An unexplored country.

We grow when we move beyond our comfort zones: ‘our ability to grow is directly proportional to an ability to entertain the uncomfortable,’ writes Twyla Tharp.

Vulnerability is an expression of courage.

Shame holds us back.

‘If we want to be fully engaged, to be connected, we have to be vulnerable.  In order to be vulnerable, we need to develop resilience to shame.’*

The voices of shame speak loudly inside us as we seek to cross new borders and boundaries; there will be times when we have to open ourselves to new understanding, to realign our lives to the new and emerging, and to let go of things which are now redundant.  I guess we’ve all heard variations of these voices:

Who are you to think you could do this?
Why bother anyway; nothing changes.
Think about what you could lose if you do this?**

Self-worth is not to be found in our successes or failures: it’s dangerous to attach it to either.  The practices of humility, gratitude, and faithfulness lead to true self-worth, making it possible for changes to happen in us at a genetic level,^ producing an anti fragile, generative core comprised of integrity (different to perfection), wholeness different to completeness), and perseverance (different to certainty).^^

We keep going come success or failure:

‘A sense of worthiness inspires us to be vulnerable, share openly, and persevere.’*

(*From Brené Brown’s Daring Greatly.)
(**Brené Brown’s thinking links with Otto Scharmer’s voices of judgement, cynicism, and fear, we must overcome to make progress: see Theory U.)
(Check out David Shenk’s The Genius in All of Us, in which he describes our genes being like the slides and knobs of a mixer desk: ‘Rather than finished blueprints, genes – all twenty-two thousand of them – are more like volume knobs and switches.  Think of a giant control board in every cell of your body.’  These can be slightly changed by environmental input.)
(^^I’m throwing everything in here, including Nassim Taleb‘s antifragilista.)