Old me:
I’d rather run away, hold it in, emotionally explode, hide from you, ignore you, hate you, blame & shame you, blame & shame me, hate me, project onto you, the situation & myself.
All of this than be vulnerable & risk you truly seeing me. Which could then result in you leaving me, rejecting me, abandoning me!
How I was behaving towards other people was also how I was behaving with myself. Ignoring, hiding, running, shaming, blaming, hating, abandoning. Anytime I felt something uncomfortable or undesirable.
New me:
Sharing how I really feel, what I am experiencing , speaking up & owning it all. Facing my shadows, my needs, my desires. Showing up & standing up for the hurt parts of self. No longer making rejection mean something it doesn’t. No longer afraid to be vulnerable. Well that last bit is a bit over confident. I am still afraid to be vulnerable but I am learning it won’t kill me.
When you have spent years being hurt by vulnerability you learn to not do it…..simple.
Vulnerability means being open, honest, authentic, true. It means not hiding behind a mask, behind coping mechanisms, behind behaviours. It means radical self acceptance.
It also means rejection, manipulation, abandonment, humiliation, pain, shame, disgust to many who have been hurt through vulnerability.
Why would you want to be vulnerable when being that way has caused all of the above. Facts. But the truth is you yearn for it because being vulnerable is powerful! Being vulnerable is how you experience deeper more aligned connections. And like it or not human connection is a vital part of this existence. (Trust me I did not like it being alone felt a lot safer for me)
Even if you are the most independent person in the world having authentic people in your life enhances it.
It is to be noted that if you have been in an abusive relationship in the past the people you were being vulnerable with were wounded and how they dealt with your vulnerability was not ok. You have been hurt by vulnerability, acknowledge that!!
If you connect with the shadow aspect that is afraid of vulnerability that has been hurt you will see that the people you were being vulnerable with before couldn’t hold space for this.
You too couldn’t hold space for vulnerability so would not communicate clearly or authentically. I loved to throw a load of words out there which made the ego think it was being vulnerable but being direct and communicating honestly, openly with out expectation or compassion was not easy.
The thing is if you are being vulnerable, truly vulnerable and that person does humiliate, manipulate, reject you then that should be a call to accept them for who they are. But if you have abandonment issues you won’t, you’ll go into survival mode, you’ll start panicking, you’ll think you said something wrong, you’ll spiral, it’s fucked up honestly 😂 there is so many angles to look at. You’re scared of being vulnerable but not scared to be vulnerable with people who don’t want to be. Why? Because they will reaffirm it is not safe. They will abandon, reject, manipulate, humiliate and shame you. Because the part of you that has been hurt by vulnerability is attracted to that, it feels familiar so you will engage in being vulnerable with the wrong people, over sharing is a classic here or you will stay even after being vulnerable changed nothing and didn't bring you closer or to a resolution of some sort.
You may have even over shared or flood lighted in the wrong environments. Again confirming vulnerability is painful.
Then as you heal a few layers & time goes on you learn who to be vulnerable with and who not to.
You learn that vulnerability doesn’t mean all of those things. That, that person isn’t going to reject you, hurt you, abandon you, humiliate you, manipulate you. That you are safe. And even if they did do any of that, that is out of your control. You would know now how to respond and navigate this, through communication & boundaries. You don’t get triggered by vulnerability you share from your heart knowing if they don’t understand or want clarity they’ll ask. But that takes time & a lot of self trust.
I was doing some timeline healing in the astral for sure last night. When I woke up I knew my dream was showing me something deep within my subconscious. Another layer.
In my dream something occurred that upset me triggered me. I said to my friend ‘my wounds have been triggered big time now’ but instead of speaking up to the person it involved, I left. Walked out. I think part of me hoped they would wonder why and ask. I then contemplated going back and making an excuse for why I had left. I contemplated the lies I could tell to avoid speaking up. In the end I just decided to not go back.
What would have been the better thing to do was tell them, but in a way that owns my experience.
All my life I did this. I had no idea how to speak up about things without sounding cranky, without sounding emotional, needy, without blaming the other person before I even had any context.
When was younger I would hold it in and have a huge emotional outburst or be passive aggressive. Then once I learnt to regulate my emotions & gained awareness around my behaviours I no longer had huge emotional outbursts or became passive aggressive instead I ran.
I couldn’t fathom how to communicate or be vulnerable so I would just leave, ignore, pretend it didn’t happen. Not with everyone of course but with anyone I felt scared to loose. Someone who meant a lot & even people who didn’t mean that much to me but maybe I was getting validation & attention from or I wanted/needed them to like me to prevent a wound being triggered.
I often see things through the lens of negativity, myself, my life & others. I am known to make assumptions based on my thoughts & feelings and then don’t even express them or own them just hid and run.
I was actually unconscious to this for years. My deep wounds related to abandonment & rejection had learnt coping mechanisms that pivoted between anxious to avoidant. Anxious to be vulnerable avoidant in how I dealt with it.
I always blamed other people said they had done me wrong, said they hurt me. But I never gave them the chance to know that they did. To know how I felt. I was done and run. You ain’t for me. You ain’t perfect. You’re gonna hurt me. Let’s just leave it here. Then I’ll hate on you for a while refuse to accept my fear of vulnerability and move on. I understand why I did that. I had been deeply hurt through connection through vulnerability but now I had got to a place where I desired connection again. I yearned for it even. I wanted to be vulnerable and feel confident in trying ❤️
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