For a few years now I had wanted to gather my friends and start a book club…I kept thinking about it and always finding a reason why it wasn’t quite the right time.
People are gone away in the summer… people are busy in September, in December…I feel too tired right now to start this…
Anxiety is a master of finding reasons not to do things that are new and that will make us vulnerable in the asking.
So I saw months go by without me sending out an invite. But the yearning to do the book club didn’t go away.
I started to become frustrated with myself as I could see it was my old wounding showing up that stopped me from reaching out.
The wounding is around friendships.
For most of my adolescence I struggled with friendships, which included having no friends for a period of time. One way that I was impacted is that I stopped asking people to do things with me. I really struggled with the idea that someone would want to hang out with me.
Instead, I waited for the invite. It felt safer to wait for the invite.
Waiting for the invite helps us not feel vulnerable. If someone invites us, that means that they want to spend time with us. There is no guessing.
But for me this meant that I wasn’t doing something that I really wanted to do; having a book club with my friends.
In the last few years, I have healed many of my friendship wounds and now have a lovely group of friends who know me and love me. I feel the same about them.
So one day I decided that it was time to be vulnerable and invite them to my book club.
I am happy to report that the book club has been running for a year and has been really great. The conversations have been deep, rewarding, and have built community.
How might you be avoiding vulnerability by not asking for what you want?
It might be worth reflecting on this, and seeing if you are in a place that you could manage being vulnerable. The risk might very well be worth it.
