Do you ever ask yourself what you want your legacy to be?
I spent some time journaling through that question recently.
I started out feeling frustrated.
I never feel like I have a “thing”. Sure, I DO things. Lots of things. I like to dabble– sort of a Jill of All Trades.
But I can’t think of a specific thing I go super deep on– that I would be the go-to person, the expert.
I don’t have a physical tangible thing I provide the world. I don’t have one thing, word, title that describes me.
For someone who likes to see the tangible results of her efforts as a means of gauging worth and accomplishment– this was a HARD internal conversation.
But through my writing I realized that I don’t need to provide a physical thing to the world to leave a strong impact.
I realized that, instead, I GIVE feelings.
I’m about to get a little vulnerable– and here’s why.
I watched Brene Brown’s TED talk on vulnerability. It was so spot on. I realized that my openness, vulnerability, and truth to self is often what draws people to me.
“As humans, we don’t want to feel the hard emotions, but we cannot selectively numb emotion. You can’t say, here’s the bad stuff. Here’s vulnerability, here’s grief, here’s shame, here’s fear, here’s disappointment. I don’t want to feel these. We can’t numb those hard feelings without numbing the other affects, our emotions. So when we numb those, we numb joy, we numb gratitude, we numb happiness. And then, we are miserable, and we are looking for purpose and meaning.” – Brene Brown
I tell you this to explain why vulnerability is important.
True belonging, deep connection, happiness, love– all stem from our willingness to be vulnerable with those around us.
So, my legacy?
To truly hear people– their joys, fears, troubles.
Provide witness to their existence and a sense of belonging. To be love, light, depth, and radiance for people in an often surface-level, routine, rushed, and somewhat dull existence.
And I suppose that starts with being vulnerable despite the fear that comes along with it.
🤍 amanda maureen
