Vulnerability: Moving Through Fear With Trust
This is a feeling I know all too well but yet am only now getting to know another side of: vulnerability. I picture a fawn, emerging alone in the field that was tall and waving, but someone just mowed it over. I picture stray dogs walking right alongside of a busy highway. Alone. Exposed. Vulnerability exists right by fear. For so long I’ve been afraid to be vulnerable, but now I am starting to understand how this feeling can transform from a weakness into a strength.
I’ve watched as beings allow themselves to be vulnerable, and I notice how they are growing because of this allowance. I saw this in the stones underneath the rushing current of the river. I saw this in the softness of a patch of violets. I saw this in the tears shed by someone I love, someone who doesn’t cry.
As I explore what this means - to be vulnerable - I am realizing that while it exists by fear, it also moves us through it by creating an environment where trust can grow and thrive. When you allow yourself to be vulnerable, you are willing. When you are vulnerable, you are open. You are willing to be open. Yes, open, like a stone resting under the water, no longer covered by silt or other stones. Now the current can work it’s magic. You have to stay vulnerable for this magic to work though; you have to trust the process. It likely won’t be easy; it may be a little frightening, or more than a little, because you’re moving through fear. A stone tumbles over and over and over before it’s smoothed and shines. So how do you do it? Let go of the outcome. Trust the current, the journey, the process.
I am choosing to be vulnerable more and more. I am sharing words that before I would have written but hid away. I am asking questions that before I would have just let go. I am feeling feelings that before I placed in the fortified space somewhere inside.
I am still alive too - I think even more alive than before.
So I encourage you to find a moment of vulnerability. It doesn’t have to be now, this week, or this month, but find one moment where you are willing to be open. Even a single moment can start a transformation and encourage trust to grow.
You could…
Close your eyes. Take a few deep breaths. Clear your mind, and ask yourself, “Is there something I’m not allowing to be felt? To be heard? To be seen?” What comes up?
Answer with something longer than, “Good! You?” the next time someone asks you how your day has been
Take that class in your community that you’ve been considering for about a year now.
Ask that person out if you’re really feeling it. Why not?!
Let go of the outcome.