Valuable Vulnerability

 

 

“Vulnerability is the only authentic state. Being vulnerable means being open, for wounding, but also for pleasure. Being open to the wounds of life means also being open to the bounty and beauty. Don’t mask or deny your vulnerability: it is your greatest asset. Be vulnerable: quake and shake in your boots with it. the new goodness that is coming to you, in the form of people, situations, and things can only come to you when you are vulnerable, i.e. open.”
― Stephen Russell, Barefoot Doctor's Guide to the Tao: A Spiritual Handbook for the Urban Warrior

 Being vulnerable takes courage.    Everything in our Ego does not want to be vulnerable.  It will chatter like a monster in our head saying that it is not acceptable, not done, and that we have to show only strength. We have been conditioned to do it all and more and never show weakness and that vulnerability is weakness.  And we do it and we do it and we do it until we are bowed down on our knees, alone, and suffering in silence.

We pretend that all is well and that we are superwoman and we are a model of strength.  The more we deny, the harder it is to keep up the façade.  We fear.  W feel shame when cannot be as strong as we pretended we were.  We were taught, at least my generation was, that women should be seen and not heard.  Our voices were doused when it came to what we needed, wanted, and desired.  Our boundaries fluctuated according to how well we denied our vulnerability. 

Yes, being vulnerable is risky.  Yes, we let people bully or upset us.  Yes, we were taught to hold back any expression that would have others think we were nt doing perfectly well.  Yes, we hide our feelings of shame, of guilt, of sorrow, of being unwell.  We soldiered on, we did!  Wee , for sure, did not want to seem prideful.  We learned to blame rather than come from a place of love and acceptance of self.  We feared rejection, big time.  We were dishonest when that is something we absolutely cannot stand.  We walked away rather than stood up for ourselves. 

And more…  we became ultimate pleasers.  We built walls, had them knocked down and built them higher and stronger.  We lost some of our ability to understand others, to share, to forgive.  We swallowed most of our emotions and they grew a hard nut in our gut.  We were afraid … afraid of others, mostly, afraid of ourselves.  We could not longer barely describe our authentic feelings.  We did not accept others and we certainly did not accept ourselves for who we truly are.  We became more and more disconnected to others, never mind to ourselves.  W had a deep gnawing sense of loneliness.  We were feeling more sadness than joy.  We could not sustain most relationships.  We became more hard.  We lost our tenderness.  These are just dome of the effects of NOT allowing ourselves to be vulnerable. 

Each of us has a path to being vulnerable.  Each of us innately knows how to be vulnerable in all the right ways.  Sometimes we need to practice to get it back, but it has been there, in our very soul, waiting for us to be it.  Brene Brown has several good talks on being vulnerable.  I challenge you to find them and listen to them and make them a daily practice in your life.  Go!  Be Brave!  Be Vulnerable!

This page was done very intuitively.  I went through my collection of different pieces to find what ones spoke to what I wanted. 

©Carol Desjarlais 7.5.22