Vulnerability

Something To Think About. . . . .

"Vulnerability is not about winning, and it's not about losing.

 

It's about having the courage to show up and be seen."

 

                                           ~ Brene Brown

 

 

 

 

The Very Cool Sela Ward

Sometimes on Friday evenings, I watch CBS's prime-time hit series CSI:NY on television.  I love crime shows and one of the other reasons I like to watch it is Sela Ward, an award-winning actress who plays a very cool, straight-to-the-point detective named Jo Danville.

In real life, Ward is a busy mother of two children and a wife as well as a career woman.  Yet she always gives off this aura of being calm, collected and totally together; something I am constantly working towards.

This month she landed beautifully and professionally on the cover of  Ladies Home Journal magazine where she gave an interesting interview about taking risks in life and being open to unplanned opportunities that life may spring on you.

Sela Ward

I love Ward's honest attitude towards life and being courageous in your actions.  She's not afraid to admit to making a mistake or putting herself out there in an untested way.  She picks herself up and continually starts over again.  That takes a lot of guts!

While she talks in the interview about her determination with regards to acting, I think her philosphy of grabbing life and going full throttle can easily be applied to myself and anyone else out there trying to find a new direction in their life or just trying to discover new ways to make their life work in a healthy and creative way.

Here are just three of many insightful questions and answers from the Ladies Home Journal interview with the very cool Sela Ward:

Q: LHJ: Isn't it funny how we make plans for our lives, but so much occurs by chance?

Ward: Yes, but there's a drive that makes you keep moving forward -- and connects you to other people.  If you sit at home all day long or play it safe or say "I'm not going to go to that," then you don't meet those interesting people who can change your life.  You have to open yourself up to the world.  I open myself up to possibilities all the time.

Q: LHJ: In what ways do you keep moving forward, in your personal and professional life?

Ward:  When I was on Sisters, I'd be so bad some weeks.  I'd take a risk with a scene and fall flat on my face.  But I'd pick myself up, work with my acting coach, go back the next week and then be kind of good.  Of course the following week I'd fall on my face again.  I did this for six years.  By the time I was finished there wasn't one scene or script that I was afraid of.  I have that same attitude about life.  I know how to put in the hard work, I know what I don't know and I know how to figure it out.

Q: LHJ: Are you always thinking about what's next or is there part of you that is able to sit back and enjoy the here and now?

Ward: I try to live my life in the present.  If you think in terms of "This is it," not "Things will be better in my next lifetime," the choices you make are different.  For me right now it's about living my life in Technicolor.  There are so many opportunities and possibilities all around us.  Even though I'm not in that "35 and under" relevant category anymore, I've still got a lot to offer -- I've still got a lot I want to do.

Living our lives in Technicolor. . . Isn't that a great concept?  Sela is so wise!

Let's do it!

Getting A Life

"Get a life. A real life, not a manic pursuit of the next promotion, the bigger paycheck, the larger house. Do you think you'd care so very much about those things if you blew an aneurysm one afternoon, or found a lump in your breast? Get a life in which you notice the smell of salt water pushing itself on a breeze over Seaside Heights, a life in which you stop and watch how a red-tailed hawk circles over the water gap or the way a baby scowls with concentration when she tries to pick up a cheerio with her thumb and first finger.

Get a life in which you are not alone. Find people you love, and who love you. And remember that love is not leisure, it is work. Each time you look at your diploma, remember that you are still a student, still learning how to best treasure your connection to others. Pick up the phone. Send an e-mail. Write a letter. Kiss your Mom. Hug your Dad. Get a life in which you are generous."

 

                                             ~ Excerpt from Anna Quindlen's Villanova Commencement Speech, 2000

 

 

 

Baby Practices Picking Up Cheerios

 

 

I worked a few hours in the office yesterday and then was able to leave early.  I didn't feel guilty at all about cutting the work day short.  I was looking forward to meeting my son at the movies.  We saw "Les Miserables" and I enjoyed it but I prefer the stage version of the iconic story about the French Revolution.

 

While waiting in the lobby, I let my mind wander and watched the cold, rainy weather outside.  I could feel my shoulders relax as I looked up at the clear slanted ceiling and my eyes followed the sliding raindrops down the glass.  After a few minutes, my mind seemed to empty of office concerns and I starting thinking about the importance of mentally and physically breaking from my work schedule.

 

I could work all the time if I wanted to.  Don't get me wrong, there's nothing wrong with work and I am happy to have my job.  I have a strong work ethic and get a lot of satisfaction from doing my job and doing it well.  But there comes a point when you need to recharge and you can't do that if you are always working and always pushing yourself to do more work.

I find that working constantly starts to make me inefficient.  I start to get tired, I get headaches easily and I start to answer people in a short manner.   When I start experiencing those symptoms, I know it's time to take a break and do some of the things that Anna Quindlen suggests in her quote above: pick up the phone, call a friend or a family member, write an email, connect with another person.

I need to work to support myself financially but I also need to remember -- especially during the holidays -- to take a break and enjoy the treasures of my life.
 

Vulnerability

Photo by Lee Gant

Four people I know very well are bravely fighting cancer.  Currently, each person has a different kind of cancer and each person is in a different stage of treatment.  Through them, I have become more intimately aware of fighting this horrendous disease and I have learned a tremendous amount about developing resilience from them.  

Two of the four people recommended a book to me, "Anti-Cancer A New Way of Life," by David Servan-Schreiber, MD, PhD.  Servan-Schreiber is a scientist and a doctor who was diagnosed with brain cancer seventeen years ago and is currently in remission.  Before I opened the book, I was grabbed by the following fact printed on the book's cover: "All of us have cancer cells in our bodies.  But not all of us will develop cancer."  It blew me away to think that we are all walking around with cancer cells inside of us that could be waiting for some sort of a trigger.  Talk about refocusing your health priorities!

I am not a cancer patient but I don't need to be diagnosed to restructure my diet or pursue smarter ways of managing stress and achieving a more relaxed approach to life.  Servan-Schreiber's book is empowering.  It is chock full of nutritional and medical information and I have started incorporating small changes in an effort to be preventative.  Not that every meal has to be a series of conscious health choices but knowing that sugar contributes to cancer sometimes helps to make chocolate less appealing to me.  Notice I said sometimes.

The best parts of the book to me are Servan-Schreiber's intimate insights into himself, the power of friendship and the "music of life."  Feelings of helplessness and isolation can delay healing and block our immune systems from becoming stronger; a network of close friends or family can motivate us to fight and survive an illness.  I believe we are here to help each other but there is no getting around those times of crystal clear clarity when you know it's you and you alone left to face a disease or a loss.  That's when trust and mental toughness kick in.

Forced to confront an initial diagnosis of cancer and then a relapse, here is Servan-Schreiber revealing his vulnerability:

"I remember having one of those fleeting incidents, the kind that lead us to sense the frailty of life and the miracle of our connection to our fellow mortals.  It was a tiny thing -- a brief encounter in a parking lot on the eve of my first operation.  From the outside it would seem trifling, but to me it took on a particular significance.

Anna and I had driven to New York, and I'd parked in the hospital lot.  I was standing there, breathing the fresh air during those final few minutes of freedom before admission, tests, and the operating room.  I noticed an elderly woman who was obviously on her way home after a hospital stay.  She was alone, carrying a bag and walking with crutches.  Unaided, she couldn't manage to get into her car.  I stared at her, surprised that they had let her leave in that state.  She noticed me, and I saw in her look that she wasn't expecting anything of me.  Nothing.  We were in New York, after all, where it's everyone for himself.  I felt drawn toward her by a surprising momentum that sprang from my situation as a fellow patient.

This wasn't compassion, it was a gut feeling of fraternity.  I felt close to this woman, made of the same fabric as this person who needed help and wasn't asking for any.  I put her bag in the trunk, backed her car out of its space, then helped her while she settled into the driver's seat.  I shut her door with a smile.  For those few minutes, she hadn't been alone.  I was happy to perform this tiny service.  In fact, she was the one who did me a favor by needing me exactly at that instant. 

It gave me a chance to feel that we were part of the same human condition.  We made that gift to each other.  I can still see her eyes, in which I had awakened a sort of confidence in others, a sense that life could be trusted if it put in her path -- as it just had -- the help she needed when she needed it.  We hardly spoke to each other, but I am sure she shared with me the sense of a precious connection.  That encounter warmed my heart.  We, the vulnerable, could help each other and smile. 

I went into surgery in peace."