On the path to vulnerability, Part 1 - Awareness!

To overcome our crippling isolation, we must make true and lasting connections. To do this, we must learn to be vulnerable. The core of honest vulnerability comes from a profound sense of self-worth and courage. Have the courage to be imperfect.

This is probably the most fear inducing aspect of the process of finding true acceptance, happiness and worthiness. Vulnerability. People cringe at this word. Many equate vulnerability with weakness, but I sincerely and respectfully disagree. It takes a great deal of self-acceptance to lay it all out there for others to see. The beauty of struggling in our lives is that it’s necessary. Without some source of suffering, we would never realise that there is another way to live.

I know for many, myself included, being vulnerable was excruciating. It meant bearing your soul, showing those self-labelled less desirable aspects of our personality and sharing pain with others, who appeared (and I stress appeared) to be happy or great or whatever.  There’s a quote by Rumi, which through my process of self-acceptance I painted onto the mirror in my bedroom. He says “Don’t turn away; keep your gaze on the bandaged place. That’s where the light enters”. I remember reading this quote one night while working through Tara Brach’s book Radical Acceptance. It really touched me. I realised that our proverbial bandaged places are necessary for enlightenment.

I have discovered that the isolation that we subject ourselves to is caused by a deep, deep lack of worthiness. This black hole of unworthiness affects us in every interaction we have with others. It is fuelled by whatever circumstances we experienced and hold on to. Everyone’s experience will be different, and I don’t mean to trivialise the difficulties we have faced in our lives, but there comes a point when we must let go. These difficulties live on only in and because of us. They ended and we keep them alive by living our lives in constant reaction to what happened in the past.

So how does unworthiness keep its hold on us? Through fear and isolation. Our fear of being unaccepted keeps us from being truthful, open and compassionate. We currently live our lives in the defensive, we react to everything conditioned by what happened to us in the past, rather than looking at every situation objectively as it is in that very moment.

In my opinion, I’m a well-liked person. I can be personable, fun, funny and generally someone people don’t mind being around. In my teens I had friends- as in a group of people I spent time with socially- but I didn’t make lasting relationships. I’ve never made lasting relationships because I was never truly honest and vulnerable about myself. I don’t have any big secrets other than the personal struggle with my own pain and unworthiness. I was terrified that I would never be accepted for me or for my life situation. No one would understand and they would all think I was someone to stay away from.

I arranged my romantic relationships in such a way that I was “needed”, whether it be financially or socially or however I could manage it. I was so fearful that I wouldn’t be loved and accepted for who I was that I figured the only way to obtain love is by making myself irreplaceable to someone. Even writing this now, I become emotional because I can’t believe I valued myself so little. It’s one of the most difficult self-realisations that I came to. If anyone had ever said that to me about themselves, I would have told them “You are enough, just the way you are. You are exactly what you’re supposed to be” and now I can finally say that to myself.

This identification and observation of your patterns, behavioural, mental and otherwise, is awareness. So how do you gain awareness? I would start with some serious self-reflection.  Stop viewing actions such as journaling merely as the self-indulgent past-time for 12-year-old girls to gush about their boy band crushes and use it as a tool for self-reflection and deep analysis. I have always had an analysing mind, and this is not the case for all. I would suggest writing daily, in as much detail as possible. Include in your entries specific information about how you felt in situations, then go the extra distance and seriously debate WHY you felt that way. Were you really pissed because so-and-so said this, or was it because you were agitated about a conversation you had with your parent earlier?

Taking the time to write and reflect allows you to see patterns in your behaviours. As you become more aware of your behaviours, patterns and your motivation behind actions, you will begin to notice them while they are occurring rather than only later on. This awareness in the present moment of your thoughts, actions and emotions is known as mindfulness.  Mindfulness is the key to wisdom and compassion in the sense that only once we see how we are hurt, how we constantly hurt others, we can forgive ourselves and others because we do not know any better. Without mindfulness, we are living half asleep, unconsciously propagating pain indiscriminately.

Suffering is caused by isolation, which is a lack of connection.

No man is an island entire of itself; every man

is a piece of the continent, a part of the main;

if a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe

is the less, as well as if a promontory were, as

well as any manner of thy friends or of thine

own were; any man's death diminishes me,

because I am involved in mankind.

And therefore never send to know for whom

the bell tolls; it tolls for thee.

From: Mediation XVII by John Donne.

What is isolation?

How does it manifest itself?

How do we move forward?

Pain, mental and emotional, is primarily a result of a blatant error in human thinking. As people, we categorize ourselves as individuals, rather than the interconnected movement of energy that we are.  This pain of isolation causes us to act in unskillful ways.  We draw lines between “us” and “them” focusing on our differences to strengthen our individual sense of self. We strengthen our “us” vs. “them” mentality by keeping feelings and situations to ourselves, rather than being open and honest. Our ego especially enjoys judging others, further isolating ourselves in this “us” vs. “them” fallacy.

We are ashamed of life situations and keep these events to ourselves. The script (which I’ve heard in my own head and from others) is that “no one else would understand”; “they might treat me differently”; or “they might not want to be around me anymore”. We are reared with a utopian idea of “normal” and how “normal” families are supposed to look and behave. The reality of life is that what’s normal is dysfunction.  This idea of normalcy is propagated by society through media and by ourselves when we put up the façade that “life is always good”.  We hide pain, anger, jealousy, loneliness behind veils of smiles because as long as everything appears “perfect” we can continue on in denial. We continue to segregate ourselves from others in a true sense.

For me, I often struggled with anger. Through conditioning and experiences, I thought anger could only be expressed in one way – yelling and confrontation. I was so adversed to feeling anger that I often avoided confrontation even in situations where it was necessary, like to stand up for myself. That’s not to say I didn’t ever stand up for myself, but I certainly did not show my anger, regardless of whether it was righteous or not.

I spent my young adult life in relationships, both romantic and platonic, where rather than talking out situations I was unhappy or upset about, I told myself not to overreact. I constantly told myself that my upset feelings were never justified and I was wrong. Over time, this would pile repressed anger on top of repressed anger leading to inevitable resentment. "Why couldn’t they just see what I was doing for them?” or “If they really cared about me they would do [insert behavior]!”  I spent a lot of energy blaming the others in the relationship for not reaching out to me, for not understanding me better, but the truth was that I didn’t let them. I perpetuated my own isolation.

The issue with numbing emotions is that this is not a selective process. You can’t choose to say I’ll never feel anger without repercussions.  Instead of living on the complex and large continuum of human emotions, we restrict ourselves to a “greige” existence somewhere in the middle, where the so-called negative emotions aren’t felt, but neither are the blissful ones.  In my opinion, the root of this behavior- and really of all suffering- is denial of what is. If we accepted our full range of emotions, even the ones that scare us, they would lose their power over us. 

The idea of numbing is flawed as well. We think that if we don’t feel something it goes away. WRONG! This denial of reality becomes imprinted on you, like a mental scar. Sometimes the result of stuffing your feelings can be felt physically. I’ve personally seen this in my grandmother. After a life of not standing up for herself she’s become an angry, passive aggressive ball of nerves.  Any time a situation presents itself where strong emotions come to play, she vibrates.  Her whole body rocks in revolt against her numbness. This denial of emotions not only expresses itself physically, but is the main cause for addiction (food, sex, drugs, anything), self-mutilation and other harmful behaviors.

Another tool of isolation is judgment. Judging others creates a doubly negative effect on us. Firstly, judging someone else boosts our ego and strengthens the false concept of identity. Secondly, that judgment then becomes turned around on us, reinforcing the negativity within. As we sit judging others for being a certain way, we begin to think others are judging us in some way. When we hurt or judge others we are in fact hurting ourselves.  What feels satisfying in a moment – thinking you’re superior to someone in some way- reinforces an isolating and destructive sense of self.

The reality of the world itself is constantly proving our concept of separateness to be false. We perceive ourselves as ending at the limit of our physical bodies, our skin. I have several questions which challenge this perceived end; they are:

1)      Your physical body began as sperm and ova from two separate people – at what point did this become you?

2)      The very biological processes that  promote our survival, for example breathing, eating and smelling, require outside objects (food, volatile chemicals, elements in air,etc) to enter our bodies and become absorbed into us. At what point do these become a part of us? Where do these elements end and we begin? Do they end? Do we begin?

The cause and effect relationship of this world as described by biologists, Buddhists, and quantum physicists is another obvious challenge to our separatist thinking. If what I did was a local, singular event, then there would be no effect outside of that event. Quantum mechanics has shown that through no direct connection the characteristics of twin particles can affect one another. Two twin particles emitted from the same atom will have the same spin. Should the spin of one be altered, the other particle acquires this new spin without a visible direct connection. This can be seen in the real world in a macro level through global warming, and in a micro level by how our attitude directly affects those around us. If we were truly separate, would we be required to consume the energies of other beings (plants and animals) to sustain our physicality?

So how do we move forward from our perceived isolation? By accepting the truth that we are all connected, and by fearlessly accepting our reality as it is.

What is the Worthiness Revolution?

Through some amateur study and personal insight I've come to realize several truths about us as people and the way we move through life. I must make a disclaimer: what I'm saying here has been said before by others before me and hopefully many after; however perhaps the way I say it may mean something to you. I've come to understand the way we interact and cause pain in ourselves and eachother by seeing it so clearly in myself. This insight has caused me to accept some basic truths about myself, and about us. I phrase these truths modeled after the Buddha's Four Noble Truths. That being said, I chose this fashion because I think it clearly outlines the cause and effect reality of our actions rather than because I support any one particular religious belief over another.
I see these truths as:

1. Suffering is caused by isolation which is a lack of connection.

2. True connections require honest vulnerability.

3. The ability to be vulnerable requires self acceptance and self-worth.

4. Self-worthiness is the path to compassion.

I decided to call these discussions The Worthiness Revolution because now is the time for us to evolve. Many great philosophers, scientists and theologists have pointed to the fact that as a species we have not physically evolved for an extended period of time. They hypothesize that our next phase of our evolution is a social change. A shift in societal thinking to a more skillful and all-encompassing point of view. Given the recent world events and the general state of our world, I say we really have no choice but to change or become extinct.

I believe that once we really recognize - and I mean experientially not just intellectually- that we are infact all connected, we will begin to make choices that benefit us all. You'll notice through my truths that the key to ending suffering and creating compassion is self-worthiness and acceptance. Only once you can accept the reality of what is really happening in any one given moment within you can you accept and be compassionate towards others.

I offer my limited knowledge on these topics because once one understands them, you can not keep them to yourself. I also ask for the experiences, knowledge and thoughts from others because we are infact all in this together. This is not merely my truth, but ours.