{"id":9597,"date":"2015-03-29T05:00:26","date_gmt":"2015-03-29T12:00:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/michellejolin.com\/wordpress\/?p=9597"},"modified":"2015-03-28T22:40:23","modified_gmt":"2015-03-29T05:40:23","slug":"romantic-love-is-not-an-emotion","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/michellejolin.com\/?p=9597","title":{"rendered":"Getting connected…"},"content":{"rendered":"

The opposite of love’s indifference
–the Lumineers<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Brene Brown did a TED talk <\/a>on the importance of something I am coming to appreciate more and more: vulnerability. She started looking at what makes people feel connected, and why some people are more successful at it than others. Why some people are more satisfied with their relationships than others. <\/p>\n

She started out studying connection, and out of that study she decided to do a deeper dive into the underlying factors of what made people feel more connected, more whole hearted, and what she came up with was that people who reported more feelings of connection also embraced vulnerability. <\/p>\n

People who reported high levels of  connection to their friends\/family\/world had somehow figured out that in order to be embraced for who you are you have to let people see that. Which terrifies a lot of us.  Which terrifies ME.  I spent decades trying to behave like what I thought a normal person would be like because I was sure that the person I am was not…right. Not good enough, too weird, too kinky, too intimidating, not enough like other people to be acceptable. I’ve talked about what that did for me before: it fucked me up, and it fucked up how I related to people. People can’t get to know you if you are acting like someone else.<\/p>\n

You have to be willing to be who you are. And that is leaving yourself wide open. If you are pretending to be someone else and get rejected it’s OK because it wasn’t really you anyway. That’s what makes faking it so attractive. You figure you just weren’t doing it well enough, and try to improve your facade. In the process, of course, you eventually stop having any sort of intense feelings. Everything gets muffled. Comfortably numb, if you want to think of it in Pink Floydian terms. <\/p>\n

If you are letting people see who your really are inside, it is painful to be rejected. It’s you. Really you. It hurts. <\/p>\n

But.<\/p>\n

It’s the only fucking way to have any sort of relationship with anyone that is real.<\/p>\n

Can you be happy if someone loves who you’re pretending to be? A little bit. For a while. Pretending to be someone else is hard to maintain. Your body and mind work against you. All the time. It doesn’t feel right, because it isn’t<\/i> right. It doesn’t feel right, either to you or to other people. <\/p>\n

Eventually, you have to pay..or they do. <\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The opposite of love’s indifference–the Lumineers Brene Brown did a TED talk on the importance of something I am coming to appreciate more and more: vulnerability. She started looking at what makes people feel connected, and why some people are more successful at it than others. Why some people are more satisfied with their relationships … Continue reading Getting connected…<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9597","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-words"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p7lr3R-2uN","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":10045,"url":"https:\/\/michellejolin.com\/?p=10045","url_meta":{"origin":9597,"position":0},"title":"The rewards of vulnerability and openness","author":"Michelle","date":"May 22, 2015","format":false,"excerpt":"The moment that you feel, just possibly, you are walking down the street naked, exposing too much of your heart and your mind, and what exists on the inside, showing too much of yourself...That is the moment, you might be starting to get it right. --Neil Gaiman This is one\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Random thoughts"","block_context":{"text":"Random thoughts","link":"https:\/\/michellejolin.com\/?cat=20"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":9069,"url":"https:\/\/michellejolin.com\/?p=9069","url_meta":{"origin":9597,"position":1},"title":"Who says women aren’t funny? 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It's all about death Buffy: It *is* a sham. But it's a sham with yams. It's a yam sham. Willow: You're not gonna jokey-rhyme your way out of this one. I am not a big TV watcher in\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Words"","block_context":{"text":"Words","link":"https:\/\/michellejolin.com\/?cat=7"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":8492,"url":"https:\/\/michellejolin.com\/?p=8492","url_meta":{"origin":9597,"position":3},"title":"Connecting things together","author":"Michelle","date":"December 7, 2014","format":false,"excerpt":"Artists connect the dots\u2014 we don\u2019t need to interpret the lines between them. We just draw them and then present our connections to the world as a gift, to be taken or left. This IS the artistic act, and it\u2019s done every day by many people who don\u2019t even think\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Words"","block_context":{"text":"Words","link":"https:\/\/michellejolin.com\/?cat=7"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/michellejolin.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/12\/IMG_1352.jpg?fit=600%2C840&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/michellejolin.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/12\/IMG_1352.jpg?fit=600%2C840&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/michellejolin.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/12\/IMG_1352.jpg?fit=600%2C840&ssl=1&resize=525%2C300 1.5x"},"classes":[]},{"id":8540,"url":"https:\/\/michellejolin.com\/?p=8540","url_meta":{"origin":9597,"position":4},"title":"Chinks in our armor","author":"Michelle","date":"December 19, 2014","format":false,"excerpt":"Let's do it. Let's go get the shit kicked out of us by love. --Love, Actually Vulnerability, I'm finding, seems to be a really important piece of being a happy human being. In order for people to connect, they have to see each other on a fairly deep level. 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