I WILL EVENTUALLY FAIL, BUT I'M STILL ALL IN - thoughts from Brene Brown's Book

I was reading a little bit of Brene Brown today. 

She said "vulnerability is having the courage to show up when you can't control the outcome."
Daring is not saying "I'm willing to risk failure."
Daring is saying "I know I will eventually fail, and I'm still all in."

That's a bit crazy isn't it. 

But have you ever met someone who is like that?

Someone who is what they are and you can feel it. They make feel valuable but there is no manipulation in it - cause you can tell this is how they treat everyone. They don't want or need anything from you? 

Someone who you know would never gossip TO you OR ABOUT you. 

Someone who would stand red faced, but stick with whatever it was, because that's what it was and that's who they are? 

I think we could all handle bringing a little bit more vulnerability to relationships. 

I can't even count how many times I have pushed someone out of my circle, disqualified them, judged them, been hurt and cut myself off from them.. 

I KNOW I WILL EVENTUALLY FAIL, BUT I'M STILL ALL IN. 

AND... WHAT ABOUT: "I know you will eventually fail, but I'm still all in." 

Both make for WAYYYYYYYYY safer relationships. 

Every relationship is eventually tested by failure. 

How do you treat people who have failed you?

How do you treat people you have failed? 

Most of the time our minds go to BIG stuff.. like if someone cheats on their partner. Or betrays a secret. 

But what about little stuff. They said they would show for coffee and they didn't. You expected them to invite you to their party and they didn't. They were in your wedding party and now you don't even talk once a year. 

My test for friendship failure was I used to stop calling my friends. I was the caller and the initiator. So I'd stop calling and be like "bah. What kind of friend is that? It's been three months! I invested so much in that friendship... and NOTHING??!! If I don't call, they don't even care!" And I would judge and struggle and I couldn't look them in the eye and my heart would be heavy. There was a year where I stayed up late into the night because my heart couldn't rest. I was so hurt by an idea I had about my friend. 

It's not about big confrontations and making sure people do what we want them to do. It's about learning to be who we are, and to let people be who they are... and keeping our end of the deal, our vulnerability open, our hearts soft, our communication gentle, our gossip at ZERO, and doing friendship because we LOVE, not because we need something back. 

I had a friend back in university, and there were a lot of topics we totally disagreed on. But that friend was also the first friend who ever said, "get what you want OUT, and if you need to take it back and try again, do that. I want to know what you think and I want to work this out more than I want to be right or to corner you with my arguments." 

It was wild for me. Totally new. Imagine not feeling the need to impress or keep up with your friends. Imagine accepting and being accepted. 

Imagine knowing you couldn't control the outcome, but you were still your entire self and you just put it out there. 

Wild.