What a dirty little word!
I feel like when most of us hear the word ‘vulnerable’ it causes a physical reaction – similar to finding out that the sushi and drinks you and your girlfriends ordered was apparently made out of gold and so instead of the bill being maybe $150 it was actually $450 (true fuckin story….just ask my girlfriends Natasha and Sarah) – straight up nauseum with a touch of sweaty panic!
You see the word vulnerable doesn’t drum up warm and fuzzy feelings but rather feelings of fear, judgment, hurt and rejection. According to the urban dictionary ‘Vulnerable’ is defined as “someone who is completely and rawly open, unguarded with their heart, mind and soul. ‘Vulnerability’ is the surrender of all control and personal power in regards to letting someone close enough to destroy you!” Well holy shit… based on those definitions why the hell would anyone want to be vulnerable – and yet we do find ourselves vulnerable.
What if we were to completely ignore the definition of vulnerability and see it for another purpose and that is the gateway to our truth. This is what I mean. More often than not, and because it is driven by human nature, rarely are we inclined to take a path where we anticipate hardship (whether physical, emotional, psychological, spiritual, mental) and discomfort. To be vulnerable is to expose yourself to someone else in hopes of them seeing your core and yet rarely do we use the power of V to connect with, source or access our own truth. You see this is what being vulnerable looks like – we appear hypothetically naked before our partner or confidant in our desire to gain acceptance from them and once that has been achieved we feel as though we have achieved success – so why do we still feel so blah? Well it’s because while that person has accepted your truth you have not. The whole concept of vulnerability is driven by the outcome of someone else and yet nothing about being vulnerable really has ANYTHING to do with the other person and EVERYTHING to do with exposing your truth to yourself!
Being vulnerable is not sexy or cute, but is it powerful AF because it leads us to our core. Sometime ago I had the privilege of participating in a woman’s circle led by my Rafiki and one of the things we were required to do was to look into another person’s eye for I think 9 hours…ok it was like a minute but because it was such an intense experience it seemed that long…lol. While I can’t remember the full intent of the exercise what I can say is how uncomfortable and vulnerable I felt in that moment. As I stared into my partners eyes wondering what my eyes were exposing to her (and thinking more negatively than positively) I found myself reflecting on what my fear was in looking directly into her eyes. At the end of the minute we were then asked to share what we saw in the other person based on that very intimate and awkward interaction – and she lovingly said to me “the power and presence you show outwardly shines so brightly inside of you” – she saw my core and I honoured my truth. That interaction and in that minute both forced and allowed me to see my truth.
The act of being vulnerable and the state of vulnerability does not have to be negative once we see the power it possesses in bringing us our truth. When we expose ourselves (literally and figuratively) we should not be afraid of what we are going to hear. What we should be afraid of is what we are going to miss.
