Vulnerability and Victim both are necessary

What happens when you say the words vulnerability and victim? Do they carry a similar vibration in your body?

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 the present and the words are now Vulnerability and Victim. And I realize it’s a similar conversation and dance within though I am not the same. I no longer beat myself up, there is, however, familiarity in the sensory cues. 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. I now recognize when a constriction takes place. Constriction is a by-product 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…

When we are aware of the subtle cues presenting in our body we become aware of the invitation “to expand into what is presenting,” is right there. In order to engage the invitation all we need to ask is, “Am I willing to relax into what is happening?” This is not the same as explain what is happening…it more about describing the the sensations e.g. “I feel a collapse taking place inside and what I desire is expansion.” This is the most difficult 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. With my years of engaging in evolutionary conversations even I get caught in old patterns of defend and protect. It’s about the journey, not the destination.

The 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 we look to blame others… that becomes the invitation for us to discover something about ourself. If we recognize these moments as the invitations of expansion and redefine the experience it causes a 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. How do we shift collectively while knowing we are individuals? 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