Vulnerability has entered the chat

A random lightening thought hit me…when you're hard at work freeing yourself of trauma, there's no time to spare judging, controlling and ultimately hating others.

What if judgement and control (I dub those the DNA of hate) are just devices that distract us from our own self realization? What happens when and if we pivot to vulnerability?

This reality has taught us that vulnerability is something to be embarrassed of. Glossed over: men are taught early to a)have all the answers and b) to stuff their feelings and to be ashamed if they express emotion. Women, conversely, are taught to hold the emotional bag for everyone else, and to do that with grace while ignoring their own wellbeing. Our present day polarized culture is an indictment of this system. It's made losers of us all.

And what we lose is the interior of our very beings. We lose connection to self: intuition, joy, wellness. We also lose intimacy in our relationships (if we ever had that in the first place). We turn into survivors of this reality and sacrifice thriving.

Is that anyway to live?

And what is vulnerability anyway? What happens when we pivot toward it? Some aspects of vulnerability are:

to live in a state of allowance of peoples choices, not matter the opinion we have of them. Taken even further, it's to have no judgment of other peoples choices whatsoever.
the willingness to simply be oneself, disregarding the pressure to fit in.
the willingness to admit wrong thinking and doing, then risking status to make amends.
the willingness to admit that you don't have all the answers, and awakening to understanding that you never we're supposed to have the answers in the first place
the willingness to be kind to yourself and prioritizing that caretaking of self
Eliminating judgement and control from your toolbox, with the full knowledge that those tools don't work to achieve the end you desired.
the acceptance of risk and forgoing of security. Risk is inherent in this reality; and security is an illusion. And it's exactly this loss of security and adoption of risk most people are guarding against. We think, what if after embracing vulnerability, I remain unloved?

We inhabit a reality where we've been groomed away from our inner knowing which is the ultimate kindness to self. And the prospect of engaging our vulnerability a risk too great to take. And this is our fate. What's the antidote? Choosing different. In choice, we have an endless array of possibilities. In hate, we have an indictment and a conclusion - with no means of relief for any player.

So dear reader, can I help you make new choices? You know where to find me.