Then I took the next step and recorded my composition. I sent it to a popular dance teacher in my neighborhood and asked her if she could use it. I knew she was preparing a musical because she’d already asked me to play for it. I’d been hesitating because, although I love playing music, I wanted so much to do something for myself, to break out of the box I’d put myself into.

I was sure she’d hate my song. After I sent it, I prepared myself for her rejection. After all, I’m not the music-maker type.

To my shock, she liked it. No, that’s not true. She loved it. She asked me where I’d gotten it from, and when I admitted that I’d written it myself, she was thrilled. She asked me to write the music for the theme song in her musical, and I took a deep breath and accepted.

Afterward, I told my husband what I’d done. He thought it was amazing. “Wow, you sent her your own original music? I can’t believe it! Why didn’t you tell me?”

I was embarrassed to tell him the answer: I’d been afraid to tell him. If the dance teacher hadn’t liked it, at least I’d be the only one who knew about it.

My success gave me courage. I began to realize that by being afraid of failure, I’d cut out the possibility of joy, growth, and new experiences. Night after night, I sat at the piano and played. And played. More songs came together in my mind, songs whose snatches I’d been hearing in my head all these years but had been afraid to develop.

Then a funny thing happened. As I opened myself up to my own creativity, my antipathy towards my neighbors, my feeling of not belonging, began to melt away. I allowed myself to feel who I really was, and I no longer felt threatened by anyone else around me.

Sometimes I share my music with other people. More often than not, I don’t. But now that I’ve learned about vulnerability, I have a lot more room to make mistakes. I can tell people I write music and not be afraid of their reaction.

I’m not saying I changed overnight. It’s a journey. But in the past three years, I’ve written music for three more productions, and I’m no longer afraid to tell my husband when I’m developing a new song. I still cringe when I send out my music. I still think, Maybe this will be the one they don’t like. But it hasn’t happened yet, and I’ve become more courageous each time I try.

Externally, I’m still Ms. Has-It-All-Together. But inside, I’m me. I may not be perfect, but I’m a lot happier. By allowing myself to be vulnerable, with the mess and glory that comes along with it, I’ve opened up a whole new world for myself.

And when I miss a beat? I pick myself up and keep on going.

From Simmer to Serentity

Count to ten. Don’t say anything. Don’t get angry. Don’t explode.

These are the mantras I grew up with.

Sounds good, right? I mean, who wants to get angry?

The problem is that these mantras work only in healthy scenarios, with healthy people. When you’re living in an abusive relationship, such mantras can turn you into a victim real fast.

But I didn’t realize that, and I suffered needlessly for years. Until my first marriage imploded, and I found myself rebuilding my life from scratch.

In the process, I went to therapy. I learned that suppressing your feelings doesn’t mean that you aren’t angry. It just means that those feelings will resurface later, when they may be completely inappropriate.

And that’s what happened to me, once I got remarried. Or, rather, once I met my second husband.

Excited and happy about the future, I was sure life would be great and we’d ace all our challenges together. After all, I knew how to express my feelings properly now and not to keep them all inside. We’d be fine, right?

And then we had our first fight. It happened before we even got engaged. I blew up at him for some small perceived misdeed and spent the next 20 minutes ranting. He listened quietly, never said a word. After I calmed down, I realized that it wasn’t his fault I had gotten so angry — it was mine. I was reacting to something that had happened in my previous marriage and taking it out on him.

So I apologized. I went out and bought him a gift, and I promised to try to keep a handle on my emotions.

Thinking that was the end of it, I was relieved he’d taken it so well.

But the next time something came up, I flew off the handle again. And again. And again.

Oops. That wasn’t what my husband had anticipated. And it wasn’t how I wanted to be either. But I couldn’t seem to stop myself. All the feelings I’d suppressed during my first marriage rose to the surface and overflowed. And every time my hubby didn’t do what he was supposed to do — in my version of reality — he got it from me.

Fortunately, my husband is a patient man. But even patient men have their limits.

I’d apologize, yet again. And I’d try to fix it, yet again. But then something small would go wrong, and I’d explode again. I’d accuse him of not caring about me. I’d accuse him of putting his kids ahead of me. I’d accuse him of ignoring my feelings — even though none of this was true.

Clearly, I needed to learn how to process everything that was going on inside me, but how?

I’d tried several different forms of therapy over the years, and some I tried again to deal with this. But they didn’t work this time around. Something was different. It was too painful to go back to the past. I needed a way forward.

My therapist suggested new and different techniques. Sometimes they worked. More often they didn’t. So we worked on it together, my husband and I. It’s not always easy to admit to him how needy I feel; I’d rather pretend I’m doing just fine. But that approach clearly isn’t working. So I have to tell him why certain things are harder for me to handle than others. I have to tell him what I need to feel loved and accepted.

Slowly I’ve begun to feel calmer, more at peace with myself. I can process an emotion and let go of it. I don’t have to be the silently suffering wife I was the first time around, who kept all her feelings under wraps. Instead, I’m figuring out what I need to stay sane, how I react best to situations, and who I am, day by day. And when things go wrong, I take a deep breath, analyze what happened, and tell my husband about it, so he knows what’s going on inside me, too.

I don’t count to ten anymore. I don’t need to. I can say something when necessary, but in a way that works for both me and my husband.

It’s a whole new life, and I’m grateful I’ve gotten here.

Hitting Send

“You’re just too funny! Bye, Chavs.”

I hung up the phone laughing, having enjoyed the last half hour of camaraderie with my good friend Chaviva. We’d been friends forever, and I felt more comfortable with her than with almost anyone else… well, sort of. Because Chaviva, like everyone else in my life, didn’t know about the painful struggle I was dealing with, the one I was afraid to share.

After all, I was the one who had it all together. And so was Chaviva. That was what made us such a great match. We’d been friends all through school, teaming up for school projects and hanging out together almost every weekend. We were the stars of our class, and we knew it.

We’d gotten married a couple of months apart and moved to Eretz Yisrael for a few years, where we’d kept up our friendship as we coped with husbands in kollel, newborns, and Israeli bureaucracy.

Chaviva had a social work degree and landed a great job in an American seminary. Her husband wanted to stay in the Mir, so we reluctantly said our goodbyes after my five years of support were up and I moved back to the US.

My husband found an out-of-town kollel he loved; I got a job teaching in the local high school.

I’d call Chaviva from time to time to say hi, but it was hard to find a time that worked — my evenings were the middle of the night for her, and I was out teaching when she wanted to schmooze. When we did find a time to catch up, our discussions were limited to the technical: How are your kids doing, how’s work, how’s life? We barely strayed into the emotional realm.

And now, I needed her. My mother, my perfectly put-together mother, who should have been enjoying early retirement, was struggling with a massive health issue, and she’d sworn all of us kids to secrecy. The situation had been deteriorating for two years, and no one outside our family knew about it. By now, I was a wreck, and I needed to talk to someone about how I was coping — or not coping — with the situation. The trouble was, I didn’t feel comfortable confiding in anyone.

Anyone except for Chaviva, who had known my mother from the time we were kids. But somehow, I couldn’t bring myself to break down the barriers we’d erected between us, the barriers that said, I’m doing just fine, thank you very much.

I knew very well that I wasn’t doing just fine. Maybe Chaviva wasn’t either, but she was the therapist who never left the house without makeup and sheitel, whose husband was still learning, and whose kids always wore matching clothing. Even though I looked the same as she did on the outside, how could I tell her that inside I was terrified of facing life without my mother?

So Chaviva and I would e-mail each other, the same bantering e-mails as before. “Guess what, Tzip! My brother’s engaged, and I’m coming to America this summer. Want to get together?”

We made arrangements, and she wrote, “I know I would never tell you this on the phone, but I’ve got something big going on and I need to talk.”

I knew what she meant, because I felt the same way.

I found myself counting down the weeks till Chaviva came. But would I really be able to tear down the wall of silence and tell her how much I was struggling? I didn’t know.

Maybe e-mail is the way to go, I thought. I’ll just write to her, and I don’t have to press send at the end.

I sat down at the computer one night when the house was quiet and began to write. “Chaviva, I know you think I have it all together, but I really need you now. Here’s what’s been going on here the last two years…”

I wrote and wrote, not just about my mother, but also about the tears that came to me at random times, in random places. About how terrified I was to lose my rock of support, but at the same time how I’d lost her already. How I couldn’t call my mother on the phone whenever I felt like it because I didn’t know if she’d be feeling up to it. How my husband, who tried to be supportive, just didn’t get why I was so down sometimes.

And at the end, I hit send.

It was a watershed moment for me. I didn’t know how Chaviva would react. What if she didn’t get it? What if she thought I was silly or superficial for focusing on myself when my mother was so sick?

I was almost afraid to check my e-mail the next morning, knowing that Chaviva had probably responded to me overnight. I clenched my fists and prepared to take it all back, to write some flippant, “Ha ha, I was just joking” line, or to cut myself off from my childhood friend forever.

Fortunately, I didn’t need to.

“Tzip, I knew there was something massive you were dealing with the last couple of years,” Chaviva wrote. “I’m so glad you were able to open up and tell me about it. I’m here for you. You can always tell me what’s going on.”

Then, to my shock and bemusement, she continued, “And you know what? You think I’ve always got it together? I’ve also got something that I’m dealing with that I was afraid to tell you about.”

Chaviva’s issue isn’t the same as mine, but it’s a relief to know that she’s not the perfect person she’d always seemed to be either. And now that we’ve finally come clean, our e-mails and phone conversations can finally get beyond the superficial.

Chaviva and I have been writing back and forth regularly, and I can’t wait to see her when she comes to visit. By hitting send on that e-mail, I was able to breach my protective armor of I’m doing just fine and I’ve been able to get the support I need at last.

Vulnerability in Theory

Bestselling author Brenי Brown has highlighted the concept of vulnerability with her groundbreaking approach to relationships and human behavior. The author of several books, among them The Gifts of Imperfection and I Thought It Was Just Me (But It Isn’t), Brown dissects the process of living authentically — in her words, “letting go of who we think we’re supposed to be and embracing who we are.”

Brown has developed theories for living what she calls a “wholehearted life,” explains Rachel Rose, a Jerusalem-based therapist who has used these theories in her practice. “She says that when we disconnect from the painful emotions such as the struggle for worthiness, fear, and shame, we’re also disconnecting from the ability to feel positive emotions such as joy, creativity, belonging, and love.”

How does this manifest itself? “One of the ways that people ‘protect’ themselves from shame and low self-esteem is by striving to appear perfect,” Rachel continues. “The perfectionist works hard to hide what makes them ‘not good enough’ for fear that they’ll be rejected for it.”

Most people, Rachel says, will admit to having built a wall at some time or another to avoid being vulnerable. Some people build walls that they live behind for most of their lives.

“Brenי Brown suggests developing your courage to be exactly who you are. Believe that you are worthy of love as you are. Believe in yourself enough to be kind to yourself, and be forgiving of your imperfections. That will foster an outlook that will help build connection, leading to seeing the good in other people, and having the courage and patience to support another person when things get hard.”

This, in Brenי Brown’s terminology, is what’s called “a life of wholeheartedness.”

(Originally Featured in Family First, Issue 598)