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  FYI- Thankfulness and vulnerablility

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And so then I went
back into the research
 and spent the next couple of years really trying to understand what
they, the whole-hearted,
 what choices they were making, and what are we doing with vulnerability. Why do we struggle with it so much? Am I alone in struggling with
vulnerability?
 No. So this is what I learned. We numb vulnerability -- when we're waiting for the call. It was funny, I sent something out on
Twitter and on Facebook
 that says, "How would you define
vulnerability?
 What makes you feel vulnerable?" And within an hour and a half, I had
150 responses.
 Because I wanted to know what's out there. Having to ask my husband for help because I'm sick, and we're newly
married;
 initiating sex with my husband; initiating sex with my wife; being turned down; asking someone
out;
 waiting for the doctor to call back;getting laid off; laying off people
--
 this is the world we live in. We live in a vulnerable world.And one of the ways we deal with it is we numb vulnerability.



And I think there's evidence -- and it's not the only reason this
evidence exists,
 but I think it's a huge cause -- we are the most in-debt, obese, addicted and medicated adult cohort in U.S. history. The problem is -- and I learned this
from the research --
 that you cannot selectively numb
emotion.
 You can't say, here's the bad stuff. Here's vulnerability, here's grief,
here's shame,
 here's fear, here's disappointment. I don't want to feel these. I'm going to have a couple of beers
and a banana nut muffin.
 (Laughter) I don't want to feel these. And I know that laughter. I hack into your lives for a living.  (Laughter) You can't numb those hard feelings without numbing the other affects,
our emotions.
 You cannot selectively numb. So when we numb those, we numb joy, we numb gratitude, we numb happiness. And then we are miserable, and we are looking for purpose and
meaning,
 and then we feel vulnerable, so then we have a couple of beers and
a banana nut muffin.
 And it becomes this dangerous cycle.

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And we perfect, most dangerously, our children. Let me tell you what we think about
children.
They're hardwired for struggle when
they get here.
 And when you hold those perfect
little babies in your hand,
 our job is not to say, "Look at
her, she's perfect.
 My job is just to keep her perfect -- make sure she makes the tennis team
by fifth grade and Yale by seventh grade."
 That's not our job. Our job is to look and say, "You know what? You're
imperfect, and you're wired for struggle,
 but you are worthy of love and
belonging."
 That's our job. Show me a generation of kids raised
like that,
 and we'll end the problems I think
that we see today.
 We pretend that what we do doesn't have an effect on people. We do that in our personal lives.We do that corporate -- whether it's a bailout, an oil spill, a recall -- we pretend like what we're doing doesn't have a huge impact on other
people.
 I would say to companies, this is not
our first rodeo, people.
 We just need you to be authentic and
real
 and say, "We're sorry. We'll fix it."



But there's another way, and I'll
leave you with this.
 This is what I have found: to let ourselves be seen, deeply seen, vulnerably seen; to love with our whole hearts, even though there's no guarantee -- and that's really hard, and I can tell you as a parent,
that's excruciatingly difficult --
 to practice gratitude and joy in those moments of terror, when we're wondering, "Can I
love you this much?
 Can I believe in this this
passionately?
 Can I be this fierce about
this?"
 just to be able to stop and, instead
of catastrophizing what might happen,
 to say, "I'm just so grateful,because to feel this vulnerable means
I'm alive."
 And the last, which I think is
probably the most important,
 is to believe that we're enough. Because when we work from a place, I believe, that says, "I'm enough," then we stop screaming and start
listening,
 we're
kinder and gentler to the people around us,
 and we're kinder and gentler to
ourselves.

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