Allowing yourself to be vulnerable is necessary
 Every now and then I get a hankerin’ to write about love. This is one of those times.
I believe it is a very courageous act to love another, for loving requires vulnerability—openness to the joys as well as the hurts. It is only through this vulnerability that we allow room for another person to come in, to get close. As adults, it’s not always easy for us to allow ourselves to be vulnerable. And yet we’re born with the capacity to give and receive love fully and unconditionally. So what gives?
Think of it this way: We enter this world with energy, alive and resilient. And then throughout the years we experience layering pain and pleasure, hard knocks and joys, and we find our hearts either strengthening and expanding, or shutting down, surrounded by an impenetrable suit of armor. The experiences are a natural part of life. But which route has your heart chosen?
Think back: What did you do about those times when you were courageous, took a chance on love, and lost? What do you do with past hurts? Do you carry your relationship war wounds around like baggage, to be unloaded onto the unsuspecting “next ex”? Or do you come to understand that life’s lessons take many forms, and with each hurt comes the opportunity to heal and re-create for yourself greater compassion and greater openness?
The question becomes: How do we, as adults with our own personalized sets of emotional baggage, learn to prepare for healthy relationships? How do we become vulnerable to love?
In my profession, I’m very fortunate. I get to deal with love a lot, sometimes in positive contexts, sometimes not. At the beginning of a love relationship, when a request for pre-marital or pre-coupling counseling comes knocking on my door, there is much hope and excitement for the future—and some trepidation. Therapy is largely about stocking what I call “The Big Bag Of Tools” with resources to communicate effectively and understand oneself and each other more fully, all in preparation for a happy life together.
Sometimes a love relationship is stumbling, or crumbling, and might need anything from a gentle nudge in a healthier direction, to occasional tune-ups, to a more complicated overhaul. Each is a process begun in service to maintaining love where possible, and facing the dissolution of love, and its accompanying grief, where inevitable.
The diversity of the human heart is such that all of us have probably had several of these experiences: falling in love, falling out of love, trying to find love and running toward it, trying to avoid love by running away from it, dancing around it, hiding behind the bushes in fear of it. Feeling lust and wondering if it’s love. Feeling love and wondering if it’s lust. Feeling cup-runneth-over-with-joy grateful for the solidity and wellbeing of a soul-mate love. Feeling the love of a best friend, a wonderful pet (yes, Betty, I mean you), a schoolteacher, a neighbor, a child. Feeling the love of biological family and created family—dear friends —who keep us safe emotionally, with arms wrapped close, lifting our spirits and strengthening our confidence.
Experience may have taught you to be guarded. But I believe that one of the most blessed gifts from our Creator is our innate ability to give and receive love. So preparing for healthy relationships means looking at the love you already have in your life, the relationships that work well, the folks who support and care about you, and realizing that indeed, and obviously—you are lovable. You have love to give, receive, and share. Dig deep. Find the source that tells you you are a worthwhile human being. Remember that you are divinely loved just as you are: a person in process, in the life-long journey of gathering heart-expanding tools. It is a most worthwhile effort. The payoff? It is precisely when we develop the courage to feel the joy, to feel the hurt, and to make ourselves vulnerable to another, that true internal transformation occurs.
And love finds us.
Until next time, from Walt Whitman: “Afoot and lighthearted I take to the open road / Healthy, free, the world before me / The long path before me leading wherever I choose.”
Trackback(0)
 |
TrackBack URI for this entry
Subscribe to this comment's feed
Show/Hide comments
Show/Hide comment form
