I mentioned last week that I went to the fabulous FIND 2.0 business workshop in Portland and I learned a great deal there. The thing that has stuck the most with me was when Kristen Kalp said to me that I need to be more 'buttery'. I get this a lot. Every performance review I have ever gotten has said that I am abrupt, intimidating, that I have an attitude. And I must admit that I have worn this as a badge of honor. This is how I survived childhood intact. It was a great coping mechanism, if not the best way to live. And I have always liked people like this, people who speak their mind, people who are painfully honest. I need it, I crave it. But I am also uber sensitive and get my feelings hurt easily. One would think this would make me more compassionate. Strangely it has not. I am often contemptuous of weakness when I encounter it in others, as if my contempt of it in them would eradicate it in me. I do not mean to say that I am unsympathetic, I am miles from that. I long for connection. It is why I am a portrait photographer. It is why one of my favorite moments in my life was sitting in a café in San Francisco for three hours one Saturday, sitting in the window seat with my friend Rebekah and talking. For three hours. I do not know if I could do that now. And I SO want to be able to do that. I recently watched "Marina Abramovic: The Artist Is Present" on HBO and she said something I found fascinating. This is not at all a direct quote, but she talked about how creative people are often both very strong and very vulnerable simultaneously. And I thought THAT'S ME. I do not want my clients and friends to think I am hard. I DO have a hard outer shell, but inside it is pure softness. My goal is to have these two meld a bit. To make the shell a little softer and the inside not devastated quite so easily. It is like having two people inside me (and NO not schizophrenically speaking). One who protects the other. But when the strong one hides the vulnerable one, the soft one never gets to see the light of day. I cannot tell you how often I have met people in person who know me first online and are shocked that I am "so warm". And I think, holy crap am I like 'Attila the Hun' on the internet? Probably. Because I AM abrupt. I LIKE getting to the point. When I get intellectually stimulated I want to argue and scream because my adrenaline is rushing. I often say it is like the scene in "Jerry Maguire" where Cuba Gooding says,"“See, that’s the difference between us. You think we’re fighting, and I think we’re finally talking.”
So my challenge is to be more buttery. Do I know what that means? Not really. But I suspect that it has a great deal with vulnerability. And I am TERRIFIED of vulnerability. I equate it with weakness in myself, but not in others. How unfair is that of me? I saw a TED talk by Brené Brown that floored me. It is called "The Power of Vulnerability". Go watch it NOW. And then tell me what you think. I admit that the term 'whole hearted' was tough for me. But I love what she has to say so much. And these "On My Mind" posts are my first step towards more buttery goodness. Not sure if they are the right way to go, but it is what I have come up with for now.