Courage Requires Vulnerability
Do you have the courage to follow your heart’s deepest desires?
The longer we live, the more we realize that it takes courage to realize our dreams and desires and that courage requires us to be open to feeling vulnerable.
Feeling vulnerable or open for attack means you are susceptible to being wounded or hurt. It could be a physical attack, or in a lot of cases, people feel even more vulnerable when it is a moral attack or some kind of criticism. Women are highly prone to creating defensive behaviors in order to avoid disparagement.
On the other hand, courage is a quality of mind or spirit that enables a person to face a difficulty, a danger or pain without fear or to feel the fear and act anyway.
Because people will go to great lengths to hide their vulnerability, it is a good thing for each of us to pay attention to and catch ourselves in the act. You have to notice what your habitual response is when you feel vulnerable; but there are some common indicators that many people use such as anger and laughter.
Men often deflect a conversation involving emotions with anger. Comics are known for hiding their vulnerabilities behind a good joke. And women will often use depression, confusion, inadequacy and other deeply rooted insecurities to disguise the fact that they feel just too darn vulnerable to show their real emotions.
Authenticity means being the author of your own life, and being authentically present requires the courage to be vulnerable. Don’t mistake feeling vulnerable for weakness; instead view it as an opportunity for growth.
Getting to know our true self can be a lifelong quest but it is critical to understand not only for our well-being, but also for our personal and business success. If we can operate from our true selves, we avoid wasting a lot of time with the ego trying to get recognition or self-gratification of some other kind. Our true self is secure in knowing who we are, what we value and in pursuing our life’s purpose.
But allowing yourself to feel what you are feeling does create risk. You must expose yourself to being vulnerable because there is no growth without that. Your willingness to risk being seen as weak or helpless can move you through different processes more quickly, such as grieving, rather than suppressing reality.
When you allow yourself to feel things fully and deeply, you develop a new muscle of compassion that grows stronger for yourself and as a result, for others as well. Your ability to discriminate in different experiences in the world grows greater. You discover incredible strength, gratitude and even joy in the process.
In Tibetan, authentic presence literally means "a field of power." To be authentically present is to have and to use our individual power to give our full attention to whatever we are doing, to listen fully without judgment and to trust that who we are is enough.
Women who live authentic lives report feeling so much closer to their friends and family and the experience of loneliness is literally non-existent. They also feel empowered, loved and more deserving of the wonderful things they have in life.
So it takes courage to be vulnerable, but without them you cannot grow.
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