Make yourself vulnerable & Live fully

Notice we are often conditioned to believe that getting up close and personal, making ourselves vulnerable, can evoke significant discomfort and suffering. The surprising thing is, its precisely doing what evokes discomfort that builds strength and resilience. What we seek is right here within. Its closer than we think. The truth is self-evident. We must simply be willing to step outside our comfort zone to remember what enables us to feel most alive. Marcel Proust reminds us, "The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new lands but seeing with new eyes." 

Vulnerability is strength

Notice the more vulnerable we are, the more invulnerable or untouchable we are. Contrary to what is often taught, we are only ever vulnerable to ourselves. What other people think is irrelevant. Fear of vulnerability stems from fear of self-love. The irony is that to be vulnerable is to be truly powerful, confident and free. To be fully open and transparent, is to hide nothing, fear nothing and be indomitable. As we love and accept ourselves as we are, fears and insecurities fall away. We only seek to control others so long as we are run by insecurities. The more vulnerable we are, the more the subconscious trickle of negative thoughts/ beliefs dissipates. Society is designed to make us protective of self-image. Social acceptance is based on a keeping up an "acceptable" identity. Embracing vulnerability invites us to break the shell that hides who we are so we reveal it and grow as a Soul. Society trains and challenges us to project and reach outward for a sense of success and happiness until something shifts our focus inward. As you choose love, choose to be more gentle and kind to self and others, you embrace vulnerability, consciousness expands and realities shift. Being conditioned into anxious states keeps us looking outward for success and happiness so people avoid finding security within. Fear is metaphysical energy moving into greater fear and illness. Vulnerability is a path to opening up and questioning everything you think about yourself, to go with the flow of what comes and goes. As consciousness expands, what one fears losing turns out to be the construct of social conditioning. At the perfect moment, it dawns the transition from metaphysical and physical to purely metaphysical is simply a change in energy. Being aware of everything as energy, is a state where fear no longer runs you. As long as you fear death, attachment, identity, the body, life mirrors your fear. As you begin to see fear is illusion, you stop fearing judgement, retribution, constructs, ideas linked to death and dying. Caution though. This goes way beyond a mental journey. True aliveness unfolds through a mulit-facited, visceral journey. Ultimately, vulnerability is a choice and a vibrational energy field. Trust is also a vibration. Choosing to let go of defenses that cloud more than the solar plexus is life-changing. It marks milestones, stages of Soul transformation.

Revert to nothing

Whatever you feel the creator is, it is forever speaking through you. What is essential is never forgotten. The force is in you and it is you.  Love created you in its natural image.

You choose to be controlled by ego and the fear it evokes or, listen to soul. This voice of truth replaces everything the ego echoes.  Your role as you dream in this body is not to change others in the pursuit of happiness, but to revert to nothing. That is, be willing to systematically let go of everything you think is you. Get out of the way. Be empty. Do nothing. Allow presence to make itself known.  Embody the unconditional love that is.  Notice what you are willing to relinquish. Notice what is already gone.  What remains?

"We are here to awaken from the illusion of our separateness."  -Thich Nhat Hanh

Lose your head

Remember the Queen of Hearts in Alice in Wonderland? She evokes fear in anyone she does not like by threatening to cut off his head.  The Legend of Sleepy Hollow often causes goosebumps with tales of the Headless Horseman.  He appears as a ghost to warn of the danger of decapitation. Does the prospect of being headless scare you or trigger other feelings?

Another way to lose your head is to stop analyzing. You can view every moment as a golden opportunity to quiet the mind and look deeper inside yourself. The moment you step outside mind, you rediscover what is there. You have intrinsic value, lasting strength and unconditional wisdom. Where is your head right now? Only as you choose to recall who you are can you become all you are meant to be. Your world is created in you.

Rely on the path

To know your thoughts and emotions intimately enables you to weather any storm.  When you live under the influence of afflictive emotions, you forget who you are.  When you look for strength and trust outside self, you grow more afraid of illusions.  In order to free the essence of being from the mind, it is necessary to understand and transcend afflictive emotions that you permit to control you.  Awaken from the dream.

What enables you to realize new levels of awakening? How does life show you sources of pleasure also bring you insight into experience of pain and suffering?  Why does heightened awareness serve you?