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Knowing We Are Vulnerable (March 27,2010)

This week's blog entry is a video clip from a session with a client from a few months ago - we are talking about tuning in to the moment we realize that we are not in control of something that matters to us.  It is in that moment that we need to tune in to the body and feel what it means to be human, to be vulnerable.

Being human is fundamentally vulnerable.  There is so much that we long for and so little over which we have ultimate control.  Forces outside ourselves - time, aging, illness, emotion, and importantly other people - bear on the outcomes that matter to us.

The more we want something the more these limits stir up difficult feelings of tension and arousal in the body.

Vulnerability is a powerful growth force, but to benefit from it we need to develop our ability to be with what it feels like in the body.

Please watch the accompanying video and feel free to share what you think and feel...

 

Dr. Sandra Parker, copyright 2009 - Dr. Sandra Parker. The stories & quotes in this blog are fictional. Creative commons attribution, non-commercial sharing only. (translation: feel free to quote me in context or use this entry but please always credit me for my work, thanks.) http://www.DrSandraParker.com

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#1 Karen on 3.26.2010 at 4:22 PM

Ten months ago my husband lost his job. Without any prior warning whatsoever, not even the slightest inkling that this was about to happen, he was called into a boardroom, told that his services were no longer required and that he had one hour to pack up his office and leave. This was after 23 years in the health care industry and five years with this particular Health Authority.

This was not the present or the future we had envisioned; this was not his fault and he had absolutely no control over the situation or this decision.

We both wanted to run......and sometimes we did, him from his feelings of hurt, anger and loss of pride; me from seeing him hurting and not being able to fix it.

There are going to be challenging and scarey times ahead; will he be able to get another job?, will we have enough money to retire?, will we lose our home and other things we have worked very hard for over these past years?

These are all questions that we have no answers for, but the one thing both my husband and I do know for sure is that we can be there for our own selves as well as for each other. We don't have to run; we are not going to die from these feelings of vulnerability and I know one other thing for sure and that is this "we will grow".

#2 chuckles on 3.27.2010 at 1:29 PM

some days the memories are too much, the pain too sharp, the journey to my inner world too daunting---so,I hide behind my worldly armour in a desperate attempt to avoid my truth. However, I have learned,that if I remain true to myself and hold myself gently, there will be another day, another precious moment when I will be able to accept "the call" and experience the delicious and ecstatic release of a successful inner voyage...

#3 CW on 3.28.2010 at 10:17 AM

Hitting the wall.....realising that I can't, I don't have, and that there is no road map....

I cry, I feel a deep ache, and at times, I feel anger

Sometimes there is a moment in which I want to say it doesn't matter just so that my body releases and the pressure subsides......sometimes for a moment, I do say "It doesn't matter."

BUT

I return knowing the truth, that is does matter and that it is okay to cry, to mourn, to have waivers in my level of hope. I quiet my inner world. I feel waves of sadness roll over me and under me. I feel human.....still sad, still hopeful, and more keenly aware of the uncertainty of life and still motivated to move forward to do my best to live the fullest life possible.

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