As you can see, I haven't written in a while.
It's not because there's been nothing to say -- I have a dozen articles half written.
For months, I’ve been asking myself why those pieces sit unfinished and unposted.
In part, my silence comes down to a half year of med changes that have been messing with my head (and left hand, and arm, and foot).
But that’s the obvious. It felt like there was more going on.
The answer came a few days ago.
It’s the exhaustion of vulnerability.
The problem with vulnerability is that it sounds an awful lot like whining. And who wants to hear whining, from themselves or someone else?
The hope is that we cross over that fine line from whining into honest sharing that helps people and makes us all more able to handle life’s challenges. But that takes being vulnerable, exposing challenges and our weakness.
That’s the kind of vulnerability Brenee Brown talks about in her now-famous TED talk “The Power of Vulnerability” that has been viewed by over 50 million people and is espoused by resilience expert Chris Moore in his excellent book The Resilience Breakthrough.
But am I crossing that line from whining to analyzing and learning? That’s the big question.
And so writing and posting about the challenges of life after cancer treatment – again! – takes a lot of energy to work on and to actually pull the trigger and post.
There’s so much more to say about vulnerability and resilience but I’d better call this one done before the energy dies and it ends up in a folder with all the other half-written pieces. Feel free to comment about your own experiences with vulnerability (or anything else) below!
- Brad
PS You’ll see the Proof of Life blog () has been changed to the Curious Survivor (curioussurvivor.com). The <first post> on the new page shares why. Check it out!