on vulnerability.

Do you ever have a nagging thought/idea/question in your head for what feels like forever and then you come across something that is exactly what you were thinking about? It happens to me all the time. I don't know if it is divine intervention or what, but I am grateful for it. I like to call it a tender mercy--the hand of God in my life. It makes sense to me and it makes me feel less alone. 

Since becoming a mom I feel as if my emotions run deeper. And along with that I am constantly searching for what "enough" is. Am I enough? Have I done enough? What more can I do? Always more. Never enough.

It is tiring and heartbreaking and confusing. Don't get me wrong, I feel happy. Generally and most of the time, I am okay. But I have those moments of doubt. Of fear. Of jealousy. Of disappointment in myself. I'm human. And I don't mean this as a catchall. I mean it as a reality. Humans are emotional beings--they feel things and they interact and connect. It's hard. It's exhausting. It is real. 

I've been trying to pinpoint what I mean by all of this, why I have been thinking about it. And then I came across this TED talk. Everyone should watch it. As I watched, I was dumbfounded with how much of it had already been filling my thoughts. She covers everything I have been struggling with. 

Here is a quote from the talk that just put to ease everything I needed it to: 

"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."

Being vulnerable is something I need to work on. I want to remember that it is okay to feel, because that's how life is done. I want to remember that I am enough and being me honestly and entirely IS enough. Sometimes social media makes it difficult to not want to be more or different than who you are, but I think it is embracing ourselves that makes social media such a wonderful thing. 

So, here is to being more authentic and vulnerable to who I am.