I always thought being vulnerable was defined by being vulnerable WITH another person. My most current growth edge has shown me the most challenging undertaking is being vulnerable with myself. To not repress or turn away when something triggers difficult emotion I would rather not feel, and not have anyone else know I feel. The upkeep of a rigidly perfect self-image to oneself is exhausting and has kept me in a perpetual inner war-zone. I only recently became aware that this is a battle I don’t have to fight. It is an unwinnable battle, and so can only add more stress, anxiety and judgment. I had lived so long in this way of being, I didn’t even know I was fighting. It just felt normal.  What a relief… what a revelation… that I could choose to put down the sword and surrender to the greater plan of the universe. A plan, which has proven itself to be cleverly devised, though disguised, to put me exactly where I need to be for my greatest growth. SO my current moment-to-moment inner work looks something like this:

1.     Something happens, I witness something or see someone that triggers my things-to-be-released du jour, namely(in a nutshell); feelings of being an outcast, being the “bad guy” and needing to prove myself.

2.     I notice the emotions that arise and acknowledge I am feeling something.

3.     I breathe deeply in through the nose from the belly and out through the mouth.

4.     I open fully and allow myself to feel what is stirred up.

5.     I surrender it to God/Spirit/The Universe.

Safety is an illusion as death is an illusion. Click To Tweet

The last 4 days in particular I am doing this all day long. My body is likely the most oxygenated it has ever been from the near continuous deep breathing. I am finding such freedom in not shying away from what is there, trying to “figure out” why it’s there or blaming the trigger. With this knowing, though usually sometime after the initial trigger is over, I am so grateful to the circumstances and people pushing the button. Like most deep emotions these are things that are old and deep and have been begging to be acknowledged, accepted and released. In this way I am learning to become compassionately vulnerable with myself, and it is taking more diligence than I could have imagined. The rewards are GREAT though. Ancient damaged parts of me are coming up and releasing in mere fractions of a second where they used to take days, weeks, months or even years. And the moment when I feel surrender happen, and a load lifted, is the sweetest freedom I have ever felt.

Here is what I got in my journaling when I asked for guidance in this:

When you seek to be vulnerable, it is not safety that you will find, but the true un-harm-able nature of your soul. Safety is an illusion as death is an illusion. If you see that your very essence cannot be harmed, then fear dissolves and you can be revealed to yourself.

What this says to me is that I was confusing vulnerability with invulnerablity. I thought I would somehow get to a point I couldn’t be affected by the world, of being so healed that I would be impervious to any life occurrences or even my own “stuff”.  I am learning that there is no such thing. We are porous, permeable beings and the attempt to be unaffected just makes one rigid and afraid. The paradox is, the only way to be invulnerable is to allow yourself to be so vulnerable as to be completely penetrated by life. In this way nothing new can take root and create energetic scars to be dealt with later. More and more, one dances with grace into clearer, cleaner and more transparent experiences of life. Thank you for taking in this sharing and see you on the dance floor!

Breathing DEEP,

xo Anah