The power within

This is not for the weak of heart.

CARE.CHECK*:  What does vulnerability mean to you?

Have you ever taken the time to truly understand that experience—why it matters and how it serves?

Have you learned that vulnerability is a weakness? A liability?

Do you know how to be vulnerable? Do you yearn for true intimacy?

I hope this week’s letter will feel like an invitation, a call to come back home into your heart and to enter the wilderness we were all created to inhabit.

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 Hi Care.Friend,

How are you, dear one?

How tender are you feeling right now? How armored up? How soft?

How sensitive, open, raw, centered or unsettled is this letter finding you?

I want to talk about vulnerability today. This is something I’ve been contemplating a lot since August. As I wrote before, that’s when I went to a very transformative workshop led by one of my favorite teachers, Luis Mojica, about embodiment for performers. 

It was mainly for artists and professional speakers but we’re all performers in some ways... We all have moments when we talk in front of people who are watching and/or listening to us. Even if only within our close 1:1 relationships.

And so here are the questions that can change everything:

How do we behave when we’re the one sharing? How do we behave when we’re the one receiving someone else’s truth and stories? And how do we behave when we’re sharing something that makes us feel uneasy, unsure, exposed… vulnerable?

As I’ve stated before, my deepest takeaway from that weekend was realizing how I “act” vulnerable. I “act” authenticity. A part of me has gotten to know my scars and stories of survivorship very well and learned how to share them in a way that sounds and looks vulnerable—but it’s just another part I play.

I know that because it does not feel uncomfortable or scary to share them. I don’t share them because I want to be known, I do not share them to let myself be seen. I share them because I want them to inspire others, and because I want those stories to mean something.

I want to turn them into tales, lessons and songs that make others feel better or less alone, in the hope that it will make it all worth it. But that’s not vulnerability. That’s bargaining. “I will own up to what happened to me then if it can change what’s happening now.”

And that does allow me to create connections I cherish, but that is not how I’ll experience what I’m yearning—and finally feeling ready—for: INTIMACY.

I still have so much to learn about true vulnerability. Vulnerability is so scary, so brave, so precious… and so activating.

It takes capacity to be able to receive life’s greatest treasures, and vulnerability truly is the key that unlocks our hearts… so, of course, our inner protectors are not sold on the idea that it’s the best course of action.

When we were very young—when we were still in a very small body, with a developing mind and no conscious connection with our heart and gut centers—our protectors learned whether the world was safe or not by observing the adults around us and by reflecting on our daily experiences.

Scanning the world each day, they might have concluded that people were kind, loving and safe OR they might have witnessed instead that wounded people tend to wound others (voluntarily or not)—without having the skills or perspective to understand that those people were wounded.

On top of that, they might have gotten the impression that anger, grief or even joy was not allowed, based on their upbringers’ culture, background, trauma and preferences. 

And so a lot of us were led to believe that vulnerability will lead to hurt, abandonment or rejection (or even life-threatening responses).

Even if surrounded by the most loving and nurturing people, chances are parts of you learned at a very young age that parts of you are not fully welcome, not easily met, or rarely understood. Of course that probably has changed by now, but most of us never revisit our inner world to dismantle the barbed wired fortress that we reflexively built around our wounds and heart.

And obviously, it’s even trickier when very little of you felt accepted, celebrated or cared for at the time. 

I had a very unexpected and healing conversation with my father the other day, in which I learned that he genuinely supported my decision to leave Medicine. Indeed he had been dreading that the academic environment would require me to abandon who I truly am and witnessed how exhausting it was to fight for our humanity in a system built on dehumanization… 

He explained how he had encouraged me to pull and push through for all those years, only because he had deeply believed that it was what I was meant to do and that being a physician truly was my dream and vocation.

“You had been talking about it since I was 4 yo!” Of course, I had been talking about becoming a singer even more, but I know that this is not something he could fathom and therefore it makes sense that his mind would have blocked that part out.

And he didn’t have the trauma awareness to realize that I only wanted to be a doctor because of how terrified I was to see the adults around me experience so much suffering and sickness… and not because it was my heart’s guidance.

My dad also explained why he had never voiced his concerns about academia before. He was afraid of saying anything that could influence me towards giving up—his fear being that I would have defaulted to another career void of passion… (as if that could EVER have happened: one more example that Fear is a well-meaning friend but will never qualify as Reason’s advocate).

In parallel, his hope was that my embodied determination and optimism would be enough to change the system. He saw me climbing that ladder and thought “she’s making them listen, she’ll get there.”

He believed I could win the war, but I never wanted to be a warrior; I’m a student of Peace and an activist for Love.

Apparently, he had not expected how relieved he would feel when I told him that I was done. He said it was a before/after moment for him too—and I believe that. Because I saw it in his eyes… and I felt it in his voice that day. 

We were at the airport, I was about to fly to New York for a week of soul searching, and I told him that I would spend that time figuring out how to finally move there… I shared how I had reawakened to my lifelong dream of being a New Yorker and that it would probably require leaving Medicine forever.

I was nervous but I felt this inner sturdiness that can only be found in heart truth.

I knew I was ready to lose everything and everyone, because my intuition was this strong that this was my make or break moment. If I didn’t start living for my dream, I was going to die. 

If that sounds dramatic, it means you’ve never strayed as far away from your own center as I have—and I’m very glad for you because this isn’t a feeling I would wish on my worst enemy (so I most certainly will not wish it on you!). It’s a terrifying experience. It’s a hopeless venture. But it also leads to an invitation to start again that I will never stop thanking Life for sending me: Funny how often flirting with Death can make you fall in love with Life.

So that day I chose to be vulnerable and to let Truth be brave on my behalf. 

My father didn’t blink, he smiled, and said: “I know you will find a way. You always have.”

My father never believed that you could make a living as an artist. He still has a hard time trusting that it is a safe choice, but I see him doing what he can to support me now. I know he regrets the part he played in stirring me away from my dreams… And I know how scared he is that I won’t be able to forgive him for that.

But I also understand where he’s coming from. I know on which beliefs he relied to guide his parenting choices. To him, one cannot try to succeed in the art if they don’t first acquire a solid diploma to fall back on. I do have that now, so that helps him consider hoping on a bridge he doesn’t trust… so that he can visit me, while I follow my dream and surrender all my choices to my heart.

To him, choosing creativity over science earlier on would have meant building my house on sand instead of stone, and he just couldn’t let me do that. But now that I’ve figuratively purchased land on solid ground, he understands why I want to try to fulfill my burning desire of living on a metaphorical beach.

My father never protected me. We both have to live with the consequences of that. But my father always supported me the best he knew how… and that matters. 

It truly does. 

And only by letting myself be vulnerable with him did I get the chance to witness that.

Indeed, earlier this year, I decided that I was done carrying a back-breaking shield every time we talked and that I would let my heart be my body’s guard instead of bodyguarding my greatest source of power away—thereby cutting myself from the resource I needed most. 

I realized that since I wanted to have a relationship with my father, it meant that I had to trust that vulnerability and heart truth would bring more healing than any of the schemes that my mind was offering in our defense. 

“Defense is the first act of war”, teaches Byron Katie and they promise that “In my defenseless, my safety lies” in A Course in Miracles. Because soul energy can only be accessed when we surrender our defenses. The only way to unlock a barricaded heart is from the inside out, and so all we can do is free our own heart to show the other person how it’s done.

That’s what vulnerability does. It allows us to melt all the walls we’re hiding behind and to bravely step back into the world.

Because it is vulnerable to live seemingly unprotected in the wilderness, but only there can we connect barefoot with Mama Earth and Mama Ocean, fall asleep underneath the whimsical night sky and receive every ray of the awakening powers of sunrise and healing magic of sunsets. Only there can we be washed anew by the rain and enlightened by the stars that watch over us.

We think ourselves safer in a cave, but living there only renders us malnourished and cut from our most sacred energy sources: Love, Light.

I was talking about vulnerability with Aline the other day and we were both reflecting on how much we yearn to be completely vulnerable with each other… and how hard it is to do so! Even with the people who know you and love you most.

It has to be a choice, an ever deepening intention, a quest. It takes extraordinary courage and fierce surrender. It’s a process that can’t be rushed or forced, and it takes CAPACITY. A lot of it.

It takes a lovingly nurtured and resourced nervous system. It takes a body that trusts us and it takes our willingness to fully trust our bodies.

Vulnerability is not something that we can “do,” it’s a new state of being that we must let ourselves be reborn and reshaped through and for.

It will also look very different on everyone and it will look different every day within the same person.

Indeed, vulnerability feels different when one wants to share the story that led to a scar than when one is ready to uncover a wound.

Vulnerability is also embodied quite differently when one wants to reveal what feels like a limit or a weakness, and when one wants to own and voice a dream. 

Also we’re very aware of how vulnerable it is to share our grief, but we forget how vulnerable it is to share our joy and our deepest desires. We’re afraid of feeling rejected or abandoned in the first case, but we’re afraid of feeling shamed or even humiliated in the second case, and those cut DEEP. 

And we’re rightfully afraid of what someone else’s lack of faith can do to a baby dream’s chances at blossoming… That’s a very valid question.

This is why vulnerability is sacred and why discernment must always be present as vulnerability’s guardian angel.

Brene Brown taught us that “Our stories are not meant for everyone. Hearing them is a privilege, and we should always ask ourselves this before we share: "Who has earned the right to hear my story?" If we have one or two people in our lives who can sit with us and hold space for our shame stories, and love us for our strengths and struggles, we are incredibly lucky. If we have a friend, or small group of friends, or family who embraces our imperfections, vulnerabilities, and power, and fills us with a sense of belonging, we are incredibly lucky.”

I would add to this heart-saving insight that we must also ask ourselves: who has CAPACITY for my vulnerability? 

When someone won’t let themselves believe that their dreams can come true, it can be impossible for them to believe that yours can either. How threatening for a locked system to acknowledge that freedom exists…

When someone has a very activated worthiness or abandonment wound, it can also be terrifying for them to imagine you following a path that they can’t follow you on.

When someone is convinced that if you step in the wilderness you get killed, they will think it is their job to stand in your way so that you stay safely tucked in away from danger—even if that also means away from your dream.

Most of those who are scripted in disempowering behaviors do not default to them because they hate us or because they’re mean. No, most of them actually believe that this is what Love requires from them and that fear is how you show others that you care for their well-being.

Vulnerability takes a body that trusts us

and it takes our willingness to fully trust our bodies.

And this is why there is a third question we NEED to ask ourselves when wanting to live an authentic life, which means living in embodied vulnerability.

What is MY current capacity to be vulnerable with those I love and trust? How can I honor it, tend to it and thereby increase it?

(I won’t even talk today about the capacity it takes to be vulnerable with those we do not trust… that’s a whole other level we cannot consider before mastering inner safety) 

We must ask ourselves:

Will being vulnerable lead me to more self-connection and soul embodiment or will being vulnerable render me vulnerable to shame and self-abandonment…?

Will the way the other person respond only reinforce my commitment to my heart’s song, whether they can receive and support me or not?

OR will I divorce my Self, abandon my own side, and break my own back if the mirror I’m looking at cannot withstand the impact of my truth?

Vulnerability is a new state of being that we must

let ourselves be reborn and reshaped through and for.

Because truth ALWAYS liberates us, but that doesn’t mean that everyone will want to follow us for the ride. Our truth is how we make ourselves visible to our swan-tribe, but our truth will act as a repellent to ducks. (You can read more about what I mean by that HERE).

Vulnerability is the way of the heart and we were mostly raised in the way of the mind.

Vulnerability is the magic of our inner feminine and vulnerability terrifies our masculine—at least at first.

Vulnerability is Love’s answer, and that’s why true vulnerability cannot be born before self-love.

This is why vulnerability is sacred

and why discernment must be present as vulnerability’s guardian angel.

So here’s my invitation for this week dear Care.friend:

To reflect on what vulnerability means to you and on what it takes for you to be ABLE to be vulnerable. 

To reconnect with our most authentic strength and unlearn that it is a deathly source of danger. 

To ask your heart what she needs to be able to lead you on this path and to surrender to her guidance. 

To experiment with vulnerability on a daily basis by giving more and more room to heart voice. 

To BE vulnerable—if only with ourselves—by voicing what are your deepest desires and what brings you JOY. 

To check whenever you want to show someone one of your scars, one of your wounds and one of your gifts, if that will bring more healing or more armoring in your inner world. 

To remember that vulnerability is supposed to feel hard! Because it is a call that only the brave can answer… and to remember that courage is neither the absence of fear nor the ability to silence our hearts.

Courage is the choice to follow our heart’s song even when we’re shaking, even when it makes little sense to our mind and especially when we don’t know how.

Let’s change our rallying cry from “vulnerability is for the weak, we can fight, we can do hard things—no matter how much it hurts, no matter the cost, no matter if it breaks us—we’re meant to die trying” to “vulnerability is our strength, we can love, we can do hard things—especially if we take care ourselves, especially if we make sure to receive as much as we give, especially by respecting our limits and by listening to our pain’s wisdom—we’re not meant to merely survive… but to LIVE our DREAM into being.”

With kindness, love and light—knowing that all three are born in the sacred darkness that we do not need to fear anymore.

leo