What If Vulnerability Is the Secret Ingredient?  

Vulnerability—feeling tender and exposed—is often not easy. Our ego, after all, is hardwired to avoid pain, not fucking run right into it! Often I find the more I grow the more I require large daily doses of Fierce Courage, Vulnerability, Unshakable Wisdom and Unconditional Trust In the Process that I can’t see (NBD, right?).  Life unfolds on Life’s own Terms, which usually is code for “Shit went sideways. It didn’t go the way I fucking thought it would.”  Divine newsflash…It hardly ever does!

Last month I found myself enraged, confused, blown apart, and healing from deep painful heartaches as I had to abruptly end all future sessions with a healing practitioner I had trusted and worked with for four months.   I had been working monthly with them to bring light to the depths of childhood trauma and sexual abuse—and I could feel the shifts and healing so deeply.  Getting into my shit—and being held and witnessed in this much vulnerability was hard, deep, potent, and so worth all of the discomfort and pain I was experiencing and releasing.  For the most holistic healing experience, I was also working with a Somatic Processing Licensed Therapist for twice a week sessions. Put another way, I was in deep, and on purpose.

These last several months, I felt so grateful to finally have this truly solid Therapeutic Team with me in the Sacred Darkness. This has been a KEY missing ingredient in my healing journey as I have been deeply injured and re-traumatized by wounded therapists and false teachers.  To build this Team, I had to be vulnerable (again!), trust new people, trust this would work, and trust something could be different. 

Vulnerability meant letting myself receive care, receive nurturing, receive in all the ways I couldn’t before.  All the ways that were missing when I was young.  Then Huge Shifts happened.  My hard-ass efforts transformed those old, ever bleeding wounds.  Life was easier, old Triggers were easier, being home with everyone all the time was easier (say what?!). My leap of faith—the risk I took to bear my soul to myself and others—was abundantly rewarding.

Now, pause with me and recall a time you were safe to be Vulnerable. What happened? How did it feel? What changed within you? What got easier?  What would happen if you were to open to the possibility of Vulnerability, in the safety of like-hearted company? What would happen if you redefined Vulnerability as your vehicle to Shine, Rise, Remember, and Embody your Radiant Being? 

I find Vulnerability is our natural state, the soft underbelly that makes us human and enables us to connect the most deeply.  Our own Vulnerability draws us into someone when they are hurting and infuses us with genuine empathy.  We see their hurt and we recognize ours too, and together we can find deep support and healing. Is Vulnerability the missing ingredient? I’d say yes. Like maybe we have been trying to bake a bread for decades, the family recipe, but it won’t rise because we keep skipping the Yeast that makes our efforts come alive.

(Anyone else COVID baking out there?)

Together, We Rise

We rise when we have a living, breathing community who will go with us into the fire and expand with us when things get heated; when we rage, cry, feel all of it, and allow for the OPENING. Like Yeast for your crumb structure and the butter that’s waiting, Vulnerability opens us up, so the medicine can spread and penetrate right where the wound is. And, like a delicious loaf of crusty sourdough bread baked in a Dutch Oven, the practice of Vulnerability empowers us to develop a trusty crust of resilience that supports our tender, open structure within—even when Life doesn’t go according to our “plans” and we have to unexpectedly course correct, adapt, or even end relationships.

Getting Vulnerable in your Sacred Darkness can feel uncomfortable, lonely, nerve-wracking—though you don’t have to go in alone. You deserve to be held, heard, and seen in the wholeness of your humanity, even when you’re falling apart or consumed with old anger or pain. You deserve the medicine and gifts that only Vulnerability can bring to your soul. To learn more about how you can Rise in Community, reach out with your questions or join me and a like-hearted community this Spring for 12 weeks of Safe and Sacred Vulnerability in Release to Radiance. Space is limited, but your potential to rise—like your favorite loaf of bread—is endless.