I Heart Me (17 page)

Chapter 8

Vulnerability

‘Being deeply loved by someone gives you strength, while loving someone deeply gives you courage.'

L
AO
T
ZU

I met a homeless man in London early one Sunday morning. Our brief exchange left a lasting impression upon me.

I had just left a hotel with the intention of travelling to King's Cross station to catch a train home to Scotland when I passed the man on the street. He was carrying what seemed to be his worldly belongings in a cluster of carrier bags, two or three to each hand. He looked so very sad and tired, and was walking slowly.

I walked on, but part of me couldn't forget him. When I reached the street corner, I looked into a café, where people were sitting in the warmth, protected from the cold. I thought of going in to grab a coffee. As I stood there, about to open the door, I glanced back and watched the man shuffle slowly across the street. I felt as though I was looking in two windows at once. In one were the
warmth of the coffee shop and the taste of freshly ground coffee. In the other was the homeless man, alone on this cold, damp Sunday morning, with nowhere to go to keep warm.

I went back. I crossed the street and found him sitting down in a shop doorway. I'd thought he was around 60 years old, but up close he looked about the same age as me, only aged by loneliness and cold. I placed £10 in his hand. What happened next has left an imprint on my soul.

Looking up at me, he made a prayer sign of thanks with his hands. He said nothing, but he didn't need to: never have I witnessed such gratitude in a person's eyes. His were a piercing blue, reminding me of those of Jesus of Nazareth in the movie of that name. He seemed holy in that moment, completely vulnerable, special. I, on the other hand, felt ashamed and small. Should I have given him more?

I realized that he saw himself as beneath me. In his view, I and others could choose to bestow upon him money or food as we saw fit and could somehow decide his fate.

I walked away, fighting back tears. I thought angrily, No, you are not beneath me, dear sir. You are not beneath anyone! You have a right to happiness.

I said a prayer for him and imagined him knowing his worth and finding happiness. It made me feel a little better, even though I still wish I could meet him again and do more for him.

When we show our vulnerability, others see our greatness. As I blended back into the crowd, not showing mine, hiding among
the hundreds of people going about their lives, many also pretending, I felt small and weak. In that simple exchange, the homeless man was most definitely the better man.

You see, I have come to measure greatness in the courage to bare one's soul. He showed his. I hid mine behind my wallet and my nice clothes. I chose not to show any emotion as I offered that small sum. I chose not to say anything. I simply smiled, touched his hand lightly, stood up and walked away. He, on the other hand, showed complete openness. I think that's why he penetrated through my guard so much. He was completely vulnerable. There was absolutely no pretence, just 100 per cent authenticity. In that moment, he was
enough
. I wasn't.

It's hard not to be shaken to your core when someone shows real authenticity and vulnerability, especially when it contrasts so much with your own space. We're so unused to it that when it happens it almost knocks us off our feet. But vulnerability is the doorway to love, friendship and lasting relationships. It's the doorway to a sense of connection and belonging. It's the doorway to being
enough
.

The homeless man's authenticity and vulnerability affected me so much I still feel the connection to him. It's why I've been moved to write about it in this book. Even though we might never meet again, we will be connected forever. His vulnerability facilitated that.

It also ensured that his soul has now touched the lives of countless people reading this book. That's the power of vulnerability.

Being vulnerable doesn't mean that we need to be an open book and bare our soul to everyone we meet. But it does invite us to let our guard down.

And it has to be authentic. Some people open up to get attention, but they do it to get people to like them. That's not real vulnerability. Real vulnerability can only be authentic. If it's not authentic, it's not vulnerable. Anyone can tell the difference.

Vulnerability demands honesty with ourselves and honesty with others. It takes courage. But that courage says, ‘I
am
enough.'

Sure, it can be scary. We're saying, ‘This is who I am. It doesn't matter whether you accept me or not. Here I am anyway.' And there's always a chance that we won't be accepted. But when we're true to ourselves, that really doesn't matter at all. In those fleeting moments, somewhere deep down we know that being true to ourselves is
enough
.

Authenticity and vulnerability both equate to
enough
. We needn't hide in case someone sees the real us. And showing other people who we really are is the pathway to connection.

Of course this means being honest with ourselves. It means accepting our imperfections and not hiding them. It means being honest with others. It means not holding back. It means showing how we feel. It means risking rejection. It means stepping out of our comfort zone. It means being vulnerable
.

We show vulnerability when we write, build, create a product or perform and put what we do or have created out into the world for people to see, knowing that they might not like it … or us.

We're vulnerable when we have to have difficult conversations with our partner, children or co-workers.

We're vulnerable when we initiate sex, knowing that we might be rejected.

We're especially vulnerable when we choose to love someone completely, even though we know we might get hurt.

Vulnerability is asking an employer for what we need, even though they might say no.

It's admitting that we're afraid, knowing that people might think we're weak.

It's being honest about feeling sad when people expect us to be happy.

Part of my personal vulnerability in this book is sharing some of my own weaknesses. When you've written seven previous books in the self-help field, people expect you to be whole and wise, to have all the answers and certainly not to have any personal problems. When I started writing this book, I thought people would be asking, ‘How can a person with personal difficulties write a self-help book?' I was afraid they wouldn't hold me in the same esteem as before. Maybe they'd stop coming to my talks because they'd think I wasn't as ‘healed' as other authors. I was even afraid that I wouldn't have anything significant to say and that no one would want to read a self-love book written by a man.

Those were the things – risks, I suppose – that swam around in my mind. But I actually felt relief as soon as I began allowing
audiences to learn how I've stumbled through my life at times, how I've had to feel my way in the dark, how I've struggled and still struggle.

What I didn't expect was people telling me that they appreciated my honesty and had become stronger in themselves through learning that I had the same problems as they had. Rather than my audiences getting smaller as people realize I'm no better than they are, they've become larger as people understand that if
I
can do it, despite my challenges, then so can
they
. And so can
you
!

SELF-LOVE GYM:
Love Thy Selfie Challenge

Earlier I suggested that you loved your selfie regardless of how you were feeling. So here's a vulnerability challenge. Take a few selfies of yourself throughout the week that show yourself not just at your best but also at your worst.

Let your selfies show how you really feel in both your happy moments and your sad ones.

Share them on social media using the hashtag #iheartmyselfie or simply #iheartme.

The worst day of my life was when a specialist told us that Oscar, then only 22 months old, had bone cancer (osteosarcoma), that there was nothing we could do and that, at best, he had about six months to live. We could add three months to this by amputating his leg, but we'd need to weigh that up against the loss of quality of the remainder of his life.

It was unexpected. Life can throw curveballs from time to time. I won't go into too many details here. It all happened very recently. If you want to read more, I've placed a little update in the afterword.

The initial impact this had on us was traumatic. But this is also a story about allowing yourself to be vulnerable and the magic that you allow into your life when you do.

Elizabeth has always been a very private person. She's never let her guard down. Even when bullied at high school, she never let the bullies see her scared. Even when her parents learned of it and took her out of school a year early, she never let them see her real pain.

In all the years we've been together, I have never once known Elizabeth to tell anyone other than family and close friends anything significant about her life, about her real hopes, dreams, aspirations or especially her fears. Nor would she ever show emotion.

Oscar's diagnosis changed all that. In the days that followed, Elizabeth cried in front of people she hardly knew. She cried in front of our vets, Shelley, Stephanie and Helen, and the nurse, Louisa. She cried on the street when we told some neighbours and people who had dogs Oscar liked to play with. She cried in front of near strangers.

The magic was that Elizabeth allowed other people to care, and in so doing she created a little opening that invited them into her life for the first time ever. In the process she entered a little into theirs too. She allowed them to empathize and extend their compassion, sometimes with a caring face, sometimes with a gentle touch and other times just by sharing the space and allowing her to be how she needed to be right then. She allowed them to connect.

Vulnerability and compassion both invite relationships into a new space. They both break down any pretence. When we show compassion, we are being ourselves. When we feel someone's pain, we are being ourselves. When we show our own, we are being ourselves.

I had a similar experience to Elizabeth. When faced with sudden difficulty, I tend to get clarity and focus. In some ways this is very useful, because I tend to focus on a solution and move quickly to activate it. The downside is that I bottle up pain. Shifting my focus so quickly doesn't mean that the pain goes away. I just ignore it.

The day of the diagnosis, I went over to see my mum and dad. Like many families, we're not used to showing emotion in front of each other. Not since I was a child have I shown emotion in front of my dad. But that day, when Mum hugged me, I cried.

Coming out of the hug with my mum, I looked over at my dad. He quickly looked away. It wasn't a conscious decision, more a reflex reaction. He just didn't know what to say or do.

Usually, when I'm leaving to go back home, Mum comes to the door and gives me a goodbye hug. Dad usually just says goodbye from his chair. This time, he followed me to the door too.

The following week, at my niece's seventh birthday party, Dad came to the door as well. It was his way of being there for me and I understood it.

Simple though the gesture was, it brought a new depth and quality to my relationship with my dad. Expressing my pain added a new dimension to my relationship with my mum, too. I was giving her a chance to be my mum and pour out her compassion and I was able to witness a part of her I'd seen so often when I was a child.

Circumstances sometimes force us to be vulnerable. They ask us to step up, not to be stronger in the classical sense but to shake off all pretence and just stand there, naked. In those moments, it really doesn't matter what anyone thinks. But we give others permission to care. We invite them to be human. That's the magic in vulnerability.