Vulnerability is the Path
Vulnerability isn't good or bad: it's not what we call a dark emotion, nor is it always a light, positive experience. Vulnerability is the core of all emotions and feelings. To feel is to be vulnerable. To believe vulnerability is weakness is to believe that feeling is weakness. To foreclose on our emotional life out of a fear that the costs will be too high is to walk away from the very thing that gives purpose and meaning to living.
Our rejection of vulnerability often stems from our associating it with dark emotions like fear, shame, grief, sadness, and disappointment—emotions that we don't want to discuss, even when they profoundly affect the way we live, love, work, and even lead. What most of us fail to understand and what took me a decade of research to learn is that vulnerability is also the cradle of the emotions and experiences that we crave. We want deeper and more meaningful spiritual lives. Vulnerability is the birthplace of love, belonging, joy, courage, and creativity. It is the source of hope, empathy, accountability and authenticity. If we want greater clarity in our purpose or deeper or more meaningful spiritual lives, vulnerability is the path.
I know this is hard to believe, especially when we've spent our lives thinking that vulnerability and weakness are synonymous, but it's true. I define vulnerability as uncertainty, risk, and emotional exposure. With that definition in mind, let's think about love. [...] Love is uncertain. It's incredibly risky. And loving someone leaves us emotionally exposed. Yes, it's scary, and yes, we're open to being hurt, but can you imagine your life without loving or being loved.
To put our art, our writing, our photography, our ideas out into the world with no assurance of acceptance or appreciation—that's also vulnerability. To let ourselves sink into the joyful moments of our lives even though we know that they are fleeting, even though the world tells us not to be too happy lest we invite disaster—that's an intense form of vulnerability.
The profound danger is that, as noted above, we start to think of feeling as weakness. With the exception of anger (which is a secondary emotion, one that only serves as a socially acceptable mask for many of the more difficult underlying emotions we feel), we're losing our tolerance for emotion and hence for vulnerability.
It starts to make sense that we dismiss vulnerability as weakness only when we realize that we've confused feeling with failing and emotions with liabilities. If we want to reclaim the essential emotional part of our lives and reignite our passion and purpose, we have to learn how to own and engage with our vulnerability and how to feel the emotions that come with it. For some of us, it's new learning, and for others it's relearning. Either way, the research taught me that the best place to start is with defining, recognizing, and understanding vulnerability.
How do you relate to the notion that vulnerability is the path to deeper or more meaningful spiritual lives? Can you share a personal experience of a gift of learning that came from allowing yourself to be vulnerable? What helps you to allow yourself to engage with vulnerability?
As always I find these concepts so profoundly challenging and "right on!" So much is uncertain in life that I often find it hard to even take one-risky step towards center stage. Just the thought of being that vulnerable creates an overwhelming sense of exposure! One that I cannot cover up or hide. The world sees the real me and that can be terrifying. Lately I have been taking the risk to enter center stage or the arena. To put my words, my thoughts, my art and photography "out there". Just by doing this I realize that I cannot expect applause or even appreication of others. But I also realize, that to not take the risk will be going against who I really am as a person and as the Beloved of God. Linda Jane Dingeldein:Different by Design
I recently took a penniless pilgrimage to the Himalayas all by myself on foot with a one-way ticket and no gadgets. That was one of the most vulnerable things I have done in my life. It left me with such insights and humbling experiences, that no amount of reading or meditation could have brought. In gratitude for the wonderful article :)
I agree with the observation that vulnerability is a condition of being. I suggest that we can choose to be consciously or mindfully vulnerable or we can choose, often by default, to be threatened or overwhelmed by vulnerability. One approach moves from love and abundance, the other from fear and scarcity. I know that there are times when I am in fear and need, and so vulnerability can feel like weakness. There are ever more times when I am in my heart which I have opened to another, and I experience vulnerability as a great strength for I have learned through practice that it is in vulnerability that I connect most deeply with others, with spiritual meaning, and with this amazing universe and our beautiful planet.
I do realize that I have subdued my thoughts, feelings, freedom for years.
I have gotten scared & controlling and lost many gifts, universe kindly bestowed on me, in the past.
I want to allow vulnerability. I want to unlearn my ways. I want to live before I die.
Sometimes when I show people the drawings I've done I feel quite nervous. I have to breathe a little deeper in those moments. I've decided that the more nervous I feel, the more vulnerable I feel, and that it's actually a good thing. It means to me that there's probably something I really care about there in that picture I've created. So I try to hang tight and stay open while I feel so vulnerable, even knowing that I might get criticized. In those moments it does seem like a risk! yet so far I have survived, and I believe my art smiles every time I do it.
My DNA allows me to engage with vulnerability. I was born with an "exposed" nervous system which makes me highly vulnerable! I sometimes wish I could be less so ... But there are advantages in being open to all. Empathy, compassion and a whole lot of love have stemmed from it! My antenna picks up on "signals" not all peoples do.
Thankful ... In Quiet ... God's signal picked up loud and clear.
