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.