On vulnerability…
I always thought being vulnerable was defined by being vulnerable with another person. I have come to learn that for me, the most challenging undertaking is being vulnerable with MYSELF. Being vulnerable with myself means to not repress or turn away when something triggers difficult emotion I would rather not feel, in preference to pretending everything is “just fine”. The upkeep of a rigidly perfect self-image to oneself is exhausting and had kept me in a perpetual inner war-zone. I only recently became aware that this is a battle I don’t have to fight. Besides, it is an unwinnable battle and so can only add more stress, anxiety and judgment. I had lived so long in this way of being, I didn’t even know I was fighting. It just felt normal. What a relief… what a revelation… that I saw that I could choose to put down the sword and surrender to the greater plan of the universe. A plan, which has proven itself to be cleverly devised, though disguised, to put me exactly where I need to be for my greatest growth. My work with vulnerability first means learning how to be “with” MYSELF, exactly as I am, and NOT relying on someone else to make it safe to be “me”. Only in this state can we ever hope to find a space of vulnerability with others. SO my current moment-to-moment inner work looks something like this:
1. Something happens, I witness something or see someone that triggers something in me. Or there is no trigger, but emotions, thoughts or feelings that range from uncomfortable to down right excruciating edge into the field of my awareness.
2. I STOP what I am doing and consciously ACKNOWLEDGE I am feeling something.
3. I breathe deeply in through the nose from the belly and out through the mouth, allowing myself to feel fully whatever is there.
4. I LOVE myself. For REAL, I literally LOVE myself. As in, saying to myself, “I love you” and “I am here for you”. Hand on the heart helps with this.
5. I surrender it to God/Spirit/The Universe. This step opens up the knowledge that we do have help and don’t have to do it alone.
In days of turmoil, I am doing this all day long. When navigating the depths, my body is likely the most oxygenated it has ever been from the near continuous deep breathing. There is such freedom in not shying away from what is there, trying to “figure out” why it’s there or blaming the trigger. Along with this freedom, often there is an intense wave of love that washes over me. I am reminded that even when I am “in love” with another person, it is MY love I am feeling. This means it is mine to access whenever I like and I don’t have to “wait” to be loved by another. Learning to become compassionately vulnerable with myself has taken more diligence than I could have ever imagined, but the rewards are GREAT. Ancient damaged parts of me have come up to be loved and release in mere fractions of a second where they used to take days, weeks, months or even years. And the moment when I feel surrender happen, and a load lifted, is the sweetest freedom I have ever felt.
Here is what I got in my journaling when I asked for guidance in this:
When you seek to be vulnerable, it is not safety that you will find, but the true un-harm-able nature of your soul. Safety is an illusion as death is an illusion. If you see that your very essence cannot be harmed, then fear dissolves and you can be revealed to yourself.
What this says to me is that I was confusing vulnerability with INvulnerability. I thought I would somehow get to a point I couldn’t be affected by the world, of being so healed that I would be impervious to any life occurrences or even my own “stuff”. I am learning that there is no such thing. We are porous, permeable beings and the attempt to be unaffected just makes one rigid and afraid. The paradox is, the only way to be invulnerable is to allow yourself to be so vulnerable as to be completely penetrated by life. In this way nothing new can take root and create energetic scars to be dealt with later. More and more, one dances with grace into clearer, cleaner and more transparent experiences of life. Thank you for taking in this sharing and see you on the dance floor!
Breathing DEEP,
Anah
