Vulnerability: The Key to Internal Freedom

Vulnerability: "the quality or state of being exposed to the possibility of being harmed, either physically or emotionally."

In general, we view vulnerability as something that we should avoid to keep ourselves safe.

There is a difference between the 2 types of harm that we are avoiding. When we avoid physical harm, we are seeking to prevent our body from physical injury or physical death. But when we avoid emotional harm, we are seeking to prevent a mind-made self-image from becoming diminished or destroyed, a death of the ego.

It is our level of consciousness, the degree to which we are identified with this mind-made self-image that determines how much defense we should put up to protect it.

Whether we are aware of it or not, most of us are completely obscured by these self-made walls, barriers and defenses that hide us from being seen in our completely bare and naked essence.

We try so hard to protect ourselves, to do the right thing to keep ourselves safe, but this often backfires on us. We try to think our way through every situation. We try to hide our flaws and present our "best selves" when meeting new people. We seek so desperately for approval and validation from others, so we don't stand out and threaten our livelihood.

The result: We are constantly putting on different masks, playing different roles, and we lose our deepest and truest self in the process, often leading to anxiety, numbness, and depression.
...

When we are alone, in a safe space, we may be open to dancing freely or singing at the top of our lungs. We allow something deeper within ourselves to surface without feeling the need to filter anything. But when we find ourselves in an unsafe space, perhaps in a group of unfamiliar people, we immediately put our defenses up and refuse to sing or dance, blocking anything to surface that may be out of line with social norms or values.

When we always filter or block the things deep within us from surfacing in the name of ensuring that our ego doesn't stand out from the crowd, we immediately cutoff spontaneity, fun, joy, love, and happiness from flowing into our lives.

When we are so identified with this ego and its story, and obsessively seeking to preserve and add on to it, we obscure our truest selves, the full and complete awareness that has been present for our entire lives.

We forget that we are whole and complete separate from whatever we think, do, or say. And when we forget this, we may seem trapped in all the thoughts, emotions, feelings, and circumstances we find ourselves in, always seeking some way out externally.

But the only way out externally is physical death.

...

Instead, we must make an internal change to find liberation from this ego.

Vulnerability is your key to freedom. But what does it mean to be vulnerable?

Being vulnerable means to renounce your ego. To mistake yourself as your ego, an accumulation of thoughts and labels, comprised of things such as a name, nationality, religion, gender, sexual orientation, profession, possessions, etc..., means to reject the true nonphysical awareness that you are, the one component to you that has remained constant for your entire life.

When you renounce ownership of this illusory self, you no longer work so hard to preserve or add on to it. You become 100% accepting with your deepest and truest self, the part of you that never changes.

Then when someone criticizes you or verbally attacks you, you are accepting of this as well, for it is not really you they are attacking, it is their mental projection of you they are attacking. If they are angry at "you", they are really angry at their mental projection of you, all which exists in their own mind. We can say that it is not you they are attacking, they are actually attacking themselves as a result of their own unconsciousness. They have lost touch with their deepest self as well.
...

Now that you are free from preserving, filtering, or adding to this illusory self, you can allow and be totally accepting of whatever your deepest self wants to express, which is simply love.

Love does not have a filter, it is pure, honest and authentic. If we are in a group of people, watching a movie that provokes tears, we no longer try to hold back from crying to save our self from looking "weak". We cry without feelings of shame, because that's what our deepest self wants to be expressed.

Our life simply serves as a vehicle by which our deepest self can express itself in the physical world, without the necessity of thinking our way through all of life's situations, or constantly filtering our thoughts, emotions, or feelings.
...

We are free, always and forever. The key to freedom lies within. All it takes is a simple shift in consciousness, from one that is so closely identified with forms, to one that honors the formless.

Peace and Love ; )

-Shahin