Last night I wateched a funny, touching, and oh so wise talk by Storyteller and researcher, Brene Brown, on vulnerability and what she describes as “living whole heartedly.”
Brene asks, “How do we learn to embrace our vulnerabilities and imperfections so that we can engage in our lives from a place of authenticity and worthiness? How do we cultivate the courage, compassion, and connection that we need to recognize that we are enough – that we are worthy of love, belonging, and joy?” And she observes, ““Our lives are a collection of stories – truths about who we are, what we believe, what we come from, how we struggle, and how we are strong. When we can let go of what people think, and own our story, we gain access to our worthiness – the feeling that we are enough just as we are, and that we are worthy of love and belonging.
If we spend a lifetime trying to distance ourselves from the parts of our lives that don’t fit with who we think we’re supposed to be, we stand outside of our story and have to hustle for our worthiness by constantly performing, perfecting, pleasing, and proving. Our sense of worthiness lives inside of our story. It’s time to walk into our experiences and to start living and loving with our whole hearts.”
Brene reminds us that each of our stories are filled with beauty, and strength and wisdom, as well as pain and loss and vulnerability, the quest in part becomes about honoring all of it, even the hard stuff, and loving the story still…
what she says is interesting, but as far as I’m concerned, it doesn’t matter if the current CEO or CFO or COO says, “sorry” for the GOM spill. The corporation behaved negligently & should be prosecuted & made liable to class actions by those it harmed. As for “fix it”–there isn’t really a way to do so. Without stopping deep water drilling for at least 5 years. And somehow improving the independence of regulators (so they feel free to regulate /w/out Congressional/chief Exec interference) and making the penalties so steep for negligence that it & messes like Exxon Valdez no longer seem worth it.
Right now, oil industry profits are so astronomical and Congress & Chief Exec so pliant (neither can bring themselves to end the many direct & indirect subsidies to the energy industry, or even some of them), that BP has suffered very little in way of real consequences.
And deep water drilling has started again.