Vulnerability

[Guillaume]

Originally Posted by The Cobbler's Apprentice

I still find that a sense of personal vulnerability has resulted in deeper relationship with others, equally vulnerable.

Ah yes, that vulnerability. I understand.
If you lower your defenses, you obviously go deeper, you show more of yourself.
The problem is that some people don't understand and want to take advantage of it.

[The Cobbler's Apprentice]

Originally Posted by Guillaume

Ah yes, that vulnerability. I understand.
If you lower your defenses, you obviously go deeper, you show more of yourself.
The problem is that some people don't understand and want to take advantage of it.

I'm a non-theist, Buddhist not Christian. But I can still ponder if God is "vulnerable" given the Gospel story, the Cross etc.

I see all the major Faith's as pointing towards a fundamental "ground of being", Reality-as-is.

[zastrakoza]

Originally Posted by The Cobbler's Apprentice

I still find that a sense of personal vulnerability has resulted in deeper relationship with others, equally vulnerable.

To me that is not vulnerability. It is love, which is being open, knowing no harm is coming. When you are loving, you have no defenses. Love is able to encourage others to lower their defenses because they are not fearful of love.

[iamthat]

Originally Posted by Guillaume

Ah yes, that vulnerability. I understand.
If you lower your defenses, you obviously go deeper, you show more of yourself.
The problem is that some people don't understand and want to take advantage of it.

Being vulnerable in the sense of lowering our defences and being open does not automatically mean that others can take advantage of us. Lowering our defences does not mean abandoning common sense and discernment. It simply means that we put aside the masks of our persona and stop pretending to be someone other than we are.

And oddly enough, being comfortable with our vulnerability actually makes us stronger. We put up defences because we fear being judged or attacked or criticised. When we take down these defences and present ourselves to the world as we are then the judgements of others cannot harm us.

Peace

[The Cobbler's Apprentice]

Originally Posted by zastrakoza

To me that is not vulnerability. It is love, which is being open, knowing no harm is coming. When you are loving, you have no defenses. Love is able to encourage others to lower their defenses because they are not fearful of love.

So it's a question of definitions?

[The Cobbler's Apprentice]

iamthat, thank you.

i think vulnerability is only a vulnerability until you yourself have worked through it. We too compensate for it, survival instinct. so lets say you are born with a physical vulnerability as in your legs not working or having developed. Then you add/compensate by using the strenght, built up with your arms.

Mental vulnerability same thing. I use to suck at a subject in school but was really good, had more ease with other subjects. In the beginning I wo uld skip class to not face my fear. Now as an adult I can say God, i hated that subject in school, and I can still work on it (to help a child with it) and be OK with me knowing I'm no good at it, really, but because I know I am good at other things and I have distance to it I no longer have a vulnerability to it.

Know someone that run high on the narcissist stage. My approach is that when this person has tried to make me feel vulnerable about something I look it straight in the eye, don't let go, and am authentic. I own my vulnerability. There is strenght in that. I wish I knew why, but there just is. And the narcisssit gets that it can't hurt me with it, can't "discuss" (a narcissist can't discuss) it. I state things in a matter of a fact way. I don't do it in a humble way. I can be humble other times, but not then.

too bringing into light what we think is our own vulnerabilitys makes others (normal people, not narcissists) dare to do the same and in our vulnerability we support each other, become close to each other, and that is a strenght.

[The Cobbler's Apprentice]

As I see it, as iamthat implied, it is about acceptance. Why, as I see it, some Faiths begin with acceptance..... "Come, just as you are". It is difficult to truly love others if we are hiding from ourselves by putting on a false front.

This opens into personal relationships, where, "The beginning of love is to let those we love be perfectly themselves, and not to twist them to fit our own image. Otherwise we love only the reflection of ourselves we find in them." (Thomas Merton)

Originally Posted by The Cobbler's Apprentice

How do others see/understand vulnerability? As being good or bad, to be overcome or not. Or whatever.

The so-called Reptilian Brain is the Limbic System, and it's one of the 'oldest' parts of the brain. It's been around since we climbed out of the trees and has been one of the prime movers of our survival - both that and sex helped us survive as a species as we were being munched on by lions and tigers and bears, oh my. And of course, because we survived we developed Spiritually. The way the 'wiring' works is that if there's a perceived threat adrenaline floods into the system and the 'flight-or-fight' mechanism kicks in - like feeling vulnerable because we're out in the open. If we're in a safe haven -like the perception of Spirituality or a nice cave can be 'safe' - then dopamine floods the system and we become happy and don't want to go any further.

The Limbic System is still very much a part of our Spirituality and is responsible for beliefs like "Light good, dark bad" and "Spiritual good, human bad" because when it's light you can see what's coming and run for it if need be, being human is a threat to survival while being Spiritual means we are eternal. Being Spiritually enlightened means we ascend to those higher dimensions while being non-Spiritual means..... purgatory. And then there's the feeling of vulnerability, which means the Limbic System perceives a potential harmful threat.

You can't actually overcome feeling vulnerable as such, it can be suppressed as many other unwanted feelings and perceptions are but the root cause is always there - how we perceive ourselves and what we perceive as a threat to that perception.

All of that elicits an emotional response from the unconscious, then we become conscious of it via our feelings.

Originally Posted by The Cobbler's Apprentice

"My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness."

It's on the 'open plains' and under threat of the perceptual lions and tigers and bears, oh my that faith and hope come into their own, and without the vulnerability they would never have come to the fore. And feelings of being vulnerable is a 'more real us' than beliefs that we are eternal Spiritual Beings because if you really believed that you wouldn't feel vulnerable.

Originally Posted by asearcher

so lets say you are born with a physical vulnerability as in your legs not working or having developed. Then you add/compensate by using the strenght, built up with your arms.

It's only a vulnerability if you perceive it as a vulnerability. Perception is reality.

Originally Posted by asearcher

Mental vulnerability same thing. I use to suck at a subject in school but was really good, had more ease with other subjects.

Everybody sucks at something, it comes with the 'being human' package. Being able to admit you are vulnerable is a strength, not a weakness. And that's before others respond.

Originally Posted by asearcher

Know someone that run high on the narcissist stage.

Narcissism is a personality disorder response to perceptual vulnerability, usually a lack of control. How you respond to narcissism is a reflection of you not them, and not being humble means you're having an emotional response. Stay humble and in control, that drives them crazy - and step out of the mind games..

Originally Posted by asearcher

too bringing into light what we think is our own vulnerabilitys makes others (normal people, not narcissists) dare to do the same and in our vulnerability we support each other, become close to each other, and that is a strenght.

Before that though, it means we have the strength and authenticity to admit it to ourselves.