Vulnerability & Fragility

The fragility we feel, because of the fears that we carry, causes us to hardly ever touch the moment of the now because we are too busy telling it how it should be!

 

We carry in my journey a vulnerable self and a fragile self that feels it can be hurt or broken. It was born in the pain of what was and carries the fear to what may or may not be. Its presence makes us feel we are not enough, that we need ‘more’ of what we do not have to be whole, to be happy.

We also carry a vulnerable self that is unfettered to the yesterdays. It allows what is to be what is. It is open and sensitive to the enormity of the moments of life.

Do not confuse the two, for one lives in fear, the other in love, and it is only love that can dissolve the illusion of fear.

When we feel the fragile self, we look through the eyes of fear and become closed and cold. It carries a sense of ‘woe is me’ and makes me strengthen the defenses that isolate us from the world. When it is present we go against our true nature and think ourself lesser or greater than all that we see. We become hard in our protection of what we have and fight to get what we think we do not have. Closing our heart to the grace of life, we become fractured and alone.

When I was young I was comfortable in my state of vulnerability. Innocent, trusting and open, I was untarnished by life, happy to be who I was. This was before I was taught that I was not enough, before I felt fragile in the face of life’s inhumanity.

I do see how this sense of fragility has turned the adventure of life into a timid affair. Life can be tough and the world can, at times, seem an unsafe place to be. This sense of fragility has also been compounded by the false prophets of calamity and greed that are perpetuated by the media and the world of commerce.

But as my self-care grows, I do recognise more often, that this sense of fragility is a signpost, a warning, of my immanent inhumane attitude to myself or others, so I soften, lay down my swords of derision and call upon the vulnerability of me to reappear.

When I can do this, I look back on my fragile self and the fears that it carries, and it seems such a silly thing to do, to huff and puff at life. But no doubt I will do it again, probably within the hour, and fall back into the illusion of fear.

When we feel our vulnerable self we become aware of the humanity of life, its richness and its unconquerable spirit. we become awake to the moment of life, naked and unclothed of expectations and conditions.

The vulnerability within us carries an innocence that has no thoughts of how things should or should not be, only a wonder that life is so.

Within the place of vulnerability, we cease the war and allow what is to be what it is. The secrets we battled to find in our fragile self reveal themselves, and the view can be breathtaking. We feel the truth of who we are; a part of all that we see, no lesser or greater than a flower or a tree, another person or a god.

When we  settle into our vulnerability, we heal my lost self and embrace the whole of ourselves.

We reunite the family of who we are. We know again that we need nothing more to be who we are, that who we are is OK, is enough. And that knowing is everything because it is the deeper truth of who we are.

Within our vulnerability, there is an indomitable strength.

 

As I try to hold onto the subtlety of this vulnerable self, my fragile self is never far away, whispering in my ear ‘this innocence should not be exposed’, ‘take up the hard mantel of careless intention again’. It so wants me to be the strengths that make me weak unto myself, strengths that have no care for the soul of myself. It will say that I am unworthy, not strong enough, not bright enough, not wise enough to accept this vulnerability as a truth of myself. But this is the illusion of fear, for within my vulnerability there is an indomitable strength.

 

When we love ourselves, the all of us; the good, bad and the ugly, we have created compassion and that compassion then extends to all that we see.