By Guest Author Annie Schien, M.Ed.

I am endlessly curious about humans. I’m curious about our biological draw to connection, what belonging looks like, and how to access more “warm fuzzies” (my very academic term for that mishmash of joy/delight/wonder). I’m confident that our humanity in all its complexities is the most fascinating puzzle. What I love about this puzzle is that it is very reflective and philosophical and is also threaded in the micro moments of my own life: watching my girls’ unfolding sibling relationship, the dynamics amongst parents at preschool dropoff, or in small doses of vulnerability and shared connection with a stranger at the coffee shop. As curious as I am, I can often find myself untangling this web through intellectualizing rather than sitting in my own complex humanity. Sounds much safer, right? Like many of us, I live much more in my head rather than in my heart. This disconnect between understanding others’ humanity and sitting in my own humanity has only been a barrier to the things I crave more of: connection, intimacy, and belonging both in relationships and within myself. As I discover firsthand the beauty of being vulnerable, messy, and  human, I wonder, how can I model for my kids that this is truly our greatest strength? What healing in myself do I need to do in order to authentically live in this way? 

Discovering and Unleashing my own Humanity

Envious. Irritated. Petty. Discouraged. Insecure. Lonely. I like to call these my new friends – the ones that I vigilantly kept hidden in the shadows for most of my life. As they tiptoe out into the light, my initial reaction is to scurry them back to the shadows where they belong, or so my programming tells me. These hard-to-feel emotions are followed so quickly by shame, they blend together like a crashing wave, so much so that I struggle to distinguish shame as the secondary emotion and feel what I’m actually feeling. The biological and protective instinct for control screams “You could have avoided this uncomfortable feeling!” My lizard brain flails, and my thoughts and physiological response feels like a chicken running around with its head cut off. Because of this inner turmoil, I often feel like an exposed nerveending, tenderly feeling the pricks of the world around me. I strive to cultivate more self-compassion and a more nuanced understanding of the truth:  “to be human is to be vulnerable,” so that these uncomfortable yet unavoidable emotions feel a little less like I’ve been hit by a bus. This is the lesson I keep learning again and again: this is just the human experience. It’s messy, complicated, and imperfect. 

Since having my oldest daughter four years ago, this messiness keeps smacking me in the face. I’ve had two babies back-to-back, which has been emotionally demanding and has shifted so much of my identity, my life, and my relationships. I had a huge transition in my career leaving teaching and building a business. We had a friend die last year after fighting a rare, stage-four cancer. Messy, to say the least. Hard as I try, my humanity leaks out more and more everyday. In discovering the new edges of my own humanity, I’ve felt the necessity of evolving and shedding years of shame and repression. It’s raw and challenging to look at the armored ways I’ve lived and experienced my life: the impact that it has had on my relationships, the opportunities I’ve pursued or not pursued, and most importantly the underdeveloped self-compassion that I have within myself. 

Breaking out of said box and shedding the belief that my goal in life is to “keep it all together” at all times and at all costs has felt deeply uncertain, uncomfortable, and vulnerable. Most days, I’m just showing up the best I can while learning to accept these newly-discovered parts of myself – my humanity. I try to hold these parts with self-love, look in the mirror and tell them they’re safe here and they don’t have to scurry back to the shadows. I find myself working relentlessly to find that safety and acceptance in myself, while also learning to show all of me to those in my life. 

It feels incredibly vulnerable to let myself be fully seen by others – i.e do they think I’m a terrible person because I yelled when I was angry and overwhelmed? Is this the moment I lost control and scarred my kids forever? Am I outside of my values in how I’m expressing anger? I notice this fear of emotional exposure exasperated when I let my girls see all of imperfect me, instead of the curated, repressed version of their mom. My perfectionism tells me if I work hard enough and white knuckle tightly enough, I can keep up the charade of the curated person, mom, wife, friend, daughter – tidy and neat (this is suddenly feeling very Stepford mom). However, sharing messy, tender and vulnerable moments with my kids, where I both get to normalize my humanity and affirm theirs shows me a path forward. It’s messy, but it’s real. 

Letting Ourselves Be Fully Seen

When we let our kids see us fully, leading with vulnerability, we’re modeling and normalizing the conundrum of being human. I draw from my own chronic shame and vulnerability-avoidant experiences to imagine our kids living with more self-love and more emotional resilience – armed with skills such as self-compassion and empathy. In this world, vulnerability leads them to deeper connection and belonging, and more authentic relationships. We can, despite popular belief, be sturdy and vulnerable rather than stoic for our kids.

Sturdy vulnerability says “this is hard, and I’ve been there too,” while stoicism coldly says “Everything’s fine, and if you’re not, then there must be something wrong with you.” We are stoic for our kids with the best intentions, but this warps their perception of normal, messy humanity. 

It’s through lived experiences that I’m reminded why it’s crucial for me to do this work on myself, and keep learning how to give myself full permission to let myself be human. Ironically enough, I gained another token of experience and learning as I was writing this article. The day of my deadline, I stared at the blinking cursor, disjointed ideas and anecdotes splashed without a through line. Not to mention, what I had written felt like my heart on my sleeve, complete exposure. You know it’s a light read when “shame” and “hypervigilance” are in the first paragraph. I thought, could I really share my inner landscape to the world – the good, the bad, and the ugly? Am I the only one who experiences this in other words, is this just a “me” problem? Should I just rip the bandaid and bail out?  I stared and stared for hours, feeling so emotionally exposed that no more words came. I did something that felt very out of character – I asked for the weekend for an extension.  A few days later, I stared at that same cursor and no more words, fear tinged my eyes as I started to embrace the reality that I was, in fact, not meeting yet another deadline. By 3pm, and with the encouragement of my husband, I asked again for more time. To a meet-the-deadline-at-all-costs-especially-to-my-own-detriment type of person, this felt like a complete failure.  I cringed to prepare for the worst – rejection, judgment, criticism – as I drafted the email. However, I felt the warm wash of relief later that day when my very human moment was met with warmth, connection, and empathy (thank you, Jennifer!). In real time, I was witnessing the strength of vulnerability, the power of sharing my humanity with someone else. Putting my ego, pride, and perfectionism aside and showing up fully as myself, I was met with compassion, understanding, and shared humanity. Instead of deep shame, I felt deep connection. This is the beauty of letting ourselves be fully seen. Experiences like this continue to reinforce my core value to show up vulnerably and fully human, and motivate me to model this for my daughters. 

I find myself learning and embracing my humanity by watching others, too. When my toddlers are flung on the floor, kicking their feet and scream-crying, sometimes I’m envious. True confession. It’s primal, it’s big, it’s raw. A window into who they are and what they think, feel, and experience. Their humanity and their emotions are loud and unapologetic. And two minutes later, they’re nose-deep in a book giggling at the silly animal characters, like they weren’t distraught .25 seconds ago. They feel their feeling and then they move on. They feel their emotion in their body, we hold them and let them cry or share about what happened, and then they’re onto the next. I see how emotion and these human moments can, with neutrality, simply be part of the rollercoaster of the day. 

As someone still relatively fresh in their parenting journey, I loudly feel called to show more of myself and be a safe space for them to share all of themselves. I look at my daughters at 2.5 and 4, and wonder what their lives will look like if they live with inner safety and deep compassion for all parts of themself. I see the opportunity to model a rainbow of the human experience for them instead of a monotone one –  armored and desperately lonely. What would it look like if they never tried to confine any of the parts of their humanity? Personally, I see my daughters living with sturdiness and groundedness in themselves and surrounded by more meaningful connection in their community. This is a place where they are also endlessly curious about humanity – their own and others’ – and are rooted in the power of shared humanity. That world, that vision, is why I’ll continue to shed, learn, embrace, and grow so they can always see that rainbow. 

Annie Schien, M.Ed, is an educator, trainer and coach for the Yale Center for Emotional Intelligence, partner at SEL Consulting Collaborative, and founder of grow yourSELf Consulting. Annie shifted from a classroom practitioner after a decade of teaching to supporting educators and leaders in implementing systemic SEL with a focus in educator well-being. Annie has a Masters of Education in Educational Psychology from the University of Missouri, and completed a two-year Teacher Leadership certificate program through the University of California, Davis. Annie lives in Sonoma County with her husband and their daughters, Hazel and Quinn, who drive her work to integrate SEL into the home ecosystem. She is passionate about educating kids, parents, and communities and working with educators to cultivate authentic and impactful systemic change in schools.