Community is the gateway for expansion to take place.

In conversation with a dear friend I heard her say two words that send ripples through me. Vulnerability and Victim.

Discovery happens in layers…

Back in 2014 I ran a conversation series entitled Wounded and Warrior. At the time, I realized a dance was being played out inside me. The warrior aspect would rise up to defend those spaces and places I felt vulnerable. Then, I would beat mySelf up for, a) being vulnerable, and b) needing to defend myself. It was a vicious circle.

Fast forward to 2020 and the words are now Vulnerability and Victim. It’s not the same experience. I no longer beat myself up, there is, however, familiarity. Have you noticed sometimes when you are being vulnerable you hear something that causes your body to constrict? Sometimes it’s very subtle, sometimes not. When this happens I tend to freeze, not physically, intellectually. I have no words and I usually retreat to some age where I don’t have the capacity to express what I’m feeling. I don’t know what to do.

It takes me a few hours, or sometimes a few days, to sort through what happened. When my friend expressed her truth of vulnerability and victim I had the words for my experience. I recognized a constriction takes place. Constriction is a byproduct of my defences going up. The abort button is pushed, and it limits my potential for exploration and expansion. I collapse internally.

Choose expansion rather than collapse…

The invitation: “to expand into what is presenting,” is right there. In order to engage the invitation I need to ask myself  “Am I willing to reveal what is happening?” Now, this is not the same as explain what is happening…to just be able to say “I feel a collapse taking place inside and what I desire is expansion.” This is the most vulnerable moment. To take the content out of it. To go beyond judgement and reveal what is. Not an easy task. This is not something we are taught. And even with my years of engaging in evolutionary conversations I get caught in old patterns of defend and protect. It’s about the journey, not the destination.

Vulnerability and victim as invitations

Vulnerability invites us to take ourSelf to spaces and places we don’t know exist inside ourself. To discover something we didn’t know before. Usually it’s in the form of a brilliant strategy that’s been playing out for years. One that is so woven into the fabric of our make up, we don’t recognize, or see the pattern.

When victim surfaces, at least for me, my thoughts are often go to, someone has done something to me. It’s difficult in these moments for me to look up, and ask “What is this moment inviting me into? What is the reveal?”  Imagine for a moment, when I freeze that, that is the invitation.  Who do we get to become, if we recognize the moments of no thought as the moments of expansion? When redefining the experience itself is the break in the pattern.

Community for expansion…

Relating to mySelf in the presence of another is what this human experience is for me. We are in a dance of ME, WE, ME & WE and in this moment the WE of ME. How do we shift collectively while knowing we are individual? How do we break the patterns that are so ingrained, we no longer see them as patterns? I don’t have the answers, what I do know is, it takes a community, one that invites an exploration for us to become more. It’s about staying in the conversation, as tough as it may be…it’s our gateway to becoming MORE!

I’m here…to listen, engage, and invite you to consider moving through your world in a way that enlivens you!

Until the next time!

Lisa