Vulnerability has gotten a bad rap. The idea has been perpetuated that vulnerability equates to being hurt.  So put on a facade, perfect your image and be what you think you are supposed to be. If you desire sex or relationship, avoid being vulnerable and work on that image. What if this isn’t true? What if vulnerability is something completely different than what you’ve been taught? What if vulnerability is one of the keys to having everything in your life that you’ve ever wanted but haven’t known how to get? I have found this to be true.

People are drawn to vulnerability. It’s something they desire. It’s something they like being around. Vulnerability is sexy.  Here are three things about what true vulnerability is and how choosing to accept and express it creates more for you and your life:

1. Lose the image. Be you.

There are a lot of people that would tell you that in order to be somebody in this world, in order to be successful and to be important, in order to win and not lose, you have to create an image. An image is something that you portray, that you try to get people to see you as, which is actually the antithesis of vulnerability.

Here’s the trouble with image… When you create anything based on an image, whether it be family, business, relationship, money, fame, your body, or anything else, to maintain and uphold these things, you are pressured to maintain and uphold your image. That’s a lot of work and you give up so much of you in the process.

Vulnerability is the willingness to have and be all of you, warts and all. In vulnerability, you stop pretending, you come out of hiding and you start to choose what actually works for you rather than trying to live up to the right and wrong of other people’s opinions.

2. Stop self-protecting. Drop the barriers.

Vulnerability requires that you have no barriers to anyone or anything, and no judgment of anyone or anything. Have you ever been around someone who didn’t judge you? Have you ever been around someone who was in total allowance of you and your choices, no matter what? No judgment is the place of vulnerability. It is where you exist with no barriers, no walls. And in that space of no walls and no barriers, you have total potency, total power, total capacity. It’s only by creating yourself as invincible, un-vulnerable, or judgmental that you can create roadblocks in your life.

3. Let go of judgment. Choose gratitude.

Vulnerability is the place of no judgment. It’s where you have total allowance for you. Total allowance for everyone you are with. Total allowance for everything that occurs. Vulnerability includes everything and judges nothing.

Not judging anyone or anything is not something we are taught. In fact, the opposite is taught. Judge what is right. Judge what is wrong. Most of all… judge you.

Gratitude is the anecdote to judgment. You can’t be in judgment and gratitude at the same time so practice gratitude. Every day, write down 3- 5 things that you are grateful for. Include what you are grateful for about you! After a few days of practicing gratitude, you will find that everything in your life has more ease.

When you choose to be vulnerable with the people in your life, things start to change. The things that you have been seeking, the things you desire, start to show up. Why? It’s simple really. Vulnerability is about you being you. Vulnerability is about dropping all barriers. Vulnerability is about choosing gratitude. And, when you choose vulnerability, rather than trying to force things to happen, the things you desire easily come to you. You become the invitation to something greater. Vulnerability really is the new sexy.

Dain

P.S. For the full article in Balance by Deborah Hutton, go here.