"Marco"

I'm still crying easily and feeling overwhelmed with ...I don't know, being lost.  I think what I need is a witness.  I need someone to know I am here.  Someone to care that I am alive.  I need you to yell "Marco" if you don't sense me.  And when I yell "Marco" please respond "Polo" so I can find my way back to you.

I think I am going through something really big.  There is so much emotion.  I almost started crying during my committee meeting tonight.  It's like there's too much emotion for my body.

I do have that shame that Brene describes.  It haunts me.  I don't know how to erase the voice or accept the voice or sing with the voice - what the hell do we do with the messages we got when we were little?  I remember being very young and wondering what was wrong with me.  I remember thinking it was an unwritten rule - your father has to love you.  He gets no choice.  So if my father couldn't even love me, there had to be something really bad, stinky, dirty, filthy - unworthy - about me.

This is where we need Me, too.  But how would it work?  Me, too, I had a difficult father, a hard childhood?

I was looking at the three virtues you posted:

Dimonstrazione- the ability to take risks and learn from failure because of persistence and an acceptance of oneself
Sfumato- the willingness to embrace ambiguity and uncertainty
Connessione- the recognition and appreciation that we are all interconnected, interdependent

I think we can find various levels of these in different aspects of our lives.  I can take risks and learn from failure when I am working alone.  But I won't do it in a relationship.  If I get the slightest hint that I am not welcome, I am gone.

I love to embrace ambiguity - to fly by the seat of my pants - to figure things out as I go.  But I drive others crazy.  And others affect me with their concrete ideas and expectations...

And recognizing we are connected does not mean we act on it, even though we should.  And interdependent is difficult.  We were raised knowing we were unwelcome and not to expect anything.  We were "good" when we needed nothing, when we took care of ourselves.

I don't think we can control the reveal.  People are intelligent.  They notice, they see things.  We can not control their intelligence and perception.  Our job is to stay honest and be vulnerable, and to notice when they are being vulnerable...I think I miss this part sometimes.

So I have lots to process.  And I am off to bed.  I love you!!

Clare