“Don’t cry; crying is a sign of weakness.”
“Don’t be so emotional.”
“Learn how to hide your feelings.”
These are just a few examples of programming we received as children, or perhaps tell ourselves, which can wreak havoc on our sensitive souls. These negative thoughts have us believing there is something inherently wrong with us for feeling our emotions and, god forbid, expressing them.
WHAT IS SO BAD ABOUT BEING VULNERABLE??
Your feelings, emotions, and expressions make other people uncomfortable. That’s it. Essentially these phrases above (and many more) are designed to help the one you are opening up to escape your emotions which they are not willing to deal with. It has nothing to do with you as a person. Nothing to do with your being weak or emotionally unstable. No, it has to do with their inability to confront their own emotions.
If someone has a hard time with feelings, you better believe they will have a tough time dealing with yours. It’s not that they don’t want to be there for you; many times, their own conditioning has led them to these patterns. They genuinely believe that forcing you to move past it will help you heal.
Unfortunately, this is not so. The energy you are feeling is trapped and needs to be released, And so our bodies, in their infinite wisdom, designed a fail-safe to ensure that happens. When emotions get trapped in the body, sickness and disease can result. So it is not necessarily a good thing to repress them.
Yet when we find ourselves in the company of those who are not as in touch with their emotional side, we find it hard to do just that. What’s worse, the moment someone tells us not to cry, rather than continue anyway, we try to stop the flow of tears so that person can feel better. By engaging in this behavior, we are conditioning ourselves to care more about someone else’s needs than our own. We would rather stuff our emotions and suffer in silence at the consequences than allow someone else to be uncomfortable around us.
THINK ABOUT THAT.
It is absolute horse crap. Being vulnerable is not a sign of weakness but rather a sign of great strength. You are someone who can actually feel and express instead of lash out, project or internalize. And crying is one of the most cathartic experiences we can have. So let those tears flow.
While I don’t recommend you run around town sharing your deepest, darkest secrets with everyone you meet, finding friends and lovers who allow you to be unabashedly you is an absolute must. Because being vulnerable is not only a gift to you but to others as well.
By expressing your humanness in the form of vulnerability, you allow others to feel less alone. You also simultaneously attract better people into your life who will care about your feelings and help you to honor them.
Being vulnerable is AWESOME, and it means you are thinking and feeling human, exposing the most precious parts of yourself fearlessly, and that takes an enormous amount of self-love to do.
Keep Seeking,
