The art of vulnerability
If I could give the year so far a name it would be this: Vulnerability.
A big word. The past few months I have realised more than ever what I can learn from it, and that it is at the core of transforming the human experience and my connections.
I have always considered myself an open book. Talking about my feelings comes easy to me and I love sharing my thoughts, as well as gaining insights from others — no matter how deep they are. You could say I’m a deep talk connoisseur. Expressing myself through forms of art is of the utmost importance to me, because it is a portal to my emotional world.
Yet, I have noticed a pattern I follow: Running away. I would chase short-lived attractions just to feel the magic of it and then feel relief when either I end it or they do it before I get the chance. Because then, there is less room to get hurt (or so I thought).
Of course, I wasn’t always conscious that I was acting out of fear. For the longest time, I thought that I simply can’t develop deep, long-lasting feelings for someone, or that I could never be “relationship person” (what even is that?). My detachment and independence has become such a norm that I couldn’t fully see below the smoke.
The same goes for my passions — I am a dreamer and have big aspirations for the things I want to achieve in my life. The art I want to create. The music I want to make. But there was a long stretch where I hardly took any action. I felt inspirationally and creatively depleted. It felt like I lost the spark in my purest forms of joy. Now I that I trace it back, I can see that this would always happen when I was existing in a state of fear. I was (and still am) scared of failure, as well as success. Taking action towards my dreams means getting out of my comfort zone, making mistakes and at the core — being vulnerable. And that can be hella scary.
Moving to New York has been the biggest challenge and greatest blessing of my life. I had to face many of my doubts and fears head on and sometimes at the same time. I could no longer run, because I was staring it right in the face.
I studied Musical Theatre for a year, and every day we would work on expressing our emotions through song. Talk about being vulnerable. And somewhere along the process, I began to realise how many emotions I had become so used to suppressing. Anger, sadness, grief, fear of the future, self doubt. But I showed up to class and told myself to keep going, stay in this place and allow myself to feel it fully.
In the last year, I also made some beautiful connections. And with that came some chaos, disappointment and pain. A lot of pain actually. I used to have difficulties with crying. It was like a blockage trapped in my body that I didn’t understand or didn’t fully know how to heal it. And then something happened this year that made me release my emotions like a waterfall. Shedding tears and emotions, bringing up memories. I allowed myself to lean into the messiness of what it means to be human and not be perfect all the time.
And that, perhaps, there is something to discover underneath all the pain.
I cried more than I ever have in my life in such a short span of time. And since then, something amazing has unfolded. I keep meeting people that I connect with in beautiful ways, opportunities keep coming to me and I feel more alive and more joy than I ever have. I also feel incredibly scared at times. And that is okay. One of my best friends is going through a similar stage of trial and error and one day he said this to me: “If you want to feel truly alive you have to be willing to hurt and get hurt.” That stuck with me. Of course, we should always be the kindest and most mindful we can be. But there is no way we can go through the world without breaking broken down at times if we want to live fully.
In my opinion, feeling things deeply is a blessing. Yes, the darkness feels like a dark smoke that envelops every part of your being, but the sunshine — It feels like a thousand rainbows were painted across the sky just for you.
I am done with hiding myself from the world, running from experiences and connections with people that go deep, just because I don’t want to feel any pain. I no longer want to play games or hide my truest forms and feelings. Because in the end, what hurts more — The pain of actually trying something and letting your heart be turned open, or never trying and wondering what could have been?
No more what ifs. We did not come to this earth to miss out on what it means to be fully alive.
