Vulnerable

Vulnerable

vulnerable

It’s a risk. I’m afraid. What will you think of me? What will I think of me? If I tell my hidden truth?

I feel so ashamed. How could I show you that? I can not take the chance of showing my true face to you.

The idea of bearing it is terrifying. In fact, it is more than that, it is life threatening. My neediness threatens my life. It terrifies me. I don’t want to feel it.

I must protect from it. I can not need love. I can not show how I need you. I must protect who I truly am behind my performance of independence.

Why do I feel the truth in my heart is so ugly? So shameful? Why do I feel I must cover it up?

If you knew what was in me, if I showed it to you, I’d be under threat. From me. From you. From the weight of my unbearably inconvenient truth.

Yet if I can break through my fear and allow myself to be vulnerable, what lies on the other side? Could the very thing I fear so much be the very thing to set me free?

But of course. My life is not threatened by my vulnerability. Not anymore, at least. I’m now an adult, in charge of my life. I have the ability to unlearn the faux-protection granted by aloofness and lack-of-care, and allow myself to re-access the wholeness within me. With courage, I have what it takes to face the truth in my heart. I can be me. Vulnerable. Truthful. Completely me.

photo credit: emily mucha

We Don’t Know What We Are

We Don’t Know What We Are

ghosts

Our true nature, who we inherently are, is expressed in all that we do. Yet most of us live without an awareness of this truth, and the practice of expressing who we naturally are becomes difficult to realize.

Instead, we find our selves striving, pushing, giving up; actions driven by our confusion over who we naturally are.

When we express our true nature, we are human beings — we are what we are. When we do not express our nature, we don’t know what we are. We are confused. Deluded.

We don’t know what to call ourselves. In our minds, we are something else other than what we are. We do not exist. We’re ghosts of our self.

We live in this ghost-like state, our true nature eluding us, until we find the courage to know our self (again). Open to being what we are, our true nature resumes itself.

We are found once again, through our own awareness of our self. Now, we know the true value of allowing ourselves to be what we inherently are.

photo credit: Laurent Henschen

Something Greater Than We Could Create Alone

Something Greater Than We Could Create Alone

Partnership

When we unite with another, we create something greater than we could create alone. Coming together, we increase the talents and efforts we have available to create something meaningful. From business to friendship to romantic relationships, partnering with another can be a powerful tool for growth.

Everyone in our life is a mirror reflecting back the parts we love and dislike about ourselves. Partnering with another, we face our reflections. And it takes courage and awareness to look at them honestly. Denial, shame, and blame can often be easier routes.

The partnerships we choose matter. We need to be conscious and intentional about them, as acting from any other space can be hard to recover from. Rushing into a union. Preventing our self from entering into one. Looking to another to fix or complete us. Another looking to us to fix or complete them. These are all actions that do not serve our partnerships. Considering beyond our immediate needs to our intentions underneath, we prevent ourselves from creating dependent bonds.

Taking space to get clear on our intentions, we have the potential to choose unions that truly support and enhance the best of who we are. A union where we can face our true self, supported by our partner, is where we create the possibility for growth through our partnerships, as they offer us the ability to transform and to be accepted. Finding this interdependence with another, we sense the strength and fertility of its foundations, and we naturally invest in it and nurture it. Together, we sense we’re creating something greater than we could alone.

Forged from our clarity around what we need and want in partnership, and grounded in remembering we are our own source of happiness and fulfillment, we have the tools to shape healthy partnerships. In tune with our self, life becomes a collaborative effort, and much of what we do and who we are is enhanced through our partnerships.

photo credit: Redd Angelo

Holding the Light

Holding the Light

photo credit: Dave King

You make a difference by being what you truly are. You change your world by being the light you naturally are and by holding onto it, no matter what externally flies your way. In living your True Nature, you support others in realizing theirs.

Another can hurt you, or attempt to, but in knowing and holding your light, their is no need to reduce yourself in reaction to them — despite their desire for you to do so. Reacting to them with fear only results in you holding less of your light and in you feeling less than. The cycle of fear and of drama continues.

When you can accept the pain you feel, you can find the strength and presence to respond with your light. You have the right to hold the light you naturally are, no matter what externally flies your way. You have the power to respond to other people’s darkness (and your own) with fairness and compassion.

Others darkness and how they use it does not have to change your light. Unless you choose for it to.

photo credit: Dave King