ACCEPTANCE THROUGH VULNERABILITY

We are never more at our inviting best than when we are utterly vulnerable...yet we resist with a will of iron showing our vulnerability.

I wonder if that isn't because we confuse vulnerable with victim...victim only becomes a less-than-comforting thing in our growing-up years. Victim was how we got our mother's attention, her love, her "poor-little-girl." It wasn't until we learned that an "atta girl" outshone "poor little" by a mile that our consciousness began to shift.

When we found our self forced by circumstances (we got caught) to admit to, say, a shameful fact or feeling, and the person(s) who heard our admission gave us happy hugs, we caught another of life's painful/comforting lessons...we learned that vulnerability, like acceptance, cannot be willed...it must be earned.

We get there through our own dance with the devil, which is ego deflation plain and simple. Ego deflation could be known as "crash and burn" which, who's kidding whom, does not sound like an inviting prospect.

We are brought there by the admission of our powerlessness, inwardly kicking and screaming often red-faced weeping with snot flying, mainly because we realize we must seek higher than our own self for help. Paradoxically, it is that mental picture of our vulnerable self that may be our biggest block, but to one seeing such honest pain, it is a call to their heart to offer us comfort.

Finally, we accept that we cannot get to the other side of self by means of self...self-protection, self-control, none will get us free of me. And there it is, the full cycle of vulnerability...feel shame and pain, admit it to another, get acceptance, love and laugh.

Thank you.