On Transparency and personal Integrity

Original title:

Vulnerability: what happened to my writing attempt and what I discovered (text written on the 1st of April 2018, Bali)

For the past couple of months, I found myself stuck when it came to writing, especially with the perspective of publishing! This also affected other online sharing activities like ''Instagramming'' - Is this an official word yet?

To keep it short - I wanted to start serious blogging; I had to put in a lot of thought as to what I want to share? And HOW EXPOSED am I willing to be?

Writing a blog and being active on Instagram are two different things, but I must admit that sharing bits and pieces of my personal life in daily stories, as well as the high engagement of friends and followers on a regular basis, made me realize that going public is something that deserves a great deal of consideration before getting engaged fully into it.

So you see, I was stuck in two levels of dilemmas:

The first was between total public self-exposure (full name and personal Instagram account) or getting a privacy shield (new name and new Instagram account).

The later was about the level of personal content on my blog and Instagram account.

What do I want to share?

I want to write positive content about Technology and Society.

But I also want to share notes about Life and attempted wisdom - if I may call it. As you may guess, I will obviously be sharing plenty of personal thoughts in there, it wouldn't be worthy otherwise, right?

And to me that's even more personal and private than just Instagram pictures…

Looking back at these dilemmas, I realized that they were just excuses I made up for myself to postpone the ultimate moment of exposing myself and my thoughts publicly. And what I first believed to be just a privacy issue, turned out to be more of a disguised personal fear of being vulnerable.

This brought up insecurities in me, making me question myself. Whether I really wanted to write publicly? At the bottom of this reflection there was the age-old question of ''am I going to be good enough''.

It got in the way of my more profound creative process. I stopped writing, even to myself...

It was actually the wise words of a friend that triggered me instantly to write this blog post. He's a talented professional dancer, and he said:

  ''We are scared to be vulnerable to others 
        because we are too hard on ourselves, 
        but by exposing ourselves as we truly are 
        we actually show the others that we love them.'' 

And it reminded me of a very interesting Ted talk I watched two years ago, about the power of vulnerability.

It's a talk by Brené Brown, a brave woman; I totally recommend you listen to her story. I just watched her talk again and she says:

''Vulnerability is the core of shame and fear 
           and our struggle for worthiness, 
     but it appears that it's also the birthplace of joy, 
           of creativity, of belonging, of love." 

Funny enough, I just visited her website and her warm human authenticity from the talk is also reflected in the way she presents herself on the website. You won't even need to go to her Instagram to see her personal story and funny pictures, she proudly showcases them on her timeline.

So back to my choices:

The main reason why I'm grasping my COURAGE to go public with my identity and my thoughts is to be true to my readers. Now I always said to myself that I'm doing the writing for myself in the first place and if it benefits others then it's only the cherry on top of the cake. But I just realized how much my commitment to open up publicly is primarily helping me on a deeper personal level, to overcome my fears and limiting beliefs, and ultimately be true not only to my readers but also to myself, which I would call having a personal Integrity - even more important than the public Integrity.

Now how funny is it to also find this notion of Integrity in the original and beautiful definition of Courage, Brene says:

'' When it first came into the English language -- it's from the Latin word "cor," meaning "heart" -- and the original definition was to tell the story of who you are with your whole heart.''

This means that from a place of Fear, the Courage for Transparency, the Courage of being vulnerable by letting people see who we truly are, can take us to a higher place of authenticity and integrity, and this ultimately leads to Trust.

On a broader scale, these fundamentals are needed more than ever in our society.

Who would disagree with me if I say that our Trust is shaken on all levels nowadays?

The trust in the world around us is shaken, from scandals in almost all industries (financial, pharmaceutical, food, energy, clothing...) to political scandals in our institutions and governments.

Our trust in ourselves is also shaken by the "perfect" lives and bodies thrown at us everywhere and especially on social media like Instagram.

And we end up being confused and uncertain, individually and collectively.

But the truth is, nobody is perfect, we are all HUMAN, we are all vulnerable.

We do Good and we do Bad, intentionally and not.

All we need is Authenticity, Integrity and Trust.

From our interactions with each other as individuals with our family members, our friends, and all the people around us, to our interactions collectively with our institutions, governments, and leaders, on the global level, we need to open up to each other, accept our vulnerabilities, do our best and acknowledge our eventual mistakes.

Following Ghandi's wisdom, I'll always do my best to be the change I want to see in the world.

So here I am, continuing this journey by embracing my vulnerability and hoping to bring out the best in me with Transparency and Integrity, as much as I can.

Truly,

Nad

PS: If you are curious to follow me on Instagram where I have been sharing a lot of artistic/philosophical content through my daily yoga practice, you can find me @nad_allaround - Indeed I have been all around 😅

Endless love <3