I am halfway done with my visiting teaching. I made a promise (a stretch, for those of you familiar with the term) to a friend last week that I would actually go and visit the sisters on my list this month. So when I realized Pret would be home to watch Lilly this afternoon, I made an appointment with one of the sisters. I was spurred on by the random, unscheduled stopping-by of my visiting teacher on Thursday night (a normally slow and slightly lonely night when Pret is at group), and it really meant a lot to me.
Anyway, I have tried to visit this sister formally a few times, but the closest we have gotten is a 10 minute chat while our kids played together in a sandbox, so I was really excited that I would actually get to sit down with her this afternoon.
After we visited for a few minutes, I asked how things were going (the standard “teaching” jargon) and she looked at me and said, “You want the honest answer?” I emphatically said, “YES!” I was amazed. She then proceeded to share some minor, albeit frustrating health problems her children were dealing with. I was able to empathize with her and then asked about some other things I knew she had going on in her life. She shared some breakthroughs she had experienced recently and I shared with her some things that I had learned at a conference last weekend.
I walked away thinking, wow, that was a really neat connection we just made. I have never been overly vulnerable with her, but I sure was last weekend with some other women. And I am now open to being more vulnerable with her. So thanks to Brené Brown and her willingness to share what she has learned, namely, “vulnerability begets vulnerability,” I was able to help a sister in need and look forward to future help-sharing (including hopefully her, me).
P.S. You still have 18 days to get your Visiting/Home Teaching done. Can you do it, too?
Bravo, Megan I’m a big believer in vulnerability. I was doing it before Dr. Brown made it famous. :)