Vulnerability Protected
Visions of a Dancing Mind
For my new beginning on Substack—if there is even such a thing—I thought to write about the main topic of my book I am close to completing. It has, no big surprise here, the same title as that of this piece: “Vulnerability Protected”. So let me start out by explaining.
I arrived at this concept after realizing that the term “vulnerability” was increasingly being used to mean a process that was easier and smoother than how I saw it. It was being bandied about as something trendy, something “in”. And it was being equated with a gateway to courage, while I saw it as more raw and as messier than that, sometimes much messier.
And it was being equated with a gateway to courage, while I saw it as more raw and as messier than that, sometimes much messier.
In my work in particular, I was attempting to help provide a safe container for all kinds of conflict, and for people full of ragged emotions. I also personally know well enough, the sense of feeling overwhelmed when under the stress of conflict with people I have found intimidating. So overwhelmed in some of those circumstance as to, as I quote myself, “lose my own English”.
As I began to write about my thoughts and experiences with vulnerability, I did also consult my online dictionary source, that being Merriam Webster. There, vulnerability is seen as:
The state of being capable of being physically or emotionally wounded
The state of being open to attack or damage
Just saying, I felt I was in pretty good company here.
But then: aside from how damaging vulnerability can feel and even be, it remains central to our capacity for empathy. So much so, that without vulnerability, empathy is not really possible. After all, to empathize we need to dig down into ourselves to feel the depths of pain and sorrow and even the depths of real joy. If we cannot or if we refuse to be, touched by real feeling, we can hardly partake in the sharing of that real experience with others, or in terms of empathy even to understand it.
But then: aside from how damaging vulnerability can feel and even be, it remains central to our capacity for empathy.
To take this yet a step further and enter into the realm of politics, if the people who are leaders in this country hang their hats on a pride about being above the law or above human weakness, and even for that matter above empathy, we are in pretty big trouble. Because we are leaning on and emulating people who tout arrogance above concern, and greed above sharing. Resolution of real social and economic problems becomes vested in the interests of a few, and/or of winning the votes of those who profess loyalty to one religion or one set of values, in the present sense, particularly strict social mores.
The other part of this picture, is a tendency for many of us to follow the leaders in our midst precisely because of their shows of polished and calculated invulnerability. In that way, those who can bully win both the passes and the prizes, and those instead who show fear or need or distress become the objects of our scorn. And in turn the latter can easily become our scapegoats. As such many of us in turn keep our vulnerability and any manner or emotion that can be or is being disrespected, as far away from our awareness as we can manage. Or, sometimes we make it a sort of fashion to speak of things vulnerable but with a practiced emotional distance, thus keeping ourselves and those to whom we speak too detached from real vulnerability as to be authentic.
In that way, those who can bully win both the passes and the prizes, and those instead who show fear or need or distress become the objects of our scorn.
In the above scenario: If we try as hard as possible to raise our kids well, succeed at our jobs or vocations or our passions in life and turn on tough fortune, well then the fault must be ours. If we instead need more supports, be it with our finances or health insurance or our tempers as we try to juggle all the challenges and all the parenting with no outside support and we are sinking, well the fault must be ours. And in this kind of narrative, humanity goes missing and we are all, inevitably, distant from both our authenticity and our own authentic vulnerability, in one way or another.
If we instead need more supports, be it with our finances or health insurance or our tempers as we try to juggle all the challenges and all the parenting with no outside support and we are sinking, well the fault must be ours.
If, then, we dare to think wholistically, vulnerability protected would include providing or being given support so that expressing vulnerability or not, can itself include a choice in the matter. Vulnerability can be practiced so that we who express it are at least partially ready for a response that may otherwise be difficult for us or even impossible. We can decide when and how to express it partially. And we can decide on sharing it with the people in our lives who won’t come at us with a toxic and undermining reaction, but rather those who are safer than otherwise. And even if those closest to us fail us—or we fail them—there can be the sense that recovering intimacy with them is a probability we can count on pretty confidently.
It is important to add that it goes without saying that people on the brink or in the center of any kind of actual brutality including war, famine, torture, forced migration, most of the time cannot even have the space for their own cries for help. Even as so many of these cries all around us seem to, worldwide, be heard too unevenly, rather than with the urgency that they need. And as such it makes sense to suggest that in some ways if those in acute need are heard less, and taken less seriously, then our sensitivity—our own vulnerability to the pain of others— may be suffering its own scarcity of supply.
And as such it makes sense to suggest that in some ways if those in acute need are heard less, and taken less seriously, then our sensitivity—our own vulnerability to the pain of others— may be suffering its own scarcity of supply.
Since this is just an introductory sharing, let me include that the subtitle of my book is, “Visions of a Dancing Mind”. We can call it ADD or a pretzel shaped mind or one that dances or meanders in a variety of directions, including to humor and back. I see it as one that usually, almost always even, comes to a sort of center that more or less makes sense, and is sometimes even surprisingly sensical. Which means that my standard for a subject to be discussed here by me includes, hopefully, a connection to the topic of vulnerability protected but not in any rigid or strict way.
I see the personal and the very personal, the personal and the social and the personal and the political as crucial, and cornily enough, I do feel everything and every person are connected. I also feel strongly that despite the prejudices I see us all as having, our best bet is for us to work on our own parts of any given problem, providing we have a modicum of physical and emotional safety at our disposal.
Just as students can often teach their teachers, and children often teach their parents best of all, I think that readers and people at large can help anyone writing here, in this case me, to pay attention to thoughts and opinions and contributions that can add to both personal and communal awareness. I welcome them, though with one caveat.
This is that my own need and request, are for those people commenting to please at least try to refrain from angry attacks. I feel I am equipped to be a sensitive and interested responder but I do not do terribly well, or rather I do quite poorly, with debate, something that I tend to experience as an angry sports event.
So feel free to call me sensitive: my work is all about making the term itself less shameful, and my own inner work echoes that as well.
So for now: Looking forward to hearing from you.
Ciao for now,
Carol