fears & vulnerability
This melancholy ballad by singer-musician-songwriter Stefan Weiner is beautiful to listen to, with Stefan’s warm and honest voice and strains of soulful violin woven through. I also find that the lyrics are quite touching, perhaps because what they express feels so universally human.
Accepting vulnerability and admitting our fears … Asking for help, letting someone hold us … The way we convince ourselves that other people have it all together, that they are invincible compared to us with all our struggles and weaknesses …
You can listen here. Lyrics are just below:
Fearful LullabyAre you afraid of the dark, my baby?I said mother, oh mother I amLay here as still as you can my babyAnd I’ll fill up your eyelids with sandI cried myself to sleepWhile the monsters were quietly creepingThrough the cracks in my doorPlundering sheets for to dream inWhat if our house catches fire tonight?She says, “baby, oh baby it won’t”How do you know so much more than I do?She says, “baby, oh baby I don’t”I cried myself to sleepWhile the flames melt my whole into hollowAnd in the snow white morningShoveling ash from my pillowWhat if I fall asleep tonightAnd I know not the light of the morning?With robbers and demons aflightOh, lying awake I am listening
Just a few thoughts on vulnerability. Dr. Brené Brown (see earlier Sanctuary posts on understanding shame and the antidotes to shame) has been studying human emotions for years, with inspiring dedication. In her TED talk, The Power of Vulnerability, she walks us through her findings and offers up many nuggets of wisdom.
Her advice includes “believing that we’re enough,” even with all our imperfections. “Because when we work from a place, I believe, that says ‘I’m enough,’ then we stop screaming and start listening. We’re kinder and gentler to the people around us and we’re kinder and gentler to ourselves."
She goes on to exhort us to: “let ourselves be seen. Deeply seen. Vulnerably seen. To love with our whole hearts, even though there’s no guarantee. And that’s really hard. And I can tell you as a parent – that’s excruciatingly difficult. To practice gratitude and joy, in those moments of terror … to say I’m just so grateful, because to feel this vulnerable means that I’m alive.”
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