When you read that vulnerability = strength, what was your first reaction?
To some of you, it may seem an Orwellian (war=peace) stretch, to others it may be the most natural thing in the world.
I keep hearing people mistake vulnerability for weakness, and I’d like to offer a different perspective, as i think that is one of the most destructive myths of our time.
Vulnerability simply means undefended. It means you have your guard down. It is the space in which we can connect with each other.
Yes, there is a strength in being defended. It is like a castle with the drawbridge up. No one can get in, no one can get out. Impenetrable.
When the drawbridge is down, you are vulnerable to attack. Should someone choose.
When the drawbridge is down, you are open to exchange.
When the drawbridge is down, your armies can get out.
There is a certain strength in being defended, yes.
AND there is a deeper strength called forth in being vulnerable.
AN EXAMPLE:
This has been a daily practice for me in my relationship with my wife Rosy. In living together, and in her desire to call forth excellence in me, she’ll often need to communicate with me about a topic that I’m uncomfortable with, perhaps a situation I could have handled better. I’ll often start off with my defenses, a swirl of reasons and excuses that what I did wasn’t wrong.
At some point I’ll notice I’m being defended – often it’s Rosy pointing that out – and I’ll let my defenses down and receive the “attack”. With my defenses down, deeper connection is enabled, and I’ll be impacted by her words and touched by them at my core. It then occurs to me that this supposed attack is actually intended as a communication of her love rather than an attack. My heart is fortified, and I’ve created an ally out of my former enemy: (one definition of surrender).
It requires a trusting of your deeper strengths, trusting that you are actually strong enough to withstand an attack. Trusting that any kind of attack would only exercise your deeper strengths, and leave you stronger. Sticks and stones may break your bones, but names will never hurt you.
It’s like the martial arts master who walks into a rough bar and strikes up a friendly conversation. Aware that there may be an attack, but allowing space for connection, knowing full well that ample defenses are ready if need be.
I’d go so far as to say that the state of vulnerability is the only time you’re truly powerful. The only time you can access your deeper strength, your love, and unleash it on the world.
A quote from Erica Jong: “Love is everything it’s cracked up to be. That’s why people are so cynical about it…It really is worth fighting for, risking everything for. And the trouble is, if you don’t risk everything, you risk even more.”
Another from Thomas Merton, via the Shambala Sun.
“Then it was as if I had suddenly seen the secret beauty of their hearts, the depths of their hearts where neither sin nor desire nor self-knowledge can reach, the core of their reality, the person that each one is in the eyes of the divine. If only they could all see themselves as they really are. If only we could see each other that way all the time. I suppose the big problem would be we would all fall down and worship each other.”
May we all fall down and worship each other.
When I was in my 20s a music teacher I had complained that people used “vulnerable” incorrectly and outside of its dictionary definition, so I looked it up and found that the “vulner” part comes from the Latin word for “wound.” Yes, to be vulnerable is to let our defenses down and be able to be wounded, although nowadays the wound is mostly around our feelings and not about physical danger unless we are reading stories about actual physical combat.
To always be on the defensive is akin to paranoia, and there is no love in paranoia! Defensiveness takes energy that could be used for much more creative purposes and as we know, life is not a lengthy visit.
When I did the “corporate thing” I worked in the presence of a good many people and experienced occasional verbal insinuations and the rare attacks, but they came from people far unhappier than I was and the motivations were largely a “beggar thy neighbor” competitiveness, given that the “claw your way to the top” ethic was easy to see as what was driving them. They wasted a lot of energy in what was a very overcrowded arena. Kurt Vonnegut wrote in his early novel “Player Piano” that “if you compete with slaves you are a slave,” a kind of extra reason not to engage in this kind of nastiness. I stuck to minding my responsibilities with care and was able to afford a way out of the corporate world before it ruined my health. In those close to twenty years I also learned the art of calmly acknowledging the presence of others and quietly noting their energies. Somehow the right response almost always presented itself for good working rapport or for occasional self-defense.
I am very blessed by the people in my life and for the memories of people I have loved who are no longer with us. I am vulnerable to the effects of aging and only trust that a human existence is still meant to be a blessing and not a punishment to suit any religion’s theological traditions. Pure love is a matter of the spirit and not the product of any religion at its more corporate level.