I couldn’t help but stare at him as he walked into the room. He was tall, handsome with shiny blonde hair, and with a carved jawline. He was dressed sharply in dark blue trousers and a crisp white shirt. He was well built. I could make that out easily from his arm and chest muscles that undulated revealing each contour of his thick arms from under his shirt. He was our next speaker – Craig.
I was excited to hear what he had to say, and I was very confident that he would educate us on leadership skills. I watched him intently as he walked confidently towards the podium. He looked calm and composed. He looked around the room and his eyes saddened – something I wasn’t expecting and was not prepared for. Of course not – you don’t expect any hint of vulnerability from people with such impeccable personalities! Isn’t it?
“My father still believes that I am a quitter, and that word still echos in my ears from time to time” – were his first few words. The entire room became silent. He took us down his childhood memories when he was just fifteen years old. His father was a very successful wrestler, and he had always wanted Craig to be a wrestler too. But, Craig loved playing soccer. When he was fifteen, his father took him to a wrestling training camp. Craig agreed because he thought training for wrestling might help him to become a better soccer player. But, when he got there, he hated everything about it. The first few days were a torture for him. But, his father kept pushing him, and he kept on pushing himself trying to prove himself as a hero in front of his father…until he couldn’t take it anymore. On the fifth day, he left the place quietly without uttering a single word to his father because he knew that his father would never understand his feelings.
That was it. His relationship with his father changed forever. For the next few years, all he heard from his father was “quitter”. He moved to New York to join a big law firm, and became one of the most successful lawyers in the city, but that word kept on ringing in his ears. He worked day and night for all his cases because he did not want to quit – ever. All he wanted to hear was “winner” not “quitter”. He was constantly racing with himself because he wanted to delete that word permanently from his life.
Craig still struggles with his relationship with his father, and most of all he struggles with himself although he is very successful in every aspect of this life. “It has been 28 years to that incident!”, said Craig with a smile while his eyes welled up. He quickly composed himself and said , “It is ok to feel what you don’t want to feel. We all are human”,and ended the speech.
He was there to speak about “vulnerability” – something most of us refuse to be in the fear of being perceived as “weak-hearted”.
After I came back home that evening, I sat down with a cup of coffee and my heart raced back to all those feelings that I always denied myself to feel. It had been bottling up inside me. I no more felt guilt, shame, resentment, anger, sad, crazy, or stupid about those feelings. Tears rolled down my cheeks – but there was such a sense of relief! I had been denying myself of all those emotions for a very long time.
I felt liberated!
As Nayyirah Waheed says-
“Feel it, the thing that you don’t want to feel. Feel it, and be free”
