. It will make you feel good.

The Wife and I have trouble clearly communicating at times. After 30 years (August 17) of wedded bliss, the empty nest gets a little cramped! It’s a hard ask for her to consume all my spoken and written words.

Without approaching this from a stand-point of vulnerability, my dumbass approach just made things worse. Naturally. So after a back-up and re-group, I switched approaches and wondered how else could I connect with her?

Duh! Have I mentioned my belief about the Five Elements of Life? Maybe. Read about that belief here.

Second Element, after Food? Music. I send The Wife one song a day. As lyrics. She enjoys reading the lyrics instead of listening to the song. Sometimes she doesn’t read them. Sometimes she likes them and lets me know. Other times not.

Her reaction though, isn’t my primary concern. I send it. Everyday. Occasionally, she asks to listen to the song after work with a glass of wine on the patio. Those are the best days.

Here’s a song she commented on and asked to listen to.

Lyrics
Tell me one more time again just like I didn't hear you
Like I don't know what's going through your mind, I do
I play the same game too
I know it's hard to stop even when you want to
Now the moon lights up your face and I can see your crying
You never liked me to see you cry, it's true
I've done some crying too
You know, the hardest part about it is trying to hide it from you
Well, it would be great to be so strong
Never needed anybody else to get along
We're so scared of the silence and the tricks that we use
Oh, we're careful and we're cunning but we're easily bruised
I don't wanna lie about it, I'm not bulletproof
Well, I finally found the way to hide from all your glances
Until the waiting game we play is through
I can, but what's the use
When all I really want to do is hide out with you?
Well, it would be great to be so strong
You never needed anybody's help to get along
We're so scared of the silence and the language that we use
Oh, we're careful and we're cunning but we're easily bruised
I don't wanna kid about it, I'm not bulletproof
Tell me one more time again, I guess I didn't hear you
And I don't know all the secrets that you keep inside
I tried the same thing too
But they all come pouring out of me when I'm talking to you
Well, it would be great to be so strong
Never needed anybody else's help to carry on
But I'm not waking up each morning with forgiveness I can use
Know I'm careless and I'm cruel but I'm still easily bruised
But I'm so tired of lying about it, I'm not bulletproof
Oh, and I'm not going to lie about it, I'm not bulletproof