What people say
I can honestly say that, for the first time in 50 years, I’m learning how to just be. How to relish the present moment, which, magically and mysteriously, unlocks the door to the treasure house that is the rest of my life.
- Jennifer Green, Salem, Oregon
From the moment Jon and I connected, I had this deep experience of loving presence and complete trust. Something bypassed my mind and my ability to figure things out, and communicated directly to my heart and soul that I was safe and in the right place. There was a creation of power in our relationship that he honored and witnessed as being mine. It was my power. I had the experience of being wonderfully, beautifully powerful, in the most loving, energized way.
- Laura Lind-Blum, The Idea Midwife, Waterbury Center, Vermont
Jon can help you recognize where you are, and become more clear. My work with him has not been about plotting out my future, it has been about helping me come into deeper relationship with myself so that next steps unfold easily and effortlessly.
He creates a safe, spacious container for you to go as deep or wide or high as you’re capable of in any given moment. It’s a matter of him being able to see the facets and help me make them real in me.
- Sandra Leader, Carmel, CA
My feelings changed from, “Quick, fix me, I can’t stand how I feel, make it better, hurry,” to, it’s not about hurry, and it’s not about fixing, it’s about staying where you are and getting more and more and deeper and deeper sensations that this is okay. You’re fine, this is okay.
It helps me reframe experience. I don’t see anything that’s happening quite the same as I’ve ever seen it before, because my viewpoint has been enlarged. There’s more, there’s peace, there’s joy, there’s love, there’s health, there’s everything.
- Layne Young, artist, Salem, Oregon
Wisdom, Strength, and Vulnerability
March 22 2011
Many people equate vulnerability with being weak, unprotected, or easily hurt.
Yet when we see authentic vulnerability in others, we marvel at their ability to be strong enough, courageous enough, honest and real enough, to express what’s true for them.
So there’s a big difference between our anticipated experience of our own vulnerability versus our experience of others’ vulnerability.
I say anticipated experience because most people have built up tremendous barriers against feeling vulnerable. So when they feel as if vulnerability is weak, unprotected, and easily hurt ... they’re actually experiencing their thoughts and beliefs about what vulnerability means.
Those thoughts and beliefs arise out of past experiences, usually experiences from childhood. That’s when natural innocence and naivete truly are easily hurt. So as children and young adults, we grow protections, learning to hide our vulnerability from others — and from ourselves.
In continuing to believe in the need for those barriers between our deepest selves and the rest of the world, we fail to recognize that as adults we have greater wisdom to draw upon.
Wisdom is the strength that allows us to recognize that misunderstandings happen — and helps us speak our truth, explore the misunderstanding, and find ways to reconcile it.
Wisdom is the wordless realization that there’s a core of our being that can’t be hurt, no matter what happens to us in our interactions with other people.
Wisdom is the deep understanding that other people are often just as (or even more) afraid as we are — and that others yearn for connection just as much as we do.
And wisdom is the experience that shows us that allowing ourselves to be vulnerable is, in the end, the only way that we’ll find that connection we yearn for — first and most importantly with ourselves, and then with others.
This wisdom is easy enough to understand conceptually. But it can be very difficult to let go of the fear — and the barriers created by fear — to experience your own wisdom on a body-and-being level.
A client described her experience to me.
I’ve always sensed that there's strength in vulnerability — that there’s something deeply powerful about it. But it’s not until you helped me remember myself, remember the reality of who I am, that I was able to experience my own vulnerability and let the real me be seen.
And it wasn’t until I took that step into being vulnerable, letting people who are important to me see the unprotected “me” that I am, that I was able to really feel how empowering it is.
I’m coming to know myself, and I’m letting other people see who I am as well. I’m speaking what’s real for me without being defensive. I’m letting people know what I want and need, without feeling as if there’s something wrong with me if they can’t give it to me.
For the first time in my life, I feel like I’m being truly seen by my friends and family. I feel as if I’m making real connections. It’s not always easy — and, sure, I can see that I might get hurt. But you know what? I was more hurt by all the ways I hid behind masks and pretended to be what I thought other people wanted!
If this rings true for you, here are some ideas to help you begin taking that step into vulnerability and into a deeper connection with yourself and who you really are.
It starts with yourself
True vulnerability starts with being vulnerable to yourself.
If you’re like most of my clients, you filter your experience of yourself through a host of different internal criticisms, judgments, and expectations. Believing that you’re not “supposed” to feel fear, anger, or insecurity, you may have buried them deep inside, successfully hiding them from yourself as well as from the outside world.
Getting back in touch with your feelings — with the whole range of your experience — is the first step towards vulnerability.
It’s in remembering your deepest connection with yourself that you make true connections with others.
Be gentle
Allowing yourself to be with the feelings that you’ve buried is a process that takes time and compassion.
These are feelings, thoughts, and experiences you may have considered too fragile, too raw, or even too shameful to let out into the light of day.
So be gentle with yourself as you open to your own vulnerability.
Trust your natural wisdom
Everyone’s experienced that deep inner urge to say or do something ... something that feels right and yet also feels terrifyingly vulnerable.
And it’s easy to let fear hold you back, keeping you from speaking first, always waiting for the other person to take the lead in being vulnerable.
Instead, trust the still, small voice. Allow it to lead you into vulnerability. Allow it to prompt you to take action, no matter how small.
“So I’ve been saying things — expressing my feelings, describing experiences — and it’s felt hugely risky to me,” one client told me. “But surprisingly, no one has reacted in the ways I expected. It’s sort of anticlimactic. But at the same time, I’ve also felt more deeply seen, heard, and understood than ... well, than I think I ever have.”
As she’s discovering, the risks of vulnerability are less than you may believe — and the rewards are greater than you might expect.
”Love anything, and your heart will be wrung and possibly broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact, you must give it to no one, not even an animal. Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements. Lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. But in that casket — safe, dark, motionless, airless — it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable. To love is to be vulnerable.” C.S. Lewis (1898-1963), British author and lay theologian; author of the Chronicles of Narnia, among others.
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