It requires vulnerability to get access to the pain or fear that lives under our anger and share that with someone. This simple mind-shift can change your daily experience and improve your relationships.

It’s such a simple thing, but not easy to do. I tell my client, “Take a deep breath when you’re upset, close your eyes and dig down deep inside. Feel into your deepest place of pain and speak from there.” The client can’t seem to do it. I ask myself, “Why?” The answer comes slowly and from a very deep, feeling place in me. And the answer is: patterns.

portraits facing one another with words in the heads

We are trained to cover up our pain and fear with anger. And you know what? I’m angry about it☺. Our culture does such a disservice to us by telling us it is not okay to be vulnerable and sensitive and in pain. Because we believe people can cause us even more pain when we show our underbelly to them, and we fear that, we tend not to. But the rest of the animal kingdom does it… hmm… But your friends and family are there to love you and cherish you. Why would they attack even more if you showed your vulnerability?

If you knew you were 12 feet tall and bullet proof and could not feel emotional pain from someone’s actions, would you be in fear as much as you are? I don’t think so. I know that isn’t reasonable, but why not just try imagining it’s true?

What would you do in your life if you knew you could not be hurt?

Feelings are just feelings. Meaning: you cannot really be damaged by them. They can be painful, but they do not kill you. They do not cause permanent damage. They’re just feelings.

If you share your vulnerability and fear with someone and they attack, you may feel even more emotional pain. So what? It’s just pain. They aren’t holding a gun to your head… Just let the feeling come up and express even more pain and more fear and thus, more vulnerability. If they are loving you, then guilt or remorse will kick in and listening and softening will happen for them and you may even get an apology. Everything will work out okay. If not, then the relationship is not one of respect and you may need to move on…

If we could just learn to tolerate the discomfort of some of our emotions, we would make very
different choices…

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