Vulnerability shows up in many different ways in life and in our relationships.  The feeling of being vulnerable to another’s or societal rejection.  It’s an interesting idea to seek that human connection outside of us.

In my experience, it is how we are taught to seek connection, through family and friends. Our pointing towards connection has a strong inclination towards our sense of connection being met through outside resources.  This is true of our needs being met as a child by the caregivers around us.  Which is an important connection but, at some point, we have to figure out how to have a connection to ourselves or we run the risk of ending up in relationships which are co-dependent upon each other and lack the actual joy of connection.

I was talking yesterday to a friend about this idea of connection and how we seek it.  For me, I can see I have spent a lifetime looking to find that stabilizing relationship through friendship, family or partners.  The flaw in this for me is that my own connection is that it is my own, its not through something else.  What has helped is that I can identify the elements that I am looking for in connection through friendships, partners and friends albeit these have beautiful aspects but fall short because of their externalization.

What I have discovered and am discovering, is that when I turn my awareness into my own self, into this being, is that I can connect to something that is vast and stable and has the ability to hold the human experience.  It is within me and so it is not tinged with the fear of losing it and so its not manipulated by that fear.

When I can land in this space more and more, it allows me to feel love & connection to myself and the relationships around me feel freer because there is not a seeking of something from the other.  It’s not that the external relationship doesn’t hold support and kindness for each other but there is not the fear of loss.  There is connection to one’s self and a natural connection to the other.

The reality is that this is a play for me, sometimes it feels open and spacious and, other times, I am contracted.  I recognize what is here and tend to myself and my vulnerability with a growing sense of kindness and patience, which for me is a gift for vulnerability.

Aileen xxx