Episode 215: Finding My Voice: Vulnerability in Communications
Continuing my ruminations on how we communicate, in this episode I share my recent experiences on feeling vulnerable in ways that I communicate.
You’ll hear me share:
My recent insights from a Morning Pages journaling practice
Self-observations on why some content platforms feel safer than others
How my journey into conscious living began and the hardest person for me to vulnerable with
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“One of many reasons why Human Design hits home for me is that it provides me with a framework and language to understand, accept and articulate who I am, which has allowed me to go to a place of deeper self-understanding, giving myself permission to be who I’ve always known myself to be but not allowed others to see.”
Read the Transcript:
Hey there friends and welcome back to The Live Fab Life Podcast. I'm your host, Naomi Nakamura, and I'm so happy to be here with you.
Today we’re continuing last week’s conversation in Episode 214 on how we communicate. And I had shared with you how I had been struggling with in what tone do I communicate my message? As you can imagine, I’d been having a lot deep thoughts around this and I want to share some more of my thoughts on how we communicate that came to me one day during my practice of Morning Pages.
If you're not familiar with Morning Pages, it’s an exercise where every morning you take out a blank sheet of paper and free write whatever thoughts come to mind.
It’s an exercise brought forth by an author named Julia Cameron to help break through creative blocks and restore our creativity. In the process of free writing, we’ll find our creativity start to return and flow. I’ve been practicing Morning Pages regularly for about a month and have experienced this for myself.
One morning, just a few days ago, as I wrote my Morning Pages, I found my thoughts drifting towards how vulnerable we can be in our communications.
Let me start by taking you back the summer before my senior year of high school. I attended a program called SPEBE. I don’t remember what it stands for, but SPEBE was a summer program for high school juniors and seniors from all over the state of Hawai’i.
We got to spend the summer at the University of Hawaii in Manoa, living on campus in the dorms attending different programs for areas of studies.
At the time, I thought that I wanted to be a journalist, so I attended the Mass Media program. We were got to lean the ins and outs of broadcast journalism, were mentored by a local news anchor, and even hosted our own radio show on the university’s radio station midnight to 3am.
As a 16-year-old, coming from a little neighbor island of 7000 people, getting to live in the big city, on campus, on my own for the first time, well you can imagine how much fun I had. I even remember that I didn't know how to do laundry before this, and my mom had to teach me how to wash my clothes just before I left. After that summer ended, I thought for sure that to be a journalist.
Then I went to college and started off majoring in Communications because that was the program that journalism fell in at my university. I remember one of the classes I took in my first semester of college was Communications 101. It was super basic, talking about senders and receivers of messages, listening skills, and so forth. Well, I was like, “This is dumb. This is not journalism.” and I ended up switching majors.
In hindsight, I kind of wish I stuck with it, but I also see why Comms 101 started off the way that it did because now, as an adult many years later, I can see that we don't know how to communicate with each other. We don't listen to what we’re communicating, not just in the words that are said, but in the words that aren’t said, in our body language, through our actions – you get the picture.
So, back to working through my creative blocks – there was a lot to unpack there, some of which I’m continuing to unpack.
One thing that’s come through from my Morning Pages practices is acknowledging the vulnerability I feel in some of my communications.
What do I mean by that?
Well, as I unpack, and get to the root of why I’m feeling creatively challenged, what’s apparent is that I feel some uncertainty, feeling unsure of the tone of my messaging because I feel fear about how it’ll be received. And so, the practice of Morning Pages has given me the space to acknowledge these fears because I wasn't ready to really acknowledge them prior to this.
It’s also given me the space to explore the vulnerability I feel in this which led me to think about all the ways that I communicate with all of you - my community. And those ways really come down to three different channels - here on the podcast, my weekly emails to my email community, and then on social media, which for me is Instagram.
And in some ways, it feels safer to be open and vulnerable here on the podcast than on Instagram and I’ve had to ask myself why.
Why this is because you’d think that Instagram might feel like a safer place because, mostly, there are names and faces behind accounts.
But actually, I feel so much more comfortable being open here on the podcast. In fact, I’ve noticed that when I have an episode that feel particularly vulnerable, I’ve avoided posting about it on Instagram.
There's a couple of reasons that I came up with for why this is:
Well for starters, as you can tell, brevity is not my strong point and podcasts allow for longer conversations. No one does 1-minute episodes, which is the typical length of an Instagram story. So the podcast is where I can go deep and have in-depth conversations.
Next, I think that podcast listeners are more engaged. They’re, and by “they” I mean, “you” are more likely to take the time to listen to episodes whereas Instagrammers scroll quickly, tapping through each screen.
You podcast listeners, you invest your time and energy to listen in, whereas Instagrammers are at the mercy of an algorithm. The algorithm decides who sees what.
And given the short nature of Instagram content, it can feel risky to me because things can be taken out of context. I don’t feel that platform allows me the space to fully express my message and points of view. And that feels vulnerable and scary.
It’s ironic because with names and faces behind Instagram accounts, along with a lot of people who I know in real life, you’d think it’d feel like a safer place to be open and vulnerable, whereas here on the podcast, I don't know who's listening.
Once a month I look at my podcast stats and I'm always surprised to see all the places around the world where people are tuning in from. It's heartwarming for me but at the same time I have no idea who many of you are, yet it feels easier to speak to you, so openly.
There is the element of not feeling comfortable being so vulnerable with people who do know me in person. I know I’m not the only one who feels this way and I’m in the process of unpacking this, but it mostly has to do with the gap between people who know me in real life knowing the side I’ve presented to the world versus the real me that I’m allowing and giving myself permission to emerge and be seen, in many ways, for the first time.
In retrospect, I first started my personal development journey around 2012, so a decade ago. I was at the point in my life where I was searching to bring more depth into my life. I wanted to explore mindfulness and conscious living and as far as I knew, no one in my closest circle was into that. So I kept that part of myself hidden – separate from my day-to-day life.
I remember that at the start of my journey, one of the first things watched when I started feeling this shift within myself is Brene Brown's TED talk on vulnerability. If you haven’t watched it yet, I’ll link to it in the show notes.
But that video single-handedly transformed my life. As I watched it I thought to myself, “Oh my gosh, I don't know how to be vulnerable. How do I do this? This kind of intimacy and vulnerability felt like something so foreign to me.” It scared me that I didn't know how to be vulnerable.
Over the past 10 years of exploring this and allowing myself to open up in more ways, what I found was that the scariest and hardest person to be vulnerable with was myself.
And this is one of many reasons why Human Design hits home for me. It provides me a framework and language in which to understand, accept and articulate who I am, which has allowed me to go to a place of deeper self-understanding, giving myself permission to be who I've always known myself to be but not allowed others to see.
All this being said, these are musings from one of my Morning Pages entries, so I don’t really have any lessons or points of view for you here except to say that when you ask me, “How do I bring Human Design into my daily life?” This is how do I so.
Morning Pages to allow free thoughts to come forward, meditations, going inward and practicing self-observation with non-judgment.
I'm learning here with you, I’m not on a pedestal above you, looking down at you. I’m in the trenches, doing the work with you. And I share this because we all learn from each other.
And if Morning Pages or journaling doesn’t work for you, I mean, I get it, my handwriting sucks, but if the process doesn’t appeal to you, speak out your thoughts.
I was talking to a friend yesterday and she shared that, journaling is not for her instead, she goes on long walks and she talks to herself, which is the perfect thing to do if you’re a Self-Projected or Mental Projector (Episodes 201 and 207).
This is all I have for you this week. As I mentioned, I know I appreciate you being here, listening, sharing your time and energy with me, and allowing me to be open and vulnerable in my communication with you.
If you relate to any of this, I’d love to hear from you. Come over to the show notes for this episode at www.livefablife.com/215 for Episode 215 or find me on Instagram at @livefablifewithnaomi. And if you’d like to join my email community, I’ll include a link to it on the show notes as well.
See you next time!
Naomi Nakamura is a Health x Human Design coach who’s creating a healthier society through aligned energy.
She blends a bespoke mix of Functional Nutrition and Human Design to help others shift into alignment to leverage and correctly manage their energy to support their body, mind, and spirit.
She believes that when we embrace our authenticity and lean into our bio-individuality, we naturally live a life of freedom, empowerment, and optimal health.
Naomi resides in the San Francisco Bay Area and can often be found exploring the area with her puppy girl, Coco Pop!
Connect with Naomi on: Instagram
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