the vulnerability loop

A wonderful bit from The Culture Code by Daniel Coyle:

"People tend to think of  vulnerability in a touchy-feely way, but that's not what's happening,"Polzer says. "It's about sending a really clear signal that you have weaknesses, that you could use help. And if that behavior becomes a model for others, then you can set the insecurities aside and get to work, start to trust each other and help each other. If you never have that vulnerable moment, on the other hand, then people will try to cover up their weaknesses, and every little microtask becomes a place where insecurities manifest themselves."

Polzer points out that vulnerability is less about the sender than the receiver. "The second person is the key," he says. "Do they pick it up and reveal their own weaknesses, or do they cover up and pretend they don't have any? It makes a huge difference in the outcome." Polzer has become skilled at spotting the moment when the signal travels through the group. "You can actually see the people relax and connect and start to trust. The group picks up the idea and says, 'Okay, this is the mode we're going to be in,' and it starts behaving along those lines, according to the norms that it's okay to admit weakness and help each other."

The interaction he describes can be called a vulnerability loop.

As usual, I shouldn't be up, but--

I had such a great book club meeting today, and it bears mentioning, even though it's this late.


Three years ago now, when L first mentioned to me off-handedly on a facebook comment I made, whether we should start off a book club together, my instinct was to jump on the suggestion. It felt so serendipitous; I think at that point, I'd had gotten my hands on Susan Wise Bauer's The Well-Educated Mind and I was itching to embark on a serious reading journey; L piping up like that about a book club was simply the next stepping-stone, which I easily leaped onto. Quickly, I had a few friends ready to start, and we set off; haltingly initially -- stumbling over formidable classics (cough, Moby Dick, cough) -- but slowly gaining a momentum with the variety and range of books, building rich conversations, and delving into each other's lives in a way I don't think we would have had otherwise.

Fast forward to today, our little book club is still running and ongoing (with an occasional shuffling of members), with a book always in progress (currently, an American classic, I'm proud to say!). Now my fervour for books, and sharing about the love of books only grows. I'd suggested it to my usrah (religious group) and suddenly, a tiny little group of us is starting to build a passion for this reading-and-then-discussing business. I feel bubbles of excitement at this. A good feeling. My gut tumbling in positive joy. I feel like the ripples of this will spread out in a beautiful way, insya Allah.


I am learning how to trust my intuition. 💚
It leads me to good places.
When I first started out book club years ago now,
that same feeling of anticipation and tugging-of-the-gut
was there. It felt right. It felt like I had to do it.
I am only marveling at how that moment has led to this
deep sense of joy and gratitude today.

Alhamdulillah for having been led to this path.
Alhamdulillah for the friends I've had along the way.
Alhamdulillah for the love I've had for reading.
Alhamdulillah for having been able to grasp opportunities when I see it.

Please help me listen to my intuition,
and to divine guidance for all matters in my life,
Amin.

when the personality comes fully
to serve the energy of the soul
-- Gary Zukav

"You have to know what sparks the light in you
so that you, in your own way,
can illuminate the world."
-- Oprah Winfrey

“I Am Not I”

BY JUAN RAMÓN JIMÉNEZ

TRANSLATED BY ROBERT BLY

I am not I.

                   I am this one

walking beside me whom I do not see,

whom at times I manage to visit,

and whom at other times I forget;

who remains calm and silent while I talk,

and forgives, gently, when I hate,

who walks where I am not,

who will remain standing when I die.

So my night didn't turn out the way I planned; it never does. Ahah!
I need to reduce my triggers/distractions if I want to manage myself better
i.e. restrict the computer screen, S.

I had planned an early night because I was so exhausted I took a cab back home and almost dozed in the car. I'd returned to work today after the long wedding weekend, and packed 5 therapy sessions in 5 separate centers and crap, that was not a good idea. I wasn't even travelling light! I had both my trolley bag and my backpack and was walking under the beating sun, from LRT station to centers and back and forth. By the time 3.30 pm rolled around, I was so tired. I was zoning out in air-con corners. After the last kid, I sucked on an ice-blended and sat at coffee bean for an hour cause I just couldn't and wouldn't move anymore with the crazy weight.


But here I am past a good bedtime once again;
because I had spent almost an hour chatting to J--
she had an SOS and we needed to talk (which derailed all my dinner plans).
And I was thinking, it's great that we have friends that are our counselor hotlines.
Some people have to pay to cry over the phone.
Although I feel like I play the counselor far more frequently and don't use my friend hotline enough.
When I get mad and am about to explode,
I often text E; we do this to each other.
Spam crazy mass texts in the heat of anger or any emotional turmoil--
and then I usually calm when we help each other analyse the crazy explosions that happened.
I openly tell my friends: I need therapy today. Please meet me. And it's free!
I am so thankful that I can do that. That I have friends that I can do that with.
Because not all friends are like that; and not everyone has the luxury of such essential active listeners
and who hopefully have your best interests at heart.

Then later in the night, I had discovered the depths of Oprah -- yes, that famous wonderful lady talkshow host. So apparently, Oprah has a superpower, and I love this adorable thing:

And it's true; I've been in enough courses (a necessary for a therapy-profession) and read enough books (e.g. Empathy, We Need To Talk) to appreciate her skill, scrutinised here in this video:

It is a super skill -- to be able to connect with someone;

and not let your own emotional baggage get in the way.

When you're not comfortable with who you are, 

people will also find it difficult to be comfortable with you.

Jiayou, S, to being a more empathic, loving, and compassionate human!

Oprah is a wonderful example.

What a wonderful, wonderful lady.

---

a separate thing but I've been meaning to post this

(because I've been having a rewatch; and god, this movie has so many quotables!):

Do not try and bend the spoon. That is impossible.
Instead only try to realise the truth.

What truth?

There is no spoon.

There is no spoon?

Then you will see that it is not the spoon that bends.
It is only yourself.

💜

I should update about some real-life happenings --

like the fact that my sister got married this past weekend!

Things flew by like a blur; it went well, we were all exhausted,

and now I have the room to myself at home. :P

People like to say how, ohmygosh, you're the only one left!

I say, meh.

What's new.

I tell you, I am getting so good at this. I think I'm finally crossing the threshold. I'm starting to really not care. (I have crossed this threshold before in my life, for various other things. This is familiar.) People do that -- subtly express horror or pity or gloss over and avoid (their eyes get dart-y or crinkle sheepishly) -- or they pray for me (which is great, thank you all you lovely, hopefully-well-meaning humans). It's like having a debilitating disease. It's a rare person who looks at other humans as full humans, even at first encounter. Once you fall outside the norm, in the words of Brene Brown, you are acquainted with the wilderness. Initially, it's terrifying; it's not safe, it's scary. But after a while, and repeated exposure, you realise, what the heck. Let's explore this wilderness. What's so scary about this place just because everyone else isn't here? If I'm supposed to be out here, then damn well, I'm gonna be good at being out here. I've wasted too much time in my younger days being afraid anyway.

J and I have often talked about how if we were to live out our teen years again back in school, we'd live it out differently. But that's the essence of youth, isn't it? You often look back and feel like it's wasted in some way or other. Knowing what you do now, you wish you'd done better, or different. Braver. More curious. Learn the really necessary things in life. We've made peace with who our parents were or are, but if you know yourself now that you've grown, you probably learnt what you sorely needed as a child but did not receive.

Anyway!

I am happy. I hope my sister lives a good married life. Marriage is hard work, as it becomes increasingly apparent with age. My close friends and I are all mature enough to see beyond the frills of social convention and acceptance to the reality of lived relationships and what it takes. We talk about things differently now. I always feel that no matter what place you are, who you're with, and what you do -- crap will happen. Life will always be hard, always; we just differ in our relative struggles. What you need is simply the thing that makes all that struggle worth it. (God and all that comes in the hereafter, but in addition--) You hope and pray the person you're with serves as your joy and not your challenge; the work you do a reward rather than a pain; and the place you are plentiful and abundant rather than sparing. Amin.

a few other photos I meant to share from eons back;

thank you for lovely friends! who gave me BT21 cutesies for my birthday.

ahhhhh I should sleep, but I needed to get my thoughts out.



I was YouTube-jumping and I landed on Dave Chapelle's interview clips. He said something that I thought was wonderful in that interview:

that things are funny until they happen to you. suddenly, when it happens to you, there needs to be more empathy. suddenly, we're meant to see each other.


and isn't this so true.

It's like that well-known psychological concept: fundamental attribution error. What you see in others, you'd blame on their character; but what you see yourself doing, you attribute to circumstance. You're never wrong because the situation led you to do certain things; but everyone else is, because they're innately evil.

How do we escape such terrible human loops, but to practise more empathy, eh.


God, I shall strive to be kind,
but please help strengthen my heart so that I can always be kind.

like hanging on to hot coals.


This life is hard, but ganbatte, S!

Recently, amidst our endless rabbit-hole-type discussions,

E and I talked about the red pill vs. blue pill analogy iconized by the Matrix movie:

I still remember the day I watched this when I was 12. It didn't help that Keanu already had a place in my heart heeeee (he was my first crush since Speed the movie). I was enraptured by the movie; everything about it: the story, the special effects, the characters... and I like to think, the depth of the themes in the plot somehow seeped into my young mind even then too. It remains one of my favourite films to this day.


"This is your last chance. After this, there is no turning back. You take the blue pill -- the story ends, you wake up in your bed and believe whatever you want to believe. You take the red pill -- you stay in Wonderland, and I show you how deep the rabbit hole goes. Remember: all I'm offering is the truth. Nothing more."

We all like to think we want to know the truth; until we've seen it. Then maybe we wished we could have remained happily ignorant again. Because once you've woken up, the work starts. And dang it, it's so hard. It's so hard. And wrought with endless pain, it seems. And no matter what, there's no going back and wishing you had taken the blue pill instead. This is an analogy for many things in life. But one of the biggest is depicted in the movie itself too: if you have woken up and understood the futility of the way a system works in your life, can you make yourself go back to functioning within the system without a care in the world? If you're smart enough to understand and see how horrid certain things are in this world, can you close your eyes and pretend it doesn't exist? Do you envy the endless bevy of happy, blissful people who are enjoying and partaking of that empty system? Do you wish you could be one of them?

There have been many days, particularly the ones I probably lacked sleep, when I wished I could drink a potion or something, to forget, to erase, and not having to know or have known something or several things that upended my life. In particular, I remember The Draco Trilogy by Cassandra Clare, when Ginny asked Hermione to help concoct a love potion for her -- then Hermione was all, "It's illegal! You can't use it on Draco to make him love you!" Ginny was damn pissed because of course she knew that; she meant the love potion for herself. It's not illegal to administer a love potion to yourself. She wanted to take a love potion to make herself love Seamus instead, and make it all easy and dandy. No complications. I wish I could take a love potion, set my eyes on some random dude, and then be done with the whole thing and please all the necessary SJ people of the world, and not have to grapple with all my inner turmoil.

In fact, isn't this why people take drugs in general.
To numb the pain of life.

Okay, I'm going to climb out of the rabbit hole and get back to work now.
(There are a gazillion reports I can't seem to finish.)
And pretend the rabbit hole doesn't even exist. Go, SJs!

There is no influence so powerful as that of the mother.
-- Sarah Josepha Hale, The Ladies' Magazine and Literary Gazette, 1829;
from It Didn't Start With You: How Inherited Family Trauma Shapes Who We Are And How To End The Cycle, by Mark Wolynn



My intuition told me early on, as much as I hate to admit it, that I needed to mend my relationship with my mum; that it was the source of a lot of my lived-out agonies and negative experiences. For a long time, stretching from childhood, I had unconsciously or subconsciously grown to judge and resent her so greatly. And it is only now that, as a full-grown adult, I'm trying to understand fully why this happened; why I'm like this; and what happened that made me this way.

The fortunate thing about me is that I consume information like it's water, haha. I read material like there's no end nor am I looking for an end (I could sit in the library all day and never be bored, and repeat this for days). So now, as my intuition could have told me -- all these books and information are telling me too. I need to let go of past hurts from early childhood in order to heal. And haiyoh, even the Prophet s.a.w. told us this, S.

But it's the pain that you felt got inflicted on you as a child that needed acknowledgement too.
I allowed myself this, and hopefully, it's led me to tread the path of healing.


Healing Sentences When We Have Rejected A Parent

1. I'm so sorry for how distant I've been.
2. Mom, you're a really good mother.
3. I've been really judgmental. It's prevented me from being close to you.
4. I'll stop expecting that your love should look a certain way.
5. I'll take in your love as you give it -- not as I expect it

-- It Didn't Start With You, by Mark Wolynn

In relation, even in my work, I've come to recognise how much emotional well-being is neglected in our children in general, and we think it matters less than their outward needs and achievements. Half the time, the issues I encounter with the kids, can be resolved if only they were given the right amount of emotional attention and support as they grow and learn (i.e. the mother! absent mothers come in many, many forms; fathers too, but the father's impact is different).

For God's sake, human beings, can we just love each other. Have children and love them. When children grow up knowing how to love and be loved, doesn't matter what else happens in their lives, they'll be okay, I tell you.

OMG this is unbelievable!

HAHA. what an entertaining clip.

A woman comes on the show to complain how her husband is the most patriarchal person on earth.

(ahah, how desperate was she to come on TV just to make her husband listen.)

The fact that the entire studio, including the men, were so enraged by his sexist behaviour

actually makes this not enraging to me, but heartening instead. :D

This is why mothers and grandmothers who dote or wait on their sons/grandsons like they're kings really, really make me mad, because they create men like this. Women who perpetuate the sexist system make me mad the most; what is wrong with you, I say.

Raise good men;

don't spoil them! goodness.

I've been sitting in the Tampines library; in fact, for the second time this week.
And I've had company this time whilst I slog through these case reports;
J is also having her medical residency exams soon-ish,
and so we park ourselves at a table with our work and study,
and take turns to visit the loo or have a bite.

It's nice. I feel like I'll be a student forever.
(Although I'm not a student; I'm just writing reports,
and getting distracted by the books I spy over J's shoulder.)
This feels familiar,
and seems to be a constant repetition or cycle over the years.
Although, tell J that she has to sit for yet another horrendous exam in the future,
and she'll likely give me a straight NO, with the exasperated look and accompanying eye roll.




I have no other reason for this post,
other than that moments like this one,
in a cocoon of friendly comfort, calm, and familiarity,
... feel like they should be cherished and treasured.
Alhamdulillah.

someone shared this at the big team meeting yesterday,
and I love it.

It's nothing new, really. We all know this by now.

If you're a fox, be a fox.

Don't try to be something you're not;

you're bound to fail.

(theme of the year again: self-awareness)

 Where is my wise owl. ): Where can I find my wise owl. 

 --- 

 Haha, and this!

 

"You can't move my Fi; what, are you kidding! 

Where is a collection of INFPs that have made it, that have figured out this dilemma, that have got their Fi's and their Te's to work together? How have they reconciled their strong internal moral values and this crazy, belligerent, dumbass tribe?"

haha, totally how I feel on certain days. 

crazy, belligerent, dumbass tribe that sometimes seems 

like the reason for all my misery on earth;

I'm remembering something else someone said on a variety show:

that people are often the source of our difficulties,

but people are also the source of great comfort, and beauty, and love.

oh, humans. 💜 why you so complex.

We do a great disservice to boys in how we raise them. We stifle the humanity of boys. We define masculinity in a very narrow way. Masculinity is a hard, small cage, and we put boys inside this cage.

We teach boys to be afraid of fear, of weakness, of vulnerability. We teach them to mask their true selves, because they have to be, in Nigerian-speak -- a hard man.

In secondary school, a boy and a girl go out, both of them teenagers with meager pocket money. Yet the boy is expected to pay the bills, always, to prove his masculinity. (And we wonder why boys are more likely to steal money from their parents.)

What if boys and girls were raised not to link masculinity and money? What if their attitude was not "the boy has to pay", but rather, "whoever has more should pay". Of course, because of their historical advantage, it is mostly men who will have more today. But if we start raising children differently, then in fifty years, in a hundred years, boys will no longer have the pressure of proving their masculinity by material means.

But by far, the worst thing we do to males -- by making them feel they have to be hard -- is that we leave them with very fragile egos. The harder a man feels compelled to be, the weaker his ego is.

And then we do a much greater disservice to girls, because we raise them to cater to the fragile egos of males.

We teach girls to shrink themselves, to make themselves smaller.

We say to girls: You can have ambition, but not too much. You should aim to be successful, but not too successful, otherwise you will threaten the man. If you are the breadwinner in your relationship with a man, pretend that you are not, especially in public, otherwise you will emasculate him.

But what if we question the premise itself: Why should a woman's success be a threat to a man? What if we decide to simply dispose of that word -- and I don't know if there is an English word I dislike more than this -- "emasculation".

A Nigerian acquaintance once asked me if I was worried that men would be intimidated by me.

I was not worried at all -- it had not even occurred to me to be worried, because a man who will be intimidated by me is exactly the kind of man I would have no interest in.

Still, I was struck by this. Because I am female, I'm expected to aspire to marriage. I am expected to make my life choices always keeping in mind that marriage is the most important. Marriage can be a good thing, a source of joy, love, and mutual support. But why do we teach girls to aspire to marriage, but we don't teach boys to do the same?

-- Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, "We Should All Be Feminists"

This lady has a fixed spot in my favourite ladies list. So brave. She writes this stuff that I (and I'm sure many other women too) already think and feel and experience on a daily basis, and makes it so clear and stark and apparent for the world to see. Unapologetic about the way she feels. Whereas, I, even to quote these bits on this blog, hesitated.



Some time after I finished reading Chimamanda's essay, Terry Crews (of the famous Brooklyn Nine-nine) gave a testimony as a man, joining the #metoo movement, recounting his own experience of sexual assault and then giving a very passionate account at the end of this clip about his growing conviction against toxic masculinity.

I cannot tell you how much this warmed my heart. 💗 Thank you, God! for men like this.

They exist, and it's sad that I often feel like they don't.

You will learn by reading
But you will understand with love.

~ Rumi