We are stuck in a vicious cycle in society.
We don’t let ourselves be vulnerable to each other because we don’t trust each other to not hurt us. And we don’t trust each other because we don’t trust ourselves to take care of ourselves.
People tend to fall most deeply in love when they are vulnerable, open, defenseless with each other. It happens so rarely that people think falling in love is reserved for just 1-2 people in a lifetime.
It’s not enough to be conscious. It’s not enough to be simply vulnerable. You have to do them at the same time.
When I was a teenager and young adult, I trusted myself. I believed in my ability to know what was right and wrong for me and that I would make good choices. And that I’d get myself out of anything that I got myself into.
But as life went on and things turned out differently than I expected, I started to lose that faith in myself.
Which is silly, really, because I was the one that got myself through all of it, true to my original faith in myself.
The truth is, as I got older, I started to distinguish between where I had faith in myself and where I didn’t trust myself. For example, I never smoked a cigarette or did any drugs, because I didn’t trust myself to not get addicted. But at the time this was the best way to preserve my trust in myself.
Having gotten older and more experienced, I’ve allowed myself to have my heart broken, have my hopes dashed, had my trust betrayed, have my faith lost, and have doubt and fear come up to the surface. I used to keep all of these things at bay by just avoiding situations that might force me to face them. But now that I have experience in my trust in myself, I can allow myself to be truly vulnerable.
Consciously vulnerable.
It’s not easy, because at some point the thin line between allowing doubt and fear to come up and allowing them to take over is almost invisible. But being conscious and constantly present to these feelings has a kind of liberation in itself.
Because you can’t ever really accept your own humanity without accepting your own doubt and fear. They come up. You accept them. They live in your house together with your joy and courage. They are your lifelong roommates.
The conscious part is about not letting them become the boss of you. Of letting them take the ride with you without controlling you.
The vulnerable part is about letting them show up in the first place. If not pretending they’re not there, by being tough or excessively happy or distracted or busy.
And while when I was younger I was looking for love that would let me be vulnerable and still feel safe, now in my conscious vulnerability, I’m no longer looking for love or even happiness, outside of myself. I’m so fully present to myself, without judging good or bad (or at least, in constant striving to not judge) that I am consciously vulnerable to myself. I accept myself as I am. I don’t wish to leave or escape, I don’t want to be rescued or saved from myself, I quite simply just am at peace within myself that no matter what I do or don’t do, it doesn’t define me, I am free of relying on my own approval to feel worthy of love. My own love. My own acceptance. My own immeasurable unconditional faith that I am just perfect as I am, in all the ways I might shapeshift into being in this world.
We all project ourselves into this world the way we want to be seen, the way we believe being seen will make us lovable. And we all see others the way we need to see them, to fulfil our own story of being lovable. Rarely do we truly see each other’s truth.
Yet when we do, when we appear in conscious vulnerability to each other, free of our stories and fears and identities and projections, that’s when we fall in love.
Because that seemingly fleeting ephemeral yet only truly permanent being that lives under us all, our soul or spirit or ghost as you like, that is our true essence, visible to us only in our conscious vulnerability.
Imagine a world where we all walked around naked, our souls exposed, free of the bounds of our own created identities. Sparkling. Like fairy dust.
Pure, essential, free.
This is the world I want to live in. This is the freedom I wish for us all. Through conscious vulnerability.
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