Oh vulnerability.
It is the most beautiful quality that a woman (or anyone for that matter) can embody and express. It is the energy that creates connections, opens hearts and facilitates love. It makes life real, deep and delicious.
But oh dear, how much I struggle with it!
My Journey Of Vulnerability
I have been working for a while now on my ability to be vulnerable. It has been a beautiful process of unravelling my strong facade and allowing the sensitive, soft and honest part of me to be revealed. My boyfriend is my greatest teacher.
Relationships are our biggest classroom. You can try all you want to not be vulnerable in a relationship but I can guarantee you it will only be a matter of time before 1) you explode 2) you push your partner away.
For me the hardest part of being vulnerable is admitting that I do not have my life together all the time. I am not perfect. I still get knocked down by fear. Sometimes I feel insecure. I still have days where I don’t want to work and I just want to sit on the couch and watch The Hills on repeat. And I still have paralysing moments where I doubt myself.
Even admitting this makes me feel vulnerable. Why is that? Why is it that we must always be giving off the impression that we are ‘ok’. That is everything is ‘fine’. That we are perfect. That we have our shit together.
I had a session with my mentor the other day and boy oh boy did I get slammed with some lessons on vulnerability. I started off the session all smiles. ‘Everything is great’ I proclaimed. Clearly it was not. Five minutes later I found myself unable to control the emotion that was welling up inside of me.
It was messy. There were tears. Lots of tears. An excessively snotty nose. And a shitload of honesty. But all in all, it was beautiful.
My ego tried to tell me that I had completely and utterly embarrassed myself. That this person would think less of me. That I had no credibility to do the work I do if I can’t even keep my shit together in a mentoring session. But once all the mind chatter settled I realised how much better I felt. The internal pressure I had been carrying around had lifted. Something inside me felt softer. I felt real. And best of all, the mountain of emotional energy that had been building up inside of me was gone.
Allow Yourself To Feel
This got me thinking. What is the alternative to being vulnerable? Suppressing everything? Hiding your feelings and smiling lovingly at your partner while a volcano erupts on the inside. Putting on a brave face at work and then running to the toilets to cry your eyes out. Having to keep up the act that we have our whole life sorted when behind close doors we just crumple in an exhausted heap.
This is not cool. Since when is it not ok to express our feelings? To acknowledge them. To feel them.
And what if they were not so bad after all. What if feeling your emotion did not make you weak or soft, but what if it was actually a sign of true inner strength.
I am still working on my ability to feel safe being totally real. To express what I am feeling, even it it makes me feel vulnerable. And to authentically and honestly accept what I am feeling at any given time and know that it is ok.
While this process still feels incredibly messy, I am coming to realise that this is actually what makes it so perfect.
What are your thoughts on vulnerability? Is this something that you find challenging? Share your thoughts in the comments section below.
With love,
Connie x
This is beautiful Connie, thank you for sharing