Vulnerability Opens Possibility
Expansiveness is a key component of real vulnerability.
Vulnerability opens possibility.
It might seem simplistic, or even bold to say that vulnerability is the key to expansiveness, but I find it to be a powerful truth.
For those envisioning a soft underbelly, poked out towards the sky, ready to be flayed open, a weak display of inevitable conquering, I will only say that this imagining is something that has become a distorted, ingrained falsity.
Vulnerability is a dance between wise discernment and surrender. Akin to a kind of complex ballet movement testing balance and flexibility, a penché if you will. On one hand, vulnerability is openness, a dynamic flexibility tempered with the balance of a deep awareness of ones own values, integrity and boundaries. It is the farthest thing from weakness that I have witnessed. The strength it takes to truly be vulnerable can require an effort not many attempt. That is not to say that the end consequence cannot still be a wounding, but when we understand two fundamental things, we come from a place of empowerment rather than hopelessness: to be in this world is painful, and walking through the world armored brings about the consequence of our greatest fear, being alone.
It is a tragic circumstance to watch someone navigate the world fully armored, creating for themselves the very circumstance from which they are trying to brace themselves, simultaneously. I have watched truly good hearted people create circumstances for themselves that ensnare them in a very dark reality. I have also seen what happens when the dark reality curdles into a bitterness that becomes an aggressive or violent existence. At a different end it becomes a depressive, hopeless chasm where possibility is hopelessness and existence is just a foregone conclusion of day, after day, after day.
Some say that vulnerability starts with safety, but I believe it begins with honesty. If honesty isn’t present around the experiences that caused us to become closed in the first place, it’s very difficult to move into a space of safety. When we move into telling ourselves the truth, no matter how daunting, it creates within us an immovable self trust, one that cannot be breached by our environment or others. Self trust creates a safety that we carry around with us. This is the place vulnerability springs from.
The question always is, ‘What kind of world am I creating for myself?’
We cannot afford any longer to ‘other’ our experiences. Our experiences begin and end with us as adult humans. What you do with this can determine your path ahead far more than any challenge you face, because overcoming is really about allowing, letting go and the end of arguing with reality.
This perspective on vulnerability is truly enlightening. It challenges the common misconception of vulnerability as weakness and instead presents it as a powerful force of strength and empowerment.
This line about vulnerability starting with honesty instead of safety makes a lot of sense to me. As someone who has spent a lot of time armoring up and then wondering why I feel so alone, the idea of self-trust as a kind of portable safety really lands.