Vulnerability

 “It is by going down into the abyss that we recover the treasures of life. Where you stumble, there lies your treasure." ~ Joseph Campbell 

“To embrace one's brokenness, whatever it looks like, whatever has caused it, carries within it the possibility that one might come to embrace one's healing."~ Robert Benson

I have always found it hard to be vulnerable. 

A long time ago, deep in the mines of childhood memory, I probably put the essential parts of my heart into a box. 

Shrouded them in a still, silent, safe darkness.

And I wove myself some new clothing from the least frayed pieces of me.

Pieces that could be woven into a good functional cloth. 

The kind of cloth that's good for cleaning surfaces and polishing mirrors.

The frayed edges?

 I learned to hem them in.

 
 

The thing is, we carry stories, and deep in our hearts we know our story is our gift. And we want to share it.

 When we bring our stories together and tell our truths, we weave the cloth of our collective consciousness.

If we don't stand by our story and our truth, who will?

 
As Brene Brown says in her "Ted talk" below, deep down at soul level, we may not feel even worthy of connection, love and acceptance.

Often a childhood experience made us feel that essentially, we are 

not enough.

As we grow we feel it necessary to accessorize ourselves with achievement to prove our worthiness.

So we wear the correct apparel, maintain the appropriate etiquette and keep up appearances.

 

Women and young girls are often told to "be nice" quiet and feminine. 
  
So we learn to suppress our ideas or package them in nice, neat, socially coordinating wrapping paper.

 
Negative experiences of letting go and becoming vulnerable can also remind us that people can recoil, or reject our pain.

 
 
These experiences only compound our fears so that when, in time, 

people do try to get close, their gentle touch can seem almost 

harder to embrace than isolation. 

Friendship can seem similar to an antique porcelain vase. Precious, yet incredibly fragile.

In the end it may seem safer to simply step away to prevent the inevitable shattering of beauty at our clumsy touch.

The desire for authenticity and real relationship remains at odds against the fear of being hurt, rejected, judged.

Yet, connection, true connection is such an essential part of being human. 

We are always drawn back to the communal hearth.

Some Studies even indicate that forging real intimate connections can help you live longer.

 
To cope with our vulnerability, we disassociate.

Our vulnerability hides while our outer persona struggles to tread life's surface waves.

While one part of us hides in the shadows, another part, the part 

that has grown up as a "coper" may exude strength and infallibility.

Yet in the process a gap between our different elements of self ever widen and divide and the lines between truth and fiction begin to merge and blur.  

Sometimes we may even sacrifice "our inner child" or our deepest truth for  the intoxicating feeling of control and success we derive from our external persona.

But my world for this year is "True." 

Truth is always ready to open the box, peel back the layers, unravel the stories. Truth is defiant like that.

I want to embrace my inner child, take hold of her hand and bring her into the light.

Shadows will fall, cracks will show, but truth is as compassionate as it is courageous and I will trust it to navigate the way.

"I realized the most subversive thing I could do was to show up for my life and not be afraid." 
Anne Lamott 

Truth, is like Love, it overcomes the fear that I am not "enough".

To embrace truth is to accept...

My truth is enough

My story is enough.

My efforts are enough.

My best is enough.

Enough.

“Those who are willing to be vulnerable move among mysteries." Theodore Roethke, Straw for the Fire: From the Notebooks of Theodore Roethke